The stars, but they become the gray wind

As she spoke, Carly began to build the hydroelectric platform. An unprecedented amount of silver nanomaterials separated from Carly's purple hair and flew towards the distant sea. A huge number of nanomachines formed a huge silver sea tornado hundreds of meters above the sea. As the "tornado" extended dozens of tentacles composed of active nanomaterials to the sea surface below, dozens of nanomechanical tentacles were like the nozzles of a 3D printer, quickly and efficiently printing out the base part of the hydroelectric platform on the seabed, and constructing the basic framework structure of the hydroelectric platform above the sea surface. Nanomaterials that continuously separated from the tentacles and floated towards the frame of the hydroelectric platform quickly filled the frame, and all the pipes, lines, shells and other details were constructed extremely accurately. The entire hydroelectric platform was built and formed at an astonishing speed. With the assistance of nanomachines, the project that originally took several years to complete was compressed to only a few hours.

After the final section of the top heat dissipation vents were completed, Kalisi reached out and retracted the silver tornado of nanomaterials still floating above the hydroelectric platform. After confirming that the platform's self-tests were in good condition, Kalisi remotely activated the massive hydroelectric platform, which stood over 500 meters tall, through the mind network.

As the external start-up command was issued, the silver-white hydropower platform with an inverted trapezoidal appearance standing on the sea surface began to operate. A large amount of seawater was sucked in from the water intake at the bottom and pumped into the isotope extraction facility inside the hydropower platform. The deuterium in the seawater was quickly extracted and separated, and transported into the annular reactor chamber confined by the magnetic field. It was instantly heated to nearly one billion degrees Celsius, turning into ultra-high temperature plasma. As the plasma discharged, the wireless power transmission device outside the hydropower platform also began to transmit a steady stream of electricity to the surrounding area in the form of microwaves.

And with the start-up of the reactor on the hydroelectric platform, the first nuclear fire ignited by deuterium-deuterium fusion since the emergence of intelligent life and civilization on this planet was finally born at this moment...

Chapter 10 Anti-Gravity Ore (Kybolei Mineral)

When the hydropower platform was started up and began to stably output electricity in the form of microwaves, in order to solve the security problem of the hydropower platform, Calisi used the remaining nanomaterials to manufacture 50 spherical drones. She ordered these 50 drones to conduct 24-hour uninterrupted air patrols in the airspace and sea areas within a radius of 80 kilometers centered on the hydropower platform, and to report any suspicious targets to her immediately.

Watching dozens of round spherical drones start the anti-gravity vector engines at the bottom of the fuselage, rushing into the sky at an extremely high speed, rushing into the clouds and flying away, Carlisle turned her head to look at Aze and Yuki who had been standing behind her and watching the whole process when the hydroelectric platform was being built. Then she heard a burst of crunching sounds, and then saw the two people half-lying on two lounge chairs, each holding a bucket of popcorn in their hands and chewing it, and even a beach umbrella fixed to the ground above their heads.

"Uh"

"Um...let me ask first, while I was working so hard on the water and electricity platform just now, you two weren't just lying in the back on the recliners eating popcorn, were you?"

"Ah...yes...what's wrong?" Yuki answered confidently.

"Can't you... uh??... Never mind, let's move on to the next step of the construction plan."

"Try to find and monitor this world's radio?"

"Yes, as long as the world's development path and technology are not too unconventional, such as magic, then in theory there will definitely be applications and technologies that use electromagnetic waves to transmit information."

"But... if even a super civilization like the Combined Fleet and life forms like us, made of nanomachines, truly exist, I wouldn't be surprised if magic really existed in this world."

"Well...regardless of whether or not this world has magic, something beyond our common sense, let's first try to see if we can detect electromagnetic waves used for communication within this world's atmosphere."

"I've already notified Renlong, who's still at the camp, through the thought network. Before we return, we need to build a large receiving antenna and equipment that can detect and monitor this world's radio waves."

"I think by the time we return to camp, Renlong will probably have already figured out whether humans in this world use electromagnetic waves to communicate."

Having said that, Carlisle suddenly had an idea and decided to make a bet with the other two people around her.

"How about we make a bet? Let's bet on whether humans in this world use radio waves to communicate? I bet they do."

"I bet not." Yuki said.

Aze lowered his head and thought for a moment, then decided to bet on Kalisi and said to the two of them, "I'll bet too."

"Okay, in that case, whoever loses the bet will be responsible for everyone's dinner tonight!"

"A word is settled!"

Just as they had placed their bets and were planning to return to the temporary camp along the coast from the southern end of the island, an unexpected situation interrupted their plans.

Just as they were leisurely returning to the camp along the coast, the slime mining machine that was digging deeper into the man-made cenote in the center of the island suddenly reported to Kalisi that something unusual had occurred.

After receiving the mining machine's report, everyone had no choice but to head to the center of the island to deal with the "anomaly" the mining machine had discovered underground, temporarily postponing their return to camp to search for a communication radio. They instructed Renlong, who was still in camp, to first use his own receiving equipment to try to find the communication waves from this world.

Several people followed the spacious hardened road that had been opened and built in the dense forest when the mining machine went to the center of the island, and soon arrived at the artificial sinkhole under construction. At this time, the bottom of the sinkhole was more than 8 kilometers deep from the ground. The ground entrance to this giant underground facility that will carry a complete industrial system is a circular hole with a diameter of more than 200 meters.

"So, the mining machine must have discovered something and suddenly reported the abnormality to you?" Aze asked.

"To be precise, the miners reported to me that they found something strange underground."

"Strange thing?" Yuki asked in confusion.

"Specifically, when the mining machine dug 8200 meters underground, it discovered a strange mineral with very strange properties. I've already had one collect some samples, and we'll study it in detail later."

As a silver slime mining machine as tall as a person climbed up the flat pit wall and rolled in front of several people, the silver slime squirmed its body, spit out the sample of strange mineral found underground that was stored in its body, and placed it in front of several people.

"Why is this ore glowing green? And regardless of its appearance or composition, it doesn't look like fluorite or emerald."

Yuuki looked at the ore in his hand and wondered.

"I just activated my intelligent analysis vision. This green light doesn't contain any radioactive radiation... This ore is really strange. It glows green, and it's clearly not a radioactive mineral like copper-uranium mica that glows. I didn't detect any harmful radiation at all."

"And, that's not all. The miners have discovered even stranger properties of this thing before."

Kalisi took the ore sample that Yuuki was holding in his hand with her right hand, and used the nanomachine to peel off a certain amount of powder from it. Then she used the nanomachine to make a transparent test tube of aluminum oxynitride material, liquefied the powder separated from the ore sample and put it into the test tube, and at the same time mixed a part of the nanomachine into the test tube.

"Miners have previously reported that this strange mineral, under a certain degree of high temperature and pressure, will produce an anti-gravity field for surrounding objects."

"As long as the high-purity liquefied solution made from this mineral powder is under sufficiently high temperature and pressure, it will produce an anti-gravity effect on surrounding objects, such as this."

Kalisi manipulated the nanomachines mixed with the mineral solution in the test tube to create a sufficiently high temperature and pressure. The green solution in the test tube in her right hand produced brighter green light as the temperature and pressure increased. Then Kalisi pressed the test tube containing the solution in her right hand onto the outer surface of the slime mining machine beside her. Immediately after that, the tall and heavy silver slime mining machine touched the test tube and floated up from the ground, suspended in mid-air.

"So... this thing is an anti-gravity ore?"

Aze said as he stared at the slime mining machine floating in the air.

"Probably. To trigger the anti-gravity properties of this ore, you need a liquefied solution made from a high-purity powder of the mineral. The solution must be heated to over 230 degrees Celsius and the pressure must reach over 0.6 MPa to trigger the ore's anti-gravity properties. That's why I just used a high-strength material like aluminum oxynitride for the test tube."

Kalisi answered and summarized the properties of the ore.

"So this mineral is useful to us?"

Yuki asked a very crucial question at this time.

"At least at this stage, it's not very useful. We do have anti-gravity technology. Including the anti-gravity devices used in our previously manufactured drones, we actually have quite mature anti-gravity engines and related technical systems. Even if this kind of ore were to become a useful addition to our anti-gravity technology system in the future, it would at most be icing on the cake."

"But this ore probably doesn't have a name yet, right? How about we give it a name?"

"Great, great! I've wanted to name something after myself for a long time." Aze seemed very positive about this.

At this moment, everyone's thought network suddenly received an important message sent by Renlong. Everyone who saw the message showed an expression as if they had discovered something very interesting.

"I didn't expect that someone else had already named this ore. It turns out it's called Kaibolai Ore."

"And the previous bet was won by Wu Yaoqibaba Linqieyao and Aze. Yuki, it seems that you are responsible for tonight's dinner."

"I didn't expect it, I didn't expect it to be this world!"

Aze, Carlisle, and Yuuki all had playful expressions on their faces.

(Steampunk, anti-gravity ore, Wuyiqi Baqi 1 Lily, these keywords should help you guess which world this is, right?)

Chapter 11 The world of Princess Code (also known as Princess Agent)?

Outside the camp, Renlong, after receiving the request from Kalisi and others, began to build receiving devices and instruments that could find and monitor global radio waves. Thanks to the rich manganese nodule minerals on the seabed and the soil and rocks produced by the mining machines in the center of the island when digging the artificial sinkhole, everyone now has a considerable reserve of nanomaterials. Therefore, it did not cost Renlong too much nanomaterial to make such a device. After only 20 minutes, a large parabolic antenna receiving device with a base height of 40 meters and an antenna diameter of 30 meters was completed.

Renlong walked under the antenna and casually turned on the smart receiver located next to the antenna base. Due to the high degree of automation and AI intelligent technology used in this facility, the antenna itself will automatically search and monitor any artificially generated radio waves in the atmosphere in all frequency bands after it is started, regardless of whether the radio waves in the corresponding frequency band contain artificially encoded information. At the same time, the AI ​​intelligent program of the device itself will automatically decode and read any monitored and discovered radio waves. In other words, no matter how technically encrypted the radio wave information is, it is no different from being naked in front of this receiving and monitoring device.

After the automatic monitoring system was activated, it quickly found a string of artificially coded radio waves in the atmosphere. After confirming the approximate source and direction of the radio waves, the receiving device automatically adjusted the direction of the huge parabolic antenna with a diameter of 30 meters to the direction of the radio wave source, and began to automatically decode the monitored information and send the decoded information to Renlong's thinking network.

"It seems that humans in this world also use devices like radio waves and telegraphs to transmit information and communicate remotely. Their communication technology is surprisingly ordinary."

"Well... at least it's not some magical communication method beyond our common sense. Looks like Yuuki is going to lose the bet. It's likely that she'll be responsible for our dinner tonight."

Renlong sighed, and separated a small ball of nanomaterial, and casually made a can of steaming cola. He pulled the pull ring with his other hand, held the cola in front of him and took a big sip.

"Let me see what the decoding device has interpreted."

As he spoke, Renlong opened the holographic AR vision display function in front of his eyes, called up the decoded radio information sent to the thought network, and began to examine it carefully.

"Oh... this is... a car chase and large-scale gunfight on the streets of London late at night, with multiple Republic spies carrying out sabotage operations and exchanging fire with the capital's security personnel? The sender of this information is a reporter from The Times?"

"Winston, the Royal Guard's Captain, mysteriously disappeared, and his body was found in a London port the next day? The sender was a writer for the London Evening News?"

"The Third Prince, Duke Arkham, successfully led his army to quell the rebellion in the New World and will return home in glory soon? Is this sender a Guardian reporter?"

"Also, the Republic Navy fleet has recently undergone large-scale mobilizations, suspected to be experiments with new weapons? Was the sender the Albion Kingdom Intelligence Department?"

"How interesting... I didn't expect it to be a world we're all very familiar with. Maybe we'll get a chance to meet that amazing team of beautiful spy girls?"

Renlong uploaded the information to the thought network and sent it to the few people who were still conducting experiments on the Kaibolei anti-gravity ore dug out by the mining machine in the center of the deserted island. Then Renlong temporarily disconnected from the monitoring receiving device, and then used nanomachines to casually make a wooden recliner and table, and a piece of vanilla ice cream on the table. He sat down heavily on the recliner, stretched his limbs and stretched himself, and took the vanilla ice cream on the table beside him with one hand and slowly tasted it.

"But... the cities in the steampunk world... and the giant airships and aerial fleets using magical anti-gravity ore. I'm curious what they look like."

Renlong was lying on a recliner eating ice cream, looking at the blue sky and thinking.

"So, the Earth in this parallel universe we're in right now is the world of the Princess Code?"

"Judging from the intelligence intercepted by Renlong II, it should be correct."

"Hmm... a tech tree and military system based on steam engines and Khyberai anti-gravity ore... As Cabot said before, this world's path of technological development is indeed very strange to us, isn't it?"

"This is a completely steampunk world... Their computer technology should be something like the Difference Engine. I wonder how its performance compares to the integrated circuit computers of our original world?"

Aze sighed and asked.

"The theory behind our world's Difference Engine was proposed in 1819, and the first usable physical machine was manufactured three years later in 1822. However, due to the limitations of the application environment at the time, this technology was not developed further."

"If the needs of society in this world led to a significant demand for the Difference Engine, then perhaps they would still be using improved models of the Difference Engine for calculations and statistics today."

"If the Difference Engine appeared in this world around the same time as our original world, then by 1902, where we are now, the technology for the Difference Engine would have been developed for 80 years. This is almost the same amount of time it took for integrated circuit computers in our world to develop."

Carlisle rested her thumb on her chin, thinking. (Note 1)

"In other words, it's possible that computers developed in this world based on the Difference Engine technology could be comparable in some respects to our 21st-century integrated circuit computers?"

"There's a certain possibility, but the Difference Engine itself has flaws in its design and structure. Even with advances in materials science, it's difficult to miniaturize it. Furthermore, its inherent operational limitations lead to a clear upper limit to its computing power. And that upper limit is likely not very high."

"For example, if you consider a difference engine and an integrated circuit computer with the same computing performance, the former will inevitably be hundreds or even thousands of times larger and heavier than the latter. The former will also inevitably be much more complex and difficult to use than the latter. Consequently, due to its much larger size and mass, the total amount of raw materials and parts required in its production process will also be much greater, resulting in a higher production cost for the former."

"At least, considering the overall technological level of this world, it shouldn't pose a threat to us for the time being, right?"

After considering the technological level of this world, Yuki made his own judgment.

"Not necessarily. Since their military system is developed based on aerial warships made of anti-gravity ore, it must be quite different from the military construction level of the world before we traveled through time. I think it's better for us to be cautious."

"After all, what's shown in the animation alone isn't everything. At least that gravity bomb made of anti-gravity ore can indeed pose some threat to us. Although they don't currently have a delivery system like missiles. But it's better to be safe than sorry. For the sake of safety, we'd better be cautious."

"I agree"

"I agree"

After hearing Carlisle's analysis, Aze and Yuuki thought about it and agreed.

After returning to the camp, they found Renlong lying on the receiving antenna next to the camp and eating ice cream. They planned to hold a meeting. However, after seeing the vanilla ice cream in the hands of the white-haired dragon girl, the originally serious meeting turned into a strange scene with everyone holding an ice cream of a different flavor in their hands, sitting around the conference table in the camp, eating ice cream and expressing their ideas and suggestions.

"So, next, we need to send some camouflaged drones deep into Europe, the Kingdom of Albion, and the Republic to determine their technological and military development levels. If they pose a threat to us in the foreseeable future, we will need to build up our military presence first."

After saying that, Carlisle took a bite of the strawberry ice cream in her hand.

"I remember the database mentioned an optical stealth camouflage system for drones. We could consider making some optical stealth camouflage devices to equip drones."

Renlong added, holding a vanilla ice cream in one hand.

"What does Miss Cabot say?"

Aze, who was eating a bucket of sea salt ice cream, asked.

"She said she was looking forward to our next move. She also said she wanted to have some fun on this planet..."

"Why does this guy seem like he's just here to watch the fun?" Yuki licked his plain ice cream and rolled his eyes.

"Well... I think this guy Cabot just wants to see us get into trouble and have some fun, right?"

Aze spread his hands helplessly.

"hehe.??"

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this guy's reaction?"

Carlisle reached out and touched her forehead and sighed.

Note 1: Design of the world's first programmable computer, ENIAC, began in 1943 and was completed in 1946. Its purpose was to help the US military calculate artillery trajectory. This computer used decimal not binary. Programming was not in the modern sense of the word, but rather achieved by rewiring the computer's circuitry. Data and processing results were input and output via punch cards. From the time this computer's design began in 1943, it has been exactly 80 years to this day.

Chapter 12: Drones speeding through the atmosphere?

After everyone discussed the recent action plan in the conference room, they decided to manufacture some drones with optical stealth camouflage capabilities for intelligence reconnaissance, and take the initiative to go deep into Europe and the Kingdom of Albion and the Republic to first find out the military strength and true technological level of both sides, and then make long-term plans for the next action.

Ten spherical anti-gravity drones, equipped with full-band atmospheric optical stealth camouflage, were quickly assembled outside the camp. They hovered in mid-air in a horizontal row, their anti-gravity vector engines emitting faint blue tails of flame. Several sensors on their fronts continuously scanned the four operators in front of them.

"Alright, the optical sensors and cameras are normal, the X-ray scanner and night vision goggles are functioning normally. How about trying the optical camouflage stealth system?"

Renlong checked the various systems of several drones, and after confirming that there were no abnormalities, he asked Calisi to activate the optical stealth device of the drone.

"Understood, the optical invisibility function has been activated."

As Kalisi finished speaking, the surface of the ten drones in front of the four people began to ripple like the surface of water and slowly became transparent. The blue tail flames emitted by the drones' anti-gravity vector engines also gradually became invisible. At this time, unless an observer got very close to check and touch, it would be impossible to find that there was a spherical drone floating in front of them.

"The optical camouflage stealth system is functioning normally, the power system is functioning normally, the weapon system self-test is normal, and we are ready to start action at any time."

Carlisle finally confirmed the status of the drone and said to Renlong.

"But... we're just sending a few drones out to gather intelligence. Is it really necessary to go through such a complicated pre-departure inspection? This isn't a high-intensity, direct combat scenario. Isn't this procedure a bit redundant?"

Aze asked in confusion.

"No, Renlong and I think this is still necessary. Even if it's just a relatively simple reconnaissance mission, it's still a continent-spanning mission. Sending drones to Europe, outside our control area, is crucial. Especially considering we're still not fully aware of this world's technological level, we can't be too cautious."

"What's more, I don't want the drone to be lost due to any unexpected reasons outside of our control area. Especially if the various advanced technologies carried by the drone are obtained by the natives of this world, it will be very troublesome."