<h4>Chapter 189: New Rules</h4>
Half an hourter.
Chen Chen inserted the SD card in the camera into theputer and viewed the footage in the SD card.
Following a sh on the screen, Chen Chen saw a still of the passage in the camera footage.
Inside the recorded footage, the camera began creeping closer toward the passage. It got closer and closer until eventually the disy was filled with nothing but noise.
It would appear that upon passing through the passage, the camera was interrupted by some sort of unknown source of energy.
This interference onlysted a brief instant. In the very next second, the image on the disy became clear again. Instead of a pitch-ck passage, it was a vast in.
It was a world that Chen Chen had never seen before. The section between the sky and the earth was painted with light. The blue sky above was almost transparent like a piece of ss, golden sand piled together to form a vast dune structure.
On the surface of the dune, numerous pieces of objects which looked like crystals were shing. Under the reflection of the sun, they emitted rainbow-colored beams.
Something was off...
Chen Chen quickly reyed the footage and looked at the surface again. As expected, the surface was riddled with countless crystal shards of ss. The small ones were only the size of a piece of gravel but therge ones were asrge as millstones.
In one particr frame, Chen Chen even noticed a piece of crystal the size of a gigantic mountain off in the distance.
???
Numerous gigantic question marks appeared in Chen Chen’s head. One thing was certain, the movie he had the cloned soldier open was the Chronicle movie. Even if the USB drive opened a passage to another dimension, it only made sense that it would lead to the world in Chronicle.
What was the deal with the crystalline the size of a mountain?
Chen Chen resumed the footage and continued watching.
Inside the footage, he saw that the two cloned soldiers who had enteredter found the very first cloned soldier who went in. The cloned soldier was looking at the ruins of a city in the distance. When their God chips made a brief connection, the original cloned soldier proceeded to return to the passage with the other two.
The footage shed again and the three of them had returned to reality.
Chen Chen watched the thirty-seconds long footage several more times.
After he made sure he did not miss any details, he put his mind to work.
“X.”
After brief consideration, Chen Chen suddenly dragged the progress bar and directed it to the frame where the city ruins were visible. “Match this with pictures online to see if the ruins of this city belong to a real city.”
“Got it!”
Little X epted the task and quickly began matching the cropped image of the city ruins with all the cities in reality.
While this was going on, Chen Chen shut his eyes and silently reflected on everything he saw earlier.
“Clear sky, golden desert, the ruins of a city, andnd filled with crystalline fragments...”
Chen Chen mumbled to himself. These were all the clues obtained from the footage.
However, Chen Chen still had a gut feeling that something was amiss.
With this in mind, Chen Chen began to recollect the plot of Chronicle in his mind. He abruptly opened his eyes. “ntation?”
There was no mistaking it. Chen Chen did not see any ntation in the world on the other end of the passage.
Upon taking note of this, Chen Chen suddenly had a spection brewing in his mind. When he suddenly perked up, he heard Little X’s voice. “I found it, the ruins of the city belong to the city of Washington in North America!”
“Are you sure?” Chen Chen asked in surprise.
“Hundred percent!”
Little X was wholly confident. The image on theputer suddenly turned into an enhanced image. The image was then zoomed closer to highlight a specific building with the edges blurred out.
It was a rectangr building. Although it wasrgely destroyed at this point, the many white pirs surrounding it could still be discerned.
“The shape and proportions of this building hold a ny percent simrity to the Lincoln Memorial.”
Little X exined, “After matching thendscape, I found that the other buildings surrounding this building are an exact match with the real-life variant in terms of proportions and styles. This further proves that this city is indeed North America’s Washington.”
“This means that the city shouldn’t be surrounded by desert.”
Chen Chen pulled up the map to find simrities. The location the opened passage led to was none other than Washington located in North America. It was Washington in a separate world.
Only, it would appear that something had happened in that world as Washington, the capital of North America was turned into a wastnd.
Apart from that, for some unknown reason, the terrain had also turned into a desert. Also, there was arge amount of crystalline present, sprawled across thends likerge patches of cabbages.
What was the meaning of all this?
The only way to obtain more information is to conduct more research.
With this in mind, Chen Chen looked at the USB drive still plugged into theputer. He noticed that the USB drive had lost more than two-thirds of its original luster as it barely had one-third of its previous radiance.
Based on the previous observation, Chen Chen had deducted that the passage conjured by the USB drive consumed energy upon entry and exit but it did not consume energy while being idle. There was also the chance that it did consume energy but at such an insignificant rate that it was almost negligible.
It was telling that this was what it was like to have the USB drive charged with a billion-kilowatt hour of electricity.
What was unprecedented was that the USB drive which once only allowed the instantiation of objects could now open a passage for humans to enter upon activation.
If that was the case, Chen Chen should be able to enter the world of Chronicle using this method and absorb the required crystalline from within the world. This served as a good alternative to bringing the crystals into reality which was a waste of the USB drive’s energy.
However, Chen Chen first needed to eliminate all possible risks this method could pose.
For example, if the USB drive only had enough remaining energy to grant entry but not exit, then would that mean he would be trapped in the world inside the USB drive?
There was also the factor of potential dangers in the world. After all, even Washington, the capital of North America was turned into a wastnd, what were the chances that the other countries of other continents did not share the same fate?
If the world had ended and humans no longer existed, what was it that led to the demise of human civilization?
Chen Chen was not going to light-heartedly step into the world before these questions were answered.
With this in mind, Chen Chen plugged the USB drive into theputer again. He opened the USB drive, selected Chronicle, and hit [ctrl+d], all done in a swift and familiar motion.
“Dong!”
A system error pop-up window appeared, catching Chen Chen off guard.
“It can’t be deleted?”
There was little chance of Chen Chen ever forgetting the attributes of the USB drive. ording to the USB drive settings, a movie that had an object instantiated from it would be deletable and could never be opened again. Any following attempts to open it would only result in a system error pop-up.
This time, however, the rule seemed to be overturned.
Chen Chen thought for a moment and decided to just put his cursor on the Chronicle movie folder and double-tapped the mouse.
“Dum!”
Chen Chen instantly saw his vision go ck as if all the light in the world vanished in just for an instant before reverting to normal again.
It was quickly followed by the appearance of the ck passage.
Not only did the movie not show a system error message, but it could also be opened again.
All signs suggested that when the USB drive had umted a total of a billion-kilowatt hour of electricity, the rules of the USB drive had undergone some unprecedented changes...