127: Chapter 127 Dark Energy Crystal

Inside Planet Seven.

Similar to Jupiter, the interior of Planet Seven was filled with storm cells, and lightning raged within the thick cloud layers; it was both magnificent and dangerous.

Su Fan didn't spend much time admiring the planet, as gas giants all looked more or less the same; what he cared about was whether there were any cosmic rarities.

"Red Queen, control the ship to descend rapidly, all the way down to the planet's solid surface," Su Fan ordered.

"Yes! Master!"

The Tianyuan Mothership's engines ignited, and with just a slight acceleration, the ship began its rapid descent.

"Red Queen, scan and detect the composition of the surrounding gases," Su Fan said after a moment's thought.

"Detecting..."

"Detection complete."

"The most abundant gas in the surroundings is hydrogen, followed by methane, water vapor, and carbon dioxide. There are also some gases in very small amounts, such as helium, chlorine, and xenon."

Su Fan nodded. This was similar to Jupiter; Planet Seven was essentially a scaled-up version of Jupiter.

"I really hope that cosmic rarities can be found below, just like on Jupiter," Su Fan said expectantly.

"Let's hope so! However, usually, the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment," the Great Elder remarked with emotion.

Just then, Red Queen's voice rang out again.

"We have reached the liquid hydrogen layer; the ship's descent speed is slowing down."

"The universe is vast, and nothing is too strange. Given a large enough sample size, anything can become common," Su Fan smiled.

"I believe that even for cosmic rarities, there must be a place where they exist in large quantities."

The Great Elder also smiled and said, "I believe so too."

The two looked at each other and smiled.

After a while, Su Fan could see the metallic hydrogen ground drawing closer.

"Red Queen, continue flying close to the ground and circle the planet."

"Yes! Master!"

The ship flew rapidly close to the ground, circling Planet Seven lap after lap.

As they approached the equatorial region, a system notification suddenly sounded.

"Large quantities of cosmic rarities discovered! Location: 300 kilometers directly ahead, 10 kilometers underground."

Hearing this, Su Fan's mind jolted!

"Red Queen! Stop the ship!"

"Quickly!"

The ship stopped quickly. Under Su Fan's direction, the tianyuan ship came to a halt directly above the cosmic rarities.

"Red Queen, send some excavation machinery and robots down. Dig hard!"

Su Fan was a bit excited. If he hadn't misheard, the system had said large quantities of cosmic rarities!

Large quantities!

Red Queen quickly arranged for some engineering machinery and robots to go down and excavate.

This time, the cosmic rarities were buried quite deep—a full 10 kilometers—so the excavation took a long time.

A long time later, Red Queen's notification sounded.

"Unknown high-energy substance discovered. Master, please stay safe!"

Hearing Red Queen's warning, Su Fan immediately looked carefully into the large pit below.

"Holy crap, there's so many!" Su Fan exclaimed.

At the very bottom of the pit, a large expanse of black substance had been exposed.

Under the searchlights of the spaceship and the engineering machinery below, these black substances did not reflect light; instead, they were like black holes, absorbing all light that touched them.

"System, what kind of cosmic rarity is this?" Su Fan asked the system.

"dark energy crystal, a type of energy-based crystal," the system said flatly.

"What is its use?"

"Please strive to upgrade your civilization to a Level 3 Civilization to unlock permissions."

Su Fan's face darkened; he knew the system's usual quirks.

"Well, you should at least tell me how to store it, whether humans can touch it directly, if it's stable, and so on!"

"This is an energy-based material; what if it explodes!"

"That is fine," the system's tone was indifferent.

"Humans can touch it directly, it can be stored as is, it has stable properties, and it will not easily explode unless detonated by a special method."

"What kind of special method?" Su Fan pressed.

"Host's permissions are insufficient; please strive to reach Level 3 Civilization," the system's tone remained unchanged. "A reminder to the host: dark energy crystals are strategic resources; please collect as many as possible."

"Strategic resources? Good stuff!" Su Fan's eyes lit up as he looked at the dark energy crystals below, thinking expectantly, "I hope the reserves are large enough!"

In the pit, the extraction of the dark energy crystals continued.

"Great Elder, do you want to go down and take a look together?" Su Fan felt it was boring to stay on the ship and wanted to experience it firsthand, so he invited the Great Elder.

"Sure! I was thinking the same thing!" the Great Elder agreed readily.

So, the two put on their exoskeletons and left the ship together.

The pressure on Planet Seven was even greater than on Jupiter. An Android alone could not withstand such high pressure, so they had to wear exoskeletons.

The two arrived at the bottom of the pit.

"This is also a cosmic rarity?" the Great Elder asked, looking at the material that was so black it made one's head spin.

"Correct, this is also a type of cosmic rarity," Su Fan replied.

At the bottom of the pit, the surrounding metallic hydrogen was constantly cleared away, and large swathes of dark energy crystals were exposed.

Since the dark energy crystals were exposed, the excavation speed had slowed down. Su Fan was worried that if the machinery worked too aggressively, they might damage these treasures.

Although the system had emphasized that dark energy crystals were very hard and the engineering machinery couldn't even scratch them, let alone damage them.

As the black area beneath his feet grew larger, Su Fan's gaze became increasingly fervent!

The Great Elder's eyes were also full of excitement.

Although he didn't know exactly what this stuff was for, the cosmic rarity they had excavated last time was only the size of a human head. This time, it was so large he couldn't even estimate it!

"Great Elder, we're rich!" Su Fan's voice was a bit raspy.

"Being rich is good, being rich is great!" The Great Elder couldn't stop smiling.

"Is this thing dangerous?" Thinking of something, the Great Elder's smile faded slightly.

"It's very stable, no danger at all," Su Fan replied with a smile.

The system had said it was stable and could only be detonated by a special method.

Furthermore, once such a treasure was excavated, it had to be stored immediately and kept secret; other people would find it difficult or impossible to come into contact with it.

This time, after the system's notification about the discovery of cosmic rarities, Su Fan had already had Red Queen turn off the ship's external view simulation.

Therefore, the rest of the people on the ship were unaware of the entire excavation process.

Machines roared as the excavation continued.

After some more time, the boundaries of the dark energy crystal finally appeared.

It was a regular square with side lengths of about 300 meters.

After uncovering the boundaries, Su Fan directed the engineering machinery to continue digging carefully along the edges.

After another period, a regular black cube with side lengths of over 300 meters appeared in their field of vision.

"It's huge!" Su Fan touched it gently with his hand, but because he was wearing an exoskeleton, he had no sense of touch and couldn't feel the texture of this dark energy crystal.

"Red Queen, pull this treasure back to the ship!"

"Yes! Master!"

Su Fan and the Great Elder returned to the ship, and the dark energy crystal was soon delivered to a secret warehouse in the living area.

"Red Queen, continue flying close to the ground around this planet," Su Fan ordered. He planned to continue exploring to see if there were any more cosmic rarities on this planet.

"Yes! Master!"

The Tianyuan Mothership began moving again.

However, not long after they started flying this time, the system's notification sounded again!

"Cosmic rarity discovered!"

...