A few days passed in the blink of an eye. The date arrived: January 8, 2025.
If the plot of this world had not veered off course due to his arrival, then tonight, several massive Category IV Kaiju would set foot on the soil of Hong Kong. Ian stood on a street where the crowds had already dispersed, feeling the salty dampness brought by the sea breeze.
At this moment, those monsters had already passed through the portal connecting to another dimension and entered this planet's oceans. Their goal was clear; they were following a certain instinct—or rather, being driven by a certain will—rapidly heading toward the prosperous city of Hong Kong.
Over the past few days, he had been capturing bursts of energy fluctuations coming from the direction of the deep-sea wormhole. At first, they were weak, like a deep-sea pulse. Then they gradually strengthened, their frequency increasing. Eventually, the fluctuations became increasingly violent, their intensity climbing several times higher than the day he first arrived in this world.
And today, the energy readings of the wormhole reached a staggering peak. Immediately after, Ian clearly sensed several individuals radiating powerful life signals tearing through the spatial barrier, descending onto this azure planet through the wormhole.
According to the plot of the movie in his memory, these uninvited guests would arrive in Hong Kong tonight at dusk. They would sweep through with overwhelming force, easily tearing apart the Jaeger defense lines that humanity took so much pride in. Crimson Typhoon, the three-armed Jaeger that carried countless hopes, would be the first to fall. Subsequently, the powerful electromagnetic pulse released by the monsters would completely paralyze all modern Jaegers that relied on sophisticated electronic systems.
In the end, it seemed only that old model, Gipsy Danger—driven by an internal nuclear reactor—could barely end the monsters' rampage through a near-miraculous burst of power and skill, aided by the protagonist's plot armor.
The ending was the destruction of the monsters. But at what cost? A large portion of Hong Kong, this radiant Pearl of the Orient, would be turned to rubble. Those heroic Jaeger pilots, aside from the protagonists, would almost all perish.
Ian's gaze swept across the distant skyscrapers. He could imagine the scene. A person who had worked hard for half a lifetime to earn a small home of their own in this land where every inch of soil was worth its weight in gold. Before they could even recover from the joy of moving in, a massive shadow would shroud the sky. The next second, the entire block, along with that tiny home, would be leveled by the shockwaves of Jaegers and Kaiju colliding.
If they were lucky enough to crawl out of the rubble, trembling with fear, they would find the next day that the office building they relied on for a living had also become a wreck from the battle. The familiar streets they had lived on for decades, every corner carrying memories, would become scarred and broken beyond recognition.
True, after years of Kaiju landings and urban destruction, the humans of this world might have accumulated rich experience in post-disaster reconstruction. Buildings could be rebuilt, perhaps even quickly. But for every ordinary person who lost their home, family, job, and everything in the disaster, it was a devastating blow. They were told they were "saved." But for those who lost everything, how much difference was there between that and death?
However, today was different. Since Ian had come here, he would not allow such a tragedy to repeat itself. He felt the stable response coming from the Transmutation Tablet within him; that near-infinite EMC reserve was like a rushing river of stars.
A few mere aliens wanted to lay a finger on humanity's home planet? It seemed it was time for these monsters, and the alien "Precursors" civilization behind them, to witness the true power of the Human Empire.
In just these few short days, the body Ian temporarily occupied had undergone massive changes.
On the first day of his arrival, after walking out of the underground defense works, he didn't stay a moment longer. He walked directly toward Victoria Harbour and took a plunge into the warm seawater.
The salty water enveloped his body, and the city's noise was filtered out, leaving only the sound of surging currents. He continued to dive deeper, the light fading rapidly. The immense pressure of the deep sea squeezed from all directions, enough to flatten a steel ball into a disc.
However, this body—composed of information essence combined with the material of the statue—carried adaptation traits originating from his mods. The adaptation traits within the information took effect immediately. The pressure that could twist steel felt like a massage to him. The cold, darkness, and oxygen-deprived environment of the deep sea were completely adapted to by the body within a few breaths, leaving no discomfort.
He finally reached the pitch-black seabed at the extreme depths. Then, he pulled out an Enchanted Diamond Pickaxe and began to dig. The hard rock was easily pierced like tofu. A straight vertical shaft appeared rapidly, aiming directly for the center of the earth.
Dirt, rock, the mantle. As the depth increased, pressure and temperature climbed geometrically. Any human technological creation would have been scrapped long ago under such terrifying high temperatures and pressures. But Ian's body continued to adapt and strengthen in this extreme environment.
At the start of the excavation, his speed was relatively slow compared to the planet's mass. Gradually, his speed grew faster and faster. The soil and rock layers lost all meaning before him. Midway through, he used the EMC he had earned to exchange for a Red Matter Pickaxe.
In less than half a day, he had dug through the crust and mantle, arriving at the outer edge of the core. Blistering energy rushed toward him; the surrounding rocks and metallic substances were in a semi-molten state, radiating a dark red glow.
During the excavation, he conveniently collected many high-pressure mineral crystals and metallic veins from the depths of the Earth. These substances were decomposed by the Transmutation Tablet and converted into EMC values.
With a thought, part of the EMC was converted into food. Steaks, Golden Apples, Enchanted Golden Apples. He "ate" these converted foods and then splashed a Fire Resistance Potion. This was to prevent being instantly killed by high temperature and damage when entering the core, just in case the adaptation was slow. Though the possibility was minimal, there was no harm in being cautious; after all, it was a lot of effort to get here.
He continued downward. As he dug through the final block of ultra-high-pressure molten rock with a dark gold luster, the Earth's core was revealed—a molten planetary heart composed of elements like iron and nickel. Unimaginable heat and pressure converged here.
Had the Minecraft rules not been forcibly overlaid here by Ian's information essence, suppressing the physical rules of this reality, then the moment he dug the opening, the molten ultra-high-temperature liquid metal would have erupted upward from this tiny hole like a volcanic explosion with destructive force.
Ian did not hesitate in the slightest and jumped directly into that sea of golden-red molten metal.
Sizzle—
For a split second, damage notifications skipped rapidly before his eyes. But only for the first few strikes. Subsequently, the adaptability took effect again. The damage values rapidly decreased until they vanished completely. The molten core, an extreme environment capable of melting most planetary matter, could no longer cause him any harm.
He floated entirely within the Earth's core. He began to use the Transmutation Tablet to absorb the surrounding molten metal. These substances constituting the planetary core contained extremely vast amounts of energy and matter; they were rapidly converted into EMC by the Transmutation Tablet.
On the interface of the Transmutation Tablet, the EMC values began to grow frantically.
He wondered, just how much EMC was the Earth's core worth?