Chapter 411: Research and Speculation

“Report.”

“Come in.”

Jie Ming stood outside the command headquarters. Hearing the voice from within, he pushed open the door and entered.

Lord Frost stood before the tactical sand table. The projection on the table had already been updated—vast swathes of red dots representing the Sickle-Skull had vanished, leaving only a few isolated pockets of resistance.

“You’re here.” Frost didn’t look up, casually tossing over several crystals. “These are the detailed data from the battle just now: energy consumption statistics, tactical response times, behavioral pattern analysis of the enemy commander… I hope you can preserve these into the next loop. I don’t know if it’s possible.”

Jie Ming caught the crystals and swept them with his divine sense.

They indeed contained extremely professional data, including details he himself had overlooked—such as anomalous fluctuations in the Sickle-Skull pheromone network encryption during the later stages of battle.

“No problem.” He stored the crystals against his chest—in reality, transferring them into a dedicated area within his Inner Cave Heaven. “I’ll establish an independent archive, categorized by time, type, and importance level.”

“Excellent.” Frost finally raised his head. Unrestrained excitement gleamed in his eyes. “Then the next question: what is the storage limit of your recording crystals?”

Jie Ming paused.

He subconsciously glanced into his Inner Cave Heaven. After all this time of expansion, the space had grown to the size of a continent.

Though still a small pocket within a plane, for storage purposes…

“If it’s just recording crystals…” He chose his words carefully. “Storage capacity won’t be an issue in the short term.”

Frost’s brows shot up.

“It seems the upper limit of that thing of yours is quite high. But what you’ll be storing next is every record from the entire battlefield.” He confirmed once more. “You’re certain?”

“I’m certain.” Jie Ming’s expression remained unchanged. “Please rest assured—there will be no problem with mere storage space.”

Frost pondered for a moment, then seemed to think of something.

He stepped closer to Jie Ming and looked directly into his eyes. “Then… what if what I ask you to store isn’t just battlefield records?”

“What do you mean?”

“Technology.” Frost said. “All research technology concerning the Sickle-Skull. Reverse engineering of energy weapons, analysis of carapace materials, deconstruction of their pheromone networks… even our research data on the ‘time loop’ itself.”

Jie Ming’s breathing quickened slightly.

“Such data…” He kept his tone as calm as possible. “Could be considered priceless.”

“Of course.” Frost nodded. “That’s why you won’t be doing this for free. In addition to the normal military merit rewards at the end of the war, I can grant you one privilege: all technical data you store, you may freely study, research, and even apply in your own experiments. As long as you do not disclose it externally.”

Jie Ming’s heart thumped heavily.

This was a condition he could not refuse.

Wizards were, by nature, beings who pursued knowledge above all else. And now, Frost was essentially offering him a complete—and continuously updatable—technical database!

“I accept.” Jie Ming replied without the slightest hesitation.

There was no need to consider such terms.

Frost smiled at his response.

“An excellent thirst for knowledge—one of the most fundamental qualities of a wizard.” He said. “But you should understand that accepting this task means you can no longer go to the front lines. Though I recall you’re a logistics-system wizard, so frontline combat probably isn’t that important to you anyway.”

He turned around and rapidly input commands on his Netherweb Terminal.

Seconds later, the order was transmitted through the legion’s internal network to every logistics-system wizard’s terminal.

Command priority: Highest

Content: Immediately initiate the “Loop-Breaking” Special Research Program. All relevant wizards are to form squads and conduct research into all Sickle-Skull technologies as well as the time loop phenomenon itself. All research results are to be submitted uniformly to Tactical Command Headquarters for review and archiving.

Special note: This is a continuous order, effective until the conclusion of the current plane war.

With the command sent, Frost turned back to Jie Ming. “What do you think?”

“Glad to be of service.”

“Very good.” Frost looked out the window. Dawn was approaching; the horizon was already tinged with the pale light of fish-belly white.

“A new day is about to begin.” He said softly. “And this time, we will no longer passively wait for the loop.”

“We will actively create history.”

…

…

One month.

For a plane war involving two advanced civilizations, this timeframe was almost laughably short—like a mere exercise.

Yet in just these thirty standard wizard days, the war situation had undergone a revolutionary reversal.

In the sky, hundreds of streaks of light flashed past—flight trajectories of wizard squads.

After issuing the research assignments, Lord Frost had continued by giving the entire wizard legion exploration missions.

With the intelligence provided by Jie Ming, Frost’s new tactics were simple yet devastatingly effective: abandon cumbersome large-formation army combat and maximize the advantage of superior information.

The wizards dispersed into small elite squads of three to five, slicing into every corner of Sickle-Skull territory like precise surgical scalpels.

The primary task of these squads was to record every piece of information encountered during their searches and submit it upon return.

As a result, the meticulously constructed Sickle-Skull defensive lines became sieves full of holes before the wizards.

“Seventh Squad reporting: Number 3 energy node destroyed. Enemy garrison attempted self-destruct protocol, blocked by pre-implanted rune locks. One complete data core secured.”

“Fourteenth Squad has completed clearance of ‘Acid Valley.’ Discovered new Sickle-Skull variant. Samples collected and sealed.”

“Logistics Third Team requesting support—encountered counterattack from ‘Burrower’ swarms during excavation of underground works… wait, situation resolved. These bugs are pathetically weak once separated from loop-provided intelligence.”

The command channel was filled with continuous good news.

Lord Frost sat before the tactical projection, hundreds of real-time battlefield feeds floating before him.

His finger tapped through the air, categorizing, analyzing, and redistributing each new piece of incoming intelligence.

“Advance speed is forty percent faster than projected.” He murmured to himself, though little joy showed in his eyes. “Too smooth. It seems the enemy will flip the table sooner than before.”

Even without memories from previous loops, Frost clearly understood: the more smoothly his side performed, the greater the likelihood that the enemy would trigger time reversal to reset everything.

“But… these insects don’t seem eager to activate the time reversal immediately. Is the condition not yet met? Do they want to gather more intelligence? Or… is it something else?”

According to reports from various wizard squads, the Sickle-Skull appeared to be… contracting.

They had abandoned large numbers of outer strongpoints, concentrating their forces in a few key areas.

In the abandoned zones, they had even left behind intact production facilities, research data, and even larval incubation farms that hadn’t been evacuated in time.

It gave every impression of a last-ditch, cornered resistance.

“What are they thinking?”

Frost stared at several regions on the map that had once been heavily defended but were now rapidly being captured, his brows tightly knit.

If they wanted more intelligence, the Sickle-Skull should have fought desperately.

No matter how heavy the casualties, time reversal would return everything to the beginning anyway. There was no reason for them to fight so timidly.

At the same time, in the core research center of the camp.

Jie Ming, wearing a white lab coat, stood before a three-meter-tall transparent cultivation pod.

Inside the pod floated the corpse of a Sickle-Skull.

This specimen belonged to a rare “worker drone” variant.

Smaller in size, thinner carapace, forelimbs specialized into delicate manipulative organs, compound eyes structured for close-range observation.

“We found this in the ‘mycelial farm,’” said Allison, a fourth-ring female wizard standing beside him, pointing at the corpse. “They’re responsible for tending a species of fungus that secretes high-energy nutrient fluid—the primary food source for Sickle-Skull larvae.”

Jie Ming nodded, sweeping his divine sense over the corpse.

In his perception, the energy circuits inside the body were exceptionally clear.

Not postmortem remnants, but a state of… “developmental arrest.”

“Have you dissected it?” he asked.

“Of course.” Allison walked to the nearby console and pulled up a set of holographic images. “Look here… its nervous system has seven layers of redundant backups. The digestive system can adapt to seventeen different energy sources. The reproductive system… completely degenerated. This isn’t a complete organism—it’s more like some kind of ‘multifunctional tool.’”

Hearing this conclusion, Jie Ming couldn’t help frowning.

Such a structure was common among certain hive-mind insect swarms, but the Sickle-Skull only superficially resembled insects in behavior and appearance. In essence, they were high-intelligence independent lifeforms.

These creatures even possessed their own culture and advanced technology!

For such a structure to appear in a high-intelligence species felt deeply wrong.

Allison continued her explanation: “We’ve captured many variant samples before, but this one shows the highest degree of specialization—far exceeding our previous expectations of the species.”

The image zoomed in, displaying finer microscopic structures.

“But thanks to this specimen, we’ve finally made a breakthrough in their genetic material research.” Allison pointed to a simulated gene chain. “We compared it with genetic samples from twelve other variants. The differences are mainly concentrated in the regulatory expression regions—like the same set of building blocks, assembled in different ways to produce completely different results.”

Jie Ming stared at the flickering gene nodes, a thought stirring in his mind.

“So the various Sickle-Skull variants aren’t actually distinct ‘species,’ but different phenotypes of the same species induced by different developmental stages or environmental triggers?”

“More accurately, it’s ‘metamorphosis,’” Allison corrected. “Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly—only the Sickle-Skull’s ‘metamorphosis’ is far more extreme and controllable.”

“Interesting…” Jie Ming couldn’t help rubbing his chin. “This species… is artificial? So the Sickle-Skull are actually an out-of-control artificial product?”

“Exactly. Naturally evolved species would never exhibit such tightly controlled variation. And moreover…”

Allison switched the image. This time it displayed a series of larval development records.

“We intercepted monitoring data from several incubation farms. We discovered that Sickle-Skull larvae undergo at least three major morphological transformations during development. Each transformation requires specific environmental stimuli—temperature, energy concentration, pheromone signals, and even… temporal pressure.”

“Temporal pressure?” Jie Ming seized on the term sharply.

Allison’s expression grew solemn.

“This is our latest discovery. It hasn’t been included in the official report yet.” She lowered her voice. “We analyzed data from thirty-seven different incubation farms. Every larva’s development reacts to a specific waveform. When the waveform arrives, the metamorphosis process accelerates more than three hundred times, then returns to normal speed after the waveform ends.”

A chill ran down Jie Ming’s back.

“That waveform…”

“We’re temporarily calling it the ‘Loop Ripple.’” Allison said. “It was discovered by a logistics-system wizard who specializes in time laws. According to him, he actually simulated the law fluctuations produced after a time reversal concludes.”

A brief silence fell over the laboratory.

Several other wizards who had been conducting experiments nearby stopped what they were doing and gathered around.

“In other words,” said a fifth-ring male wizard wearing tactical glasses, pushing up his lenses with barely contained excitement, “the development of the Sickle-Skull is bound to the plane’s time loop? Every loop, a portion of their population develops into whatever forms are needed based on information retained from the previous loop?”

Fragments began connecting in Jie Ming’s mind. “Which means the time reversal of this plane has lasted far longer than we imagined. We can only observe and experience the time point after we enter the plane.”

“Extremely efficient,” another wizard remarked. “Think about it: a civilization that can endlessly trial-and-error across countless loops, using minimal resources to cultivate the most war-adapted variants. From a temporal perspective, this civilization can prepare perfectly for any enemy long before they even arrive.”

“If they could break free of the plane’s limitations…”

“They would become a true calamity.”

Amid the discussion, Jie Ming silently took out a recording crystal and captured the entire conversation along with the research data.

But his thoughts had already drifted in another direction.

If the Sickle-Skull’s development is bound to the loop…

Then could the “device”—or rather, “mechanism”—that controls the loop be the same as the mechanism that controls their development?

Going further…

If they could understand the mechanism behind the Sickle-Skull’s metamorphosis and the information transmission that occurs with each loop, could they indirectly discover how the enemy performs time reversal?

The thought made his heart race.

He turned to Allison. “Regarding the Sickle-Skull information transmission mechanism—how far have your studies progressed? Is it possible… to artificially simulate it?”

Allison froze for a moment, then light flashed in her eyes.

“You mean…”

The laboratory fell silent once more.

The wizards were all intelligent people. With Jie Ming’s prompt, they immediately understood what he intended.

“Theoretically feasible,” Allison said, licking her lips. “But we’ll need far more samples—especially developmental data from high-tier individuals. And simulating the information signals will require enormous computational resources…”

“I’ll make the request.” Jie Ming said. “Lord Frost will approve it—as long as we can prove the value of this research direction.”