bioinnovel Chapter 470 Interstellar Market!
Chapter 470 Interstellar Market!
She reached out and grabbed Zhang Yan's wrist, her grip light but firm.
"Lie down."
Zhang Yan didn't say anything more and obediently lay down.
The mattress was very soft, and the moment my body sank into it, fatigue washed over me like a tidal wave.
He closed his eyes, and his consciousness began to fade.
"Zhang Yan".
"Um?"
"You touched your chest in the lab just now," Nie Qingcheng's voice rang in my ears, very close. "The pulse frequency of the Heart of Heavenly Craftsmanship was 8% faster than usual, I heard it."
Zhang Yan's eyelashes trembled.
"I'm fine."
"Something's wrong." Nie Qingcheng's fingers brushed across his chest, stopping at the location of the Heavenly Craftsman's Heart. "You're worried that overloading it will cause the core to overheat, right?"
Zhang Yan did not answer.
"You're not worried about yourself, but about the fact that if the Heart of the Creator is damaged, the Gate Network will lose its maintainer, and Earth will fall into crisis again."
Nie Qingcheng's voice was soft, yet precise like a needle, "But you overlooked one thing."
"What?"
"If you collapse, the Gate Network will also lose its maintainer." She gently pressed her finger on that spot. "So, from now on, your health is the top priority, including mech modification, fighting the swarm, and all those messy responsibilities in your heart."
Zhang Yan opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling.
"The blueprint says that the builders of the final masterpiece must bear the fire of the stars, the chill of the void, and the weight of countless thoughts," he said softly. "But it doesn't say what the price will be."
"We'll figure out the cost ourselves," Nie Qingcheng said. "Go to sleep. I'll wake you up at nine."
Zhang Yan closed his eyes.
This time, he didn't think about the data, the paths, or the timelines.
What comes to mind is the burning darkness at the core of the sun, the risk of shattering during crystallization, and the warning that the core of the universe might overheat during overload resonance.
But he did not calculate further.
Nie Qingcheng's hand remained on his chest, the warmth of her palm seeping through the fabric, steady and comforting.
Sleepiness finally subsided.
At nine o'clock sharp, Nie Qingcheng woke him up on time.
When I went downstairs, Guan Xing was already waiting in the living room, holding a data crystal in his hand.
"The fourth layer of the file has been decrypted." She handed the crystal to Zhang Yan. "The design blueprints for the dimensional compressor are inside, but some parts are damaged. You will need to use the Heart of the Celestial Craftsman to complete the data."
Zhang Yan took the crystal and connected it to the Heart of Heavenly Craftsmanship.
A golden light shone, and a complex mechanical structure diagram appeared on the screen.
"The damaged parts are mainly the energy circuit and the core compression chamber." Guan Xing pointed to several blank areas on the blueprints. "I tried to fill them in with modern technology, but the computing power wasn't enough. The quantum processing module of the Heavenly Craftsmanship should be able to.
Zhang Yan quickly glanced at the drawings and nodded. "It can be completed, but it will take time. I'll go to the lab first and give you the results before noon."
"Wait a minute." Nie Qingcheng came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with steaming porridge and several side dishes. "Eat first, then go."
She placed the tray on the coffee table, her gaze sweeping over the crystal in Zhang Yan's hand.
How long will it take to complete the compressor design drawings?
"Data completion takes three hours, but manufacturing equipment takes even longer."
Zhang Yan sat down, picked up a spoon, and said, "According to the specifications on the blueprint, we need a high-precision molecular printer and at least five kilograms of rare metals as the skeleton material."
"I'll handle the equipment," Nie Qingcheng said. "What about the rare metals?"
"Guan Tian Ge has some in stock, but it's not enough. The rest will need to be purchased from the interstellar market."
"It's the interstellar market again." Nie Qingcheng frowned. "Our current channels of communication with the interstellar market are too limited, relying solely on anonymous buyers and the star map database of L-445ε. The information gap is too large, making us vulnerable to being scammed."
Zhang Yan took a sip of porridge but didn't say anything.
He knew what Nie Qingcheng was thinking; she was considering establishing her own intelligence network and trade channels, rather than passively waiting for others to provide information.
But that's for later.
"Let's deal with the immediate problem first," he said. "I've already prepared the materials list; please take a look."
He pulled up the tablet and handed it over.
Nie Qingcheng took it and quickly glanced at it.
Her gaze lingered on a few items, and she swiped her finger across the screen to bring up the calculator.
"The cost of collecting the core crystal of the star is too high, and the energy consumption accounts for 17% of your total reserves." She looked up, "If you fail once, you'll only have 14% left."
"So we can't afford to fail," Zhang Yan said.
"Risk hedging," Nie Qingcheng said. "I checked the records about star cores in the star map database, and three civilizations have successfully collected similar substances."
"Their technical approaches are different, but they have one thing in common: they all use some kind of 'stabilizing field' to fix the crystals and prevent them from breaking apart after precipitation."
She retrieved the archives of the three civilizations and projected them onto the wall.
"The first civilization used a magnetic confinement field, but the pressure at their star's core was only one-third of ours, so it wasn't suitable."
"The second civilization used a gravity trap simulation, which consumes twice the energy of our plan, so we abandoned it."
"The third one..."
Her voice paused for a moment.
"The third civilization uses a 'consciousness anchoring field'."
Zhang Yan stopped what he was doing.
"A consciousness anchoring field?" Guan Xing's voice was filled with doubt. "What's that?"
"According to the records, when this civilization was collecting crystals, the collectors would resonate with the crystals with their own consciousness, using their consciousness as an anchor point to stabilize the structure of the crystals."
Nie Qingcheng looked at Zhang Yan, "The collector needs to have an extremely high level of consciousness, and... during the collection process, the consciousness will be under tremendous pressure."
Zhang Yan put down his spoon.
What happened to this civilization afterward?
"The archives don't record it," Nie Qingcheng said. "But after they completed the crystal collection, their civilization rating jumped directly from level three to level four, suggesting that they used the crystal to achieve some kind of key technological breakthrough."
Guan Xing suddenly spoke up: "Zhang Yan's consciousness strength, after multiple encounters with higher dimensions, far surpasses that of ordinary humans. If we use a consciousness anchoring field..."
"The risk is too great," Zhang Yan interrupted her. "Consciousness resonance requires entering the core of a star, where the energy is enough to tear apart any unprotected consciousness."
"So it needs protection," Nie Qingcheng said. "The Heart of Heavenly Craftsmanship itself is a powerful consciousness protection module."
"If we use it as the core of the consciousness anchoring field, it might be possible to complete the crystal collection while protecting your consciousness."
Zhang Yan fell silent.
He looked down at the porridge in the bowl, the steam blurring his vision.
"I'm thinking," he said, "how would energy consumption change if we used this solution?"
Nie Qingcheng brought up the calculator and quickly entered the parameters.
A moment later, she looked up.
"Energy consumption is reduced by 9%, but you need to operate the Heart of Heaven and the Mind Anchor Field simultaneously, increasing the synchronization rate requirement from 95% to 98%."
98%.
Zhang Yan tightened his grip on the spoon slightly.
"My current synchronization rate is 87%."
"So you still have 11 percentage points of room for improvement," Nie Qingcheng said. "Sixty days should be enough."
Zhang Yan did not answer.
He finished the porridge in his bowl and stood up.
"I've gone to the lab," he said. "I'll give you the compressor design drawings before noon."
"In addition, have the Star Gazing Bureau retrieve all information about the consciousness anchoring field, the more detailed the better."
Guan Xing nodded. "Understood."
Zhang Yan walked towards the basement, and when he reached the stairwell, he looked back.
Nie Qingcheng stood in the center of the living room, the morning light shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows onto her, making her profile exceptionally clear in the light.
She was operating a tablet, her fingertips swiping rapidly across the screen, her brows slightly furrowed, her expression focused and cold.
Zhang Yan withdrew his gaze and continued walking down.
The laboratory lights came on, and the design drawings on the screen awaited completion.
He sat in front of the control panel and connected to the Heart of Heavenly Craftsmanship.
Golden light shone in the darkness, illuminating the damaged, empty areas.
Energy began to flow, the quantum processing module activated, and the data stream washed away the fragmented information like a river.
He needs time.
But time is precisely what they lack most.
The heart of nature in my chest is pulsating, steady and powerful, like a heart that never stops.
Zhang Yan closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into a sea of data.
The completion work has begun.
But in some deep corner of his consciousness, a thought kept lingering...
A 98% synchronization rate means that the connection between the Heart of the Gods and his consciousness will reach an unprecedented depth.
After that, if the Heart of Heaven is truly damaged due to overload...
It's possible that more than just a mechanical core was damaged.
And himself.