271: Chapter 271 On the Ice Plains, All Things Revive (The Finale)

The 76th day, 2:00 PM.

Polaris was suspended three thousand meters above the Rustwind Wasteland.

Lu Chen stood on the transparent floor of the command hall, looking down at the ice field below, the grey-white land stretching to the edge of his vision.

Seventy-six days ago, he had woken up on this very ice field.

Minus sixty degrees, six square meters, a broken micro-crawler vehicle, six low-grade sourcefire coal crystals, and the water in his thermos had frozen into a solid block of ice.

Now, he stood within a seven-thousand-six-hundred-meter-long Sky City.

Beneath his feet were clouds, behind him was a floating fortress carrying thirty thousand people, and above his head was an artificial blue sky.

"Cheng Zheng." He pressed the communication button.

"Present."

"Pass a message to Forge and Evening Bell: Polaris will conduct its first ecological restoration test above the Rustwind Wasteland. Notify all Dawn Formation units on the ground to retreat to a safe distance."

"What is the safe distance?"

"One hundred and fifty kilometers or more."

There was a three-second silence on the other end.

"Understood."

Twenty minutes later, all six Mobile Cities of the Dawn Legion had retreated to one hundred and fifty kilometers away.

Above the Rustwind Wasteland, only Polaris remained suspended alone.

"Polaris," Lu Chen said.

"Present."

"Activate the weather controller. Target area is centered directly below Polaris, with a radius of one hundred kilometers, and a target temperature of ten degrees Celsius."

"Received. Weather controller activated. Warm, humid airflow is being generated."

The ends of the six giant limbs of Polaris simultaneously released visible thermal energy pulses.

The pulses spread downward, passed through the clouds, and reached the surface of the ice field.

Looking down from the transparent floor of the command hall, the ice field was changing.

First, in the small area directly below Polaris, dark spots appeared on the white ice surface; that was the accumulated snow melting.

The spots grew more numerous and larger, merging into one.

The white receded, and the grey-brown permafrost was exposed.

Moisture began to seep out of the permafrost, turning into mud, then into puddles.

The puddles grew, merging into streams that meandered along the low-lying terrain.

The area of melting expanded, starting from beneath his feet and spreading in all directions.

One kilometer, five kilometers, ten kilometers, twenty kilometers.

Half an hour later, within a fifty-kilometer radius centered on Polaris, the ice sheet had completely melted, revealing land that had been frozen for who knows how many years.

Grey-brown soil, craggy rocks, and the foundation ruins of pre-civilization buildings.

And water—vast amounts of melted snow gathered into an irregular, shallow lake.

"City Lord." Lin Wan stood on the transparent floor, looking down at the nascent lake surface.

Under the illumination of Polaris's artificial light source, the lake water reflected shimmering ripples.

"The temperature has reached the target value," Polaris reported. "The average surface temperature in the target area is eleven degrees, air humidity is seventy-two percent, and wind speed is three meters per second."

"Lin Wan." Lu Chen turned around.

"Present."

"Are the temperate grassland seed packets in the gene bank ready?"

"Ready." Lin Wan opened her logbook. "The first batch plan is a mixture of graminoid grass seeds, clover, and dandelions, with a coverage rate of three hundred seeds per square meter. A fifty-kilometer radius is approximately seven thousand eight hundred square kilometers, requiring two hundred thirty-four billion seeds. The gene bank has finished synthesizing them."

"Deploy."

A row of seeding hatches opened at the bottom of Polaris.

Hundreds of billions of seeds drifted downward with the warm, humid airflow, like a rain of seeds falling from three thousand meters above onto the newborn soil.

"Follow up with tree seeds." Lin Wan immediately issued the second order. "The second batch plan is birch, larch, and willow, with an eight-meter spacing, covering an inner circle with a ten-kilometer radius."

The tree seeds were dropped.

The seeds landed on the moist soil, and under the catalysis of the fast-growing nutrients provided by the material transformation synthesizer, they began to sprout at a speed visible to the naked eye.

One hour later.

Looking down from the transparent floor of the command hall, a shallow layer of green appeared on the land directly below Polaris—those were tender green grass shoots.

"City Lord." Lin Wan crouched on the transparent floor, pressing both hands against the glass-like surface, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on the green below.

"I see it." Lu Chen saw it too.

The green was spreading, moving from the center toward the periphery.

Half an hour later, the grass shoots within the three-kilometer inner circle had grown to five centimeters tall.

The grass seeds on the periphery were also breaking through the soil; the birch tree seeds had sprouted tender yellow embryos, and the willow seeds had grown their first leaves.

Thirty thousand people were crowded in front of the observation windows on various levels.

Some people stood on the hills of the biosphere, watching the outside world through the holographic projections of the dome.

They saw the ice field melting, saw the soil breathing, saw the seeds sprouting, and saw the green spreading.

Many people were crying, crying silently; there was no shouting, only tears.

"City Lord." Lin Xiao's communication cut in, his voice very low.

"Present."

"I am standing in front of the eighth-floor observation window."

"Mm."

"It's green down there."

"Mm."

"The ice field is green."

"Mm."

Lin Xiao's breathing became heavy.

"City Lord."

"Speak."

"Thank you."

Lu Chen did not reply.

He looked at the expanding patch of green beneath his feet.

From the start with one Cabbage, to six tons of wheat, to the Greenhouse dome, to fast-growing crops, to the Livestock Farm, to the composting cycle, to the first rain in the climate chamber, to now, the first blade of grass on the ice field.

Seventy-six days.

"Cheng Zheng." He pressed the communication button.

"Present." Cheng Zheng's voice sounded off, as if his nose was blocked.

"Tell Forge and Evening Bell that the ecological restoration test was a success. Polaris plans to carry out large-scale meteorological modification along the north-south axis of the Rustwind Wasteland. It is expected that all permafrost in the central area of the wasteland will thaw within three months."

"Three months?"

"Three months." Lu Chen revealed the further plan. "In six months, we will advance to the Ash Rift Valley; in one year, we will cover the Iron Curtain Frozen Sea; in three years, over sixty percent of the Central Ice Field will have returned to the temperate climate from before the Ice Age."

Cheng Zheng was silent on the other end for a long time.

"City Lord Lu."

"Speak."

"Your goal from the very beginning was not just to survive, right?"

"Right." He answered Cheng Zheng's question. "It was never just about surviving from the start."

He looked down at the spreading green beneath the transparent floor of the command hall.

The grass had grown to ten centimeters, and the birch seedlings already had their first side branches.

On the distant melted lake surface, the wind stirred up tiny ripples.

A bird, from who knows where, landed on the newly born grassland by the lake.

A bird, on the ice field.

Lin Wan crouched on the floor, pressing both hands against the transparent surface, tears falling onto the glass-like surface; she was smiling.

Lu Chen withdrew his gaze from beneath his feet and walked to the console.

On the surface of the console sat an old thermos—the one that had been with him since the first day.

The cup contained half a cup of hot milk; when had Lin Wan put it there?

He picked up the cup and took a sip; it was hot and sweet.

He put the cup back on the table, then opened his logbook and wrote a line on the last page.

The 76th day.

The first blade of grass grew on the ice field.

The tip of the pen paused on the paper for two seconds, then he added another line.

Polaris, continue to advance.

He closed the notebook.

He walked to the edge of the transparent floor, looking down at the green that held the hope of the entire world.

The seven-thousand-six-hundred-meter-long Sky City was suspended at an altitude of three thousand meters.

The particle beam turrets on the six giant limbs pointed in all directions, and a deep blue energy shield enveloped the entire city.

Inside the city, thirty thousand people stood on the hills under the artificial blue sky, watching the ice field below turning green.

Polaris's powerful artificial intelligence was running, the weather controller was running, the stellar furnace was running, and the gene bank was running.

Everything was running.

Above the ice field, everything was reviving.

The End.