"Mr. Lockhart." A burly, bearded middle-aged professor who nevertheless looked exceptionally fit spoke softly to Gilderoy Lockhart.
Gilderoy Lockhart—
A manifestation of one of Tierra's avatars, was reclining against the back seat of the lead jeep with his eyes closed, seemingly dozing.
Hearing someone call his name, Tierra opened his eyes and curiously examined Honason Hadley, an Astronomy professor from the University of Sydney, seated beside him.
"What is it, Professor Hadley?" Tierra asked respectfully.
"Hehe, well, Mr. Lockhart, about fifty kilometers farther south is George Crater." Honason Hadley rubbed his hands together and said somewhat sheepishly, "It's a massive circular uplift formation, roughly twenty-two kilometers across, formed by a meteor impact around 140 million years ago. M-my colleagues all felt that since we've come all this way, it would be such a waste not to investigate it. So we wanted to..."
"If you want to investigate it, then go." Tierra raised his eyelids, sitting up slightly straighter as he looked in the direction Honason Hadley had indicated.
About fifty-seven kilometers away, there was indeed an enormous crater region.
But Tierra saw more than merely an enormous crater. In his eyes, every scene within George Crater retreated along the negative axis of the temporal coordinate, using the "present day" as its reference point.
-
10 years: The place was bustling. As the region had been discovered and developed, tourists, scientists, and, naturally, groups of explorers had flocked here. The past decade had been a golden era for Australia's development. The Yalta System established by World War II had allowed resource-rich Australia to ride the coattails of the victorious nations. Its economy and industry developed rapidly, and people's lives improved. More and more people had begun taking advantage of Australia's rugged terrain for everyday recreation, such as exploring geological wonders like