Chapter 67: Where Do I Come From?
Four hundred years isn’t a long time for technological advancement, especially for continued progress after a certain stage has been reached.
After all, technology only grows more complex and difficult the further it advances.
If he had a choice, Li Qingsong would much rather not confront such a powerful civilization.
Even Human Civilization at its zenith might not have been able to develop much new technology in just 400 years.
But... there was no other choice.
’Blutuk Civilization, what role did you play in the disappearance of humanity?’
After a moment of silent contemplation, Li Qingsong set aside his thoughts about the future and focused his attention on the spoils of war.
The war had consumed a great deal of his time and energy, but looking at the spoils before him, Li Qingsong still felt a surge of joy.
The rewards were simply immense.
Although the armed Scientific Research Vessels the Molomans had mentioned were all destroyed, it didn’t matter. The wreckage remained.
A great deal of technology could be reverse-engineered from the wreckage.
Most importantly, their mothership was still intact! As were some of the bases built underground on Enemy God Star!
And there were over a thousand prisoners!
Although most of these prisoners weren’t scientists, they had all received a standard education and possessed a wealth of knowledge that was common within the Blutuk Civilization.
It was like how before humanity disappeared, any random middle schooler knew about molecules and atoms, could solve equations, and could calculate the area and volume of geometric shapes.
And this common knowledge was also of critical importance to him!
Reverse-engineering wasn’t a panacea, and most of the knowledge the prisoners possessed was of no immediate use to him. It was like a modern human traveling to the past and telling ancient people about the mass-energy equivalence equation; they would have no way to apply it. Even so, this knowledge and these assets were certain to dramatically accelerate his technological development.
More importantly, these technological artifacts and this knowledge would serve as a guide, pointing him in the right direction.
It was like when humanity was first developing the atomic bomb. The greatest obstacle wasn’t the difficulty of its construction, but the fact that people simply didn’t know if such a thing could be built at all.
Now, that currently unusable knowledge and those technological artifacts were like a physical atomic bomb placed before him. It made Li Qingsong understand: ’Ah, so the atomic bomb really *can* be built.’
Once he knew that, all that was left was to pour resources into the research.
He commanded the fleet to pack all salvageable wreckage, ground bases, and everything else from Enemy God Star into the mothership. Then, Li Qingsong dispatched dozens of cargo ships to slowly tow the Blutuk Civilization’s mothership, beginning the long journey back to Ceres.
Li Qingsong’s main body returned ahead of the rest, riding a Warship.
Afterward, his consciousness reconnected with his 1.1 million Clones, and the feverish pace of construction and research resumed.
’So much time has been wasted. I need to do everything I can to make up for it.’
When the Blutuk Civilization’s mothership was finally towed back to Ceres, the large-scale reverse-engineering of its technology began.
Li Qingsong assigned a full 300,000 Clones to the task.
And so, Li Qingsong was once again confronted with the power of the Blutuk Civilization.
Sometimes, it was a simple component, like a connector. Li Qingsong simply couldn’t figure out how it was manufactured, or understand how something so small could provide such a strong connection.
He had dismantled some devices down to their smallest parts, but he still couldn’t understand the reasoning behind their structure.
However, by combining this analysis with the testimonies from the prisoners, Li Qingsong was able to glean some technologies that he could use immediately.
And so, laboratory after laboratory filled with precision equipment was built upon the surface of Ceres, and factory after factory underwent a new phase of upgrades.
In the second year after the war, Li Qingsong achieved his first breakthrough.
The technology for a large-aperture, high-resolution optical telescope assembly!
Li Qingsong’s heart filled with excitement as he looked at the lens before him. It had a surface area of sixty square meters, yet was less than a millimeter thick, all while maintaining a perfectly smooth, gentle curve.
A more advanced optical telescope would not only aid his scientific research. It would allow him to more clearly observe the violent physical processes occurring in the depths of the Cosmos, such as the large-scale structure of star systems, star system evolution, stellar evolution, nebulae, and Supernova Explosions. This would further enhance his understanding of the Cosmos and, in turn, advance his knowledge of fundamental physics. It would also have enormous applications in warfare and detection.
Miniaturized versions could be installed on Warships, enabling them to detect smaller, fainter, and more distant targets in the vicinity.
In fact, it had one immediate application that Li Qingsong valued above all others.
Observing Earth!
With this telescope, Li Qingsong could finally see more details of Earth.
A massive telescope barrel now hung in the vast, deep expanse of space.
Its interior was filled with a complex array of extremely high-precision components.
Even the most inconspicuous component, a small motor used to adjust a tiny secondary mirror, had taken Li Qingsong hundreds of attempts in the laboratory to produce.
To ensure the telescope would be free from interference, Li Qingsong hadn’t even positioned it near Ceres. Instead, he placed it a hundred thousand kilometers away.
Only at that distance could it be adequately shielded from the infrared radiation emitted by Ceres, his own ships, and his various factories.
The heat they carried would cause the primary mirror to expand and deform slightly, on the order of tens of nanometers.
But even such a minuscule change was unacceptable to Li Qingsong.
To ensure precision, he had no choice but to place it far from Ceres.
When other aspects of the technology could not yet be improved, Li Qingsong could only ensure performance by being more demanding about the environment.
Once the telescope’s construction and deployment were complete, Li Qingsong wasted no time. He immediately began calibration, aiming it at the tiny planet deep within the Solar System.
Earth.
Through the telescope, Earth was still little more than a point of light; no details were visible to the naked eye.
But that didn’t matter. In realms invisible to the human eye, the telescope was already collecting vast amounts of faint information.
For instance, the spectral data of Earth’s atmosphere.
With this data, Li Qingsong could analyze the elemental composition of Earth’s atmosphere with a high degree of precision.
The observation lasted for five hours, ultimately generating over ten gigabytes of data.
When the analysis was complete, a shocking result appeared before him.
He found no trace of any industrial markers in Earth’s atmosphere.
It was as if there had never been any industrial activity on Earth, as if humanity had never existed at all.
’How is that possible? This...
If humanity never appeared on Earth... then where did I come from?’