They traveled through time at the same time, but the villainous scientist

Chapter 495 The Way of Heaven and the Principles of Civilization

The car drove off the main city road and eventually stopped in front of a huge, long-abandoned warehouse in the suburbs.

This will become their laboratory.

After settling Claire into the car, Zhang Qi and Chu Xuan went into the warehouse.

The warehouse was extremely spacious inside, with a towering dome. A few rays of sunlight pierced through the cracks in the roof, casting beams of light into the air, where countless dust particles floated and sank.

Zhang Qi did not waste any time.

He walked to the center of the warehouse, squatted down, and placed his hands on the ground.

The ground was not empty space, but a huge circular pattern that was extremely complex and full of mysterious geometry and unknown symbols.

This is a transmutation circle from the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, and it's also a new ability he recently acquired.

The next moment, the entire massive magic array suddenly lit up, and the soft golden light illuminated the entire dim warehouse, making it look like a temple.

Bathed in this light, the entire warehouse was transformed, and all the clutter was completely cleared out.

Immediately afterwards, Zhang Qi took out a large number of metal ingots of various shapes, rare ores, and some energy crystals that shimmered with a faint light from his storage space and piled them in the center of the alchemy array.

"Om-"

The golden light instantly intensified, and all the raw materials, whether hard alloys or fragile crystals, began to decompose and then reconstruct.

This is one of the reasons why he would exchange alchemy for it, as it allows for the rapid processing of matter.

Of course, another important reason is that in Fullmetal Alchemist, alchemy can access the Gate of Truth, which is similar to the Root.

After an unknown amount of time, Claire slowly woke up.

She opened her eyes in confusion and saw Chu Xuan standing beside her.

Chu Xuan nodded, then led Claire into the warehouse.

The next second, she froze on the spot.

The scene before her completely overturned her understanding.

In the center of the factory, countless materials were broken down and eventually reassembled into a giant globe.

At that moment, Claire finally vaguely realized what kind of people she had encountered.

What they possess cannot be simply summarized as "magic".

That is a higher level of power, capable of distorting the laws of matter.

She didn't say anything to disturb them, but just watched quietly.

The fear in my heart did not dissipate, but deep within that fear, a tender sprout called hope was breaking through the soil.

While Zhang Qi was assembling the observation instruments, Chu Xuan's experiment also began.

Instead of choosing a complicated environment, he designated an area within this huge warehouse.

He re-hung an old chandelier, but deliberately loosened one of the screws;
He splashed a puddle of water on the ground, and not far away, there was a cable with its insulation deliberately worn off;
He even piled up a rather unstable stack of containers.

He set up these "unexpected" triggers, then looked at Claire.

"Sit down in that chair."

Chu Xuan pointed to a chair in the center of that area, his tone completely calm.

Claire's body trembled instinctively.

“It’s necessary.”

Chu Xuan noticed her resistance.
"I need to record every choice it makes and analyze its behavior patterns."

Claire looked at Chu Xuan's emotionless eyes and hesitated.

She clutched the jade pendant to her chest; the warm, smooth touch it gave her a sliver of courage.

Finally, she nodded, walked over to that area, and sat down.

Almost the instant she sat down, the screws on the chandelier above her head made a barely perceptible creaking sound.

On the tablet in Chu Xuan's hand, a data curve immediately showed a sharp peak. However, the chandelier only swayed and did not fall.

Because Claire subconsciously moved her chair away from directly under the chandelier.

Almost simultaneously, a spark of electricity flew from the end of the worn cable, leaping toward the water stain on the ground.

Claire seemed to sense something and suddenly lifted her foot.

Once, twice, three times...

Chu Xuan kept changing the variables in the environment and then began to try to record them.

Time began to flow by...

Three months later.

In the center of the warehouse, an incredibly sophisticated and mysteriously beautiful machine began to operate.

Its main body is a crystal globe with a diameter of over three meters, perfectly replicating the mountains and oceans of the earth.

But it is more than just a model. Inside the sphere, countless golden energy circuits, finer than a hair, intertwine to form a dazzling nebula.

This is the "Pseudo-Gaia Model" that Zhang Yongqi has created using current technology.

Claire stood in front of the instrument, her expression no longer as fragile as it had been three months ago.

Her experiences during this period allowed her to gradually adapt to this surreal life.

She watched Zhang Qi and Chu Xuan make the final adjustments, her eyes filled with tension and anticipation.

According to Zhang Qi and Chu Xuan, this machine could help her escape death.

"All units are operating normally."

Zhang Qi completed the final check.
"We can begin. We need a sufficiently strong 'fluctuation' to allow it to complete the initial anchoring and reverse tracing."

"Let's go." Chu Xuan didn't waste any more words and led Claire and Zhang Qi out of the warehouse again.

They returned to the city.

This time, they were hunters who voluntarily stepped into the hunting grounds.

As soon as their car came to a stop, another strange event occurred.

A lifting platform that was cleaning the glass curtain wall of a nearby high-rise building had its cable snap without warning!
A massive metal platform, accompanied by the screams of two sanitation workers, hurtled down from dozens of stories high, heading straight for their car!

This attack was more swift and direct than any of the previous ones!
"It's now!"

Zhang Qi growled.

Inside the warehouse, the enormous crystal globe suddenly erupted with blinding light! The golden nebula inside the sphere spun wildly, and an invisible probe seemed to pierce through the barrier of space, precisely locking onto the will fluctuation originating from the world itself that caused the "accident"!

"Anchoring successful! Initiating reverse tracing!"

The globe's rotation began to slow down, and the light inside gradually converged at a single point.

Immediately afterwards, an image began to appear on the surface of the crystal sphere.

That wasn't a street, a city, or any corner of the earth.

It was a chaotic, boiling nebula.

A star was born within it, ejecting billions of tons of matter. A blue planet gradually condensed and took shape under the pull of gravity, with oceans of lava surging across its surface for billions of years, until the arrival of the first drop of water.

The images flow, from inorganic to organic, from single-celled to multicellular, from ocean to land... It is an epic of the evolution of life.

Then, the first upright-walking ape-men appeared on the vast grasslands. They looked up at the starry sky, and sparks of wisdom shone in their eyes.

Zhang Qi held his breath.

What they saw was neither a simulated animation nor any archival footage.

That vast, ancient, and boundless aura rushed towards me, as if it had traversed billions of years.

This is... a memory... and a will... belonging to this universe, this world...

(End of this chapter)