Chapter 52: Luck

Words : 1457 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

Xiao Yu watched silently. In some inexplicable way, his thoughts seemed to align with those of the greatest scientist of the Lizardmen civilization. Here were two weak civilizations that had suffered the same agony. The difference was that, when their homeworld faced impending destruction, the Lizardmen had technology more advanced than Earth’s, enabling them to escape to other planets within their star system aboard interstellar ships. Humanity, however, fell far behind, with Xiao Yu as the sole survivor. The translated information appeared in Xiao Yu’s mind, word by word. “He completely rejected the theory that our homeworld’s explosion was a natural event. He believed it was the deliberate act of a highly advanced civilization. The specific reasons are unknown to us, but all experimental data indicate that this was indeed artificial. Under natural circumstances, such an event would be impossible.” “Our civilization was reduced to fewer than 150,000 individuals. These 150,000 were the elite of our entire species. And this most outstanding scientist was the most brilliant among them, commanding immense respect. Under his influence, most of us came to believe the theory of artificial planetary destruction.” “This new planet was unexpectedly barren. We couldn’t find any major mineral resources and had to painstakingly scrape by. Fortunately, the planet had its own heat system, allowing us to barely sustain ourselves. Under these harsh survival conditions and the crisis of civilization’s extinction, we exhibited an incredible will to survive. One technological barrier after another was overcome, but we hit a standstill when faced with the most severe challenge—controlled nuclear fusion.” The message ended abruptly. The remaining text had yet to be deciphered. The timekeeping system used by this civilization differed from Earth’s. However, Xiao Yu had already deciphered their units of time and translated them into Earth’s system for clarity. Reflecting on this information, Xiao Yu fell into deep thought. Scenes of grandeur played out in his mind. This was a civilization stronger than humanity. They had detected signs of their homeworld’s impending explosion at least twenty years in advance—ten years earlier than Xiao Yu’s discovery of Earth’s fate. In those twenty years, they built a massive spaceship capable of holding 300,000 people. Xiao Yu could imagine the immense pressure of constructing such a limited refuge in a cold and detached civilization that had no concept of love, family, or warmth in its social relations. Xiao Yu could almost envision the struggles, both overt and covert, that occurred during this process. Countless intrigues must have unfolded, and innumerable heroic stories were likely buried in the annals of history. Most importantly, the spaceship was completed. What shocked Xiao Yu most was that the ship relied on chemical or nuclear fission fuel rather than nuclear fusion. The information explicitly stated that they encountered the barrier of controlled nuclear fusion only after reaching the new planet. After the spaceship was built, during their three-year journey through space, they experienced unforeseen accidents that halved their population. Xiao Yu recalled his own experience with the Jupiter-Moon Collision. It was as if he were the last person left in the universe—an overwhelming sense of loneliness and despair, a terror of nature’s irresistible might that he never wished to experience again. His journey and the Lizardmen civilization’s were strikingly similar. They had endured countless hardships and dangers to reach their new planet. How was his journey any different? “Based on the current intelligence, their original star system must have had at least two terrestrial planets and one gas giant. Their homeworld was one, and the barren planet another. It seems they eventually overcame the barrier of controlled nuclear fusion, extracted enough fusion fuel from the gas giant, and built planetary engines to begin their interstellar journey.” Reviewing the data he had gathered, Xiao Yu’s emotions fluctuated. Like the Lizardmen, Xiao Yu harbored many doubts. It was now almost certain that the planetary explosions were caused by some external force. Why this force sought to destroy planets remained unclear. However, one puzzling question lingered in Xiao Yu’s mind: if such a force was capable of detonating planets, how could it fail to detect the survivors who escaped, like the 300,000 Lizardmen or Xiao Yu himself? Another perplexing point was this: if the purpose was to destroy civilizations, why allow these survivors to escape? Conversely, if the purpose was not to annihilate civilizations, why detonate the planets at all? Xiao Yu couldn’t figure it out. But one thing became clear—there was a connection between the Lizardmen civilization’s hostility toward him and this mystery. “What kind of intelligence did the Lizardmen uncover? What compelled them to launch an offensive against me?” Xiao Yu pondered silently. “The answers to all of this must lie in the yet-to-be-deciphered sections of this document.” So far, nearly one-third of the document had been decoded. Xiao Yu estimated that deciphering the remaining two-thirds would take another three years. The construction of the new Photon Computer was still underway. To expedite the decryption of this document, Xiao Yu devoted additional resources to its development. The Photon Computer under construction consisted of 100,000 super photon CPUs, along with an array of hard drives and other hardware. Thanks to a distributed computing algorithm newly developed by Xiao Yu, he would be able to fully harness the power of these 100,000 photon CPUs. However, the effectiveness of a supercomputer’s CPUs doesn’t simply increase with quantity. Without an advanced distributed algorithm to coordinate them, adding more CPUs could lead to slower performance instead of an improvement. Given Xiao Yu’s current technological capabilities, controlling 100,000 photon CPUs represented the upper limit. As time passed, a year later, the first giant Photon Computer was completed. However, since the new Voyager had not yet been finished, this computer was temporarily installed on The Solar. Eager to put his new “home” to use, Xiao Yu immediately began utilizing the tenfold increase in computational power to focus entirely on decrypting the Lizardmen’s core data. Finally, the next segment was decoded. “Through rigorous verification by our greatest scientists, it was concluded that, given our current technological capabilities, utilizing this planet as a base for interstellar travel was the most viable solution. This meant that we required an exceptionally powerful energy source, and as of now, we lacked any theoretical framework capable of providing a more potent energy supply than controlled nuclear fusion. Without mastering controlled nuclear fusion, interstellar travel was beyond our reach.” “Our technological progress stalled in the face of this insurmountable barrier, until something else occurred.” “We discovered another intelligent species living in a community several hundred meters beneath this planet’s surface. This was truly astonishing. Until then, we had never imagined that intelligent life could coexist with us on this planet, hidden deep underground.” “Fortunately, this species only possessed the technological level of the cold weapon era. They were exceedingly violent and entirely unsuitable for being enslaved. So, we eradicated them without hesitation. Interestingly, two months after this civilization was destroyed, we made a critical breakthrough in controlled nuclear fusion technology.” “From that point on, everything took a dramatic turn for the better. It seemed that after the annihilation of this civilization, our luck suddenly improved. Breakthroughs in various technologies followed one after another. Photon Computers were developed, controlled nuclear fusion technology was mastered, new materials were created, and we successfully designed supergiant planetary engines. Our scientific endeavors entered a golden age.” “We have no way of knowing if these events were related to the destruction of that civilization, but if they weren’t, the timing was far too coincidental. Despite extensive research, our scientists remain baffled. However, a theory began to circulate among the populace.” “This theory was truly shocking. Some suggested that perhaps the laws of the universe work this way: after annihilating other civilizations, one’s own civilization’s luck improves. This hypothesis might even explain why our planet was suddenly destroyed—perhaps... our civilization became the ‘nourishment’ for another highly advanced civilization seeking to enhance its own luck. However, without conclusive evidence, nothing can be confirmed.” “The long-anticipated interstellar voyage finally began. We extracted massive amounts of nuclear fusion fuel from the gas giant and stored it on the planet, then set off toward a young star. Moreover, to test the hypothesis that eliminating other civilizations could improve one’s own luck, the interim government decided that if we encountered any other civilizations in space, we should strive to destroy them entirely.” Xiao Yu read this section, lost in thought. “So that’s it. That’s the reason,” Xiao Yu murmured, his mind a storm of emotions. The question that had puzzled him for so long finally had an answer.

Chapter 52: Luck

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