Chapter 969: Mysterious corpse

Coffins, such things, exist in almost every civilization that has the habit of ‘collecting corpses’; humanoid beings often independently develop such a culture.

Even Europe and Asia, two continents with almost no interaction, could independently develop ‘coffins’, and the main reason for this is simple.

This is all due to the real existence of the ‘Underworld’ and the communicative effect of ‘coffins’ with the Underworld.

In a sense, this can also be considered a type of ‘sacrifice’, one of the operational logics of this Universe; the Underworld truly exists, and the deceased can indeed reincarnate.

Therefore, many aspects related to the deceased can be explored, just like discovering the existence of the Four Greats fundamental forces; some individuals with exceptionally high inspiration can perceive the special effects produced by funerals, coffins, and similar objects.

And at this moment, on this mysterious planet, at its North Pole, there was actually a coffin.

This was truly very illogical.

Clearly, this planet was still in the Hadean Eon, a period when a planet was just forming, gradually cooling and solidifying from a scorching ball of magma.

It takes hundreds of millions of years for a protoplanet to gradually cool and solidify from a scorching ball of magma, then slowly develop primitive oceans, atmosphere, and land.

During this process, geological activity would be extremely violent, with widespread volcanic eruptions, various greenhouse gases covering the planet like a quilt, lava flowing everywhere, and intense tremors caused by the cycle between new crust and the mantle; earthquakes were as common as eating, happening every day.

Such a planet obviously had no life.

Actually, not entirely; the Limitless once encountered a special life form called ‘Demon’ on other planets during the Hadean Eon; they had no physiological characteristics at all, they were simply talking stones.

This is still different from inorganic life.

Generally speaking, mineral life, rock life, these special life forms, even if they are composed of inorganic matter, still have ‘organs’ and a ‘Body’ inside them.

Their consciousness either originates from various structures within the Body, with their thinking organs possessing a certain degree of materiality, meaning that although the Materials composing the Body are diverse, there is always a Body, with metabolism, interacting with the surrounding environment.

In other words, a true stone and a ‘rock life’, although their components are both stone, if you carefully inspect their internal structure, you can find that rock life has ‘racial characteristics’ and is significantly different from ordinary stones.

But that kind of life called ‘Demon’ was completely different.

A ‘Demon’ actually doesn’t have such a Body; it is just a stone, and if it doesn’t move, even if you scan it, you won’t find any difference from an ordinary stone.

Their thinking organ is not the Body, but the mysterious thing called ‘Spirit Soul’; the Body is just the carrier of the ‘Spirit Soul’, so Demons can be born on any substance.

A stone can be a Demon, a puddle of water can be a Demon, a teapot, a cup, a bed, even a planet, or even a Guixu, all can be Demons.

No matter what your Body is like, as long as it is ‘enlightened’ and awakens intelligence, then it will become a Demon.

Therefore, planets in the Hadean Eon can also have Demons, possibly lava Demons or stone Demons, but these primitive Demons cannot contend with these Limitless civilizations, so they should have been discovered long ago.

It should be known that the Limitless civilization has confirmed that there will absolutely be no civilization on this planet, and moreover, this planet has only just been born.

Since it’s a newly born planet, then… where did the coffin on it come from?

Perhaps, it was a coffin floating within the protostellar nebula material? I heard that many civilizations have a custom called ‘sky burial’, which is to directly throw coffins into the Void Realm.

The answer is currently unknown.

But there’s no need to be afraid; this is an opportunity for the entire civilization.

The Limitless civilization is very powerful; as a sixth-rank civilization, they possess many sixth-rank warships, each of which can contend with a sixth-rank Cultivator specializing in combat.

If not specializing in combat, but rather a pharmacist, refiner, inventor, or a pure speculative Cultivator, they wouldn’t even be able to defeat these warships.

The Limitless civilization had also previously encountered those civilizations of individual cultivation, and it was quite peculiar; their civilizations were distinctly divided into ‘two layers’, which the Limitless civilization called: ‘embryo’ and ‘adult’.

Their ‘embryo’ was likely just a feudal civilization on the surface; these Mortals of the feudal era didn’t need to do anything but ‘reproduce’.

They would constantly have children, constantly produce newborns, and then, among these newborns, most would live their lives as Mortals, muddled and mediocre.

A few, however, would participate in various selections, screening for talent, and then embark on the path of cultivation, becoming Cultivators with powerful individual combat strength; these were considered ‘adults’.

Some civilizations call this system the ‘divide between Immortals and Mortals’; they are one civilization, but the upper and lower levels are not interconnected; Cultivators maintain the reproductive rate of the feudal era, then screen out the upper-class Geniuses, and these Geniuses with cultivation abilities form the main body of the civilization.

Actually, it’s not a bad solution; at least these civilizations are very powerful in combat and very good at developing technology, although it’s all individual technology, and many things can only be used by themselves.

In short, after integrating all considerations and evaluating all risks, the controlling group of the Limitless civilization finally decided to scan this coffin.

They could not destroy this coffin, just as primitive people with stone tools were helpless against a coffin made of high-strength alloy; even if their stones shattered, they couldn’t leave a single mark on it.

But if it was just scanning, perhaps it could be effective.

The incomparably precious prototype machine, dragged by machinery, with a heavy energy source connected behind it, descended all the way down.

The surface had long been leveled, and above it was a huge crack.

It was where a rift valley and a canyon intersected. This rift valley looked deeper than the map indicated, and there was a scree slope leading all the way to the entrance of the rift valley.

Below here, there was a cavity, and within the cavity, there was a square, giant-tower-like rock Formation.

“On a normal planet, such a cavity would not exist,” Abo commented as he walked inside.

“Right, that’s why our survey team couldn’t resist going in for a closer look, and that’s how they discovered that thing,” the Shipowner replied.

At this moment, the Shipowner was leading Abo, walking inside the rock cave, and said, “But when they carefully checked around, they found something extraordinary and strange: beneath the rubble, they actually discovered that coffin.”

As they spoke, the surrounding sounds became eerie, as if surging into the open space from the darkness in all directions.

This was because the atmospheric composition around them had changed, causing the sounds transmitted through the air to be distorted.

However, the Limitless communicate telepathically; although they possess basic hearing, telepathic communication is what they are best at, so communication would not be affected by atmospheric composition.

“This place makes one feel uncomfortable,” Abo said.

“It’s still okay for now.” As he said this, the Shipowner stopped.

Abo also stopped accordingly.

There, a coffin lay askew, surrounded by some mysterious Formation.

Only the lower half of the coffin was complete; the upper half was damaged, revealing a human face inside.

This human face resembled a skull, its shriveled skin having turned dark black, with a texture like parchment.

His skin had many cracks, especially on his face, even revealing two rows of ferocious teeth.

His two eyeballs were gone, leaving only two empty, deep sockets; although he could see nothing, his shriveled eyelids seemed to still be gazing at this world.

Even now, looking into his eyes, one could still feel a profound chill.

“This, this coffin, is it broken?” Abo was astonished.

This metal, if that report wasn’t lying, was almost impossible to destroy with any of their forces.

But this metal was actually torn apart by someone!

The Shipowner said, “That’s right, it’s broken; it was broken when we found it, but even so, we can’t destroy its remains.”

Strength is divided into Material strength and structural strength, just like how an intact steel bar is difficult to break, but a steel bar with a crack can be broken by hand.

This is because when the structure is damaged, it becomes more susceptible to force.

However, this mysterious metal, even in this damaged state, remained motionless and could not be destroyed or pulled apart.

It was simply… cheating.

“Alright, we don’t need to delve into what this thing is; we just need to get this Material and quietly leave, that’s all,” the Shipowner said.

Clearly, he also knew that some things should not be done.

For example… provoking something that looks like it’s dead.

This Universe is full of dangerous things; even dead things, a tiny bit of their remains, are enough to cause devastating damage to civilization itself.

Within the Limitless civilization, there was once an observation; while observing a backward civilization, that backward civilization liked ‘The Way of Dreams’.

They would use special meditation methods to immerse their spirits into the dream world.

There, they found some kind of power; the civilization itself directly evolved to the point of being able to use superpowers; they entered that deep dream, contacted those dangerous existences, and then absorbed power, gaining various special abilities.

Controlling lightning, shapeshifting, life absorption, fire breathing, Body enhancement, magnetic control, and so on.

That was originally a backward civilization, still in the cold weapon era, but with this power, they quickly expanded their destructive power to a city level.

The Limitless civilization was observing this civilization at the time, trying to find the source of this power.

But suddenly one day, an infectious mental illness appeared in this backward civilization, which they had brought out of ‘the dream’.

Although it was a mental illness, it was contagious; as long as one came into contact with it, symptoms such as madness and mania would quickly appear, then spread, leading to a frenzied slaughter of other life, ultimately causing their own exhaustion and death.

This mental illness was transmitted through ‘witnessing’, meaning that when you ‘saw’ someone having an episode, you would be infected, with an incubation period ranging from three months to a year.

In less than ten years, this civilization became extinct, and this infectious disease also spread to the Limitless civilization, causing their observation station to collapse.

Ultimately, the entire observation station was wiped out, and it was a rescue ship that went afterwards that discovered this from the observation station’s work log.

After that, the Limitless civilization quickly blew up that planet, eliminating all possible traces, and the rescue ship made an immediate decision; the Shipowner ordered that all informed individuals, including himself, be quarantined for a year to ensure no infection or illness, only then did they feel relieved.

This Universe is just that dangerous…

Even powerful civilizations like the Limitless, capable of crossing galaxies and destroying planets, often feel trepidation.

This Universe… is too dark, too dim, so much so that it’s impossible to clearly see where the danger truly lurks.

Abo and the Shipowner both deeply understood this point, so they knew what was important.

“Have you done the isotope test?” Abo asked the Shipowner, harboring this thought.

“We have, but you definitely won’t believe it; the isotope dating result for this thing is… within a thousand years, and if you remove the error, he might have died just yesterday,” the Shipowner explained.

It is well known that all living organisms ingest a fixed proportion of elements like carbon, or radioactive isotopes of several other elements.

While alive, organisms maintain the proportion of these isotopes at a “normal” level.

However, after an organism dies, it no longer ingests new isotopes.

Thus, the radioactive isotopes already present in the Body begin to decay according to a predictable pattern; this mechanism invisibly provides a very reliable timer, which activates the moment the organism dies.

By analyzing the decay residues, one can obtain a relatively accurate value, thereby estimating how long it has been since death.

This method can be used to estimate the age of planets; as long as something has matter, its age can probably be calculated using this method.

The Limitless civilization has performed similar tests countless times; this is a very mature technological achievement, and the results have been verified many times, making their credibility very high.

But…

When isotope dating was performed on this corpse and the coffin, the time on them seemed to have stopped.

The test results showed that the subject seemed to have died only yesterday.

Even accounting for error, it means they died between yesterday and a thousand years ago.

Yesterday to a thousand years… Is that possible?

Look at the surrounding igneous rocks; these magmas are at least fifty million years old!

But the person embedded inside is only a thousand years old?

Absolutely impossible.

“All the mysteries await your machine to unravel them, my great scientist,” the Shipowner said.

“Then… let’s begin the scan,” Abo took a deep breath.