Chapter 952 (1/2)

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Hao Ren walked along the bridge to the thing that looked like a control stand. He saw that it looked almost brand new. There were no buttons, only a silverish metal panel that was as smooth as a mirror. He reached out to touch the edges of the panel, and found no dust on its surface.

In fact, nothing within the cylindrical space had any dust on them. The last door they came through must have kept the space well isolated to prevent dust from entering. Besides, there must be some dust removal system within this space. This must be the actual storage space of the Ultimate Vault.

“What’s this?” Lily approached him and asked curiously.

“Probably the manual controls for mechanical arms.” Hao Ren looked up at the neatly arranged metallic support structures and rectangular containers in the middle of the cylindrical expanse, and the sliding tracks and mechanical arms around them. He touched the eye-catching light green coloured instruction line beside the control panel. “Based on my experience in the control room, this kind of touch screen should be activated like this … Oh, it works.”

As he touched the line, a mess of geometric polygons began to fill up the silvery metal panel. As the polygons began to settle down, they formed an initialization interface. As expected, the controls were locked behind a security system. Only authorized personnel could enter the system. However, this control station was not accessed via a mechanical key like the one the ark’s captain had on him. Instead, it required a password.

The IDT made short work of the password. It flew to the back of the control staton and linked to the control panel via a blue laser beam from itself to the control stand. The image on the control panel flickered with interference. A few seconds later, the security system was bypassed. A simple and user-friendly command window popped up. Hao Ren tried a few of the functions available, and the neatly arranged rectangular containers in the cylindrical space began to move. One of the support structures extended downwards and landed steadily near the edge of the bridge. A rectangular metallic container slid down from above along a sliding track into a groove on the railings of the bridge. Pssh! The container opened.

Lily quickly stepped forward to have a look. She found the container to be empty, with only some loose tubings and a kind of sticky substance left behind.

“What are these things?” Vivian studied the insides of the container as well, baffled by what she saw.

“A hibernation pod is my guess, and I think it’s highly likely.” Hao Ren said slowly. “These must all be hibernation pods, about 150 thousand of them.”

“Hibernation pods?” Vivian knew the term, but the size of the rectangular boxes was vexing. “Don’t you think they are a little too small?”

“That’s because these are for children.” Hao Ren brought the IDT with him as he walk towards her. The IDT had already synchronized itself with the control stand and had full control of its functions. It activated a holographic projector and displayed the information from the control stand.

It was a name list with accompanying headshot photos. The list went on for hundreds of thousands of lines. As the list scrolled quickly downwards, it became apparent that they were all children.

“The oldest is 13, and the youngest is three years old.” Hao Ren pointed at the holographic projection from the IDT. Photos of crew members and some basic information about the vault, such as the system logs, were displayed as well. “This Ultimate Vault was meant to store children in hibernation. It was built 892 years ago. The last time it was accessed was 815 years ago.”

“So it’s been a few decades since the vault was opened …” Nangong Wuyue dabbed his tail lightly on the sticky substance, confirming that the sticky substance was capable of keeping something alive at low temperatures. “The question is, why only children? Where are all the adults?”

“Do you remember the ark’s last captain that we saw in the control room?” Hao Ren looked up and said. “He died from a chronic disease. The disease ate through his bones. I suspect that all the adults had died from the disease, leaving behind only children.”