Following the Trail

Half a month later, Sun Cheng had unexpectedly returned to Tucson, this time more cautious than before.

"University of Arizona? Don't disappoint me..."

Under cover of night, he quietly infiltrated the vicinity of the University of Arizona campus. As he checked the distribution of nearby surveillance cameras, he calmly searched for a convenient point of entry.

Before returning to Tucson, he had spent two full days in Carson City, the capital of Nevada.

During those two days, Sun Cheng had busied himself searching everywhere for clues about the AllSpark, repeatedly hacking into the internet.

Not only had he searched through every recorded meteor-related disaster in United States history, but he had also painstakingly looked online for all kinds of information related to "hauntings" and "robots."

But to Sun Cheng's disappointment, he had found no disturbances caused by the AllSpark anywhere on the internet.

Still, it wasn't as though he had found nothing suspicious. While investigating falling meteors, Sun Cheng had uncovered a questionable lead.

As one of the countries on Earth most frequently struck by meteors, the United States preserved abundant records of meteor falls across its states. Many smaller craters even had professional survey reports attached. Yet the investigation into a crater called Barringer Meteor Crater was strangely vague, immediately arousing Sun Cheng's suspicions.

As he patiently followed that suspicious thread, he became increasingly convinced that something was wrong.

According to Sun Cheng's research, Barringer Meteor Crater was also often called Arizona Meteor Crater. Located in a desert in Arizona, it was a massive meteor crater two kilometers in diameter and 180 meters deep, believed to have been formed when a huge meteor struck Earth ten thousand years ago.

There was plenty of information about it online. For instance, geological experts believed the meteor that had struck the Arizona desert had likely weighed several million tons, entered Earth's atmosphere at an impact speed of between 10 and 20 kilometers per second, and released the equivalent of roughly ten million tons of TNT upon impact—power comparable to a high-yield hydrogen bomb.

Logically speaking, a meteor impact of that scale was something that happened perhaps once in a thousand years.

Even if Barringer Meteor Crater had been created ten thousand years ago, there was no reason for the United States government to dispatch large numbers of experts to study small meteors that had fallen within its borders over the past century, while neglecting it entirely.

Yet after carefully investigating it, Sun Cheng discovered only that more than ninety years ago, in 1912, the University of Arizona had funded and dispatched an expedition to investigate Barringer Meteor Crater.

Beyond that, what had the expedition discovered? Who had its members been? Had they found meteor fragments?

Not a single answer could be found online!

Now that was interesting!

The largest meteor crater in the United States had no detailed survey report to show for it, and there had not even been any news in recent decades of the United States government sending additional experts to investigate it!

Moreover, Barringer Meteor Crater was located in Arizona. Based on Sun Cheng's understanding of the cunning Starscream, there was no way he would have established his base in the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona, after arriving on Earth without a reason.

Unable to find any more information online, Sun Cheng could only take the risk of sneaking back into Tucson and infiltrating the University of Arizona to see whether he could find more analytical reports regarding Barringer Meteor Crater.

This was undoubtedly a highly dangerous move!

Yes, after Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on Tucson's outskirts had been attacked and four nuclear warheads stolen, the United States government had kept the matter under wraps, but it had never relaxed its investigation.

He couldn't be sure about anything else, but before Sun Cheng had even approached Tucson, he had already felt intensely irritated. An inexplicable sense of unease kept warning him.

Once he infiltrated the city and saw National Guard armored infantry vehicles and helicopters frequently appearing throughout the streets, with police patrols an everyday sight, the feeling only grew stronger.

Thus, Sun Cheng remained cautious upon cautious, terrified that the slightest mistake would expose him.

Once the Spy Template swiftly captured information on every surveillance device nearby, Sun Cheng looked around. When he spotted a large tree not far outside the campus wall, his eyes lit up.

Quietly making his way beneath the tree, Sun Cheng leaped onto one of its branches. Using the branch as support, he jumped again, and when he landed, he was already inside the University of Arizona campus.

The University of Arizona was Arizona's first comprehensive research university. This public university received nearly seven hundred million dollars in research funding from the United States National Science Foundation every year. Its astronomy, geology, geography, civil engineering, and other disciplines had been particularly strong since its founding. This was also one reason Sun Cheng suspected that the University of Arizona expedition from more than ninety years ago must have discovered something upon reaching Barringer Meteor Crater.

American college students clearly had vibrant nightlife. Although night had already fallen, groups of students could still be seen coming and going throughout the campus from time to time, forcing Sun Cheng—who did not want to expose himself and attract the attention of the National Guard stationed on nearby streets—to carefully avoid them.

After feeling his way around the campus for quite some time, he finally found the university library.

To his surprise, only an ordinary lock hung on the library's front doors. Naturally, that little thing could not stop him. He slightly transformed a finger and inserted it into the keyhole. The lock opened the next instant. After entering and closing the door behind him, Sun Cheng headed straight for the librarian's desk.

As the library of a world-renowned university, the University of Arizona library was quite large. It was said to house a total of 720,000 books and over thirty million e-books. Finding what he was looking for within such a vast sea of books would be rather difficult.

Two computers sat on the librarian's desk. Once switched on, Sun Cheng could have instantly infiltrated the campus intranet, but he did not do so. Instead, he directly accessed the library's e-book database and began searching for the information he needed.

He searched for more than half an hour. To his disappointment, Sun Cheng found only two names in the university history stored in the e-book database: Neville Octavian Brewster and Wallace Wilson Clement.

According to the University of Arizona's history, both men had been professors there. One had worked in geology, while the other had been responsible for geophysics and seismology.

The university history mentioned that the two had launched a research project in 1912, then both resigned the following year. Their whereabouts afterward were unknown.

No matter how Sun Cheng searched, he could not find any more information about either of them.

Still unwilling to give up, Sun Cheng thought for a moment. After using the computer to locate where the university history materials and the University of Arizona's geological survey records were stored, he shut it down. He first spent more than two hours manually searching through book after book in the room on the fourth floor where the university history was kept, but only discovered that Wallace Wilson Clement had a son named Benjamin Rodick Clement.

He then went to the shelves containing geological materials and began carefully flipping through the books one by one.

At last, his efforts paid off. In an autobiographical novel donated to the school by an alumnus, titled Interesting Earth, Sun Cheng found something that greatly interested him.

"...A classmate from Coconino County mentioned to me that there was an Indian holy site near Flagstaff. It was said to be a bottomless giant hole several kilometers wide. Superstitious Indians claimed it was where demons descended, and for thousands of years, they had not dared approach it. When I mentioned this while chatting with Professor Brewster, he showed great interest and told me it might be an unprecedented discovery. Yes, academically, we called it a meteor crater. If the Indian legends were true, then it was highly likely to be an unprecedented giant meteor crater, one not yet discovered in United States history..."

"In July 1912, Professor Brewster's application was approved. He received twelve hundred dollars in funding, enough for him to travel to Flagstaff during the break. He invited me along, but I wanted to buy a car and planned to work over the summer, so Professor Brewster was somewhat disappointed, though he said he understood..."

"After the semester began, Professor Brewster was nowhere to be seen. After asking around, I learned that he was still in Flagstaff. He had applied to the university for another two thousand dollars and had also brought Professor Clement into the expedition. That rigid professor was gone; perhaps that was good news..."

"Christmas was approaching when Professor Brewster wrote to tell me how delighted he was. A report that he and Professor Clement had submitted to the North American Geological Society had caused a huge sensation. Many people had come from Philadelphia, New York, and Washington. Together, they visited the discovery the professors had made in Flagstaff, especially the fascinating meteorite he kept mentioning. He said a gentleman named Vince Mihos Lawson from the Philadelphia Brotherhood had suggested applying to the United States government to have it transported away and hidden for research..."

"Professor Brewster decided to resign. He asked whether I wanted to join him in studying that meteorite, but my father hoped I would return home to inherit his fertilizer factory, so I refused him. This saddened him greatly. We continued corresponding over the following years, but it lasted only five or six years. The last time I asked where he was working, he told me Black Canyon. After that, I never received another reply from him..."

P.S.:

Due to plot requirements, some of the data concerning Arizona Meteor Crater has been altered.

This chapter makes up for yesterday's. My fever still hadn't gone down yesterday. After finishing a chapter, the medicine kicked in, so I went to bed.

Thanks to readers "Purple Night Black Demon" and "drtgrt" for their rewards.