Book 4 Chapter 23.1 - Price
Most of Cirvanas’ memories returned, but there was still a small half that was lost. The intruder cells had previously attacked ruthlessly, and as such, the injuries to his brain were not light. Even though his brain had already been restored after obtaining the nucleus, damage to his memory was unavoidable.
Back then, the irregular humanoids’ capture of the base was extremely fast, to the point where the base didn’t receive much damage. As such, even without any protection, the underground nuclear power plant peacefully operated for close to a hundred years of time, and it seemed like it could still continue operating. The emergency lights of the base were, of course, incessantly proving the reliability of military quality.
Su possessed some superficial amounts of economic knowledge, understanding that this degree of reliability and quality signified several times or even several tens of times normal production costs, and from this, one could see how much was thrown into Project Frozen Throne. Conier, at the very least, did not lie on this point. Frozen Throne was definitely one of the federation’s most important projects before the war.
After several decades had passed, there weren’t too many things of value left in the research base. The precious biological materials of the past had either lost their efficacy due to expiration or were used in the concoction of irregular humanoids and beasts. The various radioactive trace elements had all been used up as well. What was rather unexpected was that when Su found the research base’s main control computer, he discovered that it could still be started up and used. Even though some of the data storage hardware suffered damage due to time, there was still quite a bit of precious information left.
However, Su helplessly discovered that this main control computer was completely useless in his hands. Both he and Madeline had powerful combat strength, but they were basically idiots on the field of electronic information. Meanwhile, Cirvanas was already designated as the heart of darkness’ cage from the age of ten, so he didn’t have any opportunity to study computer knowledge. In the end, Su only managed to pull up a research journal from the lowest level of security, and only then did he understand a bit more about the base’s past.
The research journal was mainly managed by Conier’s assistant, but a few pages were personally recorded by Conier himself. Due to it being at the lowest level of confidentiality, it was mostly done as a memorandum. However, from the few lines that were recorded day after day, Su could already see an extremely disturbing grand picture.
A huge volume of goods would arrive in the base every two weeks. These goods included all types of precious research specimen that seemed to include all rare species of the earth, to the extent where there were even genetic fragments of prehistoric beings. The number of formal researchers continuously increased, from the thirty or so people at the very start to over a hundred a year later, and then ultimately to more than five hundred. The number of research assistants was three times that number. Within the underground base, maintenance, engineering, construction, and administrative personnel already reached close to a thousand people.
All of the research personnel’s spouses and children were migrated over, living in the city above the base, moreover not permitted to leave. The sea of government subsidy made the price of goods within this region drop and drop, and the salary or researchers here was three times that of others in the field. As for the dozen or so core research managers, they adopted the strictest protective measures, but at the same time, all of their needs were met, including those that were unreasonable, illegal, and even those that violated human ethics.
Along with the increase in the scale of the base, the amount of experimental materials that were sent in quickly increased as well. Within these so-called experimental materials were humans of all different ages and races. After the base’s first year, each month, these ‘experimental materials’ consumption would reach several hundred!
The research journal wouldn’t mention the concrete details of what they did to those ‘experimental materials’, but experiment numbers were not a taboo. From the fragmented numbering alone, it was clear that just the number of types of experiments carried out on these ‘materials’ bodies alone numbered over three thousand. Naturally, there was no lack of cruelty in these experiments. From the eyes of those who lived in the era of turmoil, these experiments couldn’t be considered much at all, to the extent where if these ‘materials’ were nurtured to their optimal state, given enough rest and nutrients, one could even use the word benevolent to describe this process. However, in the olden era, this was a hundred percent a large scale human experimentation, and it was even being carried out within the federation which attached great importance to human rights. Once exposed, the ones currently occupying the government would immediately be forced to resign, the president might lose his immunity from prosecution, and face the federation court of law’s judgment.
From Cirvanas’ understanding, these biological experiments were mostly carried out without any anesthesia, and many of them were done purposely to test the limits of the human race. One could well imagine the pain and suffering this process brought. Meanwhile, Cirvanas personally experienced similar experiments all too many times, most of them for the sake of strengthening the body, but a smaller half to test the strength of the cage. After all, once the heart of darkness was implanted, it might wake up at any time. At that time, the carrier would suffer a pain close to the limits of the human body could withstand. Without a steady will, the carrier would fall under the heart of darkness’ complete control, and from then on, the human race would not be able to control the emergence of the devil.
Even though they were facing so many political risks, Project Frozen Throne was still carried out, and from what was recorded in the journal, the amount of funding the project received continued to increase. Even if the federation was one of the largest economic bodies of the earth, the amount of budgeting problems a project of this scale brought was something nearly impossible to cover. However, for ten whole years, Frozen Throne proceeded smoothly, the scale of the project even more so reaching more than ten times of what was originally planned. One could imagine just how many of the higher levels of the federation and political leaders were of unanimous views on this project’s importance.