Zhuanxu
The man opened his eyes.
His name is Zhang Ling, an 'Earthling'. Of course, although he's called an Earthling, he was actually born on a super-border Earth numbered 1000, making him a country bumpkin in the standard sense. Moreover, he's the illegitimate child of a company executive who had a whim while traveling in another world.
Of course, as an illegitimate child from another world, he was not entitled to receive financial assistance or loans from the family foundation, but at least he didn't have to worry about food and drink. Moreover, after serving in the military, he obtained citizenship, and now his consciousness has been uploaded to the Quantum Network to work for the 'family business,' so he can barely be considered a minor cadre at the department head level.
He left his original body in another world to explore and cultivate, and also rented it out to wealthy patrons on the virtual network to earn some extra money. Adventures, planting vegetables, pest control—he could be considered a small-time internet celebrity at a rural resort earning some extra cash.
However, this was Zhang Ling's first time visiting Parallel Earth 0 01, 'Zhuānxū'.
Or rather, this was the first time he had truly connected to the subnet of the 001 dimension, using the two feet of an organic vehicle to stand on the observation deck of the orbital elevator that led out of the starship's cabin, overlooking the scenery below.
In the pitch-black depths of space, there exists a spherical celestial body, darker than the void itself, like a gravityless black hole. From afar, it appears as an endless, smooth curved surface, like a polished black ceramic sphere, its surface resembling a calm, still ocean.
And in that dark ocean, faintly, like lighthouses, dotted the surface with many faint starlights. Of course, those were not starlights, nor were they real lighthouses, but rather star cities built on the surface of the sphere.
These colonial star cities shot out bright flames like alcohol torches, but as the flames spread out, they seemed to be absorbed into the boundless dark 'ocean'.
Of course, through online documentaries and quantum teleportation experiences, Zhang Ling already had a considerable understanding of 'Zhuānxū'.
That's not a real ocean, of course, but an artificial polymer material, a giant curtain, a photovoltaic film, or, in other words, a solar sail.
Those 'lighthouse' star cities are the connection points between the solar sails, serving as colonies, power plants, solar sail link maintenance points, and network servers. They are connected to the star cities by hundreds of millions of solar sails, enveloping the star and perfectly collecting energy without emitting a single ray of light. This is 'Zhuānxū'.
In short, this is the first, and possibly the only, Dyson sphere in the history of human civilization.
As for the star that was collected, it was naturally the 001 Sun.
Long, long ago, when humanity was in the era of legionary rule, the most mainstream technologies were space colonization, interstellar travel, and wormhole exploration. People weren't talking about virtual networks; they were talking about the stars and the sea.
In this parallel universe 001, Earth, as the first world colonized through a wormhole, was planned by the Legion as the capital of the multiverse human empire. The Legion established its new capital and headquarters here, and prepared a massive wormhole stargate as a transit station for conquering the multiverse. The sun of Earth 0 001 was also planned as a Dyson sphere and began long-term construction.
However, as wormhole technology spiraled out of control, a third of the Legion's fleet was lost in the void, leading to a world war and an omnic rebellion. After the bloody war, the Legion was destroyed, Earth 0 01 was destroyed, the wormhole portal was destroyed, and construction of the Dyson Sphere ceased.
Only after the war ended and the remnants of the legion were driven to the corners of civilization, to the edge of the universe, did a company finally take over the project and complete the construction of 'Zhuānxū'. Parallel Earth 0 01 was built as one of the central servers of the Quantum Network Public Security System, and 'Zhuānxū' is the battery and server host.
"Purpose."
The puppet from the Public Security System accessed Zhang Ling's system, automatically took over the organic vehicle's permissions, and began scanning his system's security logs and potential threats.
"Interview."
When Zhang Ling was serving his military service, he worked in the Security Bureau and knew that this was just a formality.
After all, in order to protect the safety of 'Zhuānxū', hundreds of thousands of warships and orbital cannons have been lurking in the space recently, and any unidentified flying objects that enter the asteroid belt without permission will be directly destroyed.
Meanwhile, the organic vehicles in dimension 001 are all stationed in space stations outside the orbit, undergoing regular biochemical checks at six and Nine Departments, ensuring they are free from any biochemical threats or the possibility of physical access hacking attacks.
His intelligent system, in order to connect to the Earth 0 01 subnet, had already passed countless screening and verification processes. Any hidden puppets would have had their brains burned out by the firewall long ago.
"Login Permission"
After only three seconds of review, Zhang Ling regained control of the organic vehicle. Guided by the system, he entered the orbital elevator and leaped into the boundless darkness.
The nanobots surrounding the vehicle formed a bubble-like isolation layer, and guided by the guiding beam, they fell from the external star trails and flew towards those 'lighthouses'.
Each of these satellite cities is an office building rented by a company. Although in this day and age, cold fusion batteries are already in civilian use and Dyson spheres are not necessarily very efficient, the significance of 'Zhuānxū' itself is extraordinary. It can basically be considered a marvelous building that transcends the technological and economic value of its time.
Therefore, any company with a decent reputation likes to rent an office on the tombstone of this legion, to enjoy the glory of victory and experience the thrill of conquering the sun.
"Executive."
Zhang Ling flew directly into the company's office and, guided by the system, met his interviewer, the company's CEO, who was also his biological father Zhang Jian.
Of course, neither of them was using their original genetic material at this time; instead, they were using a cloned vehicle remotely controlled by the executor.
Zhang Jian had no intention of reminiscing with any of his countless 'sons,' even though the other party had indeed been screened and had a slight connection to him, but that was not the main reason for the other party's appearance.
"Did you serve in the Security Bureau before?"
Noticing that the system had been shut down after entering the company building, Zhang Ling knew that his father had spent a lot of money to bring him to this 'Zhuānxū' for a meeting not to reminisce, and he didn't waste time with him.
"Level 10 Investigator in the Fourth Department. However, all mission-related memories were removed after his discharge."
"The Fourth Department, the Counter-Espionage Investigation Department... I see, that makes sense..."
Zhang Ling knew that although Zhang Jian was nominally the company's chief executive officer, he was still just a working steward. At most, he could only find out that Zhang Jian served in the Public Security System, and his authority was not yet at the level of a 'master'. He probably didn't even know what he was doing.
However, it seems this "father" didn't suddenly decide to promote him; he doesn't care at all about how his "illegitimate son from another world" is doing. That profile was likely chosen by the Board of Directors, and they even specifically arranged for his "father" to provide support. Given the company's style, he's probably encountered some serious trouble...
"It seems you're aware of the situation. The company has a tricky matter to assign to you. I hope you can use your professional skills to resolve this problem."
Zhang Jian took out a crystal ball, which contained some kind of purple-blue lightning arc, and looked like a plasma ball toy.
Zhang Ling's pupils contracted sharply. Although his mission memories had been blocked, so he 'couldn't remember,' he could still 'recognize' him when he saw him.
This is something obtained by surgically transforming the human brain from a solid state into an ionic state; simply put, it's a 'plasma hard drive'.
The primary function of this 'hard drive' is to pass through 'doors'.
The 'gate', or 'boundary membrane', is the most cutting-edge scientific research field. Simply put, this side of the 'gate' is the scientific world, and the other side of the 'gate' is the non-scientific alien world.
Although parallel planes on the same side of the 'gate' can be reached through various FTL travel methods such as wormhole jumps, current technology is not yet capable of sending living people to the other side of the 'gate'.
Therefore, currently, the approach is to first send drones to the other side of the 'gate' to establish a quantum communication satellite, and then use organic carriers to establish a stable Quantum Network.
However, there is also a new technology that, without relying on quantum communication, directly converts personality consciousness into an ionic state and projects it to the other side of the 'door'.
The advantages of doing this are naturally economic efficiency, convenience, and speed. It can directly transform people into ionized states and project them into another world, eliminating the need to spend centuries sending robots to build communication satellites and clone vehicle factories. After all, if it is discovered that the other world is not worth developing, all these investments would be wasted.
Of course, this technology is currently extremely unstable, with severe limitations, and is far from practical. After all, the other side of the 'gate' would at least need equipment to restore ionized humans to a solid state, right?
Moreover, according to current experiments, after passing through the "gate," one's personality will be fragmented, making it almost impossible to regain self-awareness. One can only be used to analyze information from fragmented memories, and it seems that one is perpetually in some kind of horrific torture, so one can only be a collectible.
As for the ball in his hand, he specially spent money to project it to 001, which means it represents the world on the other side of the 'door'.
"What did he do? Embezzle?" Zhang Ling stared at the plasma sphere.
"She's the acting manager of border asset 49327, from another faction. I don't know what she did, but she made a mess of it, turning it into a non-performing asset. The Board of Directors assigned me to clean up the mess and specifically asked you to investigate. Fine, I'll promote you two levels to regional manager. Investigate it, and if there are any problems, just deal with them. If you can't, report directly to me."
Zhang Ling was utterly bewildered. The Board of Directors had directly ordered them, father and son, to investigate other factions—wasn't that suspected internal power struggles within the Board of Directors? What if things went wrong, wouldn't he end up like the ion sphere in his hand? And...
"49327!? What kind of dimension is this! Even if it's on the other side of the door, this is still too far... This has already exceeded the limits of parallel universe observation systems, hasn't it? Even Quantum Network experience delays..."
Zhang Jian also found this matter troublesome.
"The marginal star systems bought cheaply from the Ethics Committee probably have remnants of the Legion around. Hmph, procurement, they just love to take advantage of these small bargains."
"Aren't you a counter-espionage agent? Go and use your expertise. Once you've resolved the non-performing assets issue, I'll transfer you back. If there are no other issues, get to work."
Zhang Jian walked to the office window with his hands behind his back, looking down at the crimson sun.
Zhang Ling frowned and thought for a moment, "You specifically sent me to 'Zhuānxū' just for the bad assets on the border? What's the big deal about these cockroaches in the legion? Shouldn't we investigate something else? Like corporate espionage or something?"
Zhang Jian sneered, "You don't need to worry about these things. A new round of corporate warfare is about to begin, and I'm sure many people will take this opportunity to donate money, steal secrets, and jump ship."
So just in case, you should link to 'Zhuānxū' directly at 49327, to avoid getting your brain burned by some 'hacker' outside."
Zhang Ling knew he had no choice but to agree. After all, this country bumpkin was used to being away from big cities. Besides, it was a promotion and a raise, wasn't it? If he could handle this well, he might even gain the favor of the Board of Directors and become a senior executive in the future.
So Zhang Ling took the ion ball to the company office on the ground floor, found the lowest-performing employee on the local employee list and fired him, then cleared his memory, loaded the memories into the ion ball, confirmed that there were no virus puppets in them, and then filtered out the useful information.
"A cultivation-themed amusement park, huh? Oh, and it's even a palace intrigue theme... So it really is a legion... Octopus-headed Sergeant..."
Zhang Ling repeatedly reviewed the memory fragments. Border Asset 49327 was probably a classical fantasy-themed amusement park. The employee was playing a role similar to an empress dowager to maintain order, but was inexplicably assassinated by Legion hackers.
The logic of the matter was quite simple, but Zhang Ling felt something was amiss.
Although his mission memories were erased after his discharge from the military, his professional skills remained. The intelligence he analyzed from the damaged chip revealed that an employee of the company had his access restricted for some reason, and then took the initiative to contact the Legion in an attempt to escape, but was subsequently killed by the Legion using a brain-burning puppet.
But why were their privileges restricted? Why did they try to escape? Why did the legion provoke the company?
The Legion is already barely surviving in the multiverse, evading the security systems. Wouldn't it be better to find a remote world to hide in and survive? Why deliberately cause trouble? And why eliminate those who defected to them? Why does a mere sergeant have such authority and such technology?
Zhang Ling couldn't figure it out for a while, so he decided to record it in the system and analyze it later.
Regardless, I'll go there myself.
So Zhang Ling lay down in the ecological capsule, connected to the Quantum Network, and closed his eyes.
Link 49327.
The man opened his eyes.
His name is Zhang Ling, an 'Earthling'. Of course, while he's called an Earthling, he was actually born on a super-border Earth, numbered 1000 and beyond. He's a country bumpkin in the truest sense.
This was Zhang Ling's first time visiting Parallel Earth 0 01, 'Zhuānxū'.
Of course, through online documentaries and quantum teleportation experiences, he already had a considerable understanding of 'Zhuānxū'...
Countless light-years away, in the orbit of another sun.
A giant aircraft carrier deploys its solar sails, and the thrust and gravity of the solar wind cancel each other out, hiding in the haze of starlight.
Inside the company's aircraft carrier, in the organic clone ecosystem, lies a man in a deep sleep.
The man is a combat clone with the same face as 'Zhang Ling', possesses the title of regional manager with the highest authority (49327) over the company's border assets, and has the physical strength of an Immortal Emperor.
At this moment, a humanoid figure, shimmering like a star and appearing as both light and shadow, stood beside the eco-pod like a nightmare projected from another dimension, its five fingers covering the face of the clone vehicle. At the same time, it formed a hand seal to gather energy, converging the surrounding dust and aura to form a grayish-white, sand-like outer shell.
Then, the figure, maintaining the cover of its hands, split its dust-like body apart. The head gradually grew the facial features of 'Zhang Ling', and hands grew from its neck. It flew out like a spider, passing through fingerprint and iris authentications inside the ship's cabin, and landed directly in the captain's seat of the company's mothership. It took control of the mothership and sent a report to the company that it had arrived safely.
The headless body shell unfolded like a spider, encircling and sealing the hibernation pod. The white, sand-like shell transformed into a viscous, glue-like, yet fine, spider silk-like grayish-white fluid, firmly trapping the hibernation pod and the clone within, forming a giant silk cocoon.
Having finished all this, at the foot of Ink Bamboo Mountain, in the Zhenyang Temple, amidst layers upon layers of lantern and flag formations, the young man in white robes and black gown finally let out a long sigh of relief and opened his pitch-black, empty eyes.
After ten years of honing his skills and making thorough preparations, Li Fan finally managed to seal away one of the biggest hidden dangers in the Taiji Realm, keeping it in its infancy without any major incidents.
I'm back to updating after a week's break. Thank you all for your support!