Chapter 51: The Season of Harvest

Words : 1537 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

Xiao Yu remembered very clearly that humanity’s home, Earth, had exploded. The explosion of Earth led to the extinction of all humankind, with Xiao Yu being the sole lucky survivor who managed to escape beforehand. Xiao Yu had long harbored a suspicion—was the explosion of Earth manipulated by some mysterious and unknowable force? However, this suspicion had always lacked evidence, so Xiao Yu could only bury this doubt deep in his heart, intending to explore it when his technology advanced sufficiently. From the information Xiao Yu had gathered, Earth’s iron-nickel core underwent proton-neutron level fission under the influence of some unknown force. Heavy elements rapidly decayed into lighter ones, and the remaining mass converted into energy, leading to Earth’s destruction. The energy released was extraordinarily intense, far surpassing nuclear fusion. The mass-to-energy conversion rate of nuclear fusion is about 5%, meaning roughly 5% of the mass is transformed into energy during nuclear fusion. However, this unknown transformation had an energy conversion rate of nearly 50%. Such a tremendous release of energy instantly blew Earth into fragments, resulting in its annihilation. Energy release operates on several levels, deeply related to the microscopic world. For instance, chemical energy—such as that in conventional explosives or the combustion of hydrogen and oxygen—belongs to the molecular level, where atoms recombine into molecules to release energy. Nuclear fission and fusion occur at the atomic level, involving the recombination of protons and neutrons into new atoms, releasing massive amounts of energy in the process. However, the source of the energy observed during Earth’s explosion stemmed from the recombination of fundamental particles such as quarks, antiquarks, and gluons, which make up protons and neutrons. Energy released during this process was something entirely new, beyond anything humanity had ever encountered. Xiao Yu didn’t initially know whether this mysterious force was man-made or a natural phenomenon of the universe. After escaping Earth, he conducted extensive research on this topic but, limited by fundamental physical theories, had yet to uncover any results. Now, Xiao Yu’s suspicions regarding the source of this force deepened further. Because... the planets of these aliens also met an explosive end. How eerily similar this was to Earth’s fate! Xiao Yu was burning with curiosity, eager to learn the rest of the recorded information. However, at the moment, only this one sentence had been deciphered. The remaining sections would require a prolonged decoding effort to reveal. With no alternative, Xiao Yu had to speed up the decoding process while anxiously awaiting further results. Meanwhile, the construction of the base, the collection of raw materials, and the building of spaceships proceeded steadily. During this time, Xiao Yu had constructed forty new Village-Class spaceships. These newly built spaceships boasted enhanced maneuverability, defense, and firepower. This was made possible by the preliminary analysis of the Lizardmen civilization’s technology. Xiao Yu was surprised to find that the Lizardmen’s principles for material enhancement were remarkably similar to his own. Xiao Yu’s method of material enhancement involved using the radiation effects of the Phantom and incorporating Black Bug corpses. The principle lay in altering the molecular arrangement of materials through these two lifeforms, making the materials denser and thus improving their performance. Xiao Yu had previously conducted research in this area but had never been able to create such resilient materials artificially. With the addition of the Lizardmen civilization’s technological insights, Xiao Yu immediately achieved breakthroughs in this field. In terms of maneuverability, advancements were made through the use of more efficient nuclear fusion engines. Firepower improvements were realized by developing more sophisticated electromagnetic coil acceleration technology. Technology consists of two parts: science and technique. While the Lizardmen civilization was more advanced than Xiao Yu in technical applications, their scientific theories were the same. Therefore, Xiao Yu could make rapid progress upon acquiring their techniques. If Xiao Yu were to receive machinery incorporating anti-gravity or faster-than-light communication technologies, he would need considerable time to grasp the underlying principles—this illustrates the difference between science and technique. For example, the machine guns used by human armies during World War I and those used in the 21st century differ in technique rather than science. The forty new Village-Class spaceships no longer featured spherical structures. This was because the materials’ strength could now support such high levels of stress, eliminating the need to compensate through structural design. Xiao Yu constructed the forty new Village-Class spaceships with an incredibly striking design, resembling alien spaceships from human science fiction films. These ships had sleek, streamlined exteriors, highly futuristic bodies, and beautifully crafted wings. Since there was no air resistance in space, as long as the spaceship’s design was reasonable, it could be built in any form. In terms of energy weapons, Xiao Yu achieved a breakthrough by analyzing an incomplete energy cannon. The fundamental principle of energy weapons lies in the use of a compound synthesized from the artificial element einsteinium. When this compound is heated to tens of millions of degrees in a strong magnetic field, einsteinium becomes extremely unstable and highly energetic. Energy weapons only require a few milligrams of einsteinium to produce devastating firepower. Due to its minimal mass, it can be accelerated to extremely high velocities, reaching tens of thousands of kilometers per second. Upon collision with a target, these milligrams of einsteinium would explode instantly, delivering a destructive force per unit area comparable to that of a hydrogen bomb. However, because einsteinium in this state has an extremely short half-life, it quickly decays into other elements. Even considering relativistic effects, its effective strike radius cannot exceed 30,000 kilometers. Moreover, because einsteinium can only exist for a fleeting moment in its natural environment, it must be launched immediately after production. This requires a highly powerful nuclear fusion reactor, meaning that such weapons can only be mounted on large spaceships. Xiao Yu finally understood why only the alien flagship carried such energy weapons and why it could only fire one energy shell after a long interval. Despite its limitations, it remained an ideal weapon for space warfare. Xiao Yu vividly remembered that during his conflict with the Lizardmen civilization, their flagship used these energy weapons to destroy at least 80 of his Village-Class and Town-Class spaceships, accounting for nearly one-seventh of his total losses. Einsteinium could be produced through special techniques in a nuclear fusion reactor, with the heating process also completed within the reactor. Xiao Yu’s task was to create a strong magnetic field and conduct repeated experiments to optimize this weapon. After achieving a technological breakthrough in energy weapons, Xiao Yu immediately began constructing County-Class spaceships in his space dock. These new ships were 800,000-ton behemoths, nearly three times the size of the original Solar. With the massive amount of materials collected from the dismantling of Lizardmen cities, Xiao Yu planned to build two of these ships simultaneously. He revived the names of the Voyager and Tianyuan—ships destroyed by the Lizardmen civilization—and assigned them to these new vessels. The construction of a new type of Photon Computer also became a priority for Xiao Yu. Inspired by his observation of Lizardmen Photon Computer technology and his own insights, Xiao Yu devised new ideas, which, after successful testing, were immediately incorporated into the construction process. Once completed, the new Photon Computers were expected to achieve ten times the computational speed of the current Photon Computer aboard The Solar. Each of the new Voyager and Tianyuan would be equipped with one of these advanced Photon Computers. This would provide Xiao Yu with two places of refuge, eliminating his fear of losing computational power instantly if his flagship were destroyed. This was truly a season of harvest. After the arduous annihilation of the Lizardmen civilization, Xiao Yu made tremendous advancements in material science, weaponry, propulsion systems, and computer technology. “It was well worth the loss of so many ships,” Xiao Yu thought joyfully. By recycling all recoverable materials from the cities and smelting all his existing ships for reconstruction, Xiao Yu estimated that he could build 1,000 Village-Class ships, 120 Town-Class ships, two 800,000-ton County-Class ships, and one 400,000-ton County-Class ship. Xiao Yu had no intention of mining this planet, as it was too resource-poor. The accumulated wealth of the Lizardmen civilization over thousands of years in these cities now belonged to him. Xiao Yu also discovered a large amount of nuclear fusion fuel within the towering planetary engines, each tens of thousands of meters tall. The entire construction process was expected to take over ten years. Xiao Yu took command aboard The Solar, overseeing all operations. Time passed gradually, and three years slipped by. Xiao Yu finally deciphered the second segment of the core information. “Our interstellar navigation technology was far from mature. During the three years of interstellar travel, our ships suffered severe malfunctions, resulting in the loss of half our population. Yet, by divine providence, we, the seeds of this civilization, finally reached a new planet. Upon reaching this planet, we witnessed the destruction of our homeworld. Our scientists engaged in heated debates, analyzing the cause of our homeworld’s explosion. However, after years of argument, they failed to reach a conclusion. It was then that the greatest scientist among us proposed a startling theory.”

Chapter 51: The Season of Harvest

Comments (0)