Chapter 334: The Tip of the Iceberg

"Dr. Lou?" Su Zhiwei didn't expect Chen Ling to ask this question suddenly. After a moment of hesitation, she said uncertainly,

"He researches... materials science, I think?"

Materials science...

Chen Ling frowned, his mind constantly recalling Dr. Lou's actions along the way... Compared to scientists like Yang Xiao who were participating in an exploration for the first time, Dr. Lou's performance had been very calm, or rather, composed, from beginning to end. But perhaps that was just his personality?

But Su Zhiwei's personality was also calm, yet when she encountered the Calamity attack, she couldn't help but be a bit flustered. By comparison, Dr. Lou's performance seemed abnormally calm.

He was the first to ask Su Zhiwei about parallel universes, and the first to actively scatter...

Perhaps having learned from Wen Shilin for so long, Chen Ling's perception of details was also very sharp. Intuition told him that this person was definitely not simple.

"If... I'm saying if," Chen Ling looked seriously at Yang Xiao and Su Zhiwei,

"If one day, the theories you each research become reality and can be fully controlled, is it possible... for someone to travel through time?"

The three were stunned on the spot.

They didn't seem to understand why Chen Ling would ask such a sci-fi question at a time like this.

"Director Chen, why do you ask?" Yang Xiao asked in confusion.

"No reason, you just need to answer me."

Su Zhiwei pondered for a moment, "This concept is too broad... If there are no limits, actually, many people's theories could achieve it."

"Indeed," Yang Xiao nodded, "However, if we are talking about time travel in the strict sense, then the God Particle that Dr. Ji researches should be the most likely candidate, right?"

"What is the God Particle?"

"The God Particle, also known as the Higgs boson, is the particle that gives 'mass' to other particles. Simply put, from electrons to the sun, the mass of all matter is bestowed by this particle, much like God, hence it's called the God Particle," Yang Xiao said in a deep voice.

"From the perspective of general relativity, as long as you use the God Particle to infinitely increase the mass of an object, it is possible to distort space-time and create a 'wormhole', thereby traveling through time."

In Chen Ling's mind, the image of Dr. Ji surfaced again...

Originally, Chen Ling suspected Dr. Lou, but now it seemed Dr. Lou's materials science shouldn't have anything to do with time travel. On the contrary, Dr. Ji, who chased after him later, might have traveled back from the future?

Only in this way could the power fluctuation comparable to the Nine Sovereigns be explained.

No, no, no... This seems a bit too far-fetched.

Chen Ling felt his own imagination was absurd.

But on second thought, if even an entire era could be turned into a save file, then Dr. Ji traveling through time didn't seem so hard to accept.

Chen Ling's thoughts were completely chaotic. He suddenly realized that he had underestimated this fragment exploration mission... This event that happened over three hundred years ago, which created the Nine Sovereigns, was far from as simple as Dr. Yi had described in a few words.

He could vaguely feel that the waters of this mission were much deeper than he had anticipated. What he saw now was only the tip of the iceberg.

"No way, you guys can actually talk about such a far-fetched topic?" Wu Tongyuan muttered while limping forward, "If I could really fully control my research direction... wouldn't I be invincible?"

As they moved forward, the raindrops gradually became sparse, and the cold wind before dawn blew away the dark clouds overhead, revealing faint starlight.

After walking for a while, Yang Xiao's voice suddenly sounded:

"Is that it?"

Following Yang Xiao's finger, they saw in the mountain forest not far away, a shadow six or seven stories high outlined by starlight. The edges of the shadow were irregular, as if it had been smashed by something.

"That's right, we're almost there," Chen Ling nodded slightly, feeling the magnetic field around that object.

Before encountering the Calamities, they were already close to the location of the fragments. After the frantic run for their lives, they had arrived at the vicinity of the fragments.

It was still dark, and Chen Ling couldn't see the full picture of the object, but with the help of the starlight, he could vaguely see that its surface seemed to be dark red... consistent with the color of the Red Star.

As they approached, strange, low roars could be heard from the deep forest around them.

Hearing this sound, Wu Tongyuan immediately shrank behind Chen Ling, looking around in fear, terrified that something would jump out of the forest and bite off his valuable head.

But Chen Ling found it strange. This roaring didn't sound like the roars full of murderous intent and anger from the battle earlier; it sounded more like some kind of wailing...

"There's a monster there!" Su Zhiwei suddenly pointed to a spot in the forest.

Chen Ling turned to look and saw a two-meter-long shadow lying on the ground. It looked like a pangolin, but at this moment, its surface was flowing with an eerie red light, and its tail had split into three sections from the middle and was still slowly growing...

It let out low roars from its throat, as if in great pain, writhing on the ground like a maggot.

"It doesn't look right," Yang Xiao frowned, "It's like... it hasn't finished mutating?"

"So, the monsters earlier were all forest creatures that had approached the fragments? It's just that some approached earlier and have already fully mutated, while others are still in the process of mutating," Su Zhiwei said thoughtfully. "It seems the radiation from the fragments really exists."

"Will this radiation affect the human body? I don't want to turn into a monster after I go back!" Wu Tongyuan said hurriedly.

"Hard to say, but there's a high probability it will."

"We're wearing protective suits, we should be able to resist some of it... Unfortunately, the masks are gone now, so they're basically useless."

Wu Tongyuan's face immediately turned as ugly as if he had eaten a fly.

But under Chen Ling's guidance, they had no choice but to bite the bullet and move forward. When they were only a few dozen meters away from the fragments, Yang Xiao suddenly stopped.

Chen Ling looked back in confusion and found that not only Yang Xiao, but Su Zhiwei and Wu Tongyuan also stopped suddenly after taking another half step...

The three of them stared blankly at the fragments, their pupils slowly losing focus, as if their souls had been captured by something.

Seeing this, Chen Ling frowned and walked up to Yang Xiao:

"Yang Xiao, Yang Xiao? Are you okay?"

"I..." Yang Xiao stared blankly at the void in front of him, speaking in a distracted manner, "I, I think I saw..."

"Saw what?"

"Magnetic fields... electric charges... they... they seem to be right before my eyes...

They seem to have come alive."