Cubes

After the ground team finished collecting the orange cuboids, They moved onto studying their general vicinity. Everything from the trees, the energy lines and even the ground beneath them were part of their analysis. This was important. As the data gathers could help them understand the heightened energy activity in the area.

One of the researchers picked up an hand-held scanner as she began to follow one of the thicker energy lines. According to the data created, These energy lines were like the artery. They functions as the main branches that further branched out into smaller lines that'd connect to the trees. Normally these artery lines would be deeper underground. But for some reason, this line was laid really close to the surface, it was like there was only a thin layer of sand between the surface and the energy line. This made it a really valuable specimen, As these didn't appear this close to the surface.

As she started scanning, One thing was apparent immediately, The energy levels were higher than what they encountered previously. Way higher. And each pulse of the line was also quite a bit stronger.

As the operator suddenly had an idea, She decided to tweak her anti-grav module a little bit, it allowed her to hover on the air. As she hovered a few centimeter above the ground, she began to accelerate at the direction of the line. She wasn't going really fast, but it was definitely faster than walking. As the scanner kept scanning the activity within the energy line, a few thing became apparent.

Firstly, The energy lines here were different. The energy inside them actually moved. This was unexpected, as this wasn't the case for the other forests. Instead of just staying at a single point, the energy had a direction. This was an unique development.

As she kept following the Artery, She came across a junction, Where this artery was meeting another one. As both of them fused into a single artery, it still kept going. The energy density has also increased significantly. This was also different.

Her eyes lit up at this development. This could mean there's something more going on here than what was apparent. Maybe this forest wasn't the same as the others.

There was already many things that differentiated it from the rest. The towering trees, The increased activity, the different energy lines. All of this was already different than the rest. But what else was different?

She stopped her scanning and gave Dr. Helen a call.

Dr. Helen soon picked up as her face lit up in the projection.

"What have you found?"

"There are obvious differences between his forest and the rest. I'm sending you my scanning result.", Se tapped her comm and sent the data to Dr. Helen.

She quickly read through it as her eyes lit up.

"The energy levels in these power-lines are really high. If this reading is right, This has more energy per square meter than the same amount of star surface!", Dr. Helen was beyond shook. Such energy dense materials were a first. 1 square meter of this energy lines held as much power as a square meter of the sun. This wasn't possible. Party cause such a dense thing should've brusted out already and there was no explanation for the source of the power.

"That's right. If we figure out how this exotic works and how it stores the power, this could revolutionize the energy industry of the empire.", She was also really excited. This was a really huge discovery. And if harnessed properly, would propel humanity to new heights.

"Keep scanning, Follow the energy line as long as possible, I want to know if there's another junction up ahead. Send me the energy readings if you find one."

"Copy that." The operator said as she quickly ended the call and resumed her journey.

As she zapped through the forest. She came across many more junctions. After each of which the energy levels also increased. The current capacity of the energy lines exceeded the previous estimates.

As she looked at the ground while moving forward, She didn't realize that the amount of trees around her had decreased. As she was fully focused on following the energy lines, she kept going forward.

As she reached another junction, she couldn't believe the energy levels. Her measuring device was having problems dealing with such levels of energy.

The high energy levels caused her to suddenly stop hovering. But as she was still going quite fast, She crashed onto the ground and tumbled down a few meters before finally stopping.

She looked around her, suddenly she realized that she wasn't in the forest anymore. She had come into some sort of a clearing. The forest was already quite far away.

"So, This energy lines leads out of the forest huh. But where is it all flowing?", She thought to herself. As she picked up her scanner that was beside her, She pointed it at the line she was currently sitting on. She extended her arm that was holding the scanner towards the direction of the flow.

"Where are you flowing to?", That's when at the corner of her eyes, She noticed it beyond her her scanner.

It wasn't on the ground. Rather, it was floating above it. It had a shape, at the same time it didn't it wasn't gaseous. From the looks of it, it was rather solid. But it's behavior was rather fluid. It flowed like the raging sea. Yet that didn't cause it to lose form. It rose up, collapsed onto itself. The rotated in it's place, at the same time it didn't. Every time it rose up, the orange energy lines glowed up. Pulsing with all the energy contained within them. The black cube was littered with orange lines. All the energy lines around her met beneath the cube. The energy in them, flowing through the cube as it pulsed with all it's might.

There wasn't a word that she could use to describe it. There was nothing she could use to explain what she saw. At that moment, there was only a single thought on her mind as she looked at it with her eyes widened.

'Run'