Upon witnessing the scenery before him, Cheng Cao, who was just about to step into the corridor, did a double-take and slowly pulled back his foot that was close to stepping out.
The corridor was around twenty meters long. Whether it was the walls on both sides, the ceiling or the flooring, they were all made of glass.
Just the glass itself was not a big deal on its own. What stood out was that right behind the glass was a bunch of squares. These squares were composed of light blue strips of light.
Countless strips of lights had illuminated the corridor brightly.
At the end of the corridor was a metal gate shut tightly.
When Cheng Cao took in the scenery before him, he felt very exposed…
“Don’t worry.”
Upon noticing Cheng Cao’s hesitation, Chen Chen stepped a foot inside and began explaining, “There’s an AI recognition system installed. While we were taking the elevator entering the underground section, the AI has already identified us.”
“Can these strips of lights also emit lasers like in the movie?”
Cheng Cao could not resist the urge to ask as he walked in and measured his surroundings.
“It’s called an AR ion laser generator. It can emit tens of thousands of degrees of plasma.”
Chen Chen ran his finger across the glass wall as he continued explaining, “The surrounding walls are made of a tempered glass known as ‘fluorescent organic polymer-capped gold’. Apart from having tougher than steel qualities, it also has beam expanding functionalities. It can emit combined lasers in any shape or form, effectively getting rid of any unauthorized presence entering the corridor without leaving an inch of a blind spot.”
“Welcome, Commander Sigma05. Sir Commander, you’re now located in the underground ‘Spire’ laboratory base code A0001.”
An icy, mechanical voice of a girl suddenly echoed across the corridor. Unlike Little X’s voice which contained hints of emotion, its voice was closer to that of a soulless robot.
Chen Chen pointed at the roof and informed Cheng Cao, “This is ‘X-111’, the artificial intelligence of the ‘Spire’, it manages this section.”
This was X-111, a copy of Little X.
Due to issues pertaining to permissions, Little X could not expose itself in lower-tier permission dimensions. Similar to the God chip, Little X had created a slightly inferior artificial intelligence copy of itself to maintain the operations of the underground laboratory.
As the two of them approached the end of the corridor, the steel gate parted on both sides with a deafening sound, revealing another gate that was rising behind the steel gate.
When the second gate opened, another spiral-shaped gate appeared. It was only after all three gates had opened successfully when the two men saw an ascending escalator behind the gates.
As a security measure, the elevator entrance to the Spire laboratory extended 50 meters downward. The Spire was surrounded by tens of meters thick reinforced concrete on all sides.
This meant that even if an invader managed to destroy the laser corridor they had just passed through, they would still have to break through a fifty-meter thick layer of reinforced concrete to break into the Spire laboratory.
After climbing to the top of the escalator and passing through so many safety installments, Chen Chen and Cheng Cao had finally arrived at the underground base.
This was the Spire laboratory sector.
A structure resembling the Mayan Pyramid stood tall in the distance. No matter how you look at it, it was a breathtaking marvel. It was surrounded by many other buildings such as dormitories, training centers, warehouses, canteens, and similar facilities.
There were plenty of decorative plantations that did not require sunlight around the surrounding empty spaces. Chen Chen specifically built a large underground garden to prevent the research staff in the Spire from developing mental illness.
The addition of light everywhere also emulated a sensation of being on the surface.
In the section of the underground base that bordered around the ocean, a hole with a diameter of around 50 meters was dug to serve as an artificial dock.
In the future, this dock would be opened like a tunnel, connecting it with the ocean. With that done, it should be able to house submarines and serve as the secondary entrance to the Spire.
There was hardly a need for concern of seawater intrusion as the tunnels connected to the ocean took on an L-shape. The idea behind it was similar to how when putting a cup upside down into a body of water, the middle space of the cup would not be filled with water due to the atmospheric pressure present.
When the water pressure of the seawater was equal to the atmospheric pressure in the air, it was impossible for the seawater to flow into the underground laboratory.
As for the original long narrow passage leading into the underground laboratory which they initially discovered, Chen Chen was going to have it sealed away for good with concrete.
At the present moment, Chen Chen could see fifty clones implanted with God chips on the training ground of the underground laboratory, drowned in sweat as they conducted their rehabilitation training.
With the God chip governing over them, their physical capacity was utilized to its maximum limit without overexerting them the slightest bit nor sparing any additional preserve. They would continue to grow stronger by the day until they reached the limits of the human body.
The only thing these fighters were missing was the fitting equipment and weapons.
Of course, the weapons referred were no ordinary weapons.
Although Chen Chen had at one point smuggled several batches of arms from Russian arms dealers, how did these weapons compare with the troops of the Earth Federation?
In the future when these black knights embark on their mission and face encounters with various other continents, the excellence of the cloned fighters would not make up for the gap in weaponry. After all, the age where war relied on manpower was long past.
Therefore, Chen Chen had required a great deal of non-standard weapons such as the GS combat suit, PK Armor, and various equipment transcending modern technology. This was the only way to properly arm a world-leading combat force.
However, Chen Chen did not have this much energy in the USB drive.
That was why the next phase of Chen Chen’s plans was to reverse-engineer the items instantiated from the movie.
The GS combat suit was composed of nano-scale carbon fiber and polyethylene fiber. Producing the nano-scale filament alone posed a great challenge, not to mention the far more difficult task of manufacturing liquid armor and electronic spine.
When Chen Chen considered this, his mind wandered back to the material laboratory back then that performed the material analysis for the GS combat suit as well as the three scientists working there.
It would appear that now was the time to recruit a group of scientists specializing in material science. Before that, he needed to have the world’s most advanced material research facility.
While Chen Chen had this in mind, the two of them had arrived at the entrance of the Spire laboratory. He turned to Cheng Cao. “Cao, why don’t you take a break in the breakroom. I’ll call you when I’m leaving.”
Cheng Cao nodded and promptly took his leave.
Once again, Chen Chen entered the laboratory and went to the earliest constructed radiation protection laboratory on the first floor.
Chen Chen took a seat in front of the experiment table and removed the USB drive attached to the wristband.
Previously, he took four months to charge the USB drive with an enormous amount of electricity using the Symphony of the Seas. If this electricity were to be converted to energy, it would be equivalent to a nuclear bomb of 21.5 million tons.
Chen Chen did not use all of this energy to instantiate the crystalline, he only instantiated 33 of them in total. He used two of them to conduct experiments on the mice and absorbed the remaining 31 crystallines.
Calculating by the weight of 4.5 kilogram per piece, Chen Chen would have instantiated a total of 148 kilograms of items. At this time, the USB flash drive could still instantiate 52 kilograms of material.
So, what should he instantiate next?
Chen Chen thought about it for a moment before plugging the USB drive into the computer. He selected the USB drive and turned his attention to a movie in it.
Terminator: Dark Fate.