Volume 1 Glacial Relics Chapter 23: Broken Stone Tablet
"No matter whether it is a coffin or an operating table, we will know if we go up and take a look... If I could move now, I would be the first to rush up." Leighton said weakly. Having lost his main power reactor and with some parts of his body seriously injured, apart from being relatively conscious, he was actually not much different from Zhuo Ligetu who had been in a deep coma.
"Ivan, let's go up and take a look." Ke Lan said, "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't itching to do it. I'm also curious about what's inside."
"Yeah." Ivan took out two pairs of gloves from his pocket and threw one of them to Ke Lan.
"Don't be careless. On Earth, the emperors of the old era were particularly fond of setting traps in their coffins in order to kill those tomb robbers who were blinded by greed at the last moment." said the hound.
"Don't worry, we are not rookies who have just entered the industry." Ke Lan said, taking out a folding metal rod from his backpack, and then glued a mirror to the end of the metal rod with super glue. This task should have been completed by a drone equipped with a high-definition camera, but with most of the equipment lost, this simplified substitute can only be used.
Ke Lan and Ivan climbed onto the platform with the help of suction cups. Compared with the previous long-distance view, the sarcophagus right in front of them fully displayed its heavy texture - this sarcophagus was five meters long, more than three meters wide, and nearly one and a half meters high. The material used was similar to the rocks in the cave, but the surface had a special luster, which should be due to the integration of some metal elements during its production.
There are no words or patterns carved on the outside of the sarcophagus, but there is a row of evenly spaced circular holes. It is unknown whether these holes are used for drainage or ventilation, or whether they are slots for some additional components.
The sarcophagus had no lid, but Ke Lan and Ivan did not lean on the edge of the sarcophagus to look inside. Instead, they stretched out the metal rod with the mirror attached to it and used the image reflected on the mirror to observe the interior of the sarcophagus.
"Hiss..." Seeing the image on the mirror, Ke Lan couldn't help but take a breath - inside the sarcophagus was a pool of sticky plasma with a lot of broken organ fragments soaked in the plasma. From time to time, a few bubbles would rise from the bottom and then burst with a snap.
"It's normal. After all, the monster crawled out of here. No matter what the sarcophagus looks like, I'm mentally prepared." As a doctor, Ivan didn't overreact to such a scene. "We need to call a few more people to help. First, collect some samples, and then clean out these dirty things."
Fortunately, there was a mini water suction pump among the equipment carried by everyone. Although the pipe was blocked countless times by blood scabs and broken meat, after half an hour of hard work, all the dirty blood in the sarcophagus was finally cleaned out.
" This thing... seems to be a stone tablet?"
There were no remains of the Alpha aliens in the sarcophagus, nor any priceless burial objects. There was only a one-meter square stone tablet, which was densely covered with the words of the Alpha civilization.
"It's Alphanumeric... This... probably has thousands of characters!" exclaimed the Hound. Although relics such as documents are of little use to hunters like them, the official purchase price offered by the Ark is very high, and it is also very helpful for the hunter's qualification level assessment. The higher the qualification level, the more tasks can be selected, and the higher the guaranteed reward for each mission.
"Ke Lan, the two of us will go and lift this stone tablet out. Ivan and Asano Akira, you guys catch it from above... Everyone must be careful, the price difference between an intact and a broken piece of this thing is at least five or six times..." The Hound said as he called Ke Lan to climb into the coffin together.
When it comes to dealing with documentary relics, hunters have a complete set of procedures. They first take photos, then make a rubbing of it with a resin film, and finally wrap it with an anti-oxidation film and transfer it out.
The process of taking photos and making rubbings went smoothly, but when wrapping the anti-oxidation film, an accident suddenly happened -
As the anti-oxidation film was very thin and there could not be any gap between it and the stone tablet, Ke Lan had to take off the gloves. However, when his fingertips just touched the stone tablet, the entire stone tablet shattered without any warning!
"ah?!"
Ke Lan's eyes widened instantly and he froze in place. His lips began to tremble slightly and his whole body twitched as if he had been electrocuted!
"It's broken... What a pity, it seems that the stone itself has weathered... Eh? Ke Lan, are you okay? This is not your fault, really."
The hound thought that Ke Lan was stunned because the stone tablet suddenly shattered, but in fact, at that moment, a large amount of information from unknown sources flooded into his head like a torrent - he was not stunned by the stone tablet, but was overwhelmed by this sudden information!
What…what is this?!
His head was aching and throbbing, and countless strange images flashed before his eyes like slides. A kind of knowledge that he had never encountered before was forcefully instilled into his mind. This method was like the "initiation" described in the martial arts novels of the old era. Ke Lan's self-defense line was easily destroyed by this uninvited guest, and in the blink of an eye, huge waves were rising in the sea of consciousness!
"What's wrong? Is it a side effect of the previous medicine?" After discovering something was wrong, the Hound immediately ran to Ke Lan and held his shoulders.
"It doesn't look like a side effect of the drug." Ivan shook his head. "This symptom is a bit like a tumor pressing on the nerves in the head..."
"Don't be ridiculous. Someone with a brain tumor can't even pass a physical examination, so how can he possibly pass the hunter registration?" The Hound retorted. However, when he saw saliva dripping from the corners of Ke Lan's mouth, he couldn't help but become suspicious.
This guy... could it be that he has some hidden neurological disease that is usually invisible, and he received too much stimulation today, so it suddenly broke out?
Just when the Hound and Ivan didn't know what to do with Ke Lan, the storm in Ke Lan's mind finally subsided. However, what made him unbelievable was that what had just been instilled into his mind was the content on the stone tablet!
He actually possesses the ability to read the words of the Alpha civilization!!
But despite this, he could only read it, but it was difficult to relay it in human language - the language of the Alpha civilization was too weird. Whether from the perspective of natural language or programming language, it had no similarities. It was completely inconsistent with the logic that an information carrier should have. It was simply a fantasy to try to understand it with human thinking. It had no concept of vocabulary and sentences, and there was no pattern in the combination of characters. The same character had completely different meanings in different places. Rather than comparing it to a code or a secret language, Ke Lan felt that it was a kind of communication at the conscious level.
He can only use the ability he has mastered to understand what these characters want to convey, but he cannot teach another person how to read these characters by any means. For example, these characters have a certain meaning on this stone tablet. If they are moved to another place, even if the size, number, and arrangement order of the characters remain unchanged, the meaning they represent will change.
If a human wants to learn the language of Alpha Civilization, the only way is probably to receive an "initiatory" information shock like what Ke Lan just experienced...
Ke Lan suddenly thought of an old proverb, "It can only be understood, not expressed in words." These eight words are so appropriate to describe the language of the Alpha civilization.
The text engraved on the stone tablet is actually a long and strange prayer. The general idea is that the Alpha civilization believes in a certain god, and that god has many powerful and even terrible enemies. The war between the god of the Alpha civilization and these enemies has lasted for countless tens of thousands of years. Their devout believers want to help their gods, but they are simply unable to intervene in a war of that level with their abilities. Therefore, the Alpha civilization can only find another way and use... (the following is a long paragraph that Ke Lan can understand but cannot comprehend, probably involving the secret technology of the Alpha civilization)... attempting to create warriors powerful enough to intervene in the war between gods.
In addition, words such as "dedication" and "sacrifice" appeared many times throughout the prayer, but the content was too fragmented and the context in many places could not be connected at all. The part that Ke Lan could read was less than one-tenth of the entire prayer.
Create a powerful warrior? Ke Lan couldn't help but think of the resurrected pilots... and the pieces of meat sealed in ice in the illusion...
But... what is the god that Alpha Civilization believes in? Is it a higher-level cosmic civilization? And who are the so-called "enemies of God"? The amount of information contained in this prayer is so huge that Ke Lan feels that his brain is almost not enough.
"Hey! Ke Lan! Stop scaring me! Hey, hey! Your saliva is about to drip onto the coffin!" The hound slapped Ke Lan on the back, finally interrupting his thoughts. Ke Lan, who had come to his senses, staggered and almost fell to his knees in the sarcophagus.
"Huff...Huff..." Ke Lan was breathing heavily. His underwear was completely soaked with sweat and his body was almost exhausted, but his heartbeat remained at a frequency of more than 200 beats per minute - for a human who had not undergone biochemical modification, this data was already very close to the limit.
"Are you okay? Do you want another shot of sedative?" Ivan asked, looking at Ke Lan's pale face.
"I... I'm fine. If you... give me... another shot... I might be... in trouble..." Ke Lan waved his hand and said.
After a brief thought, he decided to keep this secret - he knew that if the news that he could read the text of the Alpha civilization was leaked, the best outcome for him would be to be sent to the dissection table for research, and his brain would be processed into a living CPU for a super translation computer...
Whether in the old era or the new era, individual human rights and life have always been insignificant when it comes to the future of all mankind.
The so-called trolley problem actually has an optimal solution that always exists.
