Chapter 1 Lakhrein Core

Engineering drones had already scanned this cooled planetary heart from head to toe, constructing countless research facilities and engineering components on its shell. The towering structures and connecting pipelines juxtaposed with the star core gave Hao Ren the feeling he was witnessing a major surgery.

It was as if they were operating on the planet's core…

"Actually, it's pretty much like surgery," Nolan said with a smile after hearing Hao Ren's association. "The Heart of God is located deep within the core, surrounded by layers of normal metal and rock. To extract it, you really have to cut it open. Initially, the Heart of God should have been immersed in molten magma, but as the planet was split in two, the core cooled rapidly, and the Heart of God was sealed by the gradually solidifying magma."

Hao Ren raised his eyebrows. "But its informational influence remains unaffected."

Nolan spread her hands. "Its working mechanism is based on the rules of the universe. Mere physical effects are nothing to it."

As she spoke, she had already ordered the engineering machines to begin cutting through the layer of solidified but still scorching rock on the star core's surface.

Dozens of engineering drones flew above the cutting point, and the connecting pipelines and support frames at the corresponding positions below folded and retreated in all directions. After a moment, dazzling cutting beams burst out from the front of the engineering drones, drawing bright, molten traces on the skin of the core.

Subsequent engineering machines immediately followed up, activating tractor beams to drag the peeled-off rock shell and molten material aside.

Lily lay on the railing, watching the scene presented in the holographic projection, her tail wagging vigorously behind her. "Oh, oh—I remembered the scene when we were digging out the First Born in Holletta! But those Aerym engineering ships made even more noise when they drilled holes in the ground!"

"We're doing high-precision work here. How can digging out super-ancient technology crystals be the same as digging out the thick-skinned First Born?" Hao Ren glanced at Lily, his gaze involuntarily falling on her wagging tail. He casually tugged at the tip of her tail. "Are you going stir-crazy from not being allowed to transform on the surface? Your tail has been wagging for two hours straight—aren't you tired?"

"Wah!" Lily exclaimed, almost jumping up, turning her head to glare at Hao Ren with puffed cheeks. "Master Landlord, you scared me! I've told you so many times, say hello before grabbing my tail—scaring people like that can give my tail cramps!"

Vivian also rolled her eyes at Hao Ren. "You're always teasing the big dog. Aren't you afraid she'll bite you?"

Hao Ren chuckled sheepishly and turned to look at the gradually excavated protective layer of the Heart of God. "Do you think… that thing is really the 'vaccine' we're looking for? I'm suddenly feeling a bit nervous now that we've reached this point…"

"Actually, I'm a little nervous too," Leah, who was sitting next to them in a daze (actually doing homework), suddenly turned around and said. "The situation in this world is completely different from what we initially thought. The Lord of Madness wasn't weakened by something, but the local Ancestral Civilization forcibly extended the universe's life through technological means. Although the result is the same—'suppressing the destructive power of the Lord of Madness'—I'm not sure if the Heart of God will therefore have the effect of a vaccine."

As she spoke, the excavation beams of the engineering machine group had gradually reduced in intensity and finally shut down completely. After the traction equipment dragged away the scattered excavation debris, a roughly rhombus-shaped gap, two kilometers wide and irregularly edged, had appeared on the core.

At the bottom of the gap, a piece of silvery-white material shimmered with a faint halo.

Hao Ren and his party boarded a small shuttle and left the Tortoise Rock Platform, soon arriving at the bottom of the excavation pit, which was still filled with astonishing heat.

Thanks to the advanced cutting beams and continuous gravitational traction, the bottom of the excavation pit had been cleaned exceptionally thoroughly, without leaving a large amount of residue to be cleaned up like ordinary engineering operations. As soon as Hao Ren and his party left the shuttle, they realized that this layer of silvery-white material was actually a layer of alloy shell.

Its texture was somewhat similar to titanium alloy, but the data displayed by various instruments showed that its strength was even comparable to the core of the Creation Engine.

A large number of straight lines could be seen on the alloy shell, like the circuits of a circuit board, covering the entire "ground." And between those lines, silvery-white light was constantly changing in brightness.

That change in brightness perfectly matched the "heartbeat" that Nolan had detected.

"I can still hear the 'heartbeat'," Nolan's figure appeared on the holographic projection of the data terminal. She was still using various devices to listen to the data transmitted from the Heart of God. "The heartbeat is very stable. The Heart of God is in a very calm state right now."

Hao Ren casually asked, "Are you still maintaining communication with it?"

"Yes, our data connection has never been interrupted," Nolan replied. "I've already inputted the decoding-transfer language from the Cornerstone into the ship's special language library. Now I can have direct dialogue with the Heart of God. However, it doesn't have very high intelligence. As a device for restarting the universe, it has allocated most of its computing power to the world-reshaping module, and its thinking ability is only equivalent to the most basic AI."

Hao Ren wasn't surprised by this. "Well… after all, it doesn't need to think about too complicated things, and if you give it too high intelligence… who knows what will happen after countless annihilations and reincarnations."

Vivian looked down at the alloy "ground" she was standing on. Although the gravity around the core was extremely weak, she felt about the same gravity as on Earth after coming into contact with the surface of the Heart of God, allowing her to stand firmly.

"There seems to be something on this surface," Lily squatted down and scratched the ground with her claws. She found that her fingers didn't directly touch the metal. There was another layer on the metal surface, like an energy barrier, blocking her. "Is it some kind of shield?"

"That's right, it's a protective layer," Hao Ren said, opening his personal space and taking out the Staff of Authority. "The database in the Cornerstone only provides information-level access, which can only open the Heart of God at the data level. But the Heart of God itself still has physical locks, which is this protective layer. I had Nolan open a hole here because the 'interface' for unlocking the physical lock is near here."

He heavily slammed the Staff of Authority onto the surface of the Heart of God.

At the moment of contact, layers of light patterns rippled out from the point of contact. These lights spread out in all directions like ripples on the water's surface. At the same time, Hao Ren felt continuous tremors coming from under his feet.

He lifted the staff and struck the surface of the Heart of God again. The constantly spreading halos turned into continuous auras, and the tremors on the alloy ground became even more pronounced.

"Is this thing really used like this?" Lily whispered to Vivian. "The Master Landlord won't break it, will he?"

"Give me a break, do you think everyone is as clumsy as you?" Vivian appropriately expressed her disdain. "You can even pull the door down when you get home. I don't think there's anything you can't break."

While the two were whispering, Hao Ren had stopped his actions.

Nolan's voice came from the side. "Boss, the Heart of God is about to release its shield!"

"Have all the engineering machines retreat," Hao Ren glanced at the core fragments collapsing in the distance due to the tremors, and turned to call Vivian and the others while picking up the Staff of Authority. "Everyone, step back a bit with me! The Heart of God is about to open its shell!"

The engineering machines had been prepared for a long time. They retreated as soon as the Heart of God showed obvious signs of movement. By the time Hao Ren and the others had used spatial teleportation to reach a "safe point" several kilometers away from the core, the outer shell of the Heart of God had finally opened completely.

Countless cracks appeared in the black and red, scorching core, and a small amount of still-molten magma spewed out from the cracks, throwing a large number of fragments in all directions. Then, the outer shell of the core expanded rapidly as if it couldn't withstand the internal pressure. After an extremely dull thud, the layer of cooled and solidified "protective shell" finally fell apart.

But that layer of cooled core protection wasn't what Hao Ren was concerned about. It was nothing to the legendary excavation expert Sun King, who had dug up two First Born from Holletta—at most, it would just take a little longer to dig. What really mattered was… the barrier that came with the Heart of God had finally been lifted.

It was completely presented before everyone's eyes, and in a controllable state.

It was a huge, silvery-white spherical structure, but it wasn't as "smooth" as Hao Ren had imagined—he had been misled by the layer of alloy surface he had seen earlier. But in fact, what he had seen at the time was just a platform on the outer layer of the Heart of God.

On the surface of the sphere, which was about five kilometers in diameter, were countless hexagonal platforms of varying sizes and heights, as well as various turbine-like and tube-like strange structures. Some of them looked like data interfaces magnified countless times, while others looked like frameworks for connecting to some larger-scale structures. There were also a large number of things that looked like crystal clusters growing between the hexagonal platforms and pipe structures, which looked beautiful but also bizarre.

Lily muttered, "This thing looks like it was connected to something else…"

"Indeed, the Heart of God didn't exist in isolation when it was first born, but was installed on various platforms," Nolan's holographic projection appeared above the data terminal. "Initially, a planetary warship served as its 'throne.' That planet warship was called 'Mokrah,' but Mokrah was destroyed after several eras. After that, the Heart of God was installed on various different things by people of subsequent eras—space fortresses, large starships, and even placed on the surface of planets. It sank into the core only in recent eras. At that time, the Lakhrein Civilization no longer had the ability to operate or read the Heart of God, and didn't even know the function of the Heart of God. The Heart of God only activated its alternative plan and searched for a 'safe haven' on its own when it couldn't receive external instructions at all."

Hao Ren didn't speak. He just held the Staff of Authority tightly in his hand, gazing at the "mini-planet" shining brightly in the core fragment ring.

At this moment, a massive amount of data and information was pouring into his mind—through the Staff of Authority.

Vivian finally noticed Hao Ren's long silence and daze and asked with concern, "Hao Ren? Hao Ren? What's wrong?"

After calling him several times, Hao Ren finally woke up and quickly waved his hand. "It's nothing, it's nothing. The Heart of God just sent me a manual through the Staff of Authority…"

The others were puzzled. "A manual?"

Hao Ren revealed a bright smile and turned to look at Leah. "Haven't we been racking our brains over the lack of a high-performance core for the Creation Engine? Now we have it!"