Age of Cosmic Exploration

Space warp was a future tech beyond human comprehension. The science behind it still eluded the Academy; they had no idea how to control it. However, space warp has also been the biggest aid to humans when trying to survive in the wide cosmos. Other than finding life-preserving planets, space warp helped mankind locate mineable resources, and that was crucial to the sustenance of life. Therefore, even though it was hard, human beings had to learn more about this essential life line.

Currently, after 10 years of research, the Hope had realized a few basics about space warp.

The first was something they found out a long time ago, that an increase in load during warp would cause an increase in energy consumption. Using the current Hope as an example, the energy required during warp was provided by several large polymerized reactors. The polymerized reactors were completely different from nuclear fission reactors; the energy supplied by polymerized reactors came from polymerization of hydrogen atoms similar to the reaction within suns. The other was only energy from the fission of nuclear atoms. The energy profile of the two was completely different; one was light from a match while another was a forest fire.

Currently, the energy consumed during the Hope’s warp was equal to America’s national energy consumption in a year!

For the Kun Lun, the energy needed for space warp could only be provided by extra-large polymerized reactors, and the energy consumed per time unit was so big that it had to rely on the plasma conversion system.

The second thing had to do with the space warp’s randomness. After warp, no one could tell where the destination would be. It might be an empty space (which would happen theoretically 99.99 percent of the time), within a solar system, or even something like inside a planet itself. Of, course not to be forgotten was the possibility of warping to danger area, like near a blackhole, neutron star, close distance to a sun, or inside a gas giant. Any of these would cause the Hope’s destruction in a matter of minutes.

Therefore, space warping, or uncontrolled space warping, was technically a gamble. Even though the chance of losing was only 0.01 percent, it was a loss that human beings wouldn’t be able to recover from!

In other words, mankind was betting with their lives when they used the space warp. This was why a Sage like Eva was so important. It was why Yao Yuan and the rest were so overjoyed when they found out about her existence, and they had the entire the Hope upgraded to accommodate her power.

The upgrade was to enable Eva to clearly know the time and place she saw in her visions, and through her visions, they could come up with the perfect solution. The most important vision she could provide would be to the Hope’s space warp destination.

At this moment, a blanched Eva sat in a chair, her body still shaking violently. This was because the future had been changed. After Yao Yuan decided to not risk coming into contact with the alien army and decided to warp, the future had been changed. Yao Yuan was the Chancellor, so as long as his orders were lawful, then they couldn’t be violated, and his order had changed the future.

Therefore, Eva was affected by her power’s side effect. She was struggling even to stay awake. Her head was titled to the side and her eyelids were drooping. The people around her didn’t dare to let her go to sleep, because she had just revealed another surprising vision.

"...I see Uncle Yao in the captain’s room, giving the order to warp. After the Hope disappeared from this place, the inside of the Hope started to give out sparks and then blood started to explode from Uncle Yao’s pores. Before I could understand what was happening, the Hope had exploded. Beyond that, I can see an enormous fireball not far away from the Hope..."

After Eva said that, all the color had been drained from her face and she finally couldn’t hold her consciousness anymore. Bo Li, who was beside her, quickly scooped her up and turned to address Yao Yuan. "I will take her to the hospital, you all can start the discussion without me... By the way, there are many things that can cause the leaking of blood from the body, and one of them is high gravity, which would cause the blood vessels to rupture..."

Bo Li then left the room. The room was guarded by the secret unit, so they weren’t worried about her sending Eva to the hospital. The people inside the room looked like they too were sick, still under obvious shock from what Eva said.

Guang Zhen was not a Thinker, so when he saw the three of them not talking, he laughed awkwardly. "Having a Sage sure is useful. She might have just prevented mankind’s extinction... Why, what’s wrong?"

Guang Zhen saw their serious expressions and his heart snapped. He quickly followed up, "Don’t tell me the warp to the sun’s surface is unavoidable."

Indeed, the mechanics for space warp was still a mystery. One moment they could warp to a solar system and the next moment they could be far away from the solar system, several billion lightyears away. Therefore, Guang Zhen wasn’t worried after hearing about Eva’s vision. After all, they could wait a few days before warping. With the size of the cosmos, the presence of suns and planets was really small. 100 warps and you might not even get close to one. This kind of warp which landed near the sun was really, really, really unlucky... the probability of that was one over several billion.

However, when Guang Zhen saw the expressions on the two Thinkers and Yao Yuan, he too realized that something was wrong... the only thing then was that the future of this warp couldn’t be changed! That was too scary.

The three of them shook their heads, and Yao Yuan told him directly, "We can be sure about that with just one vision, but we thought about the same concern... It’s actually very simple, which has plenty to do with controlled space warp, something we do not understand. Ol’ Wong, you might not know this since you were too busy with the Defense Unit; this is something only me and the two of them know. The reality is that after ZERO started controlling the space warps, these past few space warps have landed us inside the same solar system."

Guang Zhen whipped his head to look at Yao Yuan in shock. Xiao Niao continued, "That’s right, this is all thanks to the AI system. Ever since the AI system was introduced into the central mainframe, the computing power of the mainframe has seen a drastic increase. The star chart from each of our warps was stored inside the mainframe. Ever since the second controlled space warp, the mainframe confirmed that we are moving within the same solar system, and we’re moving towards the solar system’s center. After one more controlled warp, we will reach our destination."

Yao Yuan picked up the thread of conversation. "Now do you understand? Controlled space warp brought the Hope closer and closer to the sun because the closer to the sun, the greater the density of planets. When Eva said that the Hope warped to the sun, I had this suspicion... Could it be that the destination for Hope’s past controlled space warps have been set to be the same but ZERO needed to calibrate the location through trial and error? Each calibration would take about three months... Simply put, the Hope actually was in a stage of controlled space warp for the period of the three months, and the destination and direction of the warp was targeted at the Noah One, but without ZERO’s calibration, the accuracy of the warp’s exit couldn’t be maintained..."

"This reminds me of an interesting experiment in quantum theory," Ren Tao suddenly said. "At the time, the scientists were observing the movement trajectory of electrons. They realized that the electrons occupied multiple trajectories even though they all led to the same destination. Could it be that controlled space warp follows the same rule? In essence, the destination has to be confirmed first and then use the multiple space warps to calibrate its location, or else why would we warp so many times?"

Guang Zhen understood what they meant. Simply put, after the Hope had set its location, which was the location of the Noah One’s life-preserving planet, without ZERO’s control, the Hope would appear randomly in the solar system and would have a high chance of warping close to the sun... After all, suns were common in the cosmos, so one’s location was the most easily confirmed. Therefore, warping close to the sun was the easiest way to enter the solar system the Noah One was in...

However, in that case...

The Hope couldn’t randomly warp anymore?

"No matter what, we have to prepare accordingly. Ren Tao, you are responsible for looking after Eva. After she wakes up, ask for more details from her vision and try to come up with a solution. Xiao Niao, you go and contact ZERO and ask her whether controlled space warp can be stopped after it was initiated. Lastly, Ol’ Wong, you and I..."

Yao Yuan turned to Guang Zhen and said seriously, "We’re going to go check on the Space Combat Jet Prototype 011s and other equipment...

"To prepare for the war with the aliens!"