Chapter 585.1: Yore's Life

The Champion brand biomass anti radiation agent project was quickly launched, taking only a week from approval to official initiation.

Even before the project was formally approved, Yore had already followed the senior researcher named Zhao Feiyu to report at the research institute in Brocade Lake Municipality.

Just as Chu Guang had expected, the place they arrived at was indeed the Champion Biopharmaceutical Research Institute located in the Brocade Lake Municipality.

It was the very same coordinate given to him by the Academy.

At that time, Yore was still a rather awkward young man, not skilled in socializing, with his entire focus devoted to research.

Although the average working time per person in the Federation Era was only one hour, that did not mean all jobs were like that, there were vast differences depending on the industry.

For example, in scientific research.

Spending 24 hours a day in the laboratory was a common occurrence.

Yet Yore never felt it dull, nor did he have any anxiety about how everyone else is on holiday while he was at work, because in that era, working was no longer a necessity for survival, but rather a way of fulfilling self-worth.

Repetitive and tedious work had long been handed over to machines. Even if one never worked a day in their life, they could still live in comfort and abundance, a standard of living that people of the classical age could never have imagined, something they might only dare to dream about in film and television.

What did not happen often was called a miracle.

It was precisely for this reason that this infinitely beautiful era was given the name Prosperity Era, to distinguish it from the old times of the past.

For Yore, to be able to enter a world-renowned company immediately after graduation and engage in pioneering research was in itself an exciting and meaningful thing.

Thus he practically lived in the laboratory, dedicating every waking hour outside of sleep to his research.

Yet even with such passion, he was merely one member of a vast research team.

And just an unremarkable, inconspicuous one at that.

Of course, though Yore was content with it, Chu Guang, standing by as an observer, could only yawn while watching it all.

Since that fellow had not stepped outside the institute even once since arriving in Brocade Lake Municipality, Chu Guang had no way to explore outside while he was conducting experiments, and could only stare blankly at the scenes before him.

The images he could see were all fragments of Yore’s memories.

If Yore had seen something before and forgotten it, it might still be reconstructed, but if he had never seen it at all, then it could only be fabricated from nothing.

Eventually, when Chu Guang grew unbearably bored, he simply snatched the remote from Little Seven and set the playback speed himself, jumping it to 100 times, 1,000 times, even 10,000 times faster.

In the blink of an eye, four years passed, and the year reached 2125.

Chu Guang suddenly remembered, this year was the beginning of the Three Year War. At once, he canceled the fast-forward.

Coincidentally, at the very same moment he slowed time back to normal speed, the institute also underwent new changes.

Several soldiers clad in military exoskeletons stood at the laboratory entrance, while a stern-faced officer spoke with the person in charge.

Far away, the streets looked visibly desolate. Over half the ads on the holo-screens had been shut down, the remaining ones only looping war reports and mobilization propaganda.

Unable to hear their conversation, Chu Guang returned to Yore’s side. At this moment, Yore was speaking with his senior, Zhao Feiyu.

After four years of growth, that young man had transformed from a naïve rookie into a reliable researcher.

For an instant, Chu Guang even glimpsed a trace of Yin Fang in him.

The two were quite alike. Both belonged to the type of pure researcher.

At least... At that moment, he still was.

"Our laboratory has been requisitioned. Now we fall under the Central Wartime Research Institute," Zhao Feiyu said.

"... Requisitioned?" Yore looked at him in puzzlement. "But we don’t even study weapons."

"That’s right. Our work isn’t about researching weapons... It's to help the army assess biological hazard risks and assist the rescue departments in developing some low-cost medicines."

Seeing Yore’s worried look, Zhao Feiyu patted him on the shoulder. "Don’t worry. Actually... This counts as a good thing. At a time like this, our needs will be met first. The Academy secured a large budget for us."

In the Prosperity Era, the Academy was a loose academic organization, made up mostly of well-known figures in academia, similar in nature to a merchant guild or a workers union.

Having such backing was reassuring, yet Zhao’s face showed no trace of joy when he said it.

War had erupted suddenly, and it happened without any warning.

It was said to have begun because a Lagrange Point space station observed hostile activity from the direction of Proxima Centauri. But what that hostile activity was, or why the colonists acted with such intent, nobody knew.

Perhaps such truths would only be revealed after the end of the war. For now, the sudden war had already exceeded everyone’s imagination.

Especially since for most people of this era, war was an utterly foreign concept, rarely seen even in news, let alone in film or television.

Of course, even so, the Federation still held vast advantages.

With immense industrial capacity, talent reserves, and mobilization ability, they had raised a massive army from scratch in just a single month.

Yet the situation was still grim.

The traitors four light-years away had unleashed their trump card from the very start, deploying unspeakable fungal organisms onto their homeworld.

Those were creatures no one had ever seen before.

The Earth’s biosphere offered no precedent for them.

Clearly, they were unique to the Alpha Centauri. The colonial authorities, upon discovering them, had not reported to the Federation, but instead kept them hidden as a secret weapon.

Perhaps it had been the madness of a few, perhaps a collective decision, but at that moment, pondering over it was meaningless.

The spores and fruiting bodies of the Slime Mold spread wildly through the tangled orbital transit networks, rendering Clearspring City, 800 kilometers away, instantly uninhabitable.

And they weren’t the only one. Almost every major city was hit. Paradoxically, smaller, less prominent places like Brocade Lake Municipality escaped the scourge.

When no means could halt its expansion, the authorities resorted to the last measure.

Before it could spread to other urban clusters, they would purge it with the all-powerful neutron rays.

From an economic standpoint or any other, that was the least costly option. And by using pure fusion hydrogen bombs without residual radiation, even the buildings could be preserved.

"... In short, our job is to determine the effects of neutron rays on the Slime Mold Hives and assess the destructive results. They intend to design a weapon capable of stably and directionally releasing neutron plumes, so there would be no need for explosions at all. The Academy has asked a physics institution to cooperate with us in this evaluation," Zhao Feiyu explained.

"That kind of thing also requires experiments?" Yore asked curiously.

He was no nuclear weapons expert, but he knew no organism could survive neutron radiation.

It would shred nucleic acids, proteins, and enzymes beyond repair, halting all life processes dependent on those macromolecules.

No organism could possibly survive under neutron rays... No, not necessarily.

Such organisms did exist.

Suddenly Yore thought of the petri dishes in the lab. Those bluish mushrooms with their strange, magical resilience.

Since inner monologues were part of memory, Chu Guang could see not only the words Yore spoke, but also the thoughts he kept to himself.

"Some worry that nuclear strikes might cause the Mutant Slime Mold to mutate further, making things worse," Zhao Feiyu said gravely, glancing at the soldiers. "To be honest, that’s my assessment too... The enemy must know we would resort to this. Would they really be unprepared?"

Watching their conversation, suspicion flickered in Chu Guang’s eyes.

If he remembered correctly, nuclear weapons had already been used in the early stage of the war. He had read about it in that blood-stained notebook.

Why was it different in Yore’s memory?

With that doubt, Chu Guang pressed fast-forward again.

A month later, while eating in the cafeteria, Yore saw on the news the mushroom cloud blooming over Clearspring City.

Though the anchor insisted all residents had been evacuated or sheltered, those pale words carried little conviction.

It was a megacity of over 100,000,000 people.

How could all of them possibly have been evacuated? Even if they were, where could so many people have gone?

At least in Brocade Lake Municipality, Yore had not seen a single refugee from Clearspring City.

He sat frozen in his chair, his hand trembling so hard that his spoon clattered onto the tray.

Startled by the sound, he did not bother to pick it up. Instead, he shoved back his chair, strode quickly to his senior’s office, and burst in without knocking.

"What’s going on? A nuclear bomb? I thought we were still doing technical verification! And why a nuclear bomb..."

Looking at the news on the holo-screen, Zhao Feiyu’s expression was solemn. "I don’t know..."