Wasteland Development Diary

This ruby was unlike any Zhou Yi had encountered before. Just reading it consumed a great deal of time, as the amount of information inside was extremely vast.

Coming back to his senses, Zhou Yi found himself transformed into a gemstone body with alternating blue and black hues.

Liquid methane flowed between the gems, with some solidified methane ice within.

The blue-black gemstone body repeatedly emitted a single message.

“Attack!”

“Attack!”

“Attack!”

It was surrounded by a layer of flowing light, expanding explosively in all directions.

Numerous gems formed a splatter-like fluid under the liquid methane, resembling a massive soft-bodied creature with countless tentacles, engaged in battle with a colossal celestial body.

This celestial body's surface featured a prominent Great Red Spot. Up close, it was clear that this was a wild, flowing storm, with layers of gaseous bands swirling around it, forming massive vortices.

Surrounding it was a disc-shaped planetary ring.

Compared to the Celestial's gemstone body, this planet was vastly larger.

Relying solely on his senses, Zhou Yi found it hard to quantify the difference in scale between the two.

It was like a tiny meteorite falling onto Earth.

Yet, the gemstone body was the aggressor.

It plunged into the planet's thick storm atmosphere, piercing a black hole.

Breaking through the outer layer of atmospheric friction caused the gems on the gemstone body's surface to glow intensely with heat, as large amounts of methane turned into gas and sprayed out behind it.

It dove headfirst into the planet's atmosphere.

Inside was a liquid environment, filled with blue vortices.

The gemstone body struggled to impact the blue vortices, attempting to pull and capture them.

However, it was blocked by some force and unable to touch them, and was subsequently ejected outwards by a repulsive force.

The blue-black gemstone body was like a bee attacking an elephant.

Zhou Yi experienced this Celestial's battle from a first-person perspective, finding it increasingly bizarre.

The Celestial's enemy was actually a planet.

What was so special about this planet?

So far, it just seemed like a gas giant…

Huh.

Zhou Yi suddenly remembered that when the Ring Around the Sun entered the ruby cycle, he had looked out through his consciousness and seen this gas giant.

It was Jupiter!

The Celestial was attacking Jupiter.

But… why?

Zhou Yi asked Xiaofu, “What exactly is going on? Has the Celestial gone mad? What threat does Jupiter pose to it?”

“……”

The Streamtracer pondered for a long time before replying, “The Celestial is at least a Tier 2 civilization, and would not engage in pointless attacks that consume large amounts of energy. Let's keep watching.”

The blue-black gemstone body launched attack after attack on Jupiter.

Large numbers of gems within it were burned away, the liquid methane continued to evaporate, and its body was becoming shriveled and smaller.

But it still refused to give up, stretching its gem structure and turning into a teardrop shape to impact Jupiter's gaseous surface.

The Jovian atmosphere was blasted with black pits.

This process seemed somewhat absurd to Zhou Yi.

The massive planet remained cold and silent, while the Celestial relentlessly crashed and attacked again and again.

He was reminded of Don Quixote charging at windmills.

Yet this Celestial only had one recurring consciousness.

“Attack! Attack! Attack!”

Zhou Yi felt that this guy was probably crazy.

I could understand if you were attacking Earth.

But what's the point of attacking Jupiter…

However, after rounds of attacks, the Celestial became tattered and worn, its energy drastically depleted, forcing it to retreat back into the void.

The memory unfolded again, showing another round of attacks.

This Celestial was obsessed with attacking Jupiter, and recorded its entire battle.

Zhou Yi began to take control and change this segment of the memory.

The Celestial possessed a special open-ended recording system, allowing for different paths to be chosen, but always leading to the same result.

He controlled the blue-black gemstone body to hover in a safe area, observing Jupiter's surface up close.

This largest planet in the solar system had large red swirls and rings of swirling air currents on its surface, its structure possessing a strange sense of order.

Nothing else seemed special.

Zhou Yi controlled the gemstone body to slowly descend.

Beneath the thick atmosphere, storms and lightning raged incessantly, with electrical sparks and fire streams everywhere.

Below was a layer of murky, viscous ocean. According to past human deductions, it was mainly liquid hydrogen, but visually it looked like stirred clay.

The blue vortices were particularly clear.

During this process, Zhou Yi discovered that those vortices were actually gemstone bodies made up of large numbers of gems, only they were in a state of high-speed rotation.

Hundreds of gemstone bodies floated in Jupiter's liquid hydrogen. They acted like some kind of artificial device, serving to stir and rotate the liquid ocean.

These Celestials had been absorbed by Jupiter and turned into special tools.

Zhou Yi asked Xiaofu somewhat uncertainly, “Is Jupiter a living planet? Did it capture a portion of the Celestials and use them as its own motor organs?”

The Streamtracer said, “Whether it is a living being, I cannot judge. There are too many life forms in the universe. But one thing I can be certain of.”

“Jupiter and the Celestial's gemstone body are inherently very compatible.”

“Da Zhou, remember? I said that the Celestials are assembly lifeforms with clear specifications. Its secondary units are the Glass People, who assemble and combine to form the Celestial's gemstone body.”

It explained, “But the gemstone body is highly compatible with Jupiter's internal structure.”

“Under normal circumstances, it should be like Earth. Even a being as strong as a Celestial cannot adapt to the local environment, and physical contact may cause it to collapse. Because the Celestial's body is large and precise, powerful but also easily damaged.”

“However, many gemstone bodies rotate in Jupiter's liquid layer, keeping their distance from each other, rotating at different speeds, maintaining the fluid movement of different regions. Yet the gemstone bodies do not show any damage, and appear purely blue, indicating they have received a large amount of energy replenishment.”

“A complex assembly lifeform, coming into contact with an alien planet, and then completing a perfect combination, this is unlikely to be a coincidence.”

“I believe they have an internal connection.”

“There are two possibilities.”

Xiaofu said, “The first possibility is that Jupiter is a higher-level form of the Celestial. For Jupiter, the gemstone body has become a secondary unit, requiring a large number of gemstone bodies to form Jupiter.”

“But there is a contradiction.”

“In the ruby memory, this Celestial desperately wanted to attack Jupiter. Secondary units have no reason to attack higher-level assembly bodies, because there are no conflicts or contradictions between them. On the contrary, they are mutually beneficial communities.”

“So I think this guess has a very low probability.”

“The second possibility is that Jupiter is a mega-structure with Celestials as its units.”

Zhou Yi felt a tightness in his chest, “Are you saying that Jupiter is an artificial star created by another civilization?”

“Yes.”

The Streamtracer calmly explained, “The Celestial is to Jupiter as plankton is to a planktonic heart. A large number of Celestials are needed to activate the true form and function of Jupiter.”

“This explains why the Celestial wanted to attack Jupiter. Because if they don't destroy this mega-structure, they may be captured by it and become tool units inside, unable to escape the fate of becoming screws.”

Zhou Yi felt a bit of a chill.

The Celestial's strength left the War Host in despair, and the Mechanical Lifeforms simply surrendered.

A civilization that uses Celestials as screws… unimaginable.

“Da Zhou, don't worry.”

Xiaofu said easily, “Such mega-structures are very precious strategic resources even for higher civilizations, and each one is of great significance.”

“The Celestial dared to attack Jupiter without being punished, obviously because this higher civilization has already disappeared. They no longer need to fear that group. Otherwise, they would not be able to resist.”

“Because being able to use them as tool units, that level of civilization has no confrontation for them, only unilateral crushing.”

“So this civilization is 100% destroyed.”

“Only then did the Celestials dare to try to attack Jupiter.”

Zhou Yi felt slightly relieved, “I remember that I observed it last time using the ruby cycle. Jupiter was not damaged.”

“Of course. Even creations and mega-structures in a dormant or static state still have the power intensity of the creator civilization, which ordinary units cannot touch and destroy.”

“The Celestials are also powerless against such things, the power gap between them is already at the dimensional level.”

Xiaofu said, “So they should have eventually given up, and instead did what they could. That is, to build a ring around the sun to capture and collect the sun's energy.”

“Their lack of secondary units is also easy to understand.”

“Because they were originally tool lifeforms created by a higher civilization, so without that civilization providing the Glass People, the Celestials can only be in a state of unilateral consumption.”

“So the Celestials targeted Earth, seeking to cultivate new secondary units.”

After the Streamtracer's analysis, the image of the Celestial in Zhou Yi's mind became clearer.

The Celestial's inability to resist higher civilizations is like Earth's life facing the Celestials.

……

Zhou Yi slowly opened his eyes.

His mind was still thinking about the Celestial gemstone bodies rotating like motors in Jupiter's ocean.

It turned out that alien civilizations had always left huge footprints in the solar system.

It's just that humans don't yet have the ability to enter it and see the magnificent scene of those gemstone bodies rotating and moving.

Suddenly a voice came from his ear.

“Mr. Zhou, Huayi is below.”

“We are going to land at the flight platform here. Please be careful, there may be a slight bump.”

It was the attendant Xin Yuan.

Zhou Yi came back to his senses and looked out the window.

Below was a vast green prairie with winding streams, many animals were active, and a large number of flowers dotted the ground with colorful colors.

[Sandport 001] slowly docked on a high tower, making a slight shaking sound.

Xin Mu and Xin Yuan both folded their hands over their lower abdomen and bowed slightly to Zhou Yi.

“Mr. Zhou, thank you for your ride. We hope you have a pleasant time here. We will wait for you here.”

Zhou Yi nodded and gave them each 10 Light Seed tips.

“Thank you for your hard work. This journey has been very comfortable and safe.”

“Thank you, Mr. Zhou, it's all we should do,”

The two Shapeshifter girls said happily.