From Idler to Tech Tycoon: Earth-Chapter 146: Unearthing Corpses

Three days into the construction, the sounds of advanced machinery and the subtle shimmer of AMFS drones were the constant companions of Richard and Lina. They stood at the command and monitoring station, a sleek console glowing with holographic schematics of the expanding subterranean complex. Richard watched the progress, a cup of synthetic coffee in his hand, a sense of accomplishment slowly building.

Suddenly, a sharp, insistent alert pierced the calm. A small red warning icon flashed on Lina’s vision, originating from one of the deep-bore AMFS drones. Her eyes, usually impassive, narrowed fractionally.

"Sir," Lina stated, her voice devoid of inflection, yet with an undertone that immediately caught Richard’s attention. "An anomaly. One of the deep excavation drones, at approximately 3000 feet below the surface of the main hole, has stumbled upon a cavernous opening. It’s... unusually large."

Richard felt a prickle of unease, a faint, almost subconscious foreboding. He knew Lina wouldn’t interrupt him for a mere geological anomaly. "Show me," he said, setting his cup down.

Lina projected the drone’s feed onto the main display. The raw, jagged rock of the freshly bored tunnel abruptly gave way to a vast, untouched void. The drone’s lights pierced the darkness, revealing a colossal, almost perfectly circular chamber, its sheer scale dwarfing the initial excavation tunnel. It was unnervingly large, far beyond any natural formation he might expect.

"Let’s go," Richard decided without hesitation. The feeling of foreboding solidified into a potent curiosity.

They walked to the massive, hangar-like door that led directly to the stadium-sized hole, the sheer scale of the excavation now even more apparent. As the heavy blast doors slid open with a controlled hiss, Richard felt a vertigo-inducing lurch as he gazed into the seemingly bottomless abyss. The AMFS construction drones, resembling metallic spiders, crawled along the sheer walls far below, their de-atomizing lasers glowing like distant, tiny stars. The hole was indeed vast, a terrifying testament to Lina’s engineering prowess.

As Richard and Lina descended in a sleek, open-air lift, the air grew cooler, carrying a faint, earthy scent. The drone’s warning beacon shimmered at the bottom, a tiny pinpoint of light that seemed to draw them deeper. When the lift came to a gentle stop at the floor of the gigantic cavern, the raw, excavated ground stretched before them.

A shimmer. In the distance, at the far end of the chamber, a radiant light pulsed. The drones, still diligently working on reinforcing the ground walls, had unknowingly exposed something extraordinary. A section of the ground wall had given way, revealing a hidden cavernous chamber.

From within, an astonishing display of light spilled forth—thousands, perhaps millions, of crystals, shining and glowing with an internal luminescence. They shimmered in a dazzling array of colors: emerald green, sapphire blue, ruby red, amethyst purple, all pulsing in a silent, mesmerizing rhythm.

"Sir," Lina’s voice was quieter now, a subtle shift in her vocal modulation. "I have tested the drones on one of these crystals. The de-atomizing lasers, even at maximum output, do not seem to work. They simply... absorb the energy without effect."

Richard’s face, normally composed, broke into a wide, almost childlike smile. His eyes, now reflecting the vibrant hues of the crystals, gleamed with excitement. "Of course not, Lina," he said, his voice filled with a profound understanding. "These crystals contain pure psionic energy. It’s psionic energy in a crystallized, stable form. It’s... beautiful." His fingers twitched, an almost uncontrollable urge to touch the shimmering surfaces.

He walked deeper into the newly revealed chamber, the glowing crystals illuminating their path. The further they went, the denser the formations became, entire walls and pillars composed of the pulsating, radiant matter. The air itself felt different here, subtly charged, almost alive.

Then he spotted it, in the distance, partially obscured by a particularly large, amethyst-colored crystal cluster. He quickened his pace, Lina following silently behind him. As they neared,

Richard stopped dead, his breath catching in his throat. His silver eyes widened in pure shock.

Before him, arranged in perfectly symmetrical circular formations, were more of the colossal crystals. But these were different. Inside each, suspended within the translucent, glowing matter, were human figures.

At least 200 of them. They appeared to be in a state of suspended animation, perfectly preserved, their faces bearing intricate tattoo-like marks that pulsed faintly with the crystals’ light. They were dressed in what looked like indigenous clothing.

"A stasis of some sort," Lina murmured, her sensors undoubtedly running deep scans. "But crystal... I have no known analogues for this type of preservation technology."

Richard, his mind reeling, stepped closer, examining one of the figures. The faces were serene, ancient, yet undeniably human. "What happens to these people?" he whispered, almost to himself. Then, the realization hit him, cold and sharp. "Are they... are they the ancient humans that Subject Alpha-0 was talking about? The ones from his memories, who were... powerful?" The idea sent a chill down his spine, mixed with a surge of profound hope.

In the very middle of the largest circular formation, dominating the entire chamber, stood a colossal, obsidian-black crystal. Wrapped within its dark, lustrous depths was a large, spherical orb, shimmering with an intense, raw energy. It emanated a power far stronger than anything Richard had ever felt, dwarfing even his own burgeoning psionic capabilities. It was clearly the heart of this ancient marvel.

Richard tore his gaze from the stasis crystals, his analytical mind snapping into action. "Lina," he commanded, his voice firm, "designate excavation protocols for the entire chamber. Carefully dig them out from the ground. Every single one of these stasis crystals, as I’ll call them for now, are to be extracted and moved to a specialized, secure storage facility. And establish a dedicated, sealed room for the humans within."

Lina’s head tilted slightly. "What about that, sir?" she asked, pointing with a slender finger at the colossal crystal holding the pulsing orb.

Richard pondered for a moment, his gaze fixed on the powerful artifact. "Put it beside them. That might be the one powering their stasis, or whatever form of suspended animation this is. I’ll figure out a way to wake them up. They’re... crucial." He felt an inexplicable pull towards them, a sense of deep connection to these ancient, preserved beings.

As they began to walk outside the chamber again, the vibrant light of the crystals fading behind them, a new Chapter in humanity’s hidden history had just been unearthed.

Four days later, the echoes of AMFS drones had finally faded from the newly discovered chamber. Following Richard’s directives, the hundreds of stasis crystals, each encasing an ancient human figure, had been meticulously excavated and carefully transported.

They now rested in a specialized, climate-controlled room on the first level of the underground base, a short distance from the gene therapy pods. The obsidian-black crystal, its core orb still pulsing with an otherworldly power, had been placed prominently beside them, its dark surface absorbing the ambient light while subtly emanating its own raw energy.

Lina stood before the obsidian crystal, her cyan eyes scanning, her internal processors whirring at a feverish pace. A flicker of something akin to intellectual fascination, mixed with growing concern, crossed her perfect features. Since its relocation, the colossal crystal had begun to exhibit unexpected behavior. Small, needle-like crystals, no larger than a human thumb, were slowly but steadily growing from its dark surface, extending like intricate, delicate tendrils. Even more unnerving, these nascent crystals were attempting to "crystallize" the surrounding ultra-dense, AMFS-fabricated walls of the chamber.

Lina extended a slender finger, touching one of the newly formed crystalline growths on the wall. It felt smooth, cool, and impossibly hard. She directed one of her diagnostic drones to aim its de-atomizing laser at a small patch. The laser flared, a brilliant beam of focused energy, but instead of vaporizing the crystal, it merely glowed brighter for a moment before absorbing the energy without a trace. The crystalline structure remained utterly intact.

"Anomalistic," Lina murmured, her voice holding a rare hint of bewilderment. Her processing speed, normally instantaneous, struggled to categorize this phenomenon. "The AMFS de-atomizing lasers are ineffective. This is beyond any known material resistance."

Her analysis deepened, pulling vast reserves of knowledge from the System’s archives that Richard had soft copied for her, cross-referencing with every known particle and energy signature. A new understanding began to coalesce in her vast mind. The entire cavern where the stasis crystals were originally found, the vibrant, pulsating walls of emerald, sapphire, and amethyst—it was all, she now realized, the doing of this singular obsidian crystal.

It had, over millennia, slowly terraformed its environment, drawing energy from the surrounding rock and ambient space, catalyzing its transformation into crystallized psionic energy.

She observed the minute energy fluctuations around the newly grown crystals. "The energy atoms in the air," Lina articulated, speaking to herself as much as to the empty chamber, "are attracted to each other, forming a particle. This particle, in turn, adheres to surfaces, and these particles attract other particles, gradually forming the crystalline structure. Every time these energy atoms merge, they become smaller and more condensed, more powerful."

A chilling realization struck her. The de-atomization lasers were useless because these energy atoms weren’t merely inert building blocks. "They have their own will," she whispered, her voice tinged with a new, profound awe. "It’s like, they refuse to be restructured. They possess a rudimentary form of sentience, a mind of their own." Normally, the AMFS lasers effortlessly rearranged standard atoms, reforming them into tangible solids, liquids, or gases without resistance. They were casual building blocks. "But these exotic atoms," Lina concluded, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touching her lips, "they don’t listen. They resist change."

This, she understood, was precisely why the AMFS could not replicate the exotic material of Subject Alpha-0’s implant. Some of its composition were indeed inert building blocks, but a significant portion, she now recognized, were these "living atoms," as she termed them.

The universe, Lina concluded, was indeed a stranger, more profound place than even her vast intellect had fully comprehended. And she, Lina, had just uncovered one of its most fundamental, hidden truths.

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