15: No? What is this?

During his four years studying at United University, White Shark had heard many bizarre and fantastic tales.

For instance, the "Body-Snatching Seeds" that housed the consciousness of pre-era humans; ancient fleets that had gotten lost in the Void Channel and traveled through time; or immortals who had lived from the golden age until today...

These people or objects, which could not be interpreted by modern humans—though perhaps humans of the golden age could—were collectively known as "Wonders."

However, White Shark still leaned toward the second possibility—that somewhere, there existed certain hibernation facilities from the pre-era.

After all, long after the end of the second "Great Decay," the regime that unified humanity and entered a new era had made a series of preparations to prevent the next potential catastrophe.

These included, but were not limited to: gene banks, databases, and even rotating hibernation shelters for garrisons.

Furthermore, after humans in the golden age had their genes remolded, their theoretical lifespan reached around 400 years, and supplemented with Hibernation Pods, they could easily stay frozen for several millennia.

Could it be that they were dormant personnel from the Voyager Federation?

It just so happened that that regime seemed to permit the development and use of simple AI.

Starting off with archaeology—did that match up?

Because of the information he had conjured up in his mind, White Shark was momentarily stunned.

Xi Hai did not notice this, and continued along the topic of "archaeology,"

"We hope to recover and back up the database here."

"Could you lead the way for us?"

The voice stopped. Looking at the stunned White Shark, Xi Hai was somewhat puzzled. Had he looked that scary just now?

"Uh... Oh! Yes!"

White Shark suddenly snapped to his senses. Why was he zoning out!

Whether this group was composed of survivors from the previous era could not be confirmed right now, but one thing was certain: they were definitely not the academic type of archaeologists!

His behavior just now had been very rude, and it would be disastrous if he left a bad impression!

Not to mention the fleet currently holding position outside, even just these Marines around him were enough to take this small outpost dozens of times over.

He hurriedly suppressed his nervousness, but the scenarios he had imagined in his mind kept surfacing, and cold sweat could not stop pouring from White Shark.

Therefore, he chose to quickly change the subject, gesturing toward the direction of the central server room with a "please" motion, and said, "Please follow me."

The group walked toward the interior of the outpost.

"Clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp..." After a journey of nearly five or six minutes, everyone stood at the entrance of the central control room.

"Creeeeak—" The door was gently pushed open, emitting the screech of metal friction.

Upon entering, the floor was covered in messy data cables. One end of these cables was connected to a chassis with its valve opened to the side.

A black box, half a person tall, was placed casually on the floor, and the other ends of the cables were pulled from it.

"Manual control device," watching Xi Hai stare at that big black box, White Shark subconsciously started to introduce it, "We don't have the unlock key; this is the simplest way to control this outpost."

Xi Hai nodded without speaking. He took out the access device given by the night lamp and inserted it directly.

"Parsing..."

"Entry hacked."

"Querying logs..."

"Complete, starting time span is 40 years."

"It contains records from the end of the fifth era and during the fifth 'Great Decay'."

"???"

Listening to the reports continuously issued by the night lamp, Xi Hai was puzzled. How did it jump to the fifth era?

Wasn't it said that this was the fourth era... Wait, earlier outside, it seemed he had triggered the quest precisely because he scraped off a layer of skin to reveal the core inside, right?

Could it be?

He cast a glance at the few Marines standing beside him, and upon seeing it, they immediately understood.

After Xi Hai finished backing up the contents of this mainframe, the group drove the armor-piercing hammers of their powered armor into the mainframe, then pulled back hard—

"Riiip—" The mainframe, which appeared to be completely embedded in the wall from the outside, was ripped out, revealing another cube-like chassis inside.

White Shark watched these people dismantle the chassis and then looked at the old-fashioned cube behind it, greatly shocked. Holy crap, there's an expert here?

He had thought he was the only one occupying the magpie's nest, but he hadn't expected that the server room, where he had carefully plugged in a few interfaces for fear of causing a malfunction, had already been tampered with by someone else using embedded devices!

However, why did this cube look so familiar? The more he looked, the more he felt he had seen it somewhere... Wait, isn't this a mainframe!

There were a few unearthed ones in United University that were treated as treasures, and he never expected that the outpost he had accidentally discovered would contain such a special item!