Chapter 80: Not Greedy, Just Really Want to Contribute

Chapter 80: It’s Not About Greed—Just Really Wanting to Help

The planet Tianlanxing has been pushing forward.

Pi Xinzheng wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Once Pi Xinzheng was in the clear, everyone’s focus shifted entirely to the Roaming Gem.

After checking out a planet and finding it a perfect fit for its master’s species, the Roaming Gem would begin remodeling the planet to better suit them. Once the remodel was complete, it would carry the world’s coordinates back to its master, guiding them there.

This was something Sheng Qingquan had already confirmed from the plot.

The specially designed container from Tianlanxing could keep the gem from escaping, but whether it could fully shield the world from the Roaming Gem’s scanning and remodeling remained uncertain.

Moreover, judging by the commotion earlier, the gem hadn’t stopped struggling since being locked inside. Like a rat in a cage, it made a nonstop racket, as if it would eventually break free.

Fortunately, Sheng Qingquan had already considered this.

Locking it up wasn’t gonna cut it—the best solution was to destroy it completely.

“If the gem is destroyed, the transformation will naturally cease. If it no longer exists, how can it return to its master and offer assistance?!”

Sheng Qingquan knew damn well this was true, which was why, aside from practicing his 0.15-second ‘rapid web-spinning,’ he had also been poring over the novel.

He hoped to find a way to take down the Roaming Gem.

After capturing the gem, he had tried using a transformation spell—unsurprisingly, it failed. The gem was way tougher than expected.

He hadn’t just planned to catch it—he meant to crush it with vines.

That, too, had failed.

Worst of all, of course, after reading the entire plot, he still hadn’t found any mention of a weakness.

Instead, he had seen pages upon pages describing the alien race arriving on Tianlanxing, licking their chops at their conquest.

They talked down to the native inhabitants, declaring through their actions that a ripe planet belonged only to the strong. Humanity was reduced to subjugation and slavery.

“The novel didn’t explain how to destroy the gem, but it did describe in great detail the suffering and oppression humanity endured.”

It left Sheng Qingquan pissed, and the others equally frustrated.

One small silver lining was the book’s ending.

Unlike the earlier chapters where humanity was utterly defeated, the finale depicted a successful counterattack.

Based on the world’s changing characteristics, humans deduced that the alien race loved nature.

But if they merely preferred such settings, why go to such lengths to overhaul the whole planet?

Even if they were extravagant and wasteful, willing to burn through resources, one undeniable fact remained: high technology made life far more comfortable.

Who lived better—the top dogs back in the day or modern commoners?

The answer was obvious. Even the most privileged of antiquity couldn’t match the comforts of an average person today.

Given their nature, unless absolutely necessary, preserving high-tech conveniences would align far more with their tendencies.

But all high-tech on Tianlan Star was rendered useless, causing a direct regression of civilization.

For such a thing to happen, it must be that high-tech not only displeased them but also had a negative impact on them.

And this impact was most likely fatal.

Upon realizing this, humanity secretly began rebuilding science from the ground up once again.

The most cutting-edge technologies couldn’t be reinvented in time, but knowledge about how to make electric lights, household appliances, two-way radios, telegraph machines...

From power generation to signal transmission.

People passed on this knowledge cautiously in the shadows, like dealing black-market goods.

Then they hit the invaders hard.

"‘First, some tribe members began inexplicably weakening and falling seriously ill. Then even the stronger ones gradually felt unwell.’ They hadn’t experienced such an environment for too long, having only read about it in books. They couldn’t place what it felt like and had long forgotten."

"Moreover, their faith in the Roaming Gem ran deep since it had never failed before. No one even considered this possibility, assuming only that the weaker tribe members had been affected while crossing the spatial rift during migration and would bounce back given time."

"But as they waited, tribe members started dropping one after another."

"By the time they realized something was wrong, it was too late. Even after slaughtering the remaining humans, the surviving invaders had already suffered irreversible damage and would die out completely in the near future."

"It was mutually assured destruction."

While Sheng Qingquan grieved for humanity, he couldn’t suppress a surge of pride.

Yes, human resilience shone through. Even when plunged into the abyss, at rock bottom, they would stop at nothing. Once they found an opportunity for a counterattack, they acted with determination, vowing to make the enemy pay for their deeds.

"The novel explicitly stated this race’s weakness."

"If technology is their bane, could technological products be the bane of the Roaming Gem?"

"If the Roaming Gem can transform Tianlan Star and render all its technology useless—if it’s the natural enemy of technology—then conversely, couldn’t sufficiently advanced technology also become its natural enemy?"

"Simply coexisting with tech products isn’t enough. What about ‘intimate contact’?"

One must admit that in the story, Tianlan Star’s tech level was indeed underdeveloped. But now the situation is different. The tech level of Tianlan Star has been raised significantly.

What Sheng Qingquan thought of, officials naturally considered as well.

After trying chainsaws, electric drills, gunfire, artillery bombardment, electrolysis, hydrolysis, placing the gem in high-radiation environments, putting it atop signal towers, and a series of other methods—only to find the gem still intact—the officials had Sheng Qingquan take a mech for a test run using weapons equipped on it.

Currently, the most advanced technologies on Tianlan Star are likely mechs and spacecraft.

But spacecraft attacks lean more toward large-scale bombardment, not being as precise or flexible as mechs for delicate operations.

For all its size, the Roaming Gem, compared to a spacecraft, is as tiny as a grain of sand.

Thus, mechs are more suitable than spacecraft.

In fact, they now have spacecraft, and Tianlan Star produces its own energy, which is abundant, eliminating the risk of running out of power mid-flight.

Under these circumstances, they could just ship the gem away from Tianlan Star and dump it on a distant, uninhabited planet.

Once the gem detects the environment isn't worth transforming, it would naturally go looking for other worlds and planets.

But Tianlanxing couldn’t take the risk—what if the Roaming Gem slipped back unnoticed onto their planet again?

By then, locating the gem would be way harder than this time.

One misstep, and they’d be right back where the original story began.

Who would want that?

Moreover, out of civic duty, Tianlanxing didn’t want to resort to this method unless absolutely necessary.

It felt a bit like shifting the blame to others.

Now that they had found the gem, they could go all out—aside from Sheng Qingquan’s plants, other methods could also be employed.

Sheng Qingquan worked the vines with precision, trapping the gem tightly. He pressed it into a mechanism on the ground, which extended clamps, leaving it dead stuck.

The Roaming Gem was like a beached fish, helpless as it awaited the inevitable strike.

The mech’s left arm extended a stabilizer, pressing down on the gem for extra security, while the right arm let loose a beam.

The beam sliced downward.

Unlike previous attempts that hadn’t so much as scratched the gem, this time, everyone clearly saw a white mark appear on its surface.

“We’re getting through?!”

Sheng Qingquan cranked up the beam’s power.

The white mark gradually deepened into a thin crack.

The crack widened and grew deeper.

Moments later, the gem gave a sharp crack—split cleanly in two.

The gem, which had been struggling fiercely to break free, now went limp in Sheng Qingquan’s hands, its resistance completely gone.

The fragments lay like dead weight.

The once-beautiful pale purple hue, along with the glowing ripples that played across its surface, had vanished. Now, the entire gem had turned into a drab, washed-out gray, indistinguishable from an ordinary roadside pebble.

Still, Sheng Qingquan wasn’t taking chances. He cut the fragments into even smaller pieces.

When they couldn’t get any smaller, he retracted the beam and switched to a grinder attachment, pulverizing the shards into powder before finally letting go.

Watching the staff carefully collect the powder into a container, Sheng Qingquan was still processing.

“It was as easy as whittling a rubber eraser when I was a kid.”

“Easier than grinding grain in a blender.”

Though still reeling, now wasn’t the time to relax.

Sheng Qingquan and all those briefed hadn’t forgotten—there was likely still another gem on Tianlanxing.

And that gem was already changing the planet.

How were they supposed to find a gem no bigger than a man’s clenched fist on a planet as vast as Tianlanxing?

Fortunately, they managed to pinpoint the second gem. So even though the text never described the gem's appearance, by now everyone had a rough idea of what it looked like. At least they wouldn’t be searching blindly without knowing their target.

There was no shortage of people on Tianlanxing—quite the opposite. With such a large population, they had the upper hand with sheer numbers.

Although the network outage hindered the spread of information, other communication channels still worked. Thus, the authorities managed to make the gem’s appearance known to everyone.

As Sheng Qingquan and his mech squad scoured deserts, badlands, remote mountains, and thick forests—

Using loudspeakers, flyers, and whatever worked, through the efforts of grassroots workers—

Folks frustrated by the endless outage finally learned the reason behind it.

“A meteorite has landed on Tianlanxing, disrupting signals. Moreover, that meteorite is highly radioactive. So if anyone sees a pale purple stone about the size of an adult’s fist, don’t be fooled by its beautiful appearance—it’s radioactive! Touching it briefly won’t hurt you, but keep holding it? Big mistake.”

“If any of you spot it, report it immediately so the authorities can handle it.”

Officials drove the point home.

Though the authorities didn’t force people to search, they clearly encouraged it.

With no signal, no entertainment, and no work, people found themselves with nothing to do. Their internet withdrawal had them itching to get outside.

Most importantly, the authorities promised a cool million in cash for finding the meteorite!

Well, it’s not that we’re greedy. We’re just super eager to help out and do our part in restoring the network.