Chapter 191: Netherworld! Antimatter Technology! The Roulette Activates!
At the headquarters of LA Corporation, within the grand hall hosting a global press conference, the atmosphere was electrifying.
Representing LA Corporation, Alt Cunningham stood confidently before the media, delivering a speech brimming with conviction and passion:
"We have constructed this colossal scientific hub, with its foundation and main axis completed within a mere three months."
"Universal Enterprises will relentlessly pursue breakthrough technologies and surpass daring imaginations."
"'The road ahead is long and arduous; I will seek high and low.' The Infinity mysteries of the cosmos will ultimately be within our grasp!"
The crowd erupted into thunderous applause, a standing ovation from journalists and esteemed dignitaries alike.
The completion of this scientific hub marked a significant milestone for technological development within human civilization.
The oppressive era of monopolistic megacorporations controlling a cyberpunk dystopia had been consigned to history.
Now, humanity embraced a new epoch of technological explosion, spearheaded by universal megacorporations. Progress—unceasing and relentless—became the anthem of this new generation.
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Aboard the Infinity flagship's command center.
Watching Alt Cunningham skillfully execute her task, Li Ang nodded in silent approval, acknowledging her capabilities.
It's time for a promotion, he mused.
Alt currently held the position of network director at the company. Yet, given her displayed competence, she was fully capable of assuming a higher role.
While Li Ang pondered her promotion, Alt concluded her stirring speech on Earth.
"Today, we celebrate the inauguration of this magnificent scientific hub, equipped with cutting-edge research facilities and groundbreaking technologies that will attract the brightest minds from across the galaxy and the universe!"
"This is precisely the future we envision—a new era of enlightenment begins today."
"This day shall be remembered as one of the greatest in human history!"
Cheers erupted among viewers worldwide as Alt,s rousing words resonated.
Though many people didn't fully grasp the hub's purpose, the new age promised by LA Corporation filled humanity with unprecedented confidence.
The cold, competitive cyberpunk society, marked by apathy and inequality, had been transformed into a world where everyone was equal, opportunities were abundant, and unity prevailed.
Optimism and pride in megacorporations defined the social atmosphere, reflecting humanity's renewed hope for the future.
Not bad. The PR strategy is spot on. Now, let's see what my next mission entails.
Li Ang closed the holographic screen, redirecting his attention to the system interface.
Moments earlier, the system had updated with a new interdimensional mission. This was the second alternate-world instance he needed to conquer: Netherworld.
This obscure, hard sci-fi world came from the source material of a lesser-known film.
Unlike previous challenges involving alien civilizations, this mission required Li Ang to enter another parallel universe and achieve total domination.
"Netherworld… I vaguely recall some of the movie's plot. Humanity's technology there is barely a fraction of what I possess. Sending even one Infinity-class starship would obliterate their civilization instantly. But why…"
"Why did the system assign me such a low-difficulty mission for my first interdimensional conquest?
Frowning, Li Ang contemplated the deeper significance of the system's decision.
Judging by his experience on Pandora, where the system linked resource acquisition to specific goals, every instance held a unique purpose.
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For instance, after unlocking the Ideal City blueprint in the Universal Enterprise template, Pandora—rich in floating stones, crucial for the Ideal City's construction—became the next conquest.
The system clearly tied newly unlocked structures or technologies to specific interdimensional worlds. The challenge lay in connecting the dots, following the trail of clues, and making optimal decisions.
This time, Li Ang suspected the Netherworld mission aimed at obtaining something similarly vital: Bose-Einstein Condensate Technology.
He recalled the Netherworld movie's unique element: intangible "Nether Soldiers," who defied conventional physics with ghost-like agility and lethal precision.
These soldiers, resembling ethereal specters, were invisible to the naked eye and undetectable by thermal imaging.
Their abilities stemmed from a transformation into Bose-Einstein condensate—a man-made fifth state of matter beyond the natural solid, liquid, gas, and plasma states.
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Li Ang meticulously recalled the movie's details.
The Nether Soldiers possessed superconductive, resistance-free particle flows and moved with quantum coherence, enabling devastating attacks.
Contact with them inflicted critical internal injuries—brain, organs, and tissues suffered severe damage, resulting in death. Victims bore low-temperature burns and electrocution marks, yet their clothing remained intact.
What a nightmarish foe, Li Ang thought.
Unfortunately, his current arsenal lacked effective countermeasures. Conventional weapons were useless; defeating such entities required advanced tools capable of quantum-level observation—such as Trisolaris's Sophons.
"This aligns with the quantum ghost army concept proposed by Taylor in The Three-Body Problem," Li Ang mused, connecting the dots between the Nether Soldiers and quantum warfare.
Like Taylor's vision of creating an unstoppable quantum military force, the Nether Soldiers embodied an eerie, intangible menace.
However, quantum entities faced a critical vulnerability: observation-induced collapse, rendering them ineffective against advanced civilizations equipped with quantum observers like Sophons.
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"Wait a minute… Could the system want me to obtain Bose-Einstein condensate for something beyond creating Nether Soldiers?"
Li Ang toggled the science hub's interface, searching for clues. Soon, he discovered the condensate's true value: as a foundational resource for advancing antimatter technology.
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Bose-Einstein condensates played pivotal roles in quantum modeling, superconductivity, and precision engineering—key prerequisites for developing antimatter engines and antimatter shields.
The system's roadmap became clear: Bose-Einstein condensate from the Netherworld would enable rapid scientific iteration within the hub, leading to breakthroughs in antimatter research.
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Li Ang grinned. "So that's the real plan—unlocking the pathway to antimatter technology through condensate."
The scientific hub was the ultimate asset, capable of transforming basic technologies into revolutionary advancements.
With this newfound clarity, Li Ang set his sights on the Netherworld, ready to claim the condensate technology and accelerate humanity's scientific ascent.
"Antimatter shields… antimatter engines… The future is mine to shape."
Such a ragged contraption could only be regarded as a treasure by the Trisolarans' fleet.
The antimatter engine converts the energy released from the annihilation of antihydrogen protons and hydrogen protons into the power source for the spacecraft.
Unfortunately, the density of cosmic space is far too low, making antimatter collection extremely slow, which results in relatively inefficient flight.
Even the Trisolaran fleet's antimatter engines can only achieve propulsion at 10% of the speed of light.
This speed isn't particularly fast, but it isn't exactly slow either.
The problem becomes apparent when compared to the Infinity 's gravity drive engine, which can achieve faster-than-light travel.
The principle behind this engine is supported by the "Alcubierre effect," which theorizes:
When an object moves within a gravitational field, its mass increases.
This means objects moving in strong gravitational fields, such as black holes or neutron stars, become incredibly heavy.
If this effect can be controlled, it could create natural propulsion in strong gravitational fields, enabling faster-than-light travel.
To simplify and visualize this propulsion method, it's like forcefully pushing a balloon underwater and then releasing it.
The resulting thrust becomes the spacecraft's propulsion force.
However, the gravity drive engine is just one of the propulsion methods aboard the Infinity . Its spatial jump technology is even more impressive, utterly outperforming the Trisolarans' fleet.
But despite the Infinity 's overwhelming attack power and high-speed mobility, Li Ang is still hesitant to directly confront the Trisolarans and engage them in a full-scale battle.
The key issue lies in his lack of one critical technological advancement: the antimatter shield.
This technological milestone, while simpler compared to the matrix, the Infinity , or the construction of the Ideal City, remains stubbornly elusive in the prize pool of the myriad-worlds system.
Without the antimatter shield, Li Ang 's fleet risks being "all offense and no defense."
While the Trisolarans' droplets can't catch up to Li Ang 's fleet, they can still penetrate it.
After all, the droplets are crafted from materials strengthened by the strong nuclear force, which makes them easily capable of shattering the Infinity .
In terms of both offense and mobility, the Trisolarans' fleet is unremarkable.
However, their droplets make up for their shortcomings in attack power.
If Li Ang wants to avoid being annihilated by the Trisolarans, he must address the fleet's sole weakness: defense.
The goal is to ensure that any droplet crashing into LA Corporation's colossal Infinity ship disintegrates on impact.
To destroy the droplets, one could either use "four-dimensional fragments" to damage them internally or deploy an antimatter shield to neutralize and obliterate them upon collision.
"If I can develop the antimatter shield, the Trisolarans are done for!" Li Ang thought to himself.
Of course, Li Ang 's ambitions go beyond just the antimatter shield. He also covets advanced antimatter technologies, such as the Antimatter Cloud Barrier.
This technology was famously employed by the silicon-based empire in The Rural Teacher.
In the original story, the silicon-based empire constructed an antimatter cloud barrier with a radius of 1,000 light-years as a trap for the carbon-based empire.
The carbon-based empire sacrificed over 300,000 warships to carve out a passage through the antimatter cloud barrier and drive out the silicon-based empire.
Evidently, the antimatter cloud barrier functions as a space-based "super anti-tank mine."
Any enemy spacecraft venturing into the antimatter cloud barrier would immediately trigger antimatter annihilation.
At that moment, the entire fleet would erupt in dazzling light, accompanied by a massive shockwave, vaporizing both the ships and their crews.
Such a powerful defensive technology is exactly what Li Ang urgently needs.
With it, Li Ang could block off an entire interstellar sector, forcing any alien civilization attempting to encroach on his corporate domain to pay the ultimate price in warships and lives.
"Perfect... absolutely perfect!"
Li Ang clenched his fists in excitement. The thought of acquiring the antimatter technology he yearned for filled him with exhilaration.
In the world of Underworld, there are no mysterious forces or cosmic entities like "Eywa," nor are there planetary consciousnesses or alien civilizations.
Instead, it is populated by parallel-universe human civilizations, still stuck in a "primitive" era compared to the cyberworld humans who freely traverse the stars.
This means that Li Ang only needs to deploy a small fleet and crew to easily overwhelm the human civilization in that parallel universe.
Even the seemingly formidable but fundamentally flawed quantum Underworld soldiers are no match for Li Ang 's ingenuity.
For instance, plasma discharge guns—easy to produce—can significantly limit the movements of Underworld soldiers.
To truly kill them, however, one must "pull the plug," severing their power supply and cutting off the neural network system that links their condensed states.
"If I could draw a Sophon, I could basically annihilate these Underworld soldiers by staring them down."
Li Ang chuckled at the thought.
"But still..."
"Why does this system keep refreshing new alternate-world dungeons but won't give me a space-time gate or portal to access them?"
Li Ang couldn't help but complain.
After the system introduced the second alternate-world universe, Underworld, Li Ang discovered that he couldn't directly send his crew or fleet into that world.
He first needed to unlock specific technological advancements to construct a cross-dimensional space-time gate.
Such gates or portals can either be drawn from the system's prize pool or developed independently through technological breakthroughs.
Clearly, the system wants Li Ang to gamble on the prize pool before he can unlock such a gate.
At this realization, Li Ang felt like the system was toying with him. Giving him the "smoke but not the lighter"—what a tease!
Still, despite his frustration, Li Ang had no choice but to play along.
Otherwise, his only alternative would be to roam his universe's star systems, hunting for alien civilizations to vent his frustration on.
"Well, let's draw some prizes first."
Li Ang refocused his attention on the system's prize pool interface.
He had saved up 11 attempts in the myriad-worlds prize pool, spanning levels 8 through 10.
The highlight was the guaranteed level-10 prize, containing technology points from the myriad worlds of Stellaris.
This level-10 attempt was granted as a reward for unlocking the science nexus, which Li Ang considered an incredibly profitable trade-off for a small amount of corporate currency.
"I wonder if this guaranteed level-10 prize will give me something amazing, like a Heavenburning Divine Weapon or an Aetherial Phase Engine."
As Li Ang pondered, his hands moved instinctively. Upon seeing the prize pool interface, he initiated the long-awaited draw.
"Myriad-worlds roulette... activate!!"
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