Bubble?

Lei Jie was taken aback for a moment.

"What kind of bubble?"

He asked aloud.

"I don't know."

Fang Quan shook his head.

"The existing records are not clear, I only know that it seemed to be a... mirror-like sphere."

"It only existed for a moment, not even long enough to observe, and then suddenly burst."

"Only a few people saw it, and now, they're all gone."

"...Understood."

Lei Jie nodded, then asked:

"What about video footage? Didn't the recording equipment capture it?"

"No."

Fang Quan shook his head again.

"At the moment it appeared, the power throughout the entire headquarters was cut off."

"It seemed to have some... extremely strong electromagnetic properties, causing all nearby equipment involving electricity to be destroyed."

"Just repairing the equipment took nearly two years, it seems."

"And after completing the repairs, many, many leaders attempted to restart the experiment, but all ended in failure."

"To this day, we haven't been able to restart the ring."

As he spoke, Fang Quan led Lei Jie forward.

Descending the stairs all the way down, at the very bottom of the deep well, Lei Jie finally saw the 'legendary' ring device.

His first reaction was that this thing was very small.

So small that it didn't even fill up the less than one thousand square meter underground space.

His second reaction was that its complexity was much lower compared to the so-called 'ring' device he saw in installation 016.

It didn't include complex measuring equipment, and of course, the largest vibration isolation equipment wasn't needed.

Because it was built on the isolation platform below the neutrino laboratory itself.

The most complex part of the entire device was nothing more than the ring-shaped conduit in the middle.

"Where was the ring produced?"

Lei Jie asked aloud.

"At the very center of the conduit, which they call the 'generation well.'

"Generation well... what the heck..."

Lei Jie frowned.

"So are you saying this thing really is creating a Time Crystal?"

"We don't know."

Fang Quan shook his head and continued:

"To be honest, we don't even know what the 'Time Crystal' you mentioned is."

"We are indeed trying to inherit the knowledge of the true owners of the ring, but the things they left behind are too obscure, too profound."

"Our ancestors had once sought guidance from them, hoping to receive their teachings, and they did indeed pass on some knowledge to us."

"But the way they gave it..."

"It's like opening the door to a treasure vault before us but not telling us which ones are the real treasures."

"For a long period, we could only struggle to learn those difficult words ourselves."

"After they left, the situation worsened."

"Coupled with several disasters, the hard-earned knowledge inheritance was nearly cut off."

"We can barely maintain the existence of the 'Ring Chamber of Commerce' organization, even now, the knowledge we've restored that belongs to the ring's owners isn't even a tenth."

"Maybe not even a hundredth."

Reasonable.

After listening to Fang Quan's narrative, Lei Jie finally roughly understood the origin of the Ring Chamber of Commerce organization.

They were not the original 'researchers,' perhaps just a group of vagrants struggling to survive on the wasteland.

They found the ring, found those researchers still transmitting knowledge, and tried to find hope from them.

But unfortunately, those researchers were too closed off, or rather, too confident.

They thought they could solve the problem in one go through the ring, but they never considered that if they failed, all of human civilization might end up in an irreparable chasm because of it.

And this was likely one of the reasons for the extinction of knowledge inheritance in the wasteland world.

In short, they treated the apocalypse as a problem that could be solved with cutting-edge technology and theory, ignoring the mobilization of the vast population.

What's this called?

The theory of swift victory can be deadly!

Lei Jie sighed and then said:

"Turn on the equipment."

"At least let me see how it operates."

"No problem."

Fang Quan walked to the side of the console, and as he walked, the lights gradually came on.

The entire underground space of the deep well was fully illuminated, and it was only then that Lei Jie realized this laboratory originally used for detecting neutrinos had been completely remodeled.

It had turned into a facility entirely designed to accommodate this device — the scale of the engineering behind this must have been considerable.

Inferring from this, the number of researchers and scholars gathered here at the time must not have been small?

Where have they all gone?

This seemed to be a question as well.

Lei Jie's thoughts were chaotic, and at this moment, Fang Quan had already unlocked the console.

"The last time this device was started was four years ago."

He said:

"We don't understand this device, nor do we know how to repair it."

"But according to the remaining records, if this device is started on time, it will age slower."

"Yet even so, when we started this device four years ago, we encountered many problems."

"Hopefully today... we'll have some luck."

With that, Fang Quan pressed the start button.

A massive buzzing sound arose, and Lei Jie realized that the first thing activated was the vibration isolation module.

Next, the fans and cooling system started, power was delivered to the massive capacitor modules, and the device was about to begin operating formally.

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