Counterfactual Communication

Newman approached the pile of fragments, and with his tiny bone claws, picked up a fragment that shimmered with an unusual luster. "The ' Eternal Cataclysm Star Ring' —tsk tsk, the craftsmanship, the materials used, it's simply extravagant!" he exclaimed. "The density of the runes engraved on it is more than three times that of a typical magical weapon."

The battle yielded very few documents and little valuable information. However, from these scattered records, the true name of this magical weapon was still revealed.

"Old Newman," Su Ming slapped Newman on the shoulder, "I remember someone swearing before that this thing was the ' Ring of Winter '?"

"Your crappy camera couldn't capture the details of the runes at all!" Newman retorted, without a trace of embarrassment. "Being able to identify them to this extent under those conditions proves I have excellent eyesight!"

"Looks like I'll have to assign you to close-range reconnaissance next time." Su Ming picked up the little skeleton with one hand and shook it. "You're quite light; you'd be good as a substitute for a reconnaissance pod on a drone."

"... I'll be more careful next time," Newman immediately admitted defeat.

"A large portion of the technology used here is something I've never seen before, and I can't determine its origin," he continued, his tone turning serious. "Alchemy isn't my main profession, but ranking in the top ten in the world wouldn't be a problem."

"Don't listen to his bragging." Zijin's voice came through the communicator. Although she couldn't use Magic Power for the time being, she still listened intently to what was happening on the other end. "Little Button's skill level is so lousy, he'd only rank twentieth."

"Hey!" Newman retorted quickly, "Didn't I die for half a year and fall behind in my progress? You, a piece of trash who barely made it into the top 100, what right do you have to talk to me like that?"

Su Ming's teeth ached from listening. In this world, alchemy was the most mainstream technology, with a huge number of practitioners. Whether it was the top ten, the top twenty, or the top one hundred, they were all industry giants that ordinary people looked up to!

"Alright, alright," Su Ming interrupted their idle chatter. "In short, with your level of expertise, there shouldn't be anything you can't discern, right?"

"That's right!" Newman's tone became serious. "The origins of these technologies are extraordinary!"

"You are experts in alchemy," Su Ming instructed Zijin and Newman. "Please trace the possible origins. If we clash with this organization again, we cannot afford to be caught off guard again!"

The reason Su Ming chose to launch a surprise attack immediately yesterday was to prevent the Plundering Clock from assembling the core part of the "Eternal Cataclysm Star Ring". Otherwise, if this weapon were fully activated, no one could predict the consequences.

"Understood," Newman replied.

"Once my headache subsides," Zijin agreed. "I'll think about whether there's any suitable labor I can swindle—who are the top ten alchemists again?"

"..." Su Ming was speechless, but to be fair, Zijin's approach was indeed an efficient solution to the problem.

****

"By the way, has the function of the second ring been analyzed yet?" Su Ming asked.

"It's damage retribution." Newman replied, his soul fire flashing with excitement. "An incredibly powerful concept weapon! This is the first time I've ever seen a physical form of this scale!"

"No wonder the launch pad was detonated!" Su Ming suddenly realized.

"Luckily, I didn't attack her while she had the ring." Zijin was also a little scared after hearing this.

If the magic attack is initiated by the caster, the reflected damage from "Starlight" can be extremely deadly!

"Its principle should be to trace back the attacker, but it pinpointed the rocket launch platform, causing those unlaunched malfunctioning missiles to detonate," Newman analyzed, stroking his jaw. "This system isn't very effective against your technological side."

Upon careful consideration, Su Ming realized that this was indeed the case.

However, according to its counter-damage mechanism, although it can cause some damage to weapons on the Earth side, the most serious damage it can cause is to trigger a secondary explosion of the ammunition.

Unlike the alchemical weapons of the otherworld, the weapons on Earth can be remotely controlled from a distance, and the reflected damage won't harm the user. Lost weapons can simply be replaced; the production capacity of even a small branch factory is enough to overwhelm "Starlight," ensuring a plentiful supply.

Newman picked up a newly made magical detector, activated it, and emitted waves of detection. He summoned the skeleton bear and nimbly jumped onto its back.

"There are still some fragments I haven't collected yet; I'll go find them all."

"Go for it!" Su Ming waved and watched Newman run out of the work shed.

Su Ming thought of the destroyed drones. If they were still around, she could easily run a synthetic aperture ground scan. After all, SAR technology can penetrate ice and snow, making it incredibly convenient to find debris that has crashed there.

"Younier, have all the drone wreckage been recovered?" Su Ming asked, turning his head.

"All recovered, packed and stored in the warehouse," Younier immediately reported. "A significant amount of rocket debris has also been found; approximately 80% of the mass has been recovered from this portion."

"Thanks for your hard work."

****

Su Ming then conducted a comprehensive inspection of the Youth Civilization to determine the extent of the damage. The Penetrating Vision provided great convenience, allowing him to directly observe the damage inside the machinery without any disassembly.

The damage to the locomotive was more extensive than anticipated. Although the exterior appeared fine, many major bearings were worn, and one axle was even bent.

It's not broken, but it will reduce power efficiency. He's too lazy to assess exactly how much it will reduce efficiency; he'll just replace it anyway.

Then there's the damage from the rocket detonation. Three fighting cars were completely destroyed, and the damage affected four freight cars in total, all of which were carrying fuel.

At the time, many charcoal pieces were ignited by the explosion, and the unicorn's "Ring of Vacuum" extinguished the fire in its early stages.

Su Ming doesn't plan to restore the weapon systems of the combat vehicles, as he's basically run out of the better quality alchemical explosives. Although he'll receive some supplies from Dafulin, Su Ming has already arranged for new weapons for this purpose.

The inventory revealed that all seven carriages had damaged brake components, electrical wiring, and other systems. Some of these could be repaired, but with support from Earth, Su Ming only needed to use the faulty parts as materials to re-transfer them all, saving a lot of trouble!

After completing the information collection, Su Ming switched his view and found that Miao Xin was already sitting in a small, enclosed conference room.

Opposite them were Xiao Cheng, whom they had met before at Precision Machinery Heavy Industries, and Le Rongjia. Judging from the half-empty teacups on the table, they had clearly been waiting for quite some time.

Su Ming glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that the hands were pointing to two o'clock.

"Good afternoon!" Su Ming greeted.

"It's the middle of the night," Jin Rongjia replied, rubbing his eyes.

"... I think I've disturbed your schedule," Su Ming said.

"It's alright," Jin Rongjia waved his hand, "You can let it bother you."

While exchanging pleasantries, Su Ming typed rapidly and quickly provided a list of repair parts required.

"How did you manage to drive this Doomsday Locomotive like this?" Xiao Cheng exclaimed in shock, looking at the list. "Severely deformed cylinders? Fifteen drive bearings worn down? Brake pads burst?"

"We put on a death metal concert," Su Ming sighed, explaining. "The band and the audience were both a bit too enthusiastic."

"... That's certainly quite 'enthusiastic'," Xiao Cheng said. "Does the motorcycle's impact resistance need to be specially reinforced?"

Doomsday bumper cars – this is a completely new topic.

"No need," Su Ming shook his head. "The tunnel excavation project is about to begin, and resources should be prioritized for this."

"Okay." Xiao Cheng nodded, slightly disappointed.

"Will you be ready in twenty-six hours?" Su Ming asked.

"You underestimate us!" Xiao Cheng looked disdainful. He put away the list, got up, and quickly left.

****

Sangzi held the door open as it was about to close, brushed past Xiao Cheng, and walked in. She was wearing a neat white lab coat, and her hair was neatly tied back.

Su Ming and she nodded to each other.

"The matter we discussed last time needs to be addressed now," Su Ming stated directly, without mincing words. "I have a large amount of data and information that needs to be transmitted back to Earth for analysis. However, the current method of connection is far too inefficient."

Like today's list, he had already drafted it in the other world, but he could only retype it by controlling the Little Spiky Head to type it out on Earth.

Sangzi did not respond immediately, but simply watched Su Ming quietly, waiting for him to continue.

"But actually!" Su Ming picked up the stapler on the table.

"Summoning of All Things - Minimalist Style" was activated, and the stapler instantly turned into a pile of metal shavings, which flowed down from between the skull's fingers like fine sand, piling up in several matte heaps on the table.

"When I extracted the material order, the amount of information transmitted to the other world must have been extremely vast," Su Ming said. "Even this tiny stapler has approximately --"

"Around 10^24," Sangzi replied quickly.

"OK, then I'll transfer the information entropy--" Su Ming drawled out the last syllable.

"According to the Shannon paradigm, it's around the level of 10^27," Sangzi quickly added, understanding the situation.

"In short, it's extremely large, right!" Su Ming couldn't count that many zeros anyway. Twenty-four and twenty-seven seemed about the same.

"This order of magnitude is equivalent to..." Sangzi quickly did some mental calculations, "... the combined capacity of all the storage devices in the world, multiplied by a thousand. However, based on our analysis, what you actually extracted was information at the crystal structure level. Like the stapler from earlier, the actual amount of information was probably around 20Tb."

"That's roughly the capacity of five thousand high-definition movies." Su Ming finally had a clear idea of what that meant.

Sangzi actually wanted to correct her, saying that T bytes and T bits are different. But then she thought that with numbers of this magnitude, an eight-fold difference wouldn't make much difference.

"Uploading information to another world is extremely fast," Jin Rongjia said thoughtfully, "But your method of sending back information is very primitive, which definitely needs to be changed."

"The Jisu Group hopes to deconstruct my connection with Little Spiky Head to explore this issue. But this path is very risky, and I think the chances are slim," Su Ming said.

"We really have no foundation in this area," Sangzi frankly stated. "Every field we need to explore is completely unknown."

"Therefore, I suggest trying an existing path—counterfactual communication!" Su Ming raised his voice slightly, "Since information can be transmitted from Earth to another world, it means that this channel can be used to send information back to Earth!"

From a physics perspective, there is never an absolute boundary between the upward and downward flow of information!

Su Ming can currently only draw upon Earth's material order and transmit it to another world, but that doesn't mean he can't use this process to send information back to Earth.

This is physics!

Even from a magical perspective, it's hard to imagine the fundamental science of all things!

****

Sangzi was not surprised by Su Ming's proposal. They had already begun research in these areas, and counterfactual direct quantum communication was one of the candidate options.

In 2017, in the laboratory, information was transmitted without the sender sending any particles to the receiver, using the quantum Zeno effect.

"It's not that simple," Sangzi said. "That experiment actually utilized the phase of photons to transmit information. Although the 'photons' themselves weren't sent, the 'channel' was indeed established. Moreover, on a large scale, the means to establish such phase channels are still very scarce."

"But we've made a big breakthrough in traditional quantum teleportation, right?" Su Ming asked.

"Yes, the Mozi Experimental Satellite," Sangzi replied. "If you want more details, I'll get you the data right away; it's much more comprehensive than what's publicly available."

"No, I wouldn't understand it even if you gave it to me," Su Ming said. "This isn't my own line of thinking. The last time Si Ran talked to me before she died, she mentioned a research project she was working on: using quantum entanglement to change the way the 'channel' is established in counterfactual communication."

As Su Ming spoke, he held out his hand to Sangzi, "Give me two candies from your pocket."

Sangzi, who was deep in thought, paused for a moment, then took out a few White Rabbit milk candies from the pocket of her white coat and placed them on the table.

"You didn't eat breakfast so early?" she explained. "I brought something to prevent low blood sugar."

Su Ming picked up two of the candies and laid them out on the table. "Let's assume this is a pair of entangled photons, A and B."

Entangled photon pairs, a cornerstone of modern quantum technology, can be generated through various physical processes. Their most remarkable characteristic lies in their strong correlation in quantum states, a correlation that transcends the understanding of classical physics.

An action performed on one of them will simultaneously affect the other, regardless of the distance.

"Quantum entanglement itself cannot transmit information," Sangzi pointed out regretfully, a well-known fact in the field of quantum communication.

In quantum entangled systems, the measurement results are indistinguishable. It can even be understood that they are both here and there.

The entangled photons A and B are more like a single entity [AB], which remains a whole regardless of their distance, even at the ends of the universe.

This is what makes quantum mechanics so mysterious and fascinating; it's not a fictional story, but a phenomenon that happens around us every moment.

The universe is wondrous and profound. Immersed in this world, one cannot help but marvel at its timelessness and mystery, and feel a profound sadness in the face of its vast eternity.

--

(This section was added in the updated version and is free of charge. It is only for readers interested in "Counterfactual Communications".)

In 2017, the USTC experimental team achieved "counterfactual quantum communication": transmitting information without exchanging any physical particles (or energy carriers).

It relies on the quantum Zeno effect: when an unstable quantum system is repeatedly measured, its state is frozen into a stationary state and does not evolve into other states over time.

To use an imperfect analogy, if you're too impatient, the water won't boil. If you keep staring at the kettle (testing), the water won't boil (the state won't change).

The following is a non-scientific description, intended only to aid understanding:

Alice holds a mysterious light bulb.

Bob uses the light bulb to send a message to Alice, who is far away.

This mysterious light bulb goes out whenever Bob "looks at" it.

If Bob looks at the light bulb, Alice won't detect a photon and will know that Bob sent a "0"; if Bob does nothing, Alice will have a higher probability of detecting a photon and interpreting it as a "1".

During this process, no photons reached Bob's eyes from the light bulb, and Alice could not see Bob's movements, yet she still obtained information.

The light bulb (photon source) that Alice was probing had always been in Alice's local device, and no photons had ever passed through the space between Alice and Bob.

Bob causes the photon probability collapse process, which is achieved by a series of complex interferometric devices.

This is its "counterfactual" aspect—the interconnectedness of the quantum world exists independently of causality.

Connections can be achieved without actual particle interaction.