Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Chapter 270 Awakening Command

Option A and Option B. Two buttons. A civilization's four billion-year wait has finally turned into a multiple-choice question.

Zuo Cheng stared at the line of text on the screen for a long time. No one spoke. The entire floor was so quiet that only the whirring of the equipment's cooling fans could be heard. The signal was delayed by thirty-three minutes; the sentinels had waited under the ice for four billion years. The right to answer had been reduced to two options, silently displayed on the screen in the dead of night in Hangzhou.

"Everyone out. Close the door for me."

Half an hour later, only he and Yu Ying remained in the control room. He activated the Origin Decoding.

The system panel unfolded in his mind. The ability to decode origins extended from the ninth branch, like six thin lines probing into the core database of the Europa Sentinels. Data surged in like an entire ocean.

Five-layer protocol.

The first layer, the Sentinel's mission. Monitor the civilization progress of Seed Planet 177, becoming semi-active when it reaches the electromagnetic communication stage, and initiating a countdown when it reaches level eight. This set of instructions has remained unchanged since it was written four billion years ago. The Sentinels are not observing, they are waiting.

The second layer concerns the significance of the buffer period. It's not about the founders preparing for the event, but about allowing the civilizations being sown to decide for themselves whether they want to join the interstellar network. The founder civilization has only one principle: they sow, but they don't reap. The growing civilization has the right to choose its own destiny.

The third layer, the complete content of option A. Sending a positive confirmation signal, the Founder will dispatch a receiving fleet within one generation. They are not here to colonize, but to impart knowledge of the second stage: interstellar travel, planetary energy, and consciousness networks. Zuo Cheng's pupils contracted slightly.

The fourth layer, option B: Remain silent, the sentinels hibernate awaiting the next level eight civilization. Thousands or millions of years later. A small line at the end: If the activator chooses B, the seed tree system will automatically disconnect all connections with the host. Branches freeze, memories are sealed.

"This isn't a multiple-choice question," Yu Ying's voice came from the side. "This is a one-way door."

Zuo Cheng didn't answer. He was still reading.

The fifth floor.

The data suddenly became much thinner. There was only a single piece of text, with an energy intensity less than one ten-thousandth of the previous four layers, as if it had been written and then erased, leaving only a very faint trace. If the Origin Decoder hadn't read the entire dataset, this piece of text would never have been retrieved by the algorithm.

He finished reading, closed the panel, reopened it, and read it again.

Yu Ying looked at his expression. "What is it?"

Option C. The founder's words written deepest within.

The founder said: If your civilization is capable of reaching the edge of the solar system on its own and activating all nine nodes, you will no longer need a guide. You will become the new masters of the web.

The founders said: We have spent over three billion years in the universe. The web is not our creation, but something we inherited. When we inherited it, we promised that one day we would find a civilization to succeed us. Not because we will perish, but because no civilization should be forever under guardianship. Children always grow up. Teachers always leave the stage. They left everything here: the holographic cube, the hexagonal grid, the five-layer protocol. Not treasure, but lesson plans.

The founder said: Option C is not a multiple-choice question. It's a job description. The job's purpose is to eliminate the need for multiple-choice questions.

Zuo Cheng shut down the Origin Decoding. The control room remained silent for a long time. He could recite every word that had been deciphered, but he still looked at the original text on the screen again. He wasn't quite sure whether what he had just read was the last words of a civilization or a job offer.

Yu Ying broke the silence, her voice slightly hoarse. "Interstellar travel, planetary energy, and consciousness networks. These are the three prerequisites for option C. They're all listed in the Ninth Branch's inheritance agreement. They're not testing us; they're teaching us."

"Yes. They are waiting for a civilization that doesn't need to be guided."

He translated the five-layer agreement into Chinese and compiled it into a top-secret document. The document concluded with his assessment: A was too passive; waiting for others to take over was not human nature. B was too negative; missing the window of opportunity meant never getting another chance. C had only one goal—to leave the solar system, activate all the nodes, and prove with his own strength that he was qualified to be the master of the web, not a subservient successor.

He sent the document to the core team at daybreak.

The following afternoon, in the conference room at the deepest part of the research institute. Double access control. Seven people: Zuo Cheng, Yu Ying, Chen Hao, Shen Yiming, Fang Ze, Han Lu, and Liu Wei. The five-layer agreement was projected onto a large screen, and everyone read it from the first to the fifth layer. A full ten minutes of silence followed.

Chen Hao was the first to speak, his voice not one of excitement. "That's what you call vision."

Fang Ze didn't speak. He read the section on option C three times and wrote a number in his notebook: 7. Nine nodes minus five activated ones, four are still missing. He drew a very light horizontal line under the number. Not an underline, but the starting line.

Shen Yiming said, "The lone traveler took three years to reach Jupiter. How long would it take if we built our own spaceship to get to Titan?"

"Shorter," Zuo Cheng said. "With the network, with the quantum links between nodes in the solar system, we're not building a probe. We're building a ship."

"A ship." Han Lu repeated the three words.

"The prototype of the manned deep spacecraft." Zuo Cheng brought up the parameters of Sky Dome III on the projection screen and added a new annotation. "Titan is the sixth node. This ship is called Pioneer. Pioneer."

A few laughs broke the silence in the meeting room, then subsided. Not because they weren't funny, but because everyone had simultaneously thought of the same thing: one year and four months. The sentinels would go into hibernation after the silence window for option B expired. If civilization couldn't prove its ability to autonomously weave its web before then, option C would transform from an opportunity into a door that vanished forever.

Zuo Cheng stood in front of the whiteboard. "Option C isn't the answer to a multiple-choice question. It's a job description. The goal is to eliminate the need for multiple-choice questions for humanity." He wrote four words on the whiteboard: Lord of the Web. Two numbers were written at either end of the arrow: 5 and 9. Below the arrow were three keywords: Pioneer, Sixth Node, Titan.

He put down his pen. His expression wasn't one of excitement, but of calm. The kind of calm that comes after calculating all the variables.

At the same second, the system panel popped up. The entire solar system node map was updated. The remaining four outer solar system nodes—Titan, Triton, and the three asteroids in the Kuiper Belt—all went from dormant to ready. The energy index rose slightly. Not awakening. It was being noticed.

The web responded. It didn't speak. It just flashed a light quietly. Like that night Chen Xinghe wrote about in his diary, like that flickering light deep in the Sahara.

Two lines of new text appeared in the corner of the panel. The ultimate quest chain for the Webmaster Master has been generated. The objective is to activate all nine nodes autonomously. Current progress: 5/9.

Below is a line of almost invisible small print: Tenth branch sprouting progress, 3%.

At four in the morning, Zuo Cheng sat alone in front of the Origin Archives. He entered all five layers of the Sentinel Protocol, adding a summary at the end: The Founders waited for four billion years not for an answer, but for a successor. They left their things in nine nodes, scattered deep within the solar system. We don't need options. We just need to build a ship.

He turned off the screen and walked to the window. In the Hangzhou night sky, satellites of the celestial constellations streaked across the heavens one after another. The countdown timer in the corner of the system screen continued to tick. One year and one hundred and twelve days.

Option C is not under the ice of Europa. Option C is here. Among the seven people on this floor. In a spaceship that hasn't even started construction yet. In a nascent 3%.