Jiang Ye read it back and forth three times, finally clarifying all the details.
"I think I know what the stellar disease is," Jiang Ye messaged Li Nannan. "The sun's decay is caused by stellar algae. My sun must be full of large swarms of stellar algae. After they absorb the sun's energy, they will leap to the underground of my planet and combine with the core worms to reproduce. The final result is that the sun's energy is directly transferred to the planet's underground, and large numbers of high-energy core worms crawl up, cold on the outside and hot on the inside, leading to complete destruction."
"You're quick-witted; we've also calculated this result," Li Nannan said. "But we still have to wait for the specific analysis after 48 hours."
"What do I need to do?" Jiang Ye asked.
"I don't know," Li Nannan replied.
Jiang Ye was a bit bewildered.
In the past, Li Nannan was knowledgeable about everything and always had experience and ideas. This time, she actually said she didn't know.
"Let's wait," Li Nannan added.
Jiang Ye pondered for a moment, then sent a message in the summit group, announcing his guess and tagging all members.
The planetary leaders of each planet reacted.
"Then let's drill deep wells globally and see if we can find the same core worms."
"It might be the Mil people again, damn them for being so persistent."
"I've just halted the drilling project that was underway and redirected troops to start it again. Thanks for the reminder, brother."
"If they can directly induce a leap within the sun, the Mil people's technology has truly advanced by leaps and bounds. We can't do that yet. However, these core worms should be produced by machines or biological entities underground. If not produced, there must be a leap instrument. This instrument might be remotely controlled, but we don't know how far away."
"If the Mil people are controlling it, we should be able to intercept the signal. If not, it means it's locally controlled. There are Mil spies mixed in. The control point should be within the planet, possibly in some remote residential house, or underground."
"The stellar disease is not contagious at all; it's being conquered one by one!"
Jiang Ye then ordered his troops to explore the depths of the core power plants as soon as possible.
The exploration plan was quickly formulated, with mechanical soldier units taking the small dogs down.
This kind of mission couldn't be assigned to living soldiers. The pressure was too great, the breathable gas too scarce, and there was the constant risk of cave-ins and high-pressure groundwater. People could die halfway. Even if they reached the bottom intact, they would likely encounter fire-spitting, biting core worms, making it a suicidal mission.
The mechanical soldiers currently equipped by the army were also not suitable. Their skeletons were too large, and their components couldn't adapt to the ten-kilometer-deep wells. The only solution was to build special models as quickly as possible.
Fortunately, Jiang Ye Planet had many arms factories. All factory directors and relevant engineers were urgently summoned to the factory areas by a single order, and they quickly began designing core mechanical soldiers.
Jiang Ye sat in front of his office, staring at the screen to monitor the real-time progress.
Two large teams were responsible for designing the core mechanical soldiers, taking different routes. One route was to modify the existing blueprints of ordinary mechanical soldiers, while the other route was to design from scratch.
Four hours later, the design blueprints for the modified mechanical soldiers were completed.
They were smaller, more agile, and had stronger resistance to high pressure, radiation, water flow, and fire. Their signals were also specially strengthened to transmit various underground data in real-time. The only sacrifice was their firepower; they could only carry mini submachine guns and flamethrowers.
Jiang Ye was very satisfied. The mechanical soldiers were meant to scout ahead, to see the state of the core worm's nest, and heavy machine guns and cannons wouldn't be of much use.
He typed in the command to mass-produce 800 units, and once fifty were ready, they would be transported to the site for deployment.
The factory's assembly lines were for special models and could temporarily change specifications, which was also to adapt to wartime needs. Traditional assembly lines might take days or even months to modify, but Jiang Ye only waited for three hours before all the machines on the assembly line were refitted and produced the first batch of core mechanical soldiers.
The flapping wing aircraft units had been waiting for a long time and immediately delivered the core mechanical soldiers to the construction site.
The method of descending to the core was also simple, using anti-gravity excavators.
With the anti-gravity excavators at full power, they could blow the soil from the bottom of the pit upwards like a waterfall.
But if only ten percent of the power was used, the mechanical soldiers could be in a state of near weightlessness.
Jiang Ye, using holographic projection, entered the perspective of the core mechanical soldier captain and sat in his office observing.
It was already midnight. A total of 50 mechanical soldiers, carrying 400 small dogs, leaped from the edge of the huge dark pit.
After falling more than ten meters, the anti-gravity excavators were activated, and the falling speed suddenly slowed down, as if they had suddenly entered water.
The core mechanical soldiers were all unaccustomed to it, waving their limbs in the air.
The small dogs, however, were quiet. Firstly, they were clumsy and wouldn't think of anything other than attacking designated enemies. Secondly, they only had two serrated wheels and couldn't struggle.
The anti-gravity excavators' power was a bit too high, and both the core mechanical soldiers and the small dogs floated upwards, like dust blown by the wind.
"Lower the power, by about 8%," the captain said.
The upward floating suddenly stopped, and all the core mechanical soldiers and small dogs seemed to be floating in the dark space, slowly rotating.
After a brief period of adaptation, the captain commanded his team members to act.
They first grabbed the small dogs and threw them one by one onto the pit wall.
As the serrated wheels of the small dogs touched the pit wall, they immediately began to rotate, descending into the deeper darkness.
The air was filled with dust stirred up by the wheels, which drifted upwards.
After all the small dogs were thrown, the core mechanical soldiers descended in batches, like swimming.
Each time their hind legs pushed off, their descent speed increased.
"Maintain at 10 meters per second," the captain ordered.
Once the core mechanical soldiers had accelerated sufficiently, they gathered together, moved away from the pit wall, and quietly sank downwards. At the same time, they turned on their headlights and detectors, transmitting various data.
It was dark above and below, reminiscent of the mansion of Lady Dixian in Xi You Ji, the Xian Kong Mountain. It was so quiet that one could hear the current of the mechanical soldiers' internal circuits.
Jiang Ye had expected that the pit wall, reaching ten kilometers deep, would be extremely rough, with soil and rocks falling with a rustling sound when the wind blew.
But to his surprise, it was as smooth as a steel pipe, with not a single wrinkle visible, and as round as if it had been polished.
The mechanical soldiers' headlights shone upon it, and the underground stones, cut by the smoothness, continuously reflected light. Various dense and strange colors flashed by—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Many of the brilliant colors were likely gemstones.
Jiang Ye was mesmerized. He had never imagined that the underground several kilometers deep would look like this. It gave him a sense of mystery, like when he used to dig downwards in Minecraft, wondering what he would find, as the colors of the soil always changed.
Finally, they reached the bottom of the pit.
A large group of shining small dogs had already arrived ahead of time, lighting up their dog eyes underground, like a pool of luminous fish.