Chapter 852: Acquiring Technology |
Xiao Yu had never imagined that in the matter of destroying the microscopic civilization and destroying the Large Magellanic Cloud, there had actually been other forces involved as well. Xiao Yu could confirm that the entire matter had progressed very naturally, and had been pushed forward completely by his own hand. If he had not heard the microscopic civilization’s account here, he might perhaps never have discovered the hidden twists behind this matter.
From his own standpoint, this matter had done him no harm. On the contrary, because as the executor he was to receive a reward, he had even gained a bit of benefit and captured the microscopic civilization. But the influence of these things was not merely superficial. Behind them lay deeper implications.
For example, what exactly was the relationship between the Guardian Civilization, or according to the microscopic civilization, this civilization that had already changed its name to the Dark Star Civilization, and the Rebel Alliance? Xiao Yu still understood the principle that possessing a treasure invites disaster. Back then, they had only been a Level 6 Civilization, so why were they able to possess something like a causal weapon? Why did the Guardian Civilization leave? Why had the rebels been watching him all along, only to leave so quickly after he arrived?
There were simply too many doubts in Xiao Yu’s mind, so many that it was impossible for him to sort out the threads connecting these events.
“This so-called consciousness of the main universe, this existence that presides over the Rules, completes causality, and provides me with rewards, does it belong to the Guardian of the Way or to the Rebel Alliance? Or is it independent, the third-party force I speculated about? Did the Guardian Civilization leave in order to avoid me? Perhaps the restriction on using a causal weapon lies precisely in this. To try to break causality is to be punished by the consciousness of the main universe. My arrival here, my coming to the Triangulum Galaxy, may also carry the responsibility of eliminating the Guardian Civilization, while the rebels appeared and perhaps guided the Guardian Civilization. That would explain why the Guardian Civilization left this place in such haste.”
“At the very least, the consciousness of the main universe does not belong to the rebels’ side. Then only two possibilities remain. One, it is the Guardian of the Way. The Guardian of the Way only acts according to the Rules, without good or evil, and without personal inclination. Although there are things about me that the Guardian of the Way does not like, after I do something that conforms to the Guardian of the Way, it would still reward me. Two, the consciousness of the main universe is independent. There are only these two possibilities.”
“This time, the consciousness of the main universe may have failed in what it intended, because of interference from the Rebel Alliance. The Guardian Civilization already left the Triangulum Galaxy in advance, and no one knows where they went.”
Xiao Yu bore no malice toward the Guardian Civilization. But if that mysterious and unfathomable causality came in to interfere, then even if Xiao Yu had no malice, certain events might still occur that would cause Xiao Yu to begin hating the Guardian Civilization, until in the end he struck and wiped them out.
Aside from that, Xiao Yu still needed to think about another matter, namely, whether the Guardian Civilization still held hostility toward him. The Guardian Civilization had countless connections with the rebels. At the same time, they also possessed a causal weapon powerful enough to destroy a galaxy. This was an enormous threat to him. If a war with the Guardian Civilization might occur in the future, then he had no choice but to make preparations early.
Xiao Yu thought silently, and inwardly let out a sigh.
“The Guardian Civilization went to the Feiyuan Galaxy in the Virgo Cluster.” the microscopic civilization said. “They have already been gone for more than one thousand years. But we do not know their exact route. Roughly speaking, according to their speed after becoming a Level 7 Civilization, they should already have traveled a distance of more than one million light years.”
Of course, what the microscopic civilization said was not the name Feiyuan Galaxy. The same galaxy had another name within the microscopic civilization. However, there was a principle in communication between civilizations, namely that nouns and quantifiers, as well as certain civilization-specific terms, would all be accompanied by corresponding explanations. For example, the name Feiyuan Galaxy, if directly translated by meaning from the microscopic civilization’s language, seemed to mean something like Great Bird Galaxy. If they had simply said Great Bird Galaxy, Xiao Yu naturally would not know which galaxy the microscopic civilization was referring to. But if it were accompanied by information such as position, diameter, mass, elemental composition, surrounding galaxies, and so on, Xiao Yu could very easily confirm that the microscopic civilization was referring to the galaxy he called the Feiyuan Galaxy.
The same applied to other quantifiers, such as meter and kilometer. When communicating with other civilizations, when Xiao Yu used the word meter, he would also include the corresponding explanation. The explanation for a meter was the distance light travels in one divided by two hundred ninety-nine million seven hundred ninety-two thousand four hundred fifty-eight of a second, while the explanation for a second was the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom.
This was a universal rule of communication. Even if a civilization did not know this rule, after Xiao Yu used this method of communication, they would quickly follow suit and adopt it as well.
“Feiyuan Galaxy?” Xiao Yu froze for a moment.
The Feiyuan Galaxy was extremely famous. It was impossible for Xiao Yu not to know the name. If the Milky Way Galaxy were compared to a county town, and the Andromeda Galaxy were compared to a prefecture-level city, then the Feiyuan Galaxy would at least be an international metropolis on the level of a capital. Because the Feiyuan Galaxy was the core of the entire Virgo Supercluster.
Our Milky Way Galaxy, and even the Andromeda-Milky Way Galaxy Group, belonged only to the sort of obscure barren backwater within the Virgo Supercluster. The Andromeda-Milky Way Galaxy Group did not have many member galaxies, nor was its mass great. No matter how one looked at it, the Andromeda-Milky Way Galaxy Group had nothing outstanding about it. The core of the Virgo Supercluster was the Virgo Cluster, and the core of the Virgo Cluster was the Feiyuan Galaxy.
Compared to the Feiyuan Galaxy, the Milky Way Galaxy was like heaven and earth.
There was in fact no galaxy in the universe called the Virgo Galaxy. The reason our Local Supercluster was called the Virgo Supercluster was because the mass core of this supercluster lay in the direction of Virgo when viewed from Earth, and thus it got this name. Even though Xiao Yu had already become a Level 7 Civilization, and intergalactic travel was something he could undertake casually, he still continued using the names that had been passed down since the ancient Earth era.
The Feiyuan Galaxy was huge. According to Xiao Yu’s latest observations, the Feiyuan Galaxy had a diameter of at least one million light years. By comparison, the Milky Way Galaxy’s diameter was only one hundred thousand light years, and the Andromeda Galaxy was only two hundred thousand light years. It was also extremely massive. Xiao Yu estimated that at least two trillion stars were moving within it. The Milky Way contained only a little over one hundred billion stars.
The most outstanding feature of the Feiyuan Galaxy was that it contained a huge black hole at its center. The mass of this black hole was at least six billion times the mass of the Sun. By comparison, the black hole at the core of the Milky Way had a mass of only a few million solar masses.
The Feiyuan Galaxy originally had another name. In the Earth era, it was called Messier 87 (M87, or the Virgo A Galaxy. But Xiao Yu had renamed it, and Feiyuan Galaxy was its new name.
The Feiyuan Galaxy was approximately fifty million light years away from the Milky Way Galaxy. At this distance, even at Xiao Yu’s current speed, it would still take more than thirty thousand years of continuous travel. Adding in replenishment along the way and other matters, if Xiao Yu wanted to set out for the Feiyuan Galaxy, then without forty thousand years it would be absolutely impossible.
Even using the Star Gate that had once existed in the Milky Way Galaxy for such a long-distance journey would still require more than five hundred years to arrive. By comparison, traveling from the Milky Way Galaxy to the Andromeda Galaxy, with the help of that Star Gate, had taken Xiao Yu only a little over two years.
“So the Guardian Civilization actually went to the Feiyuan Galaxy…” Xiao Yu sighed inwardly. “The Guardian Civilization’s technology should still be somewhat behind mine. At most, they are only around 1,100 times the speed of light… When they were still a Level 6 Civilization, the Guardian Civilization already dared to set out from the Milky Way Galaxy for the Triangulum Galaxy. Now that they have just become a Level 7 Civilization, they have already set out from the Triangulum Galaxy for the Feiyuan Galaxy… This civilization really is…”
The Feiyuan Galaxy was one of the galaxies Xiao Yu had already determined he would inevitably go to in the future. This meant that there was a great chance Xiao Yu would encounter the Guardian Civilization in the future, a civilization that possessed a causal weapon.
“Entangled with the Rebel Alliance, the Guardian Civilization should also harbor hostility toward me… Perhaps in the future, a war between me and the Guardian Civilization will be unavoidable. Then how to deal with this causal weapon is something I will need to think about carefully.”
“But this matter is not urgent. I still have plenty of time…” Xiao Yu thought silently, then said to the microscopic civilization, “Open your data interface. Let me enter your central computer and obtain all of your civilization’s materials. Rest assured, after I obtain what I want, you will be free to leave. There will no longer be any relationship between our two civilizations.”
Faced with Xiao Yu’s request, the microscopic civilization was extremely helpless, yet had no choice. When the survival of their civilization was already in another’s hands, they no longer had the ability to resist. So the data interface was opened, and Xiao Yu’s computational power poured in.
A great quantity of data concerning the microscopic civilization was copied over by Xiao Yu and stored in his computational equipment. This situation continued for more than a week before finally ending.