Chapter 298
Once, during the last Star Task, Ye Bai had used the Historical Circuit to bring back a super-earth-class deep-space vessel from the "past," creating a one-to-one replica of the original ship.
However, when the same ability was applied to the Star Terminal, the past terminal directly overlapped with the present one upon its appearance, making it impossible for both to coexist simultaneously.
Ye Bai had previously thought this was due to the unique material of the Star Terminal, but now she realized that it had nothing to do with the material itself. The reason for its uniqueness lay in its continuous connection to the high-dimensional psychic universe.
Based on this, a startling yet increasingly plausible hypothesis emerged in her mind.
Unlike the application of intelligent life consciousness in the Star Network, which immerses itself in another world, the influence of Star Technology on the real universe was evidently much greater.
The most typical example was the micro wormhole. Ye Bai had been astonished by the technology of the exchange zone that could be activated anywhere in the universe through the terminal, which was likely leveraged through the psychic universe.
Having already uncovered the truth of the divine realm, Ye Bai immediately thought of a description that, while it shouldn't exist in the real world, perfectly aligned with the situation of Star Technology—
**Authority.**
Within the Star Church, the main control terminals held by insiders and the secondary terminals scattered throughout the chaotic star sea exhibited a clear hierarchical relationship. Higher-level main control terminals issued Star Points and "delegated" tasks to the psychics in the chaotic star sea. Each time a task was settled, a church member with a higher authority terminal would appear.
They either distributed points or provided advanced technologies not available in the exchange zone, essentially bestowing and transferring a kind of "authority."
Beyond knowledge-based technologies, micro wormholes, electromagnetic cannons, gravitational traps... these technologies, which could ultimately be utilized in real-time by terminal holders, perhaps didn't require any high-tech remote deployment or energy support at all.
The terminal holders, through their connection to the high-dimensional psychic universe's **authority**, merely issued a control command at the front end, and then the real universe constructed everything by itself.
In contrast to intelligent life, which must first learn and understand the universe before achieving beneficial natural phenomena through theoretical and engineering accumulation—energy, magnetism, gravity, all of it works this way.
But the universe is different; if the universe is controllable, then opening a wormhole, aggregating the energy of a star, or fabricating gravity requires no preconditions.
Because these phenomena are part of it.
Thus, the Historical Circuit could utilize time to bring back "past" materials, but it couldn't conjure new "authorities" from nothing.
This hypothesis left Ye Bai momentarily silent, and she then directed her psychic energy toward the terminal in her hand.
In the next moment, her originally pitch-black pupils began to change.
If a living being were to look into Ye Bai's eyes at that moment, they would see their own past playing out in reverse within the depths of her gaze.
The Star Terminal, under scrutiny from those eyes, also began to retreat rapidly.
From its latest owner, Ye Bai, back to the previous owner, Black Hole... the entire historical past surrounding this terminal was being revealed in reverse.
Although the content she could glimpse was limited to her field of vision centered on the terminal, nothing was missed; anything that had happened could be known.
These images flashed before Ye Bai's eyes like fleeting shadows. Her current speed of information reception through psychic energy had surpassed the speed of light, making the consumption of such a vast and complex amount of information feel brief.
In the past, when her psychic energy was at level B, Ye Bai had only four skills related to time manipulation. Now, her abilities had undergone a comprehensive enhancement.
Retracing the past information of an item in her hand was just one of those skills.
As the past of the Star Terminal unfolded before her, she realized that under the alias "Black Hole," it had already changed hands three times before she acquired it.
The first person used the name Black Hole, then lost the terminal in a battle. The second person obtained it, popularized the name, and acquired some technology and the Ether Laboratory. Later, the second owner was killed by the "Black Hole" that Ye Bai had slain.
Thus, the third Black Hole had used this terminal the longest, enriching a wealth of data in the Ether Laboratory and employing genetic technology to create several identical loyal subordinates, such as the bald-headed Mei Jia and Luo Jin.
Time continued to rewind, passing through the experiences of several previous owners of the terminal... Finally, it reached its original form.
This secondary terminal, along with a hundred identical secondary terminals, was like droplets of pearly white water, separated from a deep gray main control terminal.
This scene immediately reminded Ye Bai of the information she had obtained through Le Lun's main control terminal last time, which included the management of secondary terminals. Indeed, these secondary terminals were intentionally differentiated by the Star Church for task outsourcing in the chaotic star sea.
After tracing back to the origin of the white terminal, Ye Bai invested more psychic energy, and the subject of her retracing shifted to that black main control terminal—because that was indeed its past form.
The main control terminal was passed among individuals clad in clerical robes, with a frequency much lower than that of the chaotic star sea. It had only transferred through two generations before reaching its source.
This deep gray terminal was separated from an even darker black terminal, indicating that Le Lun indeed had a long-standing identity. The terminal he possessed, which Ye Bai had destroyed, was of a rich black color.
So, does a deeper color imply greater authority?
What she observed before her increasingly confirmed her hypothesis, for if Star Technology truly was advanced technology not grasped by certain star alliances, then she would certainly see the sources related to that technology in the retracing.
Ye Bai did not stop; she continued to amplify her psychic energy input, transforming the subject of her retracing into this evidently more advanced terminal.
Layer by layer, the terminal differentiated; what was it like in its original form?
Just imagining the ultimate form that might possess numerous authorities made Ye Bai's scalp tingle. No wonder the Star Church held such absolute authority in the chaotic star sea.
But if such a "universal control panel" truly existed, why would it appear in the real universe?
At that moment, an absurd thought popped into Ye Bai's mind: could it be that the reality she inhabited was also a game, with the Star Church as the GM? And who were the "players"? Were they hidden within the universe, or did they exist in the higher dimensions she had briefly glimpsed?
"Boom..."
A buzzing sound echoed in her mind. As Ye Bai continued to retrace, she finally broke through some barrier and reached the source of the black main control terminal.
There stood a group of disciples clad in starry robes, gathered around a place that resembled both an altar and a plaza.
In the center of the plaza stood a square stone pillar, atop which floated a crystal-clear orb the size of a head. A figure in an exceptionally ornate bishop's robe reached out to press on the orb.
In the next moment, a multitude of prism-like refracted lights suddenly burst forth from within the orb. Accompanied by the release of light, the initial one hundred black main control terminals were born from the orb.
With her current computational ability, Ye Bai even counted that there were a total of 6,895,134 beams of light.
What was that orb? Could it be something left behind by the mechanical ascendants of the Floating Ghost Clan? And what about the stars that the Star Church worshipped?
Just as this new question arose in Ye Bai's mind, all the retracing images came to an abrupt halt.
The past before her vanished, and the focal point of her vision remained on this secondary terminal, but the background had transformed into the familiar Ether Laboratory.
The extent to which a secondary terminal could retrace the past was already its limit.
However, Ye Bai's expression was not one of regret; she had gathered enough information.
For now, Ye Bai could not only see simple images when retracing the past of an item; she had truly witnessed "history." In the process of retracing, the information she could obtain extended beyond mere visuals to include information about interactions and locations where the item had lingered.
Acquiring an item equated to mastering the causes and effects that constituted its existence.
And this ability to trace history was just one of the many facets of Ye Bai's current capabilities.
In the next moment, Ye Bai didn't even leave the laboratory; instead, she directly summoned her psychic energy and opened a rift in space-time before her.
Indeed, it was a rift in space-time.
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