Hamersley Range is located in the southwest of the Australian mainland, bordering the sea, covering a vast area of ​​260 kilometers.

The mountains are high and the valleys are deep, crisscrossing.

More than a thousand years ago, this was an important iron ore base, providing almost 80% of Australia's iron ore.

At that time, the vegetation in Hamersley Range was sparse, and only some stubborn meadows were difficult to grow.

But now, although the topography here has not changed, the vegetation situation is completely different.

The upper part of the mountains is covered with thick vines that are often hundreds of meters long.

The vines are like dragons, and the broad leaves are like cattail leaves. The diameter of the stems is one meter thick and several decimeters thin.

Dense roots pierce the ground from all parts of the vine stems like centipede legs.

The vines intertwine with each other and climb all over the peaks, becoming the ecological overlord.

This is a plant that Chen Feng has never seen in the 21st century. It is probably a new species that has produced some strong mutations after climate change.

The middle part of the mountain range is mainly home to some large trees with extremely thick branches.

The roots of the large trees are very thick. Even the thinnest ones require dozens of people to hug them. The diameter of the thickest ones is hundreds of meters, and the height is hundreds or even thousands of meters.

The treetops seemed to expand like an umbrella, overlapping and interlacing with each other, like broccoli piled in a basket, so that from the top down, there was almost no trace of the ravine.

If Chen Feng had not been able to scan the terrain with the spaceship's detector, he could almost have docked on the treetops as if it were flat ground.

Considering that Morning Breeze No. 1 had no energy shield and might be damaged if it was forced to park in the ravine, it would be difficult to repair it. He first stopped on the top of the mountain, then put on a brand new combat uniform, picked up a knife, took a fission shotgun, and then put on a backpack and walked out of the ship.

In his backpack was an iron box the size of a microwave oven.

Inside the iron box was a small bio-battery power supply chamber that he had completed with great effort. It was mainly used to power the "toy" gravitational wave scanner, and there was also a fist-sized micro-computing server.

He first ordered a quark synthesis meal, and then pressed the button on the side of the iron box behind him. With a metallic creaking sound, two child-arm-thick mechanical arms popped up from the box behind him, extending more than a meter.

A 17-inch LCD monitor was hung between the two mechanical arms.

With a click, the joint of the mechanical arm holding the monitor first bent, then bent again, and the monitor was placed just above Chen Feng's head, half a meter away from his eyes, making him look like Ning Caichen carrying a book case.

Chen Feng raised his hand and pressed on the monitor for a while. The debugging was successful, and a spherical space with a diameter of 50 meters began to appear on the screen, which was exactly the image of the scanner. The

wearable portable integrated detection auxiliary equipment was declared a successful research and development!

Oh no, the assembly was successful.

This is not over yet, he turned around again, and at this time a large iron box was being lifted and lowered by the mechanical arm of Morning Breeze No. 1.

When he opened the box, it was filled with colorful metal structures. These were all wearable equipment that he assembled in his spare time.

He put on his clothes one by one, and five minutes later, he turned into a punk-style mechanical warrior.

Chen Feng simply tested the jet engines on both sides of his waist and floated slightly.

Very good, with the support of the auxiliary artificial intelligence algorithm, his flight was very stable, and his direction change and acceleration were also very sensitive.

After he was ready, he walked down the hillside and plunged into the incredibly dense jungle.

The deeper he went, the dimmer the sunlight in the forest became.

Even though it was noon and the sun was shining brightly, it couldn't shine down at all.

No wonder these trees grow so tall. If you don't go up a little distance, you might not even be able to drink a sip of soup.

The ecological environment in the forest is not simple. In addition to tall trees, there are countless plants of varying sizes growing all over the ground.

The tall ones are like ordinary trees, while the short ones are shrubs of various shapes.

These short trees that rarely receive sunlight do not have broad leaves.

As for where their nutrition comes from?

You only need to take a look at the forked branches of the trees to understand. The branches all grow on the giant trees.

If it weren't for the obvious holes where the branches broke through the bark of the giant trees and pierced into them, Chen Feng would have mistaken these small plants for the roots of the giant trees.

In addition to plants, there are also many kinds of animals in the valley, with various shapes.

There were giant wolves with big ears that couldn't open their eyes and relied on ultrasound to locate themselves, black bears whose pupils could naturally emit strong light and whose heads seemed to have two large flashlights, and dark scaled snakes that could move across the ground like lightning and were as fast as mice.

These animals were very aggressive. Once they spotted his movements from a distance, they rushed towards him like moths to a flame.

Chen Feng secretly thanked himself for wearing wearable equipment that could fly over, otherwise he would have to kill people along the way and exhaust himself to death, not to mention searching for clues of humans in this valley.

He also lamented that it was a pity that the high-precision gravitational wave detector was gone forever.

He had spare parts, but his own limited abilities made it impossible to repair them.

Otherwise, according to the performance of the Galaxy Armor in the previous timeline, it would float in the air, scan, and then lie down peacefully and wait for the stars to analyze the results.

After most of the day, it was getting dark outside, but it made no difference to him. He had already gone down to the bottom of the valley, which had already become a pitch-black world.

But nature is not without light, and his vision has improved.

Among the dense and heterotrophic trees, countless shimmering lights are floating, all of which are various insects that can emit light.

These insects chase the streams of light, sometimes converging, sometimes dispersing, and sometimes passing through the trees like the Milky Way across the sky.

The picture looks like a dream, as if you are in a fairyland.

From time to time, some small birds that feed on insects would flash by like lightning, and the aerial river created by the fluorescent insects would suddenly lose a piece.

Chen Feng did not turn on the lights. He had already put on a simulation helmet and used the projection of ultrasound feedback to determine the direction.

He walked, looked, investigated, killed the animals that could not be avoided, and collected some bio-batteries from time to time.

The terrain in the mountains is complex, the density of animals and plants is extremely high, and the amount of information is outrageous.

Moreover, even if there are traces of human activities, such as footprints or picnic residues, they cannot be preserved for long under the influence of the high-frequency and high-intensity activities of a large number of animals.

With the strength of these animals, Chen Feng estimated that ordinary galactic warriors without equipment would not survive here for more than three days.

Since Sergei's secret base has been hidden for nearly five hundred years, it certainly wouldn't be foolish enough to leave it openly on the ground. If you want to find it, you have to work slowly and carefully.

Chen Feng didn't daydream, nor did he foolishly think that he could accomplish it in one fell swoop. He was mentally prepared for a long-term war and settled down in this valley.

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, March has passed.

In these three months, Chen Feng plowed the land up and down the Hamersley Ridge more than ten times.

His database is filled with huge and complicated information, accurate to every plant, every insect, and every animal in the mountains.

He can also simulate and predict all the dynamics of plants and animals, even accurately to when these plants will take root and sprout, and when they will wither.

He also used a gravitational wave detector to complete a complete terrain simulation, down to three kilometers underground.

Within the range of three kilometers underground, the kinetic energy of the soil and rock flow in the crust is accurate to the module with grams as the unit.

Countless small modules are combined together to form a simulation modeling like ocean currents.

In addition, although the gravitational wave detector can only accurately scan the underground to a maximum of five kilometers, Chen Feng has swept the world and assembled some conventional geological exploration equipment with lower technological levels and less accurate precision.

Equipment types include geophysical and geochemical exploration, trench depth, drilling, large-scale geophysical exploration equipment, etc.

In the field of geological simulation modeling, physical exploration is the main method, which mainly includes gravity exploration, magnetic exploration, electrical exploration, seismic exploration, radioactive exploration, etc.

In short, Chen Feng used whatever means he had. He did not seek absolute accuracy, but only wanted to use more detection methods to collect more and more comprehensive data.

Therefore, the geological data in his hands still went down to the level of 18 kilometers underground, but the range of 3 kilometers underground was the technological level of the 31st century in the seventh timeline, 3 kilometers to 10 kilometers was the level of the 25th century, and 10 kilometers to 18 kilometers was the level of the early 22nd century.

Such a huge amount of data made his specially expanded super-large data storage almost unable to accommodate it.

There was no point in continuing to strengthen the collection. On September 3, 3020, his sweeping operation was officially stopped.

With the computing power he currently had, it was impossible to convert these data into images visible to the human eye.

The card machine was stuck so much that he wanted to live but couldn't die. Every time he looked at it, he would be reminded of the fear of being dominated when he used a 2008 computer to open QQ in 2019.

So he wrote another algorithm program and handed it over to the server to calculate in the background.

As for himself, he started making chips again, and put them into the server one by one.

There are less than sixty days until October 27, 3020, and Chen Feng's sense of urgency is getting stronger and stronger.

So far, he has preliminarily completed the construction of a new aerospace-grade spaceship, which is placed in the suburbs of Hanzhou.

The spaceship is about 5,000 meters long, 1,100 meters high, and 2,000 meters wide, and has the shape of a traditional spinning hammer.

It's not that he doesn't want a triangular cone ship or a snowflake ship, but with his ability, he can only barely design a stable curvature-like film layer in the shape of a spun hammer.

It would be fatal for him to design other shapes, or a structure that can perfectly fit the surface of the ship.

The spaceship was named Morning Breeze II.

No. 2 is equipped with two sets of high-performance large curvature-like engines without intelligent assistance, a force field shield generator that also lacks intelligent algorithm support, a complete set of hand-made large bio-battery power supply system, a set of Dyson membrane-like solar wings that cannot accurately and stably control energy conversion without chips, and hundreds of small and medium-sized equipment related to scientific research and production.

Chen Feng also placed a large number of robots of various types and eras in it, which have no chips but other parts are basically complete.

Over 60% of the usable parts with a certain technological content on the entire Earth have been collected by him in the eight large warehouses next to Morning Breeze II.

About 70% of them have been assembled into different things and stuffed into Morning Breeze II.

Theoretically, when Morning Breeze II flies out of the Kuiper asteroid belt, it can continue to accelerate in the universe and reach a stable speed of twice the speed of light within a month.

If Chen Feng can find a more complete database and build a quantum computer with sufficient performance, then he can also upgrade the curvature flight of Morning Breeze II to curvature flight, allowing Morning Breeze II to reach 9.999... times the speed of light.

Now everything is ready, only the quantum chip is missing.

Even if he can only find one, he can try to synthesize more with the best high-precision quark instrument, and then the problem of artificial intelligence computing power requirements will be solved.

Space compression and mass-energy conversion technologies will also be mostly restored. In addition to being able to drive No. 2 out of the solar system, Chen Feng can also build himself at least a personal equipment comparable to the performance of the Eagle Strike Armor.

He placed all his hopes on Sergei's secret base.

Three days later, Chen Feng built a modular supercomputing center covering an area of ​​three hectares on the central ridge of Hamersley Ridge.

The combined computing power of this supercomputing center is roughly equivalent to the total computing power mastered by humans in 2050 in the eighth timeline.

Another four days passed, and all the calculations finally converged into an answer.

The answer is a small mound of earth more than ten meters in diameter.

In fact, Chen Feng had passed by this mound more than once before, but he didn't take it seriously.

There are at least 1,000 such mounds in the valley floor, but they are so rare that they are not worth mentioning.

However, after double calculations of statistics and probability, and then comprehensively summarizing the geological creeping tendencies of tiny plates, a very contradictory conclusion was deduced.

The probability that this mound was formed by the natural change of the movement of the crustal plates is less than 1%, and it requires countless coincidences to form.

If you must find something unnatural and abnormal in Hamersley Ridge, it can only be this mound.

Chen Feng acted decisively, collected samples, and tested the half-life and material composition.

The conclusion was soon reached.

The soil in the mound looks no different from ordinary soil, but it is actually mantle material.

Measuring its half-life again showed that the soil collected by Chen Feng from different depths had undergone violent chemical reactions at different times. The time nodes of the change from the outer layer to the inner layer showed a multi-gradient progressive change, from thirty years ago, to fifty-six years ago, to seventy-two years ago, and all the way to four hundred and twenty years ago.

The case was solved successfully.

Sergei's base is located in the mantle directly below this place.

He first returned to the base and began to manufacture a manned drilling exploration aircraft.

Two days later, he returned to the original place and began to dig a hole.

The drill head rumbled down along the position of the earth mound.

The powerful super alloy drill head broke through the soil layer, then broke through the rock layer, and then hit the iron ore layer and the silicon-magnesium layer head-on, slowed down slightly, and then continued to move forward.

Fourteen hours later, the exploration drill reached a depth of fifty kilometers underground.

At this time, he had completely entered the mantle and was in a molten magma structure.

This was not his first time to go underground, and he was quite familiar with driving. However, this time his vehicle did not have a composite shield. Although the outer structure of the alloy drill would not melt easily, the high temperature inside was a bit fatal, and even his carefully prepared temperature control system could not withstand it.

The temperature in the cabin was rising rapidly, and Chen Feng was sweating profusely.

His judgment was correct. He did find a huge metal structure here, but the outer shell of this structure had a composite shield, and he could not get in. No matter

how much power he turned on the drill, he could not go any further.

After five minutes of hard work, the temperature in the cabin has exceeded 100, and the temperature control system has been overloaded. It will shut down in half a minute at the latest.

Chen Feng was so angry that he wanted to look up to the sky and curse. It was simply seeing a ghost.

I am a dignified Galaxy Warrior, I will not fall down in the underground of the earth, right?

Back then, let alone the mantle, I have even been to the center of the earth.

Otherwise, I will retreat first, get some equipment in first and then come down?

Chen Feng quickly rejected this idea.

Although the drill was his hasty work, it did use up all the usable parts. Without a shield, it can only be like this.

With his ability alone, he really can't innovate technology, and it's useless to go back.

It's not long until October 27th, and time waits for no one.

Just when he felt that there was no way up or down, the shield in front of him suddenly changed.

The drill slid in without any hindrance, entered an empty space, and fell to the metal shell 100 meters below.

Chen Feng was thinking about whether to abandon the cabin and escape, so as not to fall into a sandwich, but dozens of metal arms came up from below, grabbed the drill firmly, and then put it down steadily.

After it stabilized, Chen Feng tried to open the cabin door, and found that the outward-opening cabin cover was pressed down by the metal arms wrapped around the drill.

He turned on the intercom and dialed the full-band radio. "Is anyone there?"

"Follow me."

A young man's voice rang out from the intercom, speaking in Chinese.

Chen Feng was stunned. What did he mean?

"Sergei?"

he asked again.

The young man replied, "Follow me."

Chen Feng was furious. "Then why don't you open my door!"

He was answered with another "Follow me."

Chen Feng was sure that this was not a replay. There was really someone talking on the other side, because the tone and intonation of each "Follow me" were slightly different, as if getting more and more impatient.

He was also anxious and tried to forcefully kick the hatch open, but this alloy could even withstand the pressure of the mantle, so it was too much to use his feet to kick it open.

"I know you are Sergei. Don't keep me in suspense. I'm Chen Feng. Open the door for me. I can't get out."

Chen Feng thought for a moment and said so.

About ten seconds later, those stupid and dull metal arms finally let go.

After walking out of the door, Chen Feng looked up first. He could see that the red and black mantle material was isolated by the shield a hundred meters away. Under the hazy red light, the world was dark red.

Two meters in front of him, a square hole was opening, and then an elevator-like object slowly emerged from below.

There were two small black round holes on both sides of the elevator, about the thickness of a thumb, which looked like the shooting holes of guns.

An electronic sound rang out.

"Identification in the identity system, identification successful. Human, male, Han nationality. Comparison in the historical gene pool, comparison successful. Chen Feng, founder of the Salvation Society. Threat level, 0. Trust level, highest."

Master Chen burst into tears listening to the electronic voice that was reviewing and verifying his identity.

It wasn't easy. After almost a year, I finally heard the voice of artificial intelligence with autonomous action capabilities.

This means that in Sergei's secret base, there really are smart chips, and possibly a complete artificial intelligence!

There's hope!

The elevator door opened slowly with a puff.

A pale and thin boy stood inside.

The boy was probably less than seventeen years old, with a dull look in his eyes, a wooden face, and protruding cheekbones, appearing to be very malnourished.

Chen Feng recognized him at a glance.

It really is a younger version of Sergei Ponomarenko!

Chen Feng was looking at the other person, and the other person was also looking at him.

The two looked at each other for a long time, but Chen Feng took a step forward first and asked, "Is it Sergei?"

The boy turned his head away, his eyes became more confused, and he kept smiling foolishly, and then said in a hurried tone, "Follow me."

Chen Feng rolled his eyes.

I have heard that clones are not perfect in all aspects, but I didn't believe it. Now I have to believe it.

I don't know what kind of education this young version of Sergei has received since he was a child, but he can only say this sentence over and over again.

The boy's logical thinking ability seems to be really flawed. After saying it, he will press the button, regardless of whether Chen Feng follows up or not.

Fortunately, Chen Feng acted quickly, or he would have been locked out again.

The small elevator car clattered down, and Chen Feng knew that he would not get any information if he asked him again, so he did not waste his words.

The other party would only say "Follow me", which means he must be leading him to a certain place, and everything will be revealed when he gets there.

About a minute later, the elevator car stopped, and a huge and empty workshop appeared in front of Chen Feng. There

were hundreds of pill-shaped life-support capsules distributed in the workshop.

Each life-support capsule was about two and a half meters high, which was quite similar to the internal circulation simulation warehouse where he had lain before.

Most of the liquids in the life support capsules had been emptied, and only one or two were still filled with light yellow nutrient solution.

"Where are we going now?"

he asked again.

The young man stopped moving forward and sat down, saying, "Follow me."

Chen Feng shrugged, and it seemed that this was the destination.

Chen Feng tried to take two steps forward, but the workshop changed again.

A three-dimensional projection beam shone down from the lamp on the ceiling and landed in front of him.

A middle-aged Slav in a white coat and with a bald head appeared in front of him. It was Sergei, just a middle-aged and elderly version.

The electronic voice prompts: "Chinese? English? Russian? Minority language?"

Chen Feng: "Chinese."

The next second, the still image of Sergei suddenly became vivid.

He said with a sad and emotional tone: "Since you can appear here without causing an explosion, you must be a human who has returned from afar. Is that right?"

Chen Feng thought for a moment, "Yes."

"Welcome, my junior."

Chen Feng: "..."

Well, now that you died early, you can say whatever you want.

"Everything you hear next is my recording, and I don't need to answer your questions. You can first get a brief understanding of the situation from me, and the rest of the information is in the reading room in front. You listen to me patiently..."

About half an hour later, Sergei's projection disappeared.

Chen Feng turned his head to look at the silly young version of Sergei who was sitting there like a sculpture, but he already understood everything in his mind.

The case was solved.

First of all, the human beings in the solar system in this timeline were indeed extinct.

The exact time node of extinction was 2589.

The symbolic event of extinction was that there was only one human left alive, and that was Sergei.

He did not become a deserter, but was engaged in the research and development of new weapons in the last base until the last moment.

No matter how fierce the battle outside was, it did not affect his concentration on work.

Then the ZS humans rushed in wearing individual weapons and slaughtered everyone in the Australian base, including his respected predecessor, the biologist Lai Wenming.

When Sergei was the only real human left, the ZS humans suddenly stopped, retreated quietly, and never appeared again.

One month later, an explosion occurred in a super-large space station 30 million kilometers away from the earth.

In this explosion, all ZS humans and enhanced mutant animals disappeared at the same time.

This was not Sergei's credit, but the autonomous choice of ZS bacteria life.

Since then, Sergei is the only intelligent life left in the entire solar system.

He doesn't understand why he was left behind.

Maybe this is a mockery.

Or maybe it's just a scientific experiment.

The super-advanced civilization that controls the fate of mankind wants to see what kind of creation the smartest human can make when he is alone.

He also doesn't understand why he has never been infected by ZS bacteria.

Afterwards, Sergei tried parthenogenesis, but failed.

He seemed to have seen the end.

He would grow old alone in the solar system.

He considered whether to leave and go to the colonies.

In the end, he did not set sail, but spent all his energy on rebuilding artificial intelligence and creating this underground base.

He rebuilt the base and hid underground.

He spent his life analyzing ZS bacteria, analyzing history, and deducing the future.

He wanted to understand what kind of existence the enemy was and why it could destroy humans so easily.

He also wanted to know how to defeat the other side.

Humans in the solar system were defeated, but Sergei still longed to leave something behind. Maybe in the distant future, people from the colonies would come back and see it again?

As time went by, he aged rapidly, but success was still a long way off.

Sergei began to absorb the biotechnology left by Lai Wenming and implemented a self-cloning plan.

He knew that he would die sooner or later, and that clones would most likely have congenital diseases and would not be able to reach his level, but so what?

Whatever he could do, that was enough.

In 2600, knowing that he was about to die prematurely from overwork, Sergei completed all the preset settings, took a small shuttle to the ground, and returned to his homeland after being torn apart by fierce animals.

Before he died, he collected some more ZS gene characteristics from mutant animals with weakened external bodies and transmitted them back to the base.

He also mocked these wastes fiercely.

"You are so stupid."

Time passed by little by little. Thirty years later, another Sergei, who was only 29 years old, still looked young, but was about to die of organ failure, rushed out of the ground.

Hundreds of years passed in the blink of an eye.

Generation after generation of Sergei was born in the life support capsule, and grew up and developed into adults under the care and teaching of intelligent robots, pushing forward the unfinished work of the first generation of Sergei.

Of course, accidents always happen. Some clone embryos did not even wait until they grew into human form before their genes collapsed.

Some clones died for no reason at the age of one or two. Even

successful clones seemed to have their lifespans limited forever, and they would not exceed thirty years old.

As time goes by, the time span of frozen stem cells becomes longer and longer, the activity and genetic stability continue to decline, the performance of clones is not as good as the previous generation, the IQ is getting lower and lower, the learning ability is getting worse and worse, and the life expectancy is getting more and more unstable.

Until now, there are only a few remaining life support capsules.

The new generation of Sergei, who was recently cultivated, has only learned the only sentence he must say to the returnees, "Follow me."

At this point, Sergei's deduction has been declared a failure.

The meaning of "Follow me" is only to prove to the returnees that the solar system humans once existed.

Or just to be discovered by other civilizations, hoping that other civilizations can take away everything from the earthlings.

In this way, the era of mankind will not disappear silently in the universe like a bubble.

In the end, Sergei did not wait for his compatriots to return from the colony, but waited for Chen Feng.

He waited for 420 years.