I Have a Mansion in the Post-apocalyptic World

The eerie blue light particles were suspended between the horn-shaped curved door frame. A boxy texture covered every inch of the doorpost and gave it the feeling of a unique artifact.

In this disk-shaped space buried two kilometers underground, Jiang Chen, Golovin I, and Lilith who followed behind them, were escorted by the two soldiers of the Celestial Trade and Golovin as they headed to the platform where the portal was placed.

“For billions of years, has it been left open like this?” Jiang Chen asked while he stared into the deep vortex between the door frames.

At this moment, he was wearing the heavy N-100 power armor.

“No. When we first came here, there were only two posts here,” Gorovin I shook his head. “It’s just because the selected person is standing here, the ‘door’ leading to the center of planet opened.”

“Really? What kind of principle is this based on?” Jiang Chen said with a smile, “If something happens to that person, isn’t the secret of Gaia civilization only left to the gods.”

“On this point, maybe even the gods don’t know. I guess only Gaia can answer you,” Golovin I answered, without emotional fluctuation in his tone, as he walked towards the door.

“Wait a moment.”

Jiang Chen stopped him.

“Is there anything else?” Golovin I turned his head and looked at Jiang Chen.

“Before going down, shouldn’t we throw down a detector?” Jiang Chen asked.

Golovin I thought for a moment, then nodded.

“That makes sense.”

Jiang Chen gave him a meaningful look.

Perhaps it was his illusion, but his attitude was clearly telling him that they already know what would happen next.

The spherical detector was transported down from above. The small detector was widely used to search for Devil Worms’ nests. It could easily pass through the narrow underground cracks, detect the surrounding life signals, record the ambient temperature conditions…

The most important feature was that the information it collected could be compiled into Klein particle waves, which could theoretically be received on the surface through thousands or even tens of thousands of kilometers of rock formations.

Jiang Chen took the small ball from the soldier’s hand, weighed it, then threw it into the portal.

A strange scene happened.

The moment that small metal ball touched the eerie blue surface, it was like a stone thrown into the lake, swallowed by the azure blue water, and disappeared from this space. The soldiers who stood behind Jiang Chen all showed a look of surprise in their pupils that were hidden behind the tactical eyepieces.

The expressions on the Golovin soldiers wearing carbon nano-combat uniforms and laser rifles in their hands were no different from their leader Golovin I. Under the shroud of Golovin Mental System, their knowledge and thoughts were shared with each other.

“It’s magical, isn’t it?” Jiang Chen said after he readjusted from the sudden shock and laughed.

“You will see more magical things below,” Golovin I said without any expression on his face.

The situation on the opposite side of the portal was quickly reported back from the spherical detector.

After they confirmed that the situation below was normal, Jiang Chen invited Golovin I with a hand gesture, then followed behind with Lilith to the portal.

The portal was the same principle as the neutrino tunnel.

At the moment Jiang Chen passed through the portal, he felt the same sense of time and space dislocation similar to the feeling of using the inter-dimensional bracelet.

As he tapped on his watch and read the string of data that emerged on the holographic interface, after he confirmed that the area was safe, Jiang Chen finally began to examine his surrounding.

It was a spherical space with a longitudinal area about the size of two or three football fields. The surrounding walls were wrapped by unknown metals. It was hard to imagine the resistance of these metals against pressure and high temperature.

A series of tubular tunnels extended from the surrounding to the center of this spherical space. Some of the tunnels were transparent, some looked like load-bearing structures that connected the wall with the metal spherical shell in the center.

As for the location where Jiang Chen and others were now, it was probably in one of the tunnels, near the edge of the spherical space.

Just like what he suspected, the temperature here was not high as the theoretical estimate of thousands of degrees, at least not in the space built by the Gaia civilization. There was no life signal around, so it was likely that the place had been abandoned for many years.

It was surprising that this place survived the baptism of time.

Jiang Chen looked to Lilith behind him, then back at Golovin I.

“Have you been here before?”

“No, I just read it from old files. It’s a pity that it’s not us who received this place.” Golovin I shook his head.

The “us” here probably referred to the CCCP. Before the space colonization ship Svetovid took off, CCCP, PAC, and NATO all explored and excavated the relics of Gaia civilization, to the point where in the decade before the war, several local conflicts erupted here on the surface of Mars for this reason… Jiang Chen heard Lin Lin mention this information before.

“There is the planetary furnace. Atoms are disassembled into the quarks, then fired to the center of the furnace through a particle accelerator. The disassembled particles are stacked layer by layer and then compressed through the pressure of the entire planet… This is the so-called planetary forging technology.”

“It sounds simple,” Jiang Chen said with a smile.

Disassemble atoms into quarks, and then use the internal pressure of the planet’s core itself to compress the disassembled particles into the range of strong interaction forces. Just like building a house, stacked in circles, it was the basis of strong interaction materials.

It was only possible to find a small amount of naturally occurring materials with strong interaction forces in the depths of the planet’s core, billions of years old.

Theoretically, there was no stronger object in nature.

“But it is quite difficult to achieve. Before the particle spacing reaches the range of the strong interaction force, it will receive exponentially increasing repulsion as the spacing decreases. You can imagine connecting broken magnets through the original point of fracture.”

“…I see, it seems that I oversimplified this.” Jiang Chen laughed.

“The production of strong interaction material is roughly equivalent to crushing magnets into the size of rice grains, then turning the magnets into the size of a building. In fact, it is this technology that ended the Gaia civilization.” Golovin I turned around and looked at Jiang Chen, “Let’s not talk about it, give it to me, and as agreed, we will help you solve your problem.”

“What should I do?”

“There is only one thing to take away,” Golovin I’s finger pointed to the front of the pipe.

At the deepest point, was the metal sphere connected by metal pipes.

If the entire spherical space was a “factory”, then that was probably the “furnace”.

“I can’t put the connected things into the sub-dimension,” Jiang Chen said.

“Then separate it from the particle accelerator.”

As Golovin I spoke, he walked forward.

He stopped at the end of the pipe, extended his right hand, and imprinted it on the metal sphere with the circular dent.

The light blue light particles followed his palm and spread towards the metal spherical shell.

A look of surprise appeared on Jiang Chen’s face.

Before he realized what was going on, he heard a “sssss” like leak. The pipes connected to the spherical “furnace” were like the antennas on an old radio and started to shrink layer by layer.

Because it was located in the very center of Mars, the entire furnace floated in mid-air as if there was no gravity.

Golovin I read the surprise in Jiang Chen’s eyes and explained.

“There is no language in Gaia civilization, and it can’t even make sounds. They rely on telepathic communication. And in this regard, we happen to be experts.”

After a pause, he continued.

“Now, it’s your turn.”