Otherworld Bone Dragon Operation Guide

Chapter 252 Counterfactual Communication (Bonus Chapter 1 for the Lord of the Law Enforcers)

Newman approached the pile of fragments, and with his tiny bone claws, picked up a fragment that shimmered with an eerie light. "The 'Eternal Star Ring'—tsk tsk, the craftsmanship, the materials—it's simply extravagant!" he exclaimed. "The density of the runes inscribed on it is more than three times that of a typical magical weapon."

The battle yielded very few documents, and very little valuable information. However, from these scattered records, the true name of this magical weapon was still revealed.

“Old Newman,” Su Ming slapped Newman on the shoulder, “I remember someone swearing before that this thing was the ‘Ring of Winter,’ right?”

"Your crappy camera couldn't capture the details of the runes at all!" Newman retorted, without the slightest embarrassment. "Being able to identify them to this extent under those conditions proves that I have excellent eyesight!"

“Looks like I’ll have to assign you to close-range reconnaissance next time.” Su Ming picked up the little skeleton with one hand and shook it. “You’re quite light, so you could be used as a reconnaissance pod on a drone.”

“…I’ll be more careful next time,” Newman immediately admitted defeat.

“I’ve never seen much of the technology used here before, and I can’t even tell where it came from,” he continued, his tone turning serious. “Alchemy isn’t my main profession, but I could easily rank it in the top ten in the world.”

"Don't listen to his bragging." Violet's voice came through the communicator. Although she couldn't use magic for the time being, she still listened carefully to what was happening on the other side. "Little Button's level is so lousy, he can only rank twentieth."

“Hey!” Newman retorted quickly, “I’ve been dead for half a year and that’s slowed my progress, haven’t I? You’re just a piece of trash who barely made it into the top 100, what right do you have to talk to me like that?”

Su Ming's teeth ached from listening. In this world, alchemy was the most mainstream technological system, with a huge number of practitioners. Whether it was the top ten, the top twenty, or the top one hundred, they were all industry giants whom ordinary people looked up to!
"Alright, alright." Su Ming interrupted their idle chatter. "In short, with your level of expertise, there shouldn't be anything you can't discern the source of, right?"

“That’s right!” Newman’s tone became serious. “The origins of these technologies are extraordinary!”

“You are experts in alchemy,” Su Ming instructed Zi Jin and Newman. “Please trace the possible origins. If we clash with this organization again, we cannot afford to be caught off guard again!”

The reason Su Ming chose to launch a surprise attack immediately yesterday was to prevent the Bell of Calamity from assembling the core of the "Eternal Star Ring." Otherwise, once the weapon was fully activated, the consequences would be unpredictable.

“Understood,” Newman replied.

"I'll wait until my headache is better," Violet agreed. "I'll think about whether there are any suitable laborers I can swindle—who are the top ten alchemists again?"

"..." Su Ming was speechless, but to be fair, Zi Jin's approach was indeed an efficient solution to the problem.

****
"By the way, has the function of the second ring been analyzed yet?" Su Ming asked.

“It’s damage return,” Newman replied, his soulfire gleaming with excitement. “A truly formidable concept weapon; this is the first time I’ve ever seen a physical form of this scale!”

"No wonder the launch pad was detonated back then!" Su Ming suddenly realized.

"Luckily, I didn't attack her when she had the ring." Zi Jin was also a little scared after hearing this.

If the magic attack is initiated by the caster, the reflected damage from "Starlight" can be extremely deadly!
"Its principle should be to trace back the attacker, but it determined that it was on the rocket launch platform, causing those unlaunched malfunctioning missiles to detonate," Newman analyzed, touching his jawbone. "This system is not well-suited to countering your technological side."

Upon careful consideration, Su Ming realized that this was indeed the case.

However, according to its counter-damage mechanism, although it can cause some damage to weapons on the Earth side, the most serious damage it can cause is to trigger a secondary explosion of the ammunition.

Unlike the alchemical weapons of the otherworld, the weapons on Earth can be remotely controlled, and their reflected damage won't harm the user. Lost weapons can simply be replaced; the production capacity of even a small factory is enough to overwhelm "Starburst," ensuring a plentiful supply.

Newman picked up a newly made magical detector, which emitted waves of detection upon activation. He summoned the skeleton bear and nimbly jumped onto its back.

"There are still some fragments I haven't collected yet. I'll go and find them all."

"Go for it!" Su Ming waved and watched Newman run out of the shed.

Su Ming thought of the destroyed drones. If they were still around, a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) scan of the Earth would be easy. After all, SAR technology can penetrate ice and snow, making it incredibly convenient to locate debris that has crashed there.

"Yunier, have all the drone wreckage been recovered?" Su Ming asked, turning his head.

“All recovered, packed and stored in the warehouse,” Yunier reported immediately. “A lot of rocket debris has also been found; about 80 percent of the mass of that debris has been recovered.”

"Thanks for your hard work."

****
Su Ming then conducted a comprehensive inspection of the Youth Civilization Unit to determine the extent of the damage. His penetrating vision provided great convenience, allowing him to directly observe the internal damage to the machinery without any disassembly.

The damage to the locomotive was greater than expected. Although there were no visible problems, many of the main bearings were worn, and one axle was even bent.

It's not broken, but it will reduce power efficiency. He's too lazy to assess exactly how much it will reduce efficiency; he'll just replace it anyway.

Then there's the damage from the rocket detonation. Three fighting cars were completely destroyed, and the damage also affected four freight cars in front and behind, all of which were carrying fuel.

At the time, many charcoal pieces were ignited by the explosion, but the unicorn's "vacuum ring" extinguished the fire in its early stages.

Su Ming didn't plan to restore the weapon systems of the combat vehicles, as he had basically used up all the high-quality alchemical explosives. Although he would receive some supplies from Daphne, Su Ming had already arranged for new weapons for this purpose.

The inventory revealed that all seven carriages had damaged brake components, electrical wiring, and other systems. Some of these could be repaired, but with support from Earth, Su Ming only needed to use the faulty parts as materials to re-transfer them all, saving a lot of trouble!

After completing the information collection, Su Ming switched his view and found that Miao Xin was already sitting in a small, enclosed conference room.

Across from me were Xiao Cheng, whom I had met before at Jingji Heavy Industry, and Le Rongjia. Judging from the half-empty teacups on the table, they had clearly been waiting for quite some time.

Su Ming glanced at the clock on the wall and noticed that the hands were pointing to two o'clock.

"Good afternoon!" Su Ming greeted.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Jin Rongjia replied, rubbing his eyes.

“…I think I’ve disrupted your schedule,” Su Ming said.

"It's alright," Jin Rongjia waved his hand. "You can go ahead and cause any problems."

While exchanging pleasantries, Su Ming typed rapidly and quickly provided a list of repair parts required.

"How did you manage to drive this doomsday motorcycle like this?" Xiao Cheng exclaimed in shock, looking at the list. "Severely deformed cylinders? Fifteen drive bearings worn down? Brake pads blown out?"

"We put on a death metal concert," Su Ming sighed and explained. "The band and the audience were both a bit too enthusiastic."

“…This is indeed quite ‘enthusiastic’,” Xiao Cheng said. “Does the motorcycle’s impact resistance need to be specially reinforced?”

Doomsday bumper cars – this is a brand new topic.

"No need." Su Ming shook his head. "The tunnel excavation project is about to begin, and resources should be prioritized for this."

"Okay." Xiao Cheng nodded, slightly disappointed.

"Will you be ready in twenty-six hours?" Su Ming asked.

"You underestimate us!" Xiao Cheng looked disdainful. He put away the list, got up, and quickly left.
Sang Zi held the door open as it was about to close, brushed past Xiao Cheng, and walked in. She was wearing a neat white lab coat, and her hair was neatly tied back.

Su Ming and she nodded to each other.

"The matter we discussed last time needs to be addressed now." Su Ming didn't mince words and went straight to the point. "I have a lot of data and information that needs to be transmitted back to Earth for analysis. But the current method of connection is far too inefficient."

Like today's list, he had already drafted it in the other world, but he could only re-enter it by controlling the little troublemaker to type it on Earth.

Sang Zi did not respond immediately, but simply watched Su Ming quietly, waiting for him to continue.

“But in reality!” Su Ming picked up the stapler on the table.

The "Summoning of All Things - Minimal Style" was activated, and the stapler instantly turned into a pile of metal shavings, which flowed down from between the skull's fingers like fine sand, piling up in several matte heaps on the table.

"When I extracted the material order, the amount of information transmitted to the other world must have been extremely vast," Su Ming said. "This tiny stapler alone contains approximately—"

“Around 10^24,” Sangzi replied quickly.

“OK, then I’ll transfer the information entropy—” Su Ming dragged out the last syllable.

“According to the Shannon paradigm, it’s around the level of 10^27,” Sangzi replied quickly, understanding the situation.

"In short, it's extremely large, right!" Su Ming couldn't count all those zeros anyway. Twenty-four and twenty-seven, it seems about the same.

“This order of magnitude is equivalent to…” Sang Zi quickly did some mental calculations, “and then multiply that by a thousand times the total capacity of all the storage devices in the world. However, based on our analysis, what you actually extracted was information at the crystal structure level. Like the stapler from earlier, the actual amount of information was probably around 20Tb.”

"That's roughly the capacity of five thousand high-definition movies." Su Ming finally had a clear idea of ​​what that meant.

Sangzi actually wanted to correct her, saying that T bytes and T bits are different. But then she thought that with numbers of this magnitude, an eight-fold difference wouldn't make much difference.

"Uploading information to another world is extremely fast," Jin Rongjia said thoughtfully, "but your method of sending back information is very primitive, which definitely needs to be changed."

“The Millet Group hopes to deconstruct my connection with Little Trouble to explore this issue. But this path is very risky, and I think the chances are slim,” Su Ming said.

“We really have no foundation in this area,” Sang Zi frankly stated. “Every field we need to explore is completely unknown.”

"Therefore, I suggest trying an existing path—counterfactual communication!" Su Ming raised his voice slightly. "Since information can be transmitted from Earth to another world, it means that this channel can be used to send information back to Earth!"

From a physics perspective, there is never an absolute boundary between the upward and downward flow of information!

Su Ming can currently only draw upon Earth's material order and transmit it to another world, but that doesn't mean he can't use this process to send information back to Earth.

This is physics!
Even from a magical perspective, it's hard to imagine the fundamental science of all things!

****
Sang Zi was not surprised by Su Ming's proposal. They had already begun research in these areas, and counterfactual direct quantum communication was one of the candidate options.

In 2017, in the laboratory, information was transmitted without the sender sending any particles to the receiver, using the quantum Zeno effect.

“It’s not that simple,” Sang Zi said. “That experiment actually used the phase of photons to transmit information. Although the ‘photons’ themselves were not sent, the ‘channel’ was indeed established. Moreover, on a large scale, the means of establishing such phase channels are still very scarce.”

"But we've made a big breakthrough in traditional quantum teleportation, right?" Su Ming asked.

“Yes, the Micius experimental satellite,” Sang Zi replied. “If you want to know the details, I can get you the data right away; it’s much more detailed than what’s publicly available.”

“No, I wouldn’t understand it even if you gave it to me,” Su Ming said. “This isn’t my own line of thinking. The last time Si Ran talked to me before she died, she mentioned the research project she was working on, which was to change the way the ‘channel’ was established in counterfactual communication through quantum entanglement.”

As Su Ming spoke, he reached out his hand to Sang Zi, "Give me two candies from your pocket."

Sang Zi, who was deep in thought, paused for a moment, then took out a few White Rabbit milk candies from her white coat pocket and placed them on the table.

"I didn't have breakfast so early," she explained. "I brought something to prevent low blood sugar."

Su Ming picked up two of the milk candies and laid them out on the table. "Let's assume this is a pair of entangled photons, A and B."

Entangled photon pairs, a cornerstone of modern quantum technology, can be generated through various physical processes. Their most remarkable characteristic lies in their strong correlation in quantum states, a correlation that transcends the understanding of classical physics.

An operation on one will simultaneously affect the other, regardless of the distance.

“Quantum entanglement itself cannot transmit information,” Sang Zi pointed out regretfully, a well-known fact in the field of quantum communication.

In quantum entangled systems, the measurement results are indistinguishable. It can even be understood that they are both here and there.

The entangled photons A and B are more like a single entity [AB], which is a whole regardless of how far apart they are, even at the ends of the universe.

This is what makes quantum mechanics so mysterious and fascinating; it's not a fictional story, but a phenomenon that happens around us every moment.

The universe is wondrous and profound. Immersed in this world, one cannot help but marvel at its timelessness and mystery, and feel a profound sadness in the face of its vast eternity.
-
(This section contains additional words added in the updated version. It is free of charge and is intended only for readers interested in "Counterfactual Communications".)
In 2017, the USTC experimental team achieved "counterfactual quantum communication": transmitting information without exchanging any physical particles (or energy carriers).

It relies on the quantum Zeno effect: when an unstable quantum system is repeatedly measured, its state is frozen into a stationary state and does not evolve to other states over time.

To use an imperfect analogy, if you're too impatient, the water won't boil. If you keep staring at the kettle (testing), the water won't boil (the state won't change).

The following is a non-scientific description, intended only to aid understanding:

Alice holds a mysterious light bulb.

Bob uses the light bulb to send a message to Alice, who is far away.

This mysterious light bulb goes out whenever Bob "looks at" it.

If Bob looks at the light bulb, Alice won't detect the photon and will know that Bob sent a "0"; if Bob does nothing, Alice will likely detect the photon and interpret it as a "1".

During this process, no photons reached Bob's eyes from the light bulb, and Alice could not see Bob's movements, yet she still obtained information.

The light bulb (photon source) that Alice was probing was always in Alice's local device, and no photons ever passed through the space between Alice and Bob.

The process by which Bob causes the probability collapse of photons is achieved by a series of complex interferometric devices.

This is its "counterfactual" aspect—the interconnectedness of the quantum world exists independently of causality.

Connections can be achieved without actual particle interaction.

(End of this chapter)