Chapter 683: Chapter 60: Research Institute in the Abyss
The Abyss Plane, dim and lightless.
Legend has it that not long after mankind colonized the planet Helel during the far-off Prehistoric Golden Age, they began organizing exploration teams for the three great planes and established a wealth of research outposts within them. As a result, many technological documents escaped the Magic Tide that assailed the Main Plane, preserving them by mere luck.
Most of the human scientific data on the Abyss were retrieved during the Third and Fourth Epochs, uncovered by explorers and archaeologists from the Ancient Solomon Empire from within the Abyss.
The universe of the Main Plane has fewer materials and more space. For instance, the radius of planet Helel is just over 6000 kilometers, while the distance from the planet to the sun is 150 million kilometers, a range nearly devoid of material content.
In contrast, the Abyss is the opposite, abundant in material but lacking in space. The matter that makes up the bulk of the Abyss is called “Dark Matter,” highly stable and uninvolved in electromagnetic interactions. Due to its very weak interaction with photons, dark matter neither emits nor reflects light.
Therefore, the Abyss, made up of dark matter, is always steeped in darkness, where one cannot see their own hand before them. Even if one were to turn on a flashlight and shine it on a dark matter wall, they would only see a dim column of light abruptly stopping upon the wall, as if cut off at the waist—the visible light stems from the scattering of light by air, but dark matter itself does not reflect light, thus appearing pitch-black to the naked eye.
Such optical characteristics mean that the human eye struggles to serve any purpose in the Abyss. Thankfully, sound waves can still be reflected, and the Banshee Queen utilized her Curse Ability to temporarily grant everyone the ability to “Sound Positioning”:
When a sound is made, the waves travel to the surrounding obstacles and bounce back; through the interpretation and transformation by the Curse Ability, everyone’s mind forms corresponding “scenery,” as if seen with one’s own eyes.
“Miel, what shall we do next?” Mia asked with some concern as she looked around at the contours of the cave.
“The Big Cave lies at the bottom of the Abyss; the deeper we go, the more severe the erosion from the Abyss,” said the Banshee Queen in a grave tone. “You should move upwards as soon as possible.”
‘Upwards’ here meant the opposite direction of gravity, which still existed in the Abyss.
The group then looked around, with narrow cave walls to the left and right, wondering which path led to the upper levels of the Big Cave.
“Miel,” Aske said, “observe and tell us, what are the outcomes if we go forward or backward?”
Mia was taken aback by the suggestion; so it was possible to do that?
The Banshee Queen smiled silently beside them.
Miel nodded and then began her observation.
On countless diverging timelines, 50% led forward, and 50% led backward. In other words, without any clues, their choice was purely random.
Observing further into the temporal dimension, she saw that the terrain dropped in height on the timelines going forward; conversely, on the timelines going backward, after about four hours of progress, they suddenly encountered an artificial structure.
Miel described her observations, and Aske immediately decided, “Move backward!”
So, they turned and proceeded in that direction. The corridors of the Big Cave were unpredictable, sometimes straight ahead, sometimes winding like a serpent, fortunately without any crossroads. After walking for a few hours, Mia felt hungry.
As an Undead Spirit, the Banshee Queen did not require sustenance, but Mia and the others did. Aske asked Miel to extract food from other timelines, from past moments.
Maintaining matter from other timelines required the constant consumption of Miel’s spirituality. Should the flow of spirituality cease, the matter would vanish instantly—even if it had been eaten.
“But once the food was digested and broken down into waste, releasing energy, then stopping the supply of spirituality would only cause the residual waste to disappear, not the energy that had already been absorbed by the body.
Therefore, with Miel’s Fate Law ability, everyone could still barely hold on for a few more days without starving to death. The more troublesome issue was thirst, since water in the body mainly participates in the transport of substances, and human skin and respiration are constantly losing water, so everyone urgently needed to find a clean water source as soon as possible.
Of course, there were places in the Abyss where one could obtain food and water; otherwise, there wouldn’t be any players coming to this plane map to play. If you fought monsters for half a day and your character died of thirst because you couldn’t find water, wouldn’t that be a joke?
Traveling in the same direction for about three and a half hours, the group indeed saw the man-made structure described by Miel.
To be precise, it was a door embedded in the cave wall—judging by the style, it was clearly a product of human civilization’s technology.
Considering that the Big Cave was made up of dark matter, the fact that prehistoric human technology could excavate dark matter and build a research facility inside, the level of their technological prowess was truly astounding.
The outside door of this research institute was not card-swipe access but instead had a password lock installed. The password screen was still lit, indicating that the interior power supply hadn’t been interrupted. However, neither a keycard nor a password was something the group could handle at that moment.
If you consider it from a game’s perspective, the developers would not design an inaccessible map, so the password for the research institute’s access controls must exist somewhere nearby… or perhaps somewhere further afield, but it certainly existed.
However, Aske couldn’t be bothered to think about these things. He now had two cheats: one named Miel, and the other named Mia. Who needed to solve puzzles with normal players’ thinking?
“Mia,” Aske said, “use your Ripple Sword to instantly teleport us inside.”
“Oh,” Mia replied.
She was slightly anxious, as this was the first time she was using the Ripple Sword, and the initial mistake of being teleported to such a hellish place had made her quite lacking in confidence.
Mia cautiously grasped onto Aske, Miel, and the Banshee Queen, and after repeatedly confirming the displacement vectors in her mind, she activated the ability of the Ripple Sword.
Suddenly, the surroundings changed in an instant, and they found themselves on the other side of the door.
The interior decoration style of the institute was more retro and advanced than the last one they’d seen at the “Mind Technology Research Institute” beneath the town of Lunfield. The walls made of alloy materials were peppered with streamlined circuits and piping, dense yet distinctly separated, exuding a strong sense of industrial design beauty.
“Welcome.” From the corridor around the corner in front came a Synthetic Human with a human appearance, emitting a mechanical yet clear synthesized voice, “Hello, guest, welcome to the Abyss Research Institute number 734. I am the research assistant Kapei.”
Mia and Miel both adopted wary defensive stances. However, the Synthetic Human designated as Kapei seemed to have no intention of attacking them and continued to say:
“It has been 1,784 years, 5 months, and 27 days since the last research personnel evacuated. As the institute’s closure protocol hasn’t been executed, all facilities have continued to operate to this date. Do you have any new authorization commands?”
“No,” Aske answered.
If he had obtained the identity ID card or the password of the research staff through tasks or exploration, he might have tried to deceive the other party and seize control of the research institute. Since he didn’t have them, he could only admit it honestly.
“Understood.” The Synthetic Human said expressionlessly, “According to management protocols, you are now granted the status: visitor.”
“Is there anything to eat?” Aske continued to ask.
“In accordance with management protocols, we will provide visitors with the necessary supplies for life, until the new management protocols take effect.” The Synthetic Human turned and began walking forward.
The group hurriedly followed behind, and after walking through corridors and staircases for about ten minutes, they arrived in front of a certain warehouse.