Chapter 50: Astronomical Observation Data
Click.
The crisp snap of the spring mechanism rang through the hall.
The coupled ratchets released their hold on one another, and the tightly sealed lid of the black iron box slowly rose, revealing a deep, shadowed gap.
Finn reached out and lifted the edge of the lid. The heavy cover swung fully open, exposing what had been sealed away for decades.
A wave of exclamations broke out. The officers standing ready could no longer hold themselves back and pressed forward, desperate to see what was inside.
Dozens of trained military police also grew restless. One after another, they stood on tiptoe, craning their necks to get a better look at the contents of the Black Iron Box.
Marian Kirk’s mouth dropped into a perfect “O,” wide enough to fit an egg. She stared in disbelief at everything before her, eyes fixed on the open box, then stumbled forward two steps as if she had to touch it to prove it was real.
City Lord Congreve Murphy wasn’t doing any better. His mouth hung open, his eyes staring straight ahead.
Decades of anticipation had finally come to an end. Overwhelming joy surged into his chest, briefly sweeping away all reason. In his excitement, he pressed a hand to his heart, failed to catch his breath, and dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.
The supreme leader of Ironatom had fainted on the spot, yet not a single person paid him any attention. Every eye remained locked on the Black Iron Box, leaving Congreve lying on the cold floor.
Finn looked at them helplessly and waved hard. Only then did the group, their eyes practically glued to the box, snap out of it. They hurried over, helped the elderly city lord up, carried him to a chair, and gave him emergency medicine.
Since he was closest, Finn naturally got the first look. He quickly scanned the contents of the Black Iron Box. Inside were thick stacks of documents—blueprints, books, notebooks, and records.
On top of everything lay a yellowed kraft paper envelope.
Finn grabbed it without hesitation, tore it open, and pulled out a single sheet of paper.
The first line read: “My descendants, surprised? All you had to do was enter the password twenty times, and the box would open by itself!”
Finn skimmed the rest. The message was simple: be bold enough to try, brave enough to explore. Even if the twentieth password attempt was wrong, the box would still open. There was no self-destruct mechanism at all.
In the letter, Cool Prophet enthusiastically praised Ironatom’s bold, enterprising spirit and tireless willingness to learn through trial and error. Unfortunately, he would have been disappointed—Ironatom had only tried eleven times before giving up for good.
Marian quietly edged closer to Finn and stretched her neck to peek at the letter. Finn glanced at her. The female officer instantly flushed red and lowered her head, unable to meet his eyes.
Earlier, Marian had shown extreme distrust and dislike toward him. Now Finn had opened the box with ridiculous ease, and it was no different from being slapped in the face in public. Her cheeks still burned with embarrassment, and she could hardly lift her head in front of him.
Finn casually tossed the letter to her and went back to sorting through the rest of the contents.
Most of the books, blueprints, and notebooks were technical documents covering biology, chemistry, agriculture, animal husbandry, mathematics, materials science, metallurgy, and more. Cool Prophet had even laid out a full technology tree, clearly marking when each field should be developed.
Nearly all the technologies recorded were essentially Zenith Star science.
Given Ironatom’s current industrial level, they had no chance of realizing even one of them.
The miniature nuclear fusion battery was a clear example. Even if Ironatom had another hundred years, they still wouldn’t be able to manufacture the necessary containment materials.
No wonder Cool Prophet had made such a mystery of it and buried these materials inside the Black Iron Box.
Finn flipped through the stack one item at a time and confirmed that most of it had little value to him. It was the kind of thing that was useless in practice, but still felt wasteful to throw away.
The Spacetime Destruction Bureau’s technological level far surpassed these lower-level systems, and they even had a great scientist named Zhuge-Tyentse, one of the top researchers across the Endless Worlds.
After turning the black iron box inside out, Finn found only three things that interested him: a thick volume of astronomical observation data, Cool Prophet’s diary, and a set of materials on miniaturized anti-gravity levitation technology.
This miniaturized anti-gravity levitation technology stood at the very top of Cool Prophet’s aerospace technology tree.
His recent adventures had made one thing clear to Finn: he needed a portable aerial scouting device, something similar to a drone.
He had considered rotor-based drones or jet-powered aircraft.
But rotor drones were unreliable. In harsh conditions—strong winds, heavy fog, thunderstorms—they could easily lose control and crash. And that was not even considering places Finn might visit where there was no air at all, such as space or the deep sea.
Jet-powered drones consumed too much fuel. Their exhaust nozzles also exposed a strong infrared signature, making them poor for stealth and not very versatile.
In the future, Finn might have to sneak into heavily defended places like the Area 51 military base or pull off operations such as breaking through radar air-defense networks. For that, he needed an unmanned aerial vehicle that was quiet, unobtrusive, highly intelligent, and multifunctional.
With this miniaturized anti-gravity levitation technology as a foundation, he might be able to hand-build exactly such an unmanned aircraft.
He stored the blueprints and manuals for the miniaturized anti-gravity levitation technology in his field pack, then opened the thick astronomical observation log.
The moment he lifted the cover, the first line caught his attention:
“In this chaotic, filthy era, I may be the last person who still looks up at the stars.”
Finn slowly turned the pages of the astronomical observation data. Besides changes in the major constellations, it also recorded the trajectories, arrival times, and impact locations of the “Heaven-sent Objects.”
The records spanned seventy-five years. As Finn read on, he noticed that the handwriting in the first half and the second half did not match.
After reading the annotations on each page, Finn understood. This thick stack of astronomical data had not been recorded by Cool Prophet alone.
At first, it had been maintained by an elderly astronomer at an observatory. Later, when the old man was close to death, Cool Prophet—then wandering the wasteland—visited him and took over the responsibility of observing the heavens.
A faded line of red handwriting drew Finn’s gaze:
“Heaven-sent Objects are the chief culprit behind the nuclear war. They are still poisoning this world even now. I have a duty to uncover the secret of their arrival.”
Finn continued turning the pages. A thin sheet of pale yellow paper slipped out, drifted down unsteadily, and landed by his feet.
Finn picked it up and looked it over. The page was densely packed with formulas and charts. It was Cool Prophet’s analysis of the Heaven-sent Objects.
Seventy-five years of observation had not been wasted. Through careful analysis, Cool Prophet had finally summarized a pattern behind the Heaven-sent Objects:
“They come from deep space. The times and locations of their appearances follow no discernible pattern, but when their flight trajectories are analyzed, their final landing points all indicate the same direction—the Alderon Sea in the north.”
On the paper was a hand-drawn diagram. All the Heaven-sent Objects’ flight paths had been extended forward, and the dotted trajectories eventually converged at a single point.
Through complex projection mapping and coordinate transformation calculations, Cool Prophet had marked a yellow point on the continental map labeled “Alderon Sea”
“Something there is guiding the Heaven-sent Objects toward it,” Cool Prophet wrote.
The final line was written in sharp, forceful strokes:
“I will find it.”