Chapter 102 The Brain of the Ark

Loran could see nothing in the darkness.

Suddenly, warm, slender fingers touched my wrist.

“This place,” Ning Shuyin said, guiding his hand, “is a little different from other places.”

Upon hearing this, Loran reached out and touched the fungus on the wall, his palm touching the fungus.

He moved slowly. He pinched the sample between his fingertips, trying to tear it off the vegetation.

But it didn't work.

"Oh."

He let out a very soft laugh: "It's fake, a biomimetic structure, barely worthy of being called alive. But it doesn't have the obvious biological flaws of the mushroom caps and vines next to it."

"Biological defects?"

"Hmm, I don't know why, but the veins of the green philodendrons along this route are particularly noticeable with missing petals and leaves."

"But this area has an extremely perfect shape. You can think of it as a living artificial flower."

Only a top biologist like Lorraine can distinguish the differences by touch alone.

Lorraine drew a dagger from his waist.

With a soft "plop," the dagger sliced ​​through the disguised curtain. Inside was a bright, open hole.

Before the blinding light arrived, a broad, gloved hand had already lightly covered her eyes.

"Don't open your eyes." Loran's voice was very close. "Come in from a dark place and let your eyes adjust first."

The synthetic material of the gloves, when applied to her eyelids, felt somewhat abrasive to the touch.

She could feel his presence. He stood right in front of her, almost completely enveloping her.

"It should be alright now."

He didn't immediately remove his hand. Instead, he slowly opened his fingers a little wider.

The light leaked in, like the morning sun shining through the blinds.

In the dry, stale air, Ning Shuyin slowly opened her eyes.

She peeked through his fingers and saw the surroundings.

This is a corridor. There are no creeping plants. No fancy decorations. Not even a hint of functionality.

There is a light strip overhead.

The only way through this corridor seemed to be for people to pass through. This reminded Ning Shuyin of the maintenance passages in tunnels in the real world.

At the end of the corridor, a metal door with a small window can be seen in the distance.

"Can you sense danger?" Loran asked.

No. It's very calm.

"Stay close to me."

As he spoke, he took the lead and walked forward, with Ning Shuyin immediately following.

Just as they were traveling, Ning Shuyin's personal computer suddenly received a communication request.

The signal that was just lost has returned by a few bars.

It was Su Zhe's communication request.

Ning Shuyin quickly answered the call.

The signal was extremely unstable, and Su Zhe's anxious voice came through intermittently:

"...Shuyin!...How are you...?...Please...respond if you hear me! I'm...trying to think of a way..."

“Su Zhe, we’re alright! Can you hear me? We’re safe!” Ning Shuyin quickly replied.

"...Great! You're here?" Su-cheol's voice was filled with relief.

“We’ve found another route, don’t worry!” Ning Shuyin said quickly, knowing the signal could be lost at any moment. “You stay with the main force, we’ll go out and rendezvous.”

"……But……"

"Sizzle—"

The signal was interrupted again, and the communication signal went dark once more.

Ning Shuyin breathed a sigh of relief after letting Su Zhe know she was safe. But as she turned her head, she was met with a pair of unfathomable red eyes.

Loran stopped walking and stood beside her at some point.

The white light in the passageway cast a shadow on the bridge of his nose.

The air pressure around him was near freezing.

"He and you... seem to know each other very well?"

Ning Shuyin pursed her lips. She absolutely couldn't let Luo Lan know about Su Qianqian now.

Therefore, it's really hard to explain why I'm so familiar with Su-che.

"Is it strange for comrades who have worked together to care about each other's safety?" she could only offer a forced explanation.

But her momentary hesitation seemed, in Loran's eyes, like an attempt to cover something up.

"Is that so?"

Loran left those two words behind, asked no further questions, and turned to continue walking forward.

His pace quickened, as if silently announcing his displeasure.

Ning Shuyin sighed inwardly and quickly jogged a few steps to catch up.

The two stopped in front of the door.

The emotions I felt earlier were easily overshadowed by the unknown danger behind the door.

The two looked inside through the observation window. It was a circular space that was larger than they had ever imagined.

A large amount of data flowed through the air and converged on a glass sphere in the center of the room.

Loran gently pushed the door. The door opened with a click.

“This place is like the…brain of an ark,” Ning Shuyin said, describing her feelings.

“It’s the main control room.” Loran’s face seemed to suddenly light up with hope.

He walked quickly to the bottom of the glass ball.

As if sensing the arrival of guests, a platform rose up beneath the feet of the two people.

Ning Shuyin was startled by the sudden rise.

Lorraine reached out and helped her up.

The platform rose until it was level with the glass sphere before stopping. Loran's gaze suddenly became somewhat excited.

The scene inside the glass sphere is constantly changing. The flow of light and shadow acts like an eye, monitoring the entire ruins.

The first thing they encountered was the circular hall where they had just entered the ruins.

From this perspective, the starry ceiling and the reflection of the glass floor, with countless sculptures floating in the middle, make it look like a glass sphere.

Then, the screen switches to the navigation tree.

Next, there was the long corridor covered with green velvet veins.

Loran stretched out his finger and made a scaling motion on the surface of the glass ball.

He put his fingers together.

All the images converged and became a three-dimensional structural diagram of each room within the ruins.

Loran's breathing became heavier.

His gaze swept quickly across the room, and he soon found the room—the Time Archive.

"The room is still there..."

He suddenly breathed a sigh of relief.

"It seems we've stumbled into the core of the ruins. This should be the main control room; we need to crack this core now..."

Loran turned on his personal computer.

He tried his best to remain calm.

But Ning Shuyin could see the expectation hidden beneath his emotions.

Her intuition told her that beneath the sea of ​​data in the room, a raging undercurrent was surging.

Loran has connected the optical computer to the core of this mysterious platform.

"This is the most advanced interactive program in the Academy of Sciences. Hopefully, we can crack it." Loran stared intently at the screen in front of him.

A large amount of data flowed through the screen. Ten minutes passed.

“No.” He frowned.

"Connect your personal computer as well, and try parallel computing."

Ning Shuyin nodded and connected her personal computer to the platform.

But less than half a minute later, her personal computer became scalding hot, forcing her to exit the calculation.

Lorraine reached out and tapped her wrist.

"It's a three-year-old configuration. I'll replace it for you when we get out."

After saying this, he fell silent.

We've reached the core, but we can't open the database.

Ning Shuyin suddenly thought of something. She pretended to turn around and rummaged through the combat kit behind her, but in reality, she opened her spatial ring.

A moment later, she took out something.

A palm-sized, all-black square box.

“Try this,” she said.

Loran exclaimed in surprise, "A black box calculator? How did you come to have something like that?"

He didn't need Ning Shuyin to answer.

The operator was directly connected to the arithmetic array.

“Using a black box, we can build a rule model with the same dimension as the target…” Loran explained casually to Ning Shuyin while looking at the data.

She, a liberal arts student, was surprised to find that she could actually... understand the gist of it.

"What's going on? Have I suddenly figured it out?" she thought to herself.

[Host, you are currently under the tenfold boost of the "Learning Acceleration Aura," which enhances your learning ability. It's perfectly normal that you can understand what you're reading.]

The system came out to explain for her.

I see.

The progress bar for cracking keeps climbing.

50%……60%……70%……

Suddenly, a pungent, burnt smell filled the air.

The black box calculator in Ning Shuyin's hand actually started to smoke.