The box on the platform lay quietly, its surface gleaming with a faint, cold light. Chen Hao stared at it, his hands resting on the control panel, his arms trembling slightly.
"Is this some kind of quiz machine?" he said. "Last time it was a combination lock, don't tell me I have to memorize ancient poems to open it this time."
Nana ignored him and approached the box to examine it closely. "The material is the same as the metal fragments we collected before," she said, "but the structure is more complex, with an energy-sensing layer on the outside."
"Does that mean it will explode if you touch it carelessly?"
"Possibly."
Susan took a detector out of her toolkit and scanned the box. "No connectors, no gaps," she frowned. "It doesn't look like it could be opened."
Carl stood at the back, holding a camera. "The door we just came in through could open rhythmically," he said. "Could it be signal-triggered too?"
Chen Hao slapped his thigh: "That's right! Let's try using a coating."
Nana nodded. "The coating glows under low pressure, with a unique spectrum," she said. "Perhaps we can activate it."
"Then quickly let the robotic arm brush against you."
“No,” Nana said. “The robotic arm’s outer shell is made of an alloy, which blocks most of the spectrum. We need direct contact.”
Chen Hao turned to look at her: "You're a robot, you go touch it."
"I don't have any coating on my skin."
"Then why don't you scrape off a little bit of the coating and stick it on your hand?"
"Unrealistic."
The cabin was quiet for a few seconds.
"Wait a minute." Chen Hao suddenly remembered something, "Don't we have some ourselves?"
He rolled up his sleeves, revealing the slightly shimmering membrane on the outer layer of his wetsuit. "This stuff is still flashing, which means it's still active," he said. "How about... I give it a try?"
"Are you crazy?" Susan immediately objected. "What if it sucks you in?"
"Then let Nana use her robotic arm to apply some of the coating liquid before touching it."
"The liquid has solidified and cannot be peeled off."
Another silence followed.
In the end, Nana came up with a solution: "We can attach a flexible tube to the end of the robotic arm to scrape off a small amount of powder from the coating on the outside of the arm and blow it onto the box surface."
"Sounds like unclogging a sewer," Chen Hao muttered. "But it'll do."
Carl carefully operated the robotic arm to collect samples, while Susan used a micro-nozzle to evenly sprinkle the collected powder onto the surface of the box. The light spot landed on the crystal, but initially there was no reaction.
A few seconds later, the edges of the crystal began to change color, turning from grayish-white to light blue.
"It works!" Chen Hao shouted.
The box slowly unfolded, and the three-layered ring structure rotated and separated in turn, revealing a transparent chip in the center, as if it were being supported by an invisible force.
“What about the reading device?” Carl asked.
“There’s no connector here.” Susan checked the area. “It should be an optical projector.”
Nana leaned closer to the chip. "It needs a light source of a specific frequency to excite it," she said. "Ordinary light won't work."
The overhead lights flickered on and off, their rhythm erratic.
"The lights were flashing at the same frequency when I opened the door just now," Chen Hao said, looking up. "Flashing and stopping, once every 3.7 seconds."
“It could be the power supply cycle of the ruins themselves,” Nana said. “If it matches the original lighting protocol, it might be able to activate the projection.”
"Do you remember that agreement?"
“There are records in the database,” she said. “During the late pre-Geological period, deep-sea facilities commonly used pulsed power systems with a basic cycle of 3.7 seconds.”
"Then let's do it that way."
Nana connected the submersible's lighting system and set the output mode. The lights began to flash, emitting short beams of light at precise 3.7-second intervals.
When the chip is stimulated, the surface texture gradually lights up, and an image is projected.
The scene depicts a coastline where rocks are submerged in seawater, constantly washed by the tides. In some areas, a thin silver film slowly covers the rock surface, as if it had grown naturally.
"What is this?" Susan asked in a low voice.
“The mineralization process,” Nana explained, “is how microorganisms combine with minerals to form a stable protective layer on the rock surface.”
The scene shifts. A group of people appear on the shore, wearing simple protective suits and carrying containers, collecting mud-like material from the shallows. They apply the mud to the exterior of tools and buildings, letting it dry and harden into a shell.
“They are replicating this phenomenon,” Nana said. “Artificially creating protective coatings.”
The scene continues. A small team, carrying equipment coated with the slurry, dives into the deep sea and places it in a high-pressure zone. Returning several days later, they find the material intact, even more corrosion-resistant than the original rock.
"So this technology wasn't invented," Chen Hao said. "It's just copying nature's homework?"
"To be precise, it's about observation and refining," Nana corrected. "The ancients discovered natural mineralization and achieved controlled production by mixing specific minerals with organic liquids."
"Then the coating we're using now..."
“The ingredients are highly similar,” she said. “The core is a silicon-based polymer plus metal microparticles, and the proportions are exactly the same.”
Susan pulled out previous test reports for comparison. "We extracted S-749's surface mucus," she said, "but what we used here isn't biological secretions at all."
“But the result is the same,” Nana said. “This shows that this organism also forms a similar structure by absorbing minerals from the environment. It is not the source, but an intermediate product.”
"In other words," Chen Hao concluded, "all this hard work we've put into researching it for so long, only to find that someone else figured it out 10,000 years ago?"
“The technology was lost,” Nana said. “Then civilization collapsed, and knowledge was lost. We just rediscovered it.”
No one spoke inside the cabin.
After a while, Chen Hao chuckled: "No wonder this door recognizes the coating. It's not waiting for a key, it's waiting for someone who knows what they're doing."
The walls shook as soon as he finished speaking.
The surrounding symbols rearranged to form a clear line of text, suspended in the air: **“Inheritors, leave your mark.”**
"It's asking us to sign?" Chen Hao looked at Nana. "Is it enough to just write our names with a pen?"
"It probably refers to identity verification," she said. "The system needs to verify whether the user has mastered the core technology."
"Then go and leave your fingerprint?"
"My structure is different from that of humans, and my biological characteristics do not match."
“But it recognizes the technology, not the DNA,” Chen Hao said. “Your hands have coating on them, and you just used the robotic arm to handle the sample.”
Nana thought for a moment, then raised her right hand and gently touched the blank space on the wall with her fingertips.
The system scanned for residual particles on the surface of her fingers.
A moment later, a low-frequency resonance came from inside the wall, like the sound of some kind of machine starting up.
The rock wall on the left silently slid open, revealing a narrow passage that was pitch black inside and had no end in sight.
"It's open," Carl said in a low voice.
"It's not a welcome message," Chen Hao said, staring at the crack. "It's a key card for the next stage after the exam."
Susan checked the equipment. "We have enough oxygen for two hours," she said. "The communication signal is still working."
"Have the cameras been cleared?" Carl asked.
"Cleared."
"Are we coming or not?" Chen Hao asked Nana.
She was recording the last piece of data. "You can enter," she said, "but it's recommended to keep in single file to avoid interfering with the internal systems."
Chen Hao was the first to step forward and stop at the entrance of the passage.
A cold wind blew out from inside, carrying a smell of rust mixed with damp earth.
He glanced back at his team.
"If there's another multiple-choice question inside," he said, "whoever answers correctly becomes the team leader."
No one responded.
He stepped inside.
Susan followed closely behind, her footsteps echoing softly on the ground.
Carl raised the camera, pointing the lens at the darkness ahead.
Nana was the last to enter, and a short click sounded as her mechanical feet made contact with the ground.
The entrance to the passage began to close slowly.
Before the last ray of light disappeared, the words on the wall changed.
New sentences emerge:
"Three errors, permanent account closure."
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