Chapter 55

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Chapter 55: Observation of the Discontinuity Point

Mo Chuan, Ti Ran, and several experts sat in the ground control room of the time travel center, silently focused on the real-time status reports coming from the time capsule that had just departed today.

They had already seen the black fog from two thousand years ago. Ti Ran sighed softly, "Indeed, the key nodes of the cycle are not so easily observable. This should be related to our dimensional limitations; it’s hard for us to see the operations of higher dimensions."

Mo Chuan, her expression serious as she looked at the display screen, did not respond to Ti Ran. She had always harbored a hint of skepticism toward the so-called cycle of civilization. Even after viewing the footage of strange beasts and potential higher civilizations sent back from ten thousand and twenty thousand years ago, she leaned more towards the idea that the rise and fall of civilizations were due to objective factors such as planetary environments or galactic changes. However, witnessing the unobservable scene today forced her to believe that some higher external force indeed intervened in this world.

At that moment, another cosmologist next to her quietly began discussing with Ti Ran the specific time point when their own world’s cycle began. Mo Chuan gently tapped Ti Ran’s shoulder and pointed at the screen, "Let’s not rush to calculate the specific time yet. Let’s see how they are at the second discontinuity point."

The screen then showed that Luo Yu and her team’s time capsule had reached the exit of the time channel at the second discontinuity point. Just as they were about to leave the channel, the time capsule’s coordinates vanished, losing contact with the ground control room.

Mo Chuan frowned and quickly grabbed the nearby communication device to inquire with the full orbital monitoring station, only to receive the same reply—not able to receive any signals from Luo Yu’s time capsule; it was temporarily out of contact, and they were continuing to send out communication signals.

The staff in the control room exchanged worried glances and fell silent. Ti Ran remained calm as usual, "Perhaps they encountered magnetic field shielding. Let’s wait a moment."

Mo Chuan said nothing further. They all stared at the screen quietly. After approximately fifteen minutes, the screen displayed the time capsule’s position again, indicating that Luo Yu and her team had returned to the time channel and were now in the process of returning home.

Mo Chuan again picked up the communication device and initiated a call request to the time capsule via the full orbital monitoring station. After a while, Luo Yu’s voice came through the communicator: "We are returning. We expect to arrive at the extraterritorial orbit in one hour."

"What did you see just now?" Mo Chuan asked.

“We…,” Luo Yu’s calm voice carried a slight tremor, “We witnessed an ascension.”

This had actually been part of Ti Ran’s prior speculation, so she asked from the side: “Is everything normal with the time capsule? You lost contact with us for fifteen minutes; were you affected by the dimensional transition?”

Zhu Huai’s voice then came through the communicator, “Everything here is functioning properly. Fifteen minutes? No, we only saw a momentary scene of ascension before being pulled back into the time channel. We just adjusted our angle to prepare for return. The time from leaving the channel to returning was no more than ten seconds; the signal just briefly showed a disruption but is fine now.”

The people in the control room exchanged glances again; it seemed they had indeed experienced the effects of the ascension phenomenon, resulting in a time difference of a hundredfold with the ground during that moment. Mo Chuan said solemnly, “All right, come back first and we’ll talk later.”

After confirming, the screen displayed footage automatically returned from the time capsule. In contrast to the previous black fog, the current image was a delicate golden light, and nothing else was visible; it appeared that the ascension could not be recorded by the equipment either.

At this time, the full orbital monitoring station continuously updated the real-time trajectory of Luo Yu and her team’s time capsule, showing that the return was proceeding normally. Only then did everyone breathe a slight sigh of relief and request the serving robots to bring some drinks and snacks as they prepared to stay in the control room until the team returned.

While waiting, Mo Chuan and the others watched the latest footage that the exploration team had sent back from twenty-three thousand years ago.

Similar to the previous observation of civilization from a millennium ago, this time period was still in the era of agriculture and nomadism, showing no signs of technological advancement. Additionally, resembling the footage from a millennium ago, images of strange beasts that did not exist in their world appeared, with these animals belonging to similar species from the past millennium.

As they received this footage, the exploration team was already heading to the last observation point, expected to complete the observation of the twenty-seven thousand years ago era tonight and head back home, aiming to land by tomorrow morning if all went smoothly.

After watching the latest footage, Ti Ran tapped a few buttons on her panel, sending the records from the exploration team along with the almost completely unillustrated records from Luo Yu’s team to concerned personnel regarding this matter, including Ji Shu, who was recently working on cross-temporal genetic research.

Not long after Ti Ran sent out the footage, she received a reply from Ji Shu. She mentioned that she had some new developments in her research and invited them to visit her genetic medical office the following afternoon.

Mo Chuan, observing from the side, recalled their previous discussions regarding cross-temporal genetic differences during their time at Qingqiu Mountain, and nodded, saying, “After all these days, we finally received some progress from her. Let’s go together tomorrow.” She then raised her hand to send a message to Ao Ci, “The teacher should also be going tomorrow, let me confirm.”

After finalizing their plans with the relevant personnel about visiting Ji Shu the next day, a while later, the full orbital monitoring station sent news that Luo Yu and the others’ time capsule had joined the extraterritorial orbit and would enter the atmosphere after circling around, expected to land in about fifteen minutes.

Seeing the data indicating that the time capsule’s status was normal, they stayed in the control room for a bit longer. They then observed the screen displaying the time capsule’s altitude slowly descending until it came to a steady stop at the landing pad of the time travel center. They all got up together to welcome them back.

As the group reached the landing pad, the equipment there was still performing cosmic radiation mitigation on the outer shell of the time capsule. After a few minutes, the treatment was completed, and everyone approached the hatch. They waited briefly before the hatch slowly opened, and Zhu Huai was the first to step out, smiling and waving at the crowd, “This round trip didn’t take long at all; it’s already dark!”

Their temporary mission had taken place in outer space, so reaching the historical time period did not require any near-Earth trajectory adjustments to enter the atmosphere. Plus, the appearance of the spaceship was incredibly suited for long-distance travel in space. Its power was sufficient, and it moved much quicker through the time channel than the Shan Hai Jing. That was how they were able to conduct remote observations of two discontinuity points and swiftly return to the ground within six hours.

One by one, the five members of the team exited the time capsule. Mo Chuan noticed their complex expressions, knowing it had to do with what they had seen regarding the ascension at the second discontinuity point. However, she did not rush to question them and instead let them go to the prepared room to change and rest.

The substitute pilot and engineer sent out by the time travel center had their wristbands flashing constantly since exiting the capsule, giving continuous overwork alerts. The group did not discuss it further and followed the guiding robot to the relaxation chamber to rest.

In truth, Mo Chuan and the others who remained in the control room had also exceeded their working hours, but they had rotated in and out of the relaxation chamber for rest, which prevented triggering continuous work overtimes.

Luo Yu half-laid, half-sat in the relaxation chamber, feeling the pulsing waves relaxing her muscles.

She closed her eyes, continually replaying the scene she had witnessed a short while ago at the second discontinuity point. The entire planet had emerged before her as if it were a soul leaving the body, revealing countless layers, then being pulled by a massive light source into a dimension beyond her comprehension. The whole image was overwhelming, and she even struggled to find the words to describe it.

The other five companions seemed to know something intuitively. Faced with this indescribable scene, they all unwittingly arrived at the same conclusion: this was the ascension. They did not understand why they knew this, but the instant they experienced that moment, they immediately recognized that this was indeed the ascension.

The endpoint of the cycle was the ascension.

But it was not entirely just the ascension. At least, the first discontinuity point they could not observe was definitely not the ascension. The pitch-blackness enveloping the time capsule outside carried a chaotic aura, as if something were being initialized or adjusted.

Thinking of this, she suddenly opened her eyes, a thought sparking in her mind: the endpoint of the cycle was either the ascension or a reset.

This was a preliminary hypothesis. She still could not determine whether other outcomes led to the endpoint of the cycle beyond these two conditions, and the known conditions for each were still unclear.

The more she thought, the more confused she became. She frowned and closed her eyes again, preparing to lie down for a bit, but then her stomach began to growl. At that moment, the relaxation chamber’s massage stopped, and she heard a gentle prompt: "The relaxation treatment has ended. Please rise for your meal."

As Luo Yu exited the relaxation chamber, she saw Zhu Huai and Ying Zhao just coming out from the side. Following the guiding robot, they arrived at the adjacent lounge where the meals they had ordered were all prepared. By this time, the three of them were utterly famished and sat down to devour a hearty meal.

The pilot and engineer who had traveled with them had come out earlier from the relaxation chamber, already eaten, submitted the materials for this mission, and returned home.

After finishing their meal, the three heard the lounge door open and turned to see Mo Chuan and the others entering together, smiling and asking how their rest had been.

Luo Yu replied cheerfully, “We rested well. Actually, this temporary mission was much less intense than our previous work.”

After a brief chat in the lounge, they shifted the conversation to today’s observations about the two discontinuity points. Luo Yu and her companions exchanged glances, making an effort to describe the scenes they had witnessed.

At that moment, Mo Chuan directed the guiding robot to bring over a small cart with several helmets. “This is the memory extractor. The other two have just used it, and I thought we could extract some more to see if we can recreate what you saw at that moment.”

They had undergone a memory extraction after their emergency landing, so they did not resist. The three of them reached out to take the helmets handed over by the assistant robot and put them on.

The extraction process was quick. A few minutes later, they heard Mo Chuan’s prompt to remove the helmets. She informed them that the extraction was complete and that she would integrate these images before heading to Ji Shu’s place tomorrow.

Mentioning Ji Shu’s invitation for the next day, Mo Chuan called them, “You all should rest well tomorrow morning. We will go together in the afternoon.”

Zhu Huai and Ying Zhao had no concerns, but they wondered about Luo Yu’s condition, especially since she still needed to find time for the return simulation, fearing she might lack energy.

However, the genuine long-distance time-space travel experience from today had given Luo Yu increased confidence in the upcoming return. Although the driving logic of the time capsule here differed from that of the Shan Hai Jing, the conditions within the long-duration time channel were largely similar, so she only needed to set aside time for one return simulation. Thus, she nodded affirmatively, “All right, no problem. We will go together tomorrow.”

Once they finished discussing, seeing that it was getting late, they did not linger any longer and exited the time travel center, each taking their aircraft back home.

The next morning, the three of them completely relaxed for half the day. They did not rush to the simulator early but slept until they were truly hungry before coming out from their respective rooms.

After finishing breakfast in the lounge, they spent some time in the upstairs courtyard discussing the events from the discontinuity points yesterday and each other’s guesses regarding the endpoints of the cycle.

Both Ying Zhao and Luo Yu inclined to believe that the chaotic blackness at the first discontinuity point indicated some kind of initialization setup. The three of them talked about this conjecture for quite a while until the in-house housekeeping system prompted them that it was time to depart. They then got up, left the cave villa, and walked to the helipad behind the cliff house to board the aircraft heading toward Ji Shu’s genetic medical research institute.