325: Chapter 326 The Federation's Brainstorming, and Despair

Eagle-7 Conference Room.

The air here seemed to have solidified into lead, so heavy that it made it impossible to breathe.

Ever since Lin Qi's "Open Class" ended, this room, which represented the highest authority of the Federation, had maintained a deathly silence for five whole hours.

General Luo Zhenbang sat alone at the head of the table; his fingers on his only remaining arm were gripping the armrest so tightly that his knuckles had turned white from the excessive force.

His gaze was fixed unblinkingly on the main screen.

On the screen, the same image was playing on a loop.

It was a hemispherical crater that had been "scooped" out—huge, smooth, and as perfect as a work of art.

Beside the deep crater stood a group of Federal soldiers, bewildered and at a loss, yet rejoicing that they had survived.

This scene was like a silent slap, repeatedly striking the face of everyone in the conference room.

"Everyone."

General Luo Zhenbang finally spoke, his voice as hoarse as sandpaper rubbing together.

"You have all received Mr. Lin Qi's 'homework assignment'."

"Now, I need a plan."

"A plan that can transport that 'crater' in Sector S-17, along with the 'fertilizer' inside it, to the D-3 Region of Tianhai City, completely intact, within one week."

"Whoever has an idea, you may speak now."

Silence filled the conference room.

Everyone kept their heads lowered, looking at their noses, acting just like a group of students who had done something wrong.

Ideas?

If they had any ideas, they wouldn't have these expressions on their faces as if their parents had just died.

What was that?

That was a massive hemispherical chunk of earth over twenty kilometers in diameter and ten kilometers deep!

How were they supposed to transport this thing?

With what?

"What, no words?"

General Luo Zhenbang's gaze sharpened as he swept it across everyone present.

"The Federation's top strategists and most brilliant scientists are all here."

"Now, a simple 'transportation' problem has stumped all of you?"

"Academy of Sciences, you speak first!"

The one named was the chief geologist of the Federal Academy of Sciences, an Old Professor with graying hair.

He stood up tremblingly and pushed up the reading glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Reporting to General Luo... from... from a geological perspective... this... this is already beyond the scope of 'transportation'."

"We have made preliminary calculations; the total volume of earth in that hemispherical crater exceeds two hundred billion cubic meters, and the total mass... is impossible to estimate."

"If, and I mean if, we want to move it, the only theoretically feasible method is to perform a small-scale 'plate drift'..."

"How long would that take?" General Luo Zhenbang interrupted him.

Cold sweat broke out on the Old Professor's forehead.

"Under the premise of not triggering a global geological disaster, with our current technology, we can move it at most three meters per day... it would take... about eighteen thousand years..."

"Pfft—"

Someone, unable to help themselves, let out a laugh.

But the laughter stopped abruptly, because General Luo Zhenbang's murderous gaze had already swept over them.

"Next! Institute of Engineering Physics!"

A middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses stood up; he was the Federation's most formidable expert in structural mechanics.

"Reporting to General Luo, we have considered using an 'anti-gravity matrix' plan."

"Theoretically, as long as we can generate a sufficiently large anti-gravity field to cover the entire Area S-17, we could detach the entire 'crater' from the crust and then... float it over."

"That sounds good." General Luo Zhenbang's expression softened slightly. "What do you need?"

The middle-aged man swallowed and spoke with difficulty.

"We need... the energy cores of all 'Tiangong'-class space stations currently in service by the Federation, connected in parallel, to output power continuously for one hundred and twenty years."

"Additionally, we would need to build a 'matrix frame' three times larger than the target earth mass; the engineering volume would be equivalent to rebuilding thirty Tianhai Cities."

"As for time... just building the frame would take at least fifty years."

The air in the conference room dropped to freezing point once again.

General Luo Zhenbang's face was darker than the bottom of a pot.

"Institute of Space Science! What about you?"

This time, a young-looking woman stood up; she was the head of the space jump project.

"General Luo, our only plan is to perform 'point-to-point space folding'."

Her voice carried a hint of despair.

"But this technology is currently still in the theoretical stage; our largest experimental subject is only as big as a basketball."

"Forcibly folding matter over such a large area... the success rate is lower than one in a hundred million."

"Once it fails, a permanent, unhealable spatial rift will appear between Sector S-17 and the D-3 Region of Tianhai City; it will act like a black hole and suck everything in the Eastern Hemisphere into it."

One plan after another was proposed.

One plan after another was rejected.

From crust cutting to anti-gravity lifting, and then to space folding.

The Federation's scientists had considered almost every method they could think of that represented the highest level of technology in this world.

However, there was only one conclusion.

It couldn't be done.

Human technology, in the face of such god-like power, seemed so pale, so powerless.

A thick atmosphere of despair permeated the conference room.

These Geniuses standing at the pinnacle of human intelligence felt, for the first time, what it meant to be "helpless".

They were like a group of elementary school students still learning addition and subtraction, yet being asked to solve a calculus problem.

They couldn't even understand the question.

"Heh... hehe..."

General Luo Zhenbang suddenly laughed softly, his laughter filled with self-mockery and bitterness.

"We were wrong."

"We were wrong from the very beginning."

Everyone's gaze focused on him.

"We have been trying to use our 'common sense' to understand an 'extra-common sense' existence."

"Using our 'science' to explain an 'unscientific' phenomenon."

"This in itself is the biggest joke."

He looked up at Zhao Shouzhen, who had remained silent from beginning to end.

"Old Zhao, what do you think?"

Zhao Shouzhen slowly stood up, his cloudy eyes revealing an unusual clarity.

He looked around at his colleagues, whose faces were filled with defeat, and sighed.

"General Luo is right; our line of thinking was wrong from the root."

"This is not a physics problem at all, nor is it a math problem."

"This is a... theological problem."

"We students have racked our brains, trying to solve the problem using our own methods, only to find that we couldn't even understand the conditions given in the question."

Zhao Shouzhen's voice was not loud, but it clearly reached everyone's ears.

"Since we cannot solve it."

"Then why don't we just go and ask the 'teacher who set the question'?"

"Perhaps he has already prepared the 'problem-solving tools' for us."

"It's just that we need to ask him for them ourselves."

"And by the way... pay the 'tuition fees'."