Retired for A Hundred Years: Re-Employment for the Apocalypse Bigshot!-Chapter 452 - 447: She Never Believes in Coincidence
Ji Ning thought of when Ye Xingyan had also mentioned a related topic before, and asked, "How much do you know about the technology before the chaotic times?"
But Ye Xingming found it somewhat difficult to speak on this subject. After pondering for a while, he sighed.
"Sorry, not much. More than thirty years ago, the research institute was deliberately set on fire. Many valuable documents were destroyed, and now less than one-tenth of them remain. I learned this from my brother..." Here, Ye Xingming hesitated slightly before awkwardly mentioning the name of the Ye Family’s S-Class fugitive.
"Saw some documents from Ye Xingyan. One of them was about the plan to build a space fortress before the chaotic times..."
Ji Ning, who came from the chaos, was relatively lacking in aerospace knowledge, and hearing this information was a first for her.
The space fortress plan emerged before the chaos, when a researcher mishandled a routine star signal collection and accidentally received an unfamiliar sound frequency. This mistake made pre-chaotic humans aware of an extraterrestrial civilization.
In order to explore this extraterrestrial civilization, the major powers on the planet before the chaos worked together, spending decades to create over ten long-range spacecraft to allow astronauts to venture into outer space for short-term exploration.
The extraterrestrial information gathered was shared globally.
When they learned about several hostile environment planets rich in mineral resources near the Earth, they planned to build a space fortress on the moon to prepare for long-distance human travel.
But at some point, as humanity acquired more and more extraterrestrial resources, all factions became dissatisfied with the shared resources.
Especially when Earth’s resources began to deplete, the major powers turned their attention entirely to other planets.
To seize more extraterrestrial resources and gain more information, humanity finally erupted in a planetary war.
The chaotic times followed, and the space fortress plan has been shelved ever since.
Having struggled through the chaos for over a decade, Ji Ning understood this human greed too well and asked a crucial question.
"What resource caused the scramble among all these powers?"
Ye Xingming shook his head, "Not sure, but Ye Xingyan once analyzed that he believes these powers discovered a special energy source on a certain planet. This energy source can yield extremely pure energy, with just a few milligrams equivalent to the energy produced by ten thousand hydrogen bombs exploding at once, potentially replacing many energy sources on Earth."
Ji Ning’s pupils contracted slightly, "So, was this material turned into a weapon?"
Ye Xingming looked up at her and said, "It’s not just a weapon, it also serves as various energy sources essential for human survival. Most importantly, this material can be used as fuel for spacecraft. For humans who want to leave the planet to explore unknown areas, this fuel is incredibly valuable."
He continued to look into the microscope, slowly turning the knob to adjust the lens magnification.
Suddenly—
Ye Xingming excitedly beckoned: "Come take a look, this material is actually breathing?"
Ji Ning was surprised and quickly walked over.
This microscope was the latest development, a nanoscale optical microscope capable of clearly observing the internal structure of nanoscale materials.
Under the lens, a lump of irregular black crystalline material seemed to be breathing as it exhaled bubbles.
It appeared to have a simple form of life.
Ji Ning input a bit of her spiritual power into the material.
The black crystalline material under the lens suddenly expanded several times, and the bubbles it exhaled also grew larger.
She could feel her spiritual power being absorbed by this black crystalline material, and the bubbles stored a small amount of spiritual power.
She could clearly feel that her spiritual power had established some connection with this material.
She stepped back, retreating a great distance, almost reaching the laboratory door, yet she could still sense the fluctuations of her spiritual power within the bubbles.
These bubbles acted like a giant amplifier for spiritual power, allowing her to control the spiritual power within them from afar.
She also tried other superpowers like Wind Element, Water Element, Fire Element, Healing Ability, and found these bubbles could still absorb and temporarily store small amounts of these superpowers, but except for Healing Ability, other external energies had almost no connection with her own.
Ji Ning was surprised in her heart. If there was a lot of this material, could it help ordinary Control Ability users temporarily store surplus energy that their bodies couldn’t bear?
Just like her earrings, which can allow superpower users to increase their energy control limits.
If it were for Healing and Spiritual Ability users, could they even remotely control their powers to heal or attack others?
She continued to input spiritual power, and then heard a loud "bang."
The appearance of the material had turned scarlet, and under the microscope, the black crystalline substance had shattered into smaller granular materials, leaking a red liquid resembling blood.
The spiritual power stored in the bubbles dissipated into the air. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮
Fortunately, Ji Ning used spatial isolation ability while inputting her spiritual power, preventing the explosion of this material from destroying the microscope.
So this material acted like a portable power bank for superpower users, allowing them to store a certain amount of internal energy to control more power at critical moments.
It was also a weapon for Spiritual Ability users to remotely control others.
Ye Xingming apparently also realized this, regretting, "Unfortunately, most of the previous data was destroyed, and we can’t find out what this material is called, where it was collected from, or how much is left."
Ji Ning glanced at him, "Do you really think the data that was destroyed back then is truly gone?"
Ye Xingming frowned, "We’ve also speculated that someone might have hidden some data back then, but we never had direct evidence."
Ji Ning said coldly, "If it weren’t hidden, how was this thing made?"
She never believed in coincidences.
Thirty years ago the research institute’s data was burnt, the Commander’s island was completed, and the 2-8 Plan started.
Almost everything began over thirty years ago...
Ye Xingming suddenly remembered old events, his face turning somewhat grave.
Back then, the Ye Family managed all the laboratories across Hua Continent, but as the Ji Family Army rose to power, many laboratories in Hua Continent leaned towards the Ji Family Army. Soon after the research institute fire incident, many laboratories declared independence, no longer following Ye Family’s unified management.
Did they intentionally set the fire to destroy the research institute’s database so they could independently study those materials?
"Why did Ye Xingyan leave the Ye Family back then?" Ji Ning asked.
Ye Xingming restrained his emotions, thinking Ji Ning suspected his brother was the arsonist, and explained, "My brother left the Ye Family seven or eight years after the fire."
"I know."
"He secretly conducted a dangerous superpower experiment without telling our father, trying to awaken superpowers in ordinary people with drugs. Later, when our father found out, he not only burned all his research but also imprisoned him alone." Ye Xingming paused here, his eyes filled with nostalgia and a hint of regret.
"Later, he was rescued by the Ji Family Army, and never returned to the Ye Family. You should know the rest; most of the illicit drugs on the market were developed by him..."
"Why did he suddenly want to conduct such a dangerous experiment?" Ji Ning continued to ask.
Ye Xingming’s face suddenly showed a sneer, his voice filled with sarcasm, "He actually believed in the nonsense that an alien civilization would invade our planet hundreds of years later."
Ji Ning: ...
