Half an hour later.

Chen Chen inserted the SD card in the camera into the computer and viewed the footage in the SD card.

Following a flash on the screen, Chen Chen saw a still of the pa.s.sage in the camera footage.

Inside the recorded footage, the camera began creeping closer toward the pa.s.sage. It got closer and closer until eventually the display was filled with nothing but noise.

It would appear that upon pa.s.sing through the pa.s.sage, the camera was interrupted by some sort of unknown source of energy.

This interference only lasted a brief instant. In the very next second, the image on the display became clear again. Instead of a pitch-black pa.s.sage, it was a vast plain.

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 gla.s.s, 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 flas.h.i.+ng. Under the reflection of the sun, they emitted rainbow-colored beams.

Something was off…

Chen Chen quickly replayed the footage and looked at the surface again. As expected, the surface was riddled with countless crystal shards of gla.s.s. The small ones were only the size of a piece of gravel but the large ones were as large as millstones.

In one particular 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 pa.s.sage 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 entered later 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 G.o.d chips made a brief connection, the original cloned soldier proceeded to return to the pa.s.sage with the other two.

The footage flashed 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 accepted 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, and land 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. “Plantation?”

There was no mistaking it. Chen Chen did not see any plantation in the world on the other end of the pa.s.sage.

Upon taking note of this, Chen Chen suddenly had a speculation 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 Was.h.i.+ngton in North America!”

“Are you sure?” Chen Chen asked in surprise.

“Hundred percent!”

Little X was wholly confident. The image on the computer 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 rectangular building. Although it was largely destroyed at this point, the many white pillars surrounding it could still be discerned.

“The shape and proportions of this building hold a ninety percent similarity to the Lincoln Memorial.”

Little X explained, “After matching the landscape, 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 Was.h.i.+ngton.”

“This means that the city shouldn't be surrounded by desert.”

Chen Chen pulled up the map to find similarities. The location the opened pa.s.sage led to was none other than Was.h.i.+ngton located in North America. It was Was.h.i.+ngton in a separate world.

Only, it would appear that something had happened in that world as Was.h.i.+ngton, the capital of North America was turned into a wasteland.

Apart from that, for some unknown reason, the terrain had also turned into a desert. Also, there was a large amount of crystalline present, sprawled across the lands like large 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 the computer. He noticed that the USB drive had lost more than two-thirds of its original l.u.s.ter as it barely had one-third of its previous radiance.

Based on the previous observation, Chen Chen had deducted that the pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 Was.h.i.+ngton, the capital of North America was turned into a wasteland, 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 the computer 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. According to the USB drive settings, a movie that had an object instantiated from it would become 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 black 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 black pa.s.sage.

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 acc.u.mulated a total of a billion-kilowatt hour of electricity, the rules of the USB drive had undergone some unprecedented changes…