Above The Sky
Chapter 283 - 283 269 Central Control Room 910

283: Chapter 269 Central Control Room (9/10) 283: Chapter 269 Central Control Room (9/10) It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

Previously, Ian had learned from the murals that the ancestors of the Redwood Natives used many methods to ensure their descendants remembered the knowledge they needed.

The most stable and effective learning machines were abandoned due to difficult maintenance and excessive energy consumption.

Ultimately, this laboratory with an extraterrestrial heterogeneous ecosystem chose to use a biological plugin to carry those essential memories, while also modifying themselves, imprinting part of the most critical knowledge and thought patterns into their offspring’s DNA.

Ian knew that the Terra People were a stable species with extremely stable DNA that seldom experienced abnormal mutations due to reproduction.

The advantage was that even in various extreme conditions, they could remain stable without mutations; the downside… paired with the Terra People’s bio-alchemy, there were no downsides.

But if there were no bio-alchemy, at worst, it would lead to mutations and difficulty in adapting to some extremely unusual special environments.

However, the Terra People were inherently adaptable to all environments, so this downside was virtually nonexistent.

Similarly, if knowledge was encoded into the Terra Technology’s biological plugins or even in their own bodies, it surely would be a more stable method of inheritance than anything else.

However…

All technology works without issues only under the premise that humans don’t cause problems.

One generation’s Redwood Great Elder had different thoughts.

He wanted immortality.

“Is it about modifying auxiliary cognitive organs to overlay his own memories over those who have installed such cognitive devices?”

At first, Ian considered this possibility.

Very likely.

Of course, as the Great Elder who inherited the technology of the previous era, he would be very clear about the differences between remnant echoes, Echo, and Mirror, compared to the Great Shaman whose abilities had degraded innumerable times.

A mere overlay of memories, a remnant echo, is certainly not true immortality.

Even parasites modified with neural networks and cognitive algorithms were just echoes.

They were still far from the true immortality offered by the Mirror method.

But the problem was…

“This world has Spirit Energy ah—If the guess about this auxiliary memory plugin is true, its rapid linking and knowledge transfer are probably also a kind of cognitive sharing through Spirit Energy.”

Crushing the brain of the Brain-Eating Parasite in his hand and closely observing the residual traces of Spirit Energy, Ian didn’t feel disgusted but was rather full of interest, “Could it be that the Great Elder merged himself into the Spirit Energy Network of the Brain-Eating Parasites, and by continually updating the hosts of the Brain-Eating Parasites, he could ensure his thoughts would always be passed on?”

“And is it that Master Gossay showed abnormalities previously because he had encountered knowledge stored in the Brain-Eating Parasite’s Spirit Energy Network or a part of the Great Elder’s memory?”

Considering these possibilities, Ian began to understand why the Redwood Natives left the Redwood Base all those years ago.

A Great Elder in possession of almost all the keys, in pursuit of immortality, turned his fellow tribesmen into flesh and blood tools for copying his own consciousness, leading to a rebellion among the Redwood People—their battles caused considerable damage to ecological tools, and various Magical Beasts and creatures that were within the ecosystem left it, deteriorating the originally stable base situation.

—Although the specific time is unknown, if the Frost Crystal Dragon and Parasitic Frost Butterfly of the Fourth Energy Level could fight in a cooling store, the chaos back then must have been dozens of times more intense than now.

The Great Elder definitely failed, which could be inferred from the fact that all Four Keys were preserved by the Natives.

But due to the destruction of the ecosystem, they still had to leave the ‘Holy Ground’.

“That Great Elder might not have died completely—Just like the Great Shaman, the Crocodragon’s death could have been a method of escape for him, and it’s possible that there are contingencies he left within the Redwood Natives.”

“Of course, with the Crocodragon dead, even if the Great Shaman were truly alive, it would be meaningless, and he definitely didn’t have that high level of technology, at most just a backup of a memory.”

After washing his hands in the river, Ian stood up and looked around, pondering, “As for the Redwood People of that time, they probably wanted to destroy all the Brain-Eating Parasites.

But obviously, they didn’t manage to do it and had to evacuate the base in a hurry—looking at the current situation, the Brain-Eating Parasites are alive and well, just a bit dazed and confused.”

Combining various pieces of information, Ian felt a bit emotional as he formed a rough guess about what happened back then in the Redwood Base, “It’s also lucky that Inega II resisted the temptation back then.”

“As one of the strongest Spirit Energy Users of that era, transferring his own soul must have been effortless, right?

After obtaining the Echo technology, he could freely transform anyone who met the requirements into a Mirror.”

“Remember, given the popularity and prestige of Inega II at the time…

even if he wished for immortality, there would probably be young people worshipping him, eager to offer their bodies to become the new vessel for him to walk the world.”

“Just like my family at the time, the first thought upon acquiring such a secret method was to grant him eternal life.”

—Perhaps, it was this near divine worship that led Inega II to ultimately reject the Method of Immortality.

Because he understood how tempting immortality was, Ian could appreciate what Inega II of that time turned down in terms of benefits and the future.

After waiting a while longer, Ian realized it would take some time for Shasha and Andor to wake up, so he used Foresight View to observe their futures.

After making sure there were no major issues, he proceeded to explore the surroundings.

The gargantuan eel was gone, and Patrick hadn’t caught up; it was likely that the eel started fighting with him after losing its target.

Yisen Gard was now with Master Gossay…

Ian didn’t know if Yisen Gard, after hearing his hint, had prepared any means to counter Patrick, but with Master Gossay there, there should be no problem.

Following the gently flowing underground river, Ian observed the man-made and natural tributaries stretching in all directions.

One downside of Foresight View is that in the absence of danger, even with mediums like the frost butterflies, it’s not possible to tell which direction is the one he wants to go…

Indeed, danger is distinguishable, but whether it’s dangerous or not doesn’t necessarily align with Ian’s needs.

At this moment, he could only randomly pick a path and take a gamble.

Ian chose an upward river path because he heard faint sounds of movement from the other end of the river, not the sound of water, nor the sound of magical beasts, but something regular, resembling the noise of mechanical operations, piquing the youth’s curiosity.

It didn’t take long for him to see the source of the sound.

There was a person.

Thump, thump, thump.

In the semi-natural cave that had been repaired, there was supposed to be a maintenance staff rest station built by the civilization of the previous era.

The remnants of a decaying riverside maintenance hut could be seen, and right in front was a sealed metal door.

This metal door didn’t have the corrosion-resistant inscriptions that protected the rooms near the sacrificial ground, and it was almost entirely rusty by now, but it was still sturdy.

Thump, thump, thump.

A naked figure, looking very similar to the mutants seen before, was pounding forcefully against the door.

Ian gripped his longsword tightly, expecting that the mutant would turn and attack him the next moment, but the figure completely ignored his presence and continued pounding on the metal door, which had already dented inwards significantly, with a very regular rhythm.

Thump, thump, thump.

He kept on pounding, muttering some incoherent words to himself.

“Must return to the Central Control Room, must return to the Central Control Room, must return to the Central Control Room, must return to the Central Control Room…”

There were many skeletons in front of the metal door, some human, some wild beasts, and some magical beasts.

Most of the skeletons had turned to white bone, but some were still decaying.

Picking up a long bone, which appeared to be the spinal bone of some beast, it had completely ossified.

Instead of a spine, it was more like a stick.

Similar mutations had occurred everywhere, every corpse had been parasitized.

Thump, thump, thump.

When Ian approached the mutant from behind, he was still continuously knocking.

The youth narrowed his eyes, a silver-blue halo flickered, and it seemed he discovered something,

Snap, he swung his sword, shattering the mutant’s head, but it was empty inside.

Only a segment of a growing pink tapeworm was wriggling.

The movement still didn’t stop, the pounding continued.

“The head is hollowed out by eating, and yet it continues to knock on the door?”

He said lightly, and with another swing of his sword, Ian shattered the mutant’s body completely.

His stomach was ripped open by his own spinal bone, and together with the spilling innards, came densely packed masses of red and blue eggs and tadpole-shaped larvae.

These worms were feasting on the flesh and blood, growing themselves, and merging with each other, connecting their own nerve structures together, reshaping all the sensory structures within the host’s body.

And yet, even in such a state, the humanoid’s muscles were still dragging what was left of this broken body towards the door.

“Must return to the Central Control Room…

protect the first ecological laboratory…

cannot…

cannot let the Great Elder succeed…”

A still-intact mouth and throat squeezed out mangled voices that humans could no longer understand, only the youth with the silver chip could decipher and comprehend.

These words brought him a brand-new puzzle.

“Not let the Great Elder succeed?”

He murmured to himself somewhat puzzledly, then looked down at the parasitic mutant beneath his sword, “Strange, according to the clues, shouldn’t the parasite’s puppeteer be the Great Elder?”

“What’s going on here?”