The mobile cabin suddenly began to accelerate, and the number indicating the speed on the holographic screen increased from zero to sixty before stabilizing. Thanks to the excellent cushioning design inside the cabin, Sun Hang didn't feel any shaking during this vertical descent.
Even the bottle of cola he had just taken out from the freezer remained perfectly still.
"That 'Mr. Pei'... Does he live underground? In that... Layer of Hou Soil?" Sun Hang asked.
Judging by the current trend, it was clearly heading straight down towards the "Layer of Hou Soil" beneath the surface.
"No, deeper than Hou Soil... Mr. Pei's residence is located 16 kilometers underground, which we call the 'Source Palace.'" The accompanying personnel responded.
Source Palace? Sun Hang always felt that this name seemed to have a slight connection with the primordial enigmatic entity, but he knew very well that even if he asked, the other party either wouldn't answer or simply wouldn't have access to that level of secrets due to their escort-level authority.
"Goodness, sixteen kilometers... That's almost reaching the mantle, right?" Sun Hang chose to skirt around the issue.
Such issues involving primordial enigmatic entities, instead of asking this guiding lackey, it's better to ask the big shot directly.
"Chunming City is located at the intersection of the Northern Xiazhou Plate, the Taihang Mountain Fold Belt, the Yan Mountain Fold Belt, and the Jiliao Basin, with a crust thickness of over thirty kilometers... In fact, the Source Palace is not the deepest place in Dubhe Tower. The No. 9 experimental well, which started construction half a year ago, is expected to reach a depth of twenty-five kilometers, and will be specifically used to accommodate some atypical enigmatic entities." Before the accompanying personnel could speak, a virtual image of a young girl appeared on the holographic screen in front of Sun Hang, answering his question enthusiastically.
"AI?"
"Yes, I am Dubhe Tower's management AI No. 90026, happy to serve you." The girl said.
At first, Sun Hang thought the AI's voice sounded familiar, hesitated a moment before realizing it was the broadcast voice he mistook for a real person at the entrance of the Jade Pillar.
A depth of sixteen kilometers would take sixteen minutes for a mobile cabin moving at sixty kilometers per hour—Sun Hang just finished the last Oreo in the box, and the cabin stopped within a stone chamber entirely made of deep black rock.
These deep black rocks had streamlined orange-red patterns that emitted fluctuating glows as if magma flowed inside them. Yet, when Sun Hang stepped out of the cabin, he found the chamber temperature kept a comfortable twenty-four degrees Celsius, identical to the air-conditioned cabin.
"Welcome to the Source Palace." The holographic image of the AI girl didn't disappear after Sun Hang left the mobile cabin, but transferred inside the stone chamber, hovering beside Sun Hang.
"I thought it'd be hot underground." Sun Hang said casually.
"Based on the sea-level baseline, we are at a depth of fifteen thousand nine hundred seventy-five meters, where the normal temperature should be about two hundred seventy degrees Celsius." The AI girl responded.
"Two hundred seventy degrees?" Sun Hang glanced up at the stone chamber dome over twenty meters high, "To maintain this temperature, the daily energy consumption just for cooling could power a standard block in Tianfu City for an entire summer, right?"
"There are no high-power cooling devices installed here. The constant temperature is entirely thanks to these stone bricks." The AI girl said.
"Stone bricks?" Sun Hang squatted, gently tracing an orange-red pattern with his hand. Faintly, he seemed to sense a hint of enigmatic entity mimicry inside the stone bricks.
"These stones... are they enigmatic entities?"
"To be precise, they're artificially created enigmatic entities." The AI girl circled Sun Hang, "These stone bricks come from Geng-59 enigmatic entity 'Source Temple'. After artificial meme editing, they became the construction material for Source Palace, also inspiring its name."
"Source Temple? Is it an environmental type primordial enigmatic entity? But shouldn't primordial enigmatic entities have the serial number zero? What's the deal with this Geng-59?" Sun Hang wondered.
"'Source Temple' is not a primordial enigmatic entity; it's just an underground cave in New Zealand's Pulenti Bay Area. Experts determined the cave once hosted a primordial enigmatic entity or was used as a lair for a long time, which caused meme contamination, turning it into a Geng-type enigmatic entity." The AI girl explained thoroughly to Sun Hang.
"So, the geothermal energy is absorbed by these stones?"
"These stones are officially called Ji-1092 'Energy Gathering Rock (A)', with the suffix A representing the initial 'artificial'." The AI girl wrote this English term out in thin air before Sun Hang, "All 'artificially created enigmatic entities' carry this A suffix."
The Xiazhou Federation rarely employs English letter codes or acronyms... Evidently, this A suffix is an "imported" concept, suggesting the earliest researchers or originators of artificially created enigmatic entities likely came from an English-speaking country.
"Energy Gathering Rock can absorb geothermal energy, store it, and release it under specific conditions." The AI girl said, "The initial construction purpose of the Source Palace was to utilize these artificially created enigmatic entities—every six months, Energy Gathering Rock in the palace will be replaced, with fully charged ones sent to places in need, replenished by new Energy Gathering Rock."
"Sounds quite environmentally friendly." Sun Hang nodded, "Then what happens to these stones once they're full of energy? Are they used as chargers?"
"The energy release process of Energy Gathering Rock is quite violent, generally used as bomb-like weapons." The AI girl answered, "Of course, there are select equipment with special power reactors that can endure Energy Gathering Rock's energy."
"Such as?"
"Garuda." Yang Qi replied for the AI girl, "That thing is powered by Energy Gathering Rock."
"Impressive." Sun Hang praised sincerely.
The group passed through a corridor also built from Energy Gathering Rock into a brightly lit hall, where a tower-like, burly figure rose from the corner and walked sternly towards Sun Hang.
Sun Hang recognized the person; he was the first-level Hunter serving as Mr. Lee's close bodyguard during the combat meeting in Baqiu City—"Iron Wall."
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