Universe Infinite Canteen

When Ma Lu had first entered the secret chamber, his gaze was instantly drawn to something on the wall, but out of politeness, he first checked the message left by the Pointy Hat.

It turned out not to yield much useful information.

The video left by the Pointy Hat was based on the scenario of successfully completing his thesis and returning to The Grand Alliance, but the developments thereafter had completely diverged from his expectation.

He hadn't managed to leave the promised gift for the traveler who discovered this place, but at the same time, he hadn't taken any of the items in this room with him.

Ma Lu walked over to the wall and removed the blue metallic object hanging there.

Its design resembled a household drill a bit, with a handle and a switch, a thin metallic head on the front, and an oval slot at the back, plus three buttons in red, yellow, and green on the side.

Ma Lu felt this object looked somewhat familiar; then he remembered where he had seen it before—Pointy Hat always had one beside him.

Ma Lu had seen it in numerous remnants left by him, as Pointy Hat often hung it by his waist.

However, Ma Lu had never seen him use it even once, so he did not know what specific functions it had.

But judging from its design, the chances of it being a weapon were high.

Ma Lu initially thought Pointy Hat would just create a backup point for his valuable experimental data, but given the considerable size of the secret chamber, it was quite possible that it also served as a safe house.

Considering that Pointy Hat had come here alone from The Grand Alliance to experiment and he didn't seem as capable of fighting as Yan Wu and the Wandering Sorcerer, it made sense to have a few weapons for self-defense.

Ma Lu tried pressing the switch, but the Blue Mini Drill in his hand didn't respond; then he pressed the side buttons in various sequences, but still nothing happened.

Had too much time passed?

But the other facilities in the room, including the controllers, had no issues. It didn't make sense for only the Blue Mini Drill to be broken.

Ma Lu's gaze then moved to the oval slot at the back. He wondered, could it be missing a component?

So he rummaged around the secret chamber again. There were many boxes here, some containing daily necessities and emergency food, which had mostly spoiled after so many years

More of them contained various parts, probably spares for the instruments in Pointy Hat's laboratory.

But now those instruments were gone, and most of the spare parts were useless.

As Ma Lu searched, he indeed found something that could fit into the slot.

They were translucent stones that looked like gems, each piece uniform in size and shape, evidently man-made rather than naturally formed.

Ma Lu found a total of 14 such gems and inserted one into the slot at the back of the Blue Mini Drill, which immediately lit up.

Oh, oh, oh, it looked like it might actually work!

Ma Lu initially wanted to pull the trigger to test it, but then thought better of it; in case its function or power was different from what he imagined or strong enough to bring the whole secret chamber down on them, burying them alive, that would be a big problem.
Experience new tales on empire

So he changed his mind, mimicking Pointy Hat's practice by hanging the Blue Mini Drill at his own waist, and then packed up the remaining 13 gems, which seemed to have a storage function, as well.

He also packed up a thermos from a red box and found a portable device resembling a radio and several bottles of liquid that looked somewhat suspicious.

Ma Lu didn't know what these items were for, but he grabbed them first anyway, and it wasn't until he had almost finished scavenging that he remembered his purpose for this trip and returned to the controller.

He couldn't understand the interface and symbols on it, but fortunately, there was a voice-activated function available.

Ma Lu still used Pointy Hat's voice, "Bring up the experimental data!"

The controller paused for about two seconds, then a massive stream of dense data flooded the screen.

Ma Lu used the reading mode and briefly looked through the data.

However, to his disappointment, Pointy Hat hadn't recorded any methods to deal with the Energized Plants; instead, he had been tinkering with his so-called PPCW Growth Liquid.

According to his research, this Growth Liquid significantly enhanced the performance of Energized Plants, whether in growth or reproduction speed, showing a nearly 80% increase in yield compared to the control group without it. That was the extent of it...

This was a set of purely experimental data.

Ma Lu also found Pointy Hat's research proposal, which listed the background, methodology, and timeline of the study, followed by some references...

It was a very standard research proposal as well.

Pointy Hat apparently never considered how to eliminate the Energized Plants; his research focus had always been on how to increase their yield.

In other words, although Ma Lu had found the data left behind, it didn't offer a way to alter the predicament faced by the humans of this Plane.

However, for him personally, the trip to Redstone Gorge was quite fruitful.

Even if he set aside the weapon and the other unidentified items he found here. The data alone was worth a fortune.

The several bottles of suspicious liquid he had just found out were probably the so-called PPCW Growth Liquid. According to Pointy Hat's research, this substance could significantly accelerate the growth of Energized Plants and was harmless to the human body.

If used in a Desktop Farm, Ma Lu could achieve vegetable freedom in no time.

Of course, he couldn't bring anything from this Plane back to the main Plane, including food ingredients. Moreover, there wasn't much PPCW Growth Liquid left in the chamber, but Pointy Hat thoughtfully stored the formula in the controller as well.

And according to him, the ingredients were easy to obtain and the production cost was very low, fulfilling all the conditions for mass application.

Pointy Hat wasn't boasting this time; the value of this thing was simply immeasurable.

If he had actually completed this project, he could have made a name for himself in the academic world, and it's likely that big corporations would have lined up to write him checks for the patent.

Unfortunately, such a research genius ultimately failed because of a few Little Biscuits.

Ma Lu couldn't help feeling regretful. There were many people like Pointy Hat on Earth, endowed with extraordinary talent and focus, dedicating decades to a single field and achieving remarkable accomplishments.

However, many suffered from their excessive concentration lacking basic life skills. Ma Lu remembered once reading a news story about a Tsinghua professor who was cheated out of over ten million by a simple scam.

The comments section was filled with people who couldn't understand, thinking that as a Tsinghua professor, he should be highly intelligent and not be susceptible to scams.

But in reality, this had little to do with intelligence as most people are only skilled in one or a few areas; when it comes to unfamiliar territories, they can be no different than fools.