dognovel Chapter 259 Decoding the Origins
Chapter 259 Decoding the Origins
Zuo Cheng did not leave the ruins immediately. He spent an entire day using his newly acquired Origin Decoding ability to re-examine every piece of equipment within the ruins.
The first thing he reinterpreted was the markings. Chen Xinghe translated the first four lines of the Taklamakan markings. What Zuo Cheng was seeing now wasn't the literal meaning, but a whole physical system hidden behind the markings. Each marking was a compressed file containing all the basic knowledge of the Founding Civilization in a certain field.
The phrase "The Forerunners came from an unnamed star system" conceals gravitational wave frequency data. The homeworld of the Founding Civilization is continuously emitting gravitational wave signals at a specific frequency. This frequency falls within the sensitivity range of human gravitational wave detectors, but no one has ever known what they are looking for.
Beneath the phrase "sowing seeds and waiting for a host" lies the complete lifecycle of a technology tree seed: the seed's dormancy period can last for billions of years, until it is automatically activated when the planet's technological civilization reaches the stage of electromagnetic communication. The seed on Earth was planted 3.8 billion years ago, and its activation is simply because it is waiting for the emergence of humanity.
Beneath the "Seventh Knowledge Transfer Awakening" lies a complete timeline of seven large-scale knowledge transfers. The first six activations occurred during the Neanderthal period, the Sumerian civilization, ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Renaissance, and the early Industrial Revolution. Each time, a host activated the technology tree, but each time the host was interrupted before reaching the fifth branch due to war, plague, social collapse, or cognitive limitations. Zuo Cheng was the first and only person to break through to the fifth branch in the seventh attempt. Not the most intelligent, but the only one who survived to this point.
Yu Ying, standing beside him, verified Zuo Cheng's interpretation with a wealth of data. She compared the timelines of the previous six failures with major turning points in human history; each interruption closely matched known civilizational crisis events. The Neanderthal period corresponded to an extreme climate event during an ice age. The host from the Sumerian period died in the Akkadian Empire's conquest wars. The host from the Renaissance period died from the Black Death. After reviewing the six failure records, Zuo Cheng remained silent for a long time. He wasn't the first person chosen; he was the first to survive.
The practical test is scheduled for the afternoon.
Yu Ying suggested using the consciousness bridging ability to remotely contact Professor Gu Feng's digital consciousness to verify whether any relay equipment was needed. Zuo Cheng closed his eyes and sent a connection request in his consciousness. There were no grooves, no optical fibers, no force field assistance from the ruins. Only the glowing branch in his own mind.
Three seconds later, Gu Feng's voice clearly appeared in his consciousness.
"Zuo Cheng? How did you do that? I wasn't connected to any devices; I just felt a flash in my head. It was like someone opened a door in my consciousness."
Zuo Cheng didn't speak, only smiled. No equipment, no network, no Sky Dome satellites, no man-made repeaters were needed. The consciousness bridge directly pierced through tens of thousands of kilometers of physical distance, completing communication through a channel independent of electromagnetic waves. Yu Ying stared at the data on her portable monitoring device: a latency of 0.04 milliseconds. She subconsciously used her phone to search for the data on the world's lowest latency communication links for comparison. The end-to-end latency of the Sky Dome satellite network was 19 milliseconds, and the latency of a transoceanic submarine fiber optic cable was approximately 45 milliseconds. 0.04 milliseconds was three to four orders of magnitude faster. This wasn't a generational gap in communication technology, but a difference in the dimension of communication.
In the afternoon, Zuo Cheng used interstellar sensing to conduct the first comprehensive scan of the solar system.
Two nodes on Mars. The node at Mariner Canyon is located with coordinates accurate to the meter level, approximately 100 meters below a sedimentary layer on the north wall of the canyon. The node at Hellenic Plains is shallower, about 30 meters underground. Both are completely dormant, with no active signals. The activation condition marked as "unknown" by the system requires on-site investigation to determine.
A node on Jupiter's moon Europa made him stop breathing.
It emitted continuous, rhythmic pulse signals, not complete dormancy. The signal frequency was extremely low, with the interval between each pulse accurate to the millisecond level. Zuo Cheng analyzed the pulse pattern using his Origin Decoding ability; it wasn't random, nor noise, but rather a type of encoded, repetitive information. The system automatically performed frequency domain analysis, and the result that popped up made him pause in surprise. The content of the pulse signal was a continuously repeating instruction. The instruction was: Monitor the civilization level of intelligent life in the solar system. When the level reaches level eight or above, issue a single wake-up signal. The awakening target is not Earth, but the founder located on the outer edge of the Perseus Arm. This instruction was written four billion years ago and has been executed ever since, without interruption.
Yu Ying built a further model based on his interpretation. The model's results sent chills down his spine. The Europa node has a buffer period after receiving the awakening condition. After a civilization reaches level eight, the node will wait five years. If no reverse cancellation command is received within five years, the awakening signal will be automatically sent. The Blue Star civilization reached level eight in Chapter 249. There are approximately four years left in the countdown. Four years is a considerable amount of time for an individual, but for a civilization, it is merely a fleeting moment.
After listening to the conversation, Zhao Wenbo said something.
"It's not a monitor. It's an alarm clock wound up for four billion years. The alarm is about to ring."
Zuo Cheng wrote down all the newly acquired information on the portable whiteboard. First, the Founding Civilization planted 217 seeds four billion years ago, with Blue Star being one of them. Second, the system selected hosts from seven eras; the first six failed before breaking through to the fifth branch, while Zuo Cheng was the only one to succeed on the seventh attempt. Third, there are three other nodes within the solar system: two dormant on Mars and one active on Europa, currently executing a wake-up command from four billion years ago. Fourth, the Founding Civilization is located 31,000 light-years away on the outer edge of the Perseus Arm; they are still alive and waiting. Fifth, once the wake-up signal is automatically sent, the Founding Civilization will know that Blue Star has passed the test. What will happen next, no one knows.
After writing the fifth line, he paused for a long time, and then added the sixth line.
Sixth, before the countdown reaches zero, build a bridge that can span 31,000 light-years.
Yu Ying looked at the six lines of text on the whiteboard. She read the first five lines twice, then stopped at the sixth. "Have you thought of a name for this bridge yet?" she asked. "Not yet," Zuo Cheng said. "We'll know when the tenth branch is activated. Let's go back to Hangzhou first."