M-Probes

The M-Probes were basically probes that were designed to go underground on alien planets. They were highly efficient in digging through solid rock and burrowing through almost anything. It was also equipped with specialized sensors that let it see what's around it. It had a visual range of 260 meters around it and could map out everything in this radius.

The M-probes were used when someone needed to find something underground. As was the case now. The Researchers needed to find out if the Energy lines converged into a singly point. As each one kept going deeper underground. It could be that they meet in a single point and share the whole network together. Or it could also be the common source of the energy lines. As according to the theory of conservation of energy, the energy needed to come from somewhere.

From the initial glance, the energy didn't seem to be coming from somewhere. The energy was just sitting in whatever it was using as a conduit. It wasn't being generated or consumed. It was moved around from time to time. That didn't explain where the energy came from in the first place. The trees were a potential source, but the researchers haven't found any activity within the trees that suggested that the tree was actively generating energy to feed the network.

The M-probes were sent to investigate the energy lines and to map where they went. They were released from each of the forest location to see their common point. If they had any.

The trees in all the forests were pretty similar in nature. Although they were anomalies within themselves. The Analysis of the trees showed that they were really an anomaly and something like that shouldn't exist.

The analysis showed that the trees used their inner carbon tubes to transport the carbon from the ground and transferred it to their tips. The carbon tube was really really small in diameter so only a small amount of carbon could pass through at a given moment.

Carbon wasn't the only thing the tube transported though. The tree also needed oxygen for functioning. It took what little oxygen it could find int he surrounding air through it's bare body. The researchers couldn't explain how it took oxygen directly from it's body. As it was mostly made up of Xenon. But for some reason, as soon as Oxygen molecules came into contact with the tree, they were absorbed into the tree and were transported to the tube. After that they were also sent to the tip.

The Tip was where all the fun stuff happened. At the tip of the tree it used the francium and the energy it accumulated over a time to somehow break up the molecules of the Carbon and Oxygen. The Molecules were broken into the different parts. It did it for 8 such atoms at once. As this part was really energy intensive, It presumably did 4 of each element at once to save on the energy. It was a really controlled explosion that didn't result in any excess particles. Everything was organized really neatly and everything was under the control of the tree. How it achieved such a feat was beyond anyone on-board the THS Shore.

But the tree wasn't done yet. It still needed to make the Xenon Crystals for it's body. This next feat was what truly marveled anyone who looked at the process. It left everyone thinking of how such a simple looking tree was capable of such feat! Humanity with all their might were unable to match the capabilities of this simple looking Metallic tree. For this reason alone, The planet B1 was marked as priority research subject.

The tree then started it's painstaking process of organizing the individual proton, neutrons and Electrons in specific ways so that the end result was a Xenon Crystal made up of 2 Xenon atoms. It lost 2 electrons in the process. But that wasn't a really big loss when compared to what happened.

This was simply a mind blowing feat that was unheard of till now. The tree, quite literally fabricated the molecules it was built with. And through a process that wasn't possible by even the most cutting edge tech possessed by Humanity.

How the tree accomplished it? That was beyond human understanding. It needed more research into the trees and more insight on how it got the tremendous amounts of energy that should be needed to just break apart the atoms. Rearranging it was out of question.

If humanity could master this tech, then human civilization would get a boost that was beyond anyone's imagination. It would take humanity at-least a few thousand years to achieve this kind of feats. But here it was. Being done in front of them.

The fusion technology that humans used to propel their ships forward and generate insane amounts of power couldn't match with this tree. When compared to the trees, the fusion drives used really crude methods to fuse two hydrogen atoms into a helium atom. But what the tree was doing was way more sophisticated. This would be the next advancement in the fusion technology. This was what a single tree on B1 was capable of. And there were literal forests of such trees on the planet.

"Sigh, I wish I could just stay behind and research these trees forever. This could already keep me busy for a decade!", Dr. Helen said with a long sigh. As a botanist, this was her holy grail! This was something that had the potential to be the next big thing in the Arcorn empire and she was the first botanist to research these trees. For her nothing could be more important for her than researching these trees right now.

"How far are we in mapping the energy lines?", She asked the person behind her.

"We are already 1400 meters and counting. The energy lines are just converging into a single line right now. We'll keep following them deeper."

"Good, keep following the lines. Let's see where they lead us to."