Deep Space Wandering Fleet
Chapter 484 - 482: Successful Return

Chapter 484: Chapter 482: Successful Return

After who knows how long, Zhang Yuan woke up from deep sleep, sweating profusely. The first thing he saw were his companions, Zhao Qingfeng and Chen Mu.

They were all gathered around the hospital bed, looking at him with concern.

It was extremely difficult for him to blink, and he twisted his head around, taking in the surroundings, which were bathed in milky-white light. There was a medical instrument next to his pillow, displaying various parameters, and a female doctor winked at him.

He recognized this room—it was the embassy of humans at the Huantai Interstellar Trading Market.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. It seemed that seven days had passed since "that day".

How could he have been unconscious for so long?

Zhang Yuan slowly regained his composure from that anxious state. His head felt slightly foggy, and the world in front of him felt surreal...

It was like falling from the high throne of a divine temple down to the mortal world.

He had lost that divine-like power.

"Phew...",

Zhang Yuan sighed deeply, feeling as if his head had rusted, truly rusted. Having been disconnected from the "strong artificial intelligence" state, everything seemed painfully slow, very uncomfortable to him.

But, the mortal realm was indeed a safe and solid place.

No matter what, he had to accept this reality.

"Are you feeling better now?" the Foreign Minister, Chen Mu, immediately said upon seeing Zhang Yuan awake, "If you’re tired, you can rest some more. We can talk about matters later... But if there’s something very, very important, we might have to return to the mother ship. That decision is up to you."

He had even put extra emphasis on the word "very."

Seven days ago, the guide from the Huantai Civilization, the "Cocos-shaped Wart," brought Zhang Yuan back, leaving them a cubic data storage device filled with all sorts of inexplicable data, totaling over 100 GB!

The Cocos-shaped Wart didn’t know what the data meant either; he had simply handed it over directly.

Given the formidable power of a level 6 civilization, the Huantai Civilization understood it better than humans; they dared not secretly intercept or engage in any underhanded tactics... Though the Gaia Faction’s civilizations are all quite friendly, who could really say?

Restricted by research conditions not matching those on the mother ship, human scientists have been decrypting this data without making any real progress as to its safety or cracking its format and decoding, as the current talent pool was simply not sufficient.

The young female doctor was slightly annoyed and, with many of the bigwigs present, wasn’t all too polite, saying, "Alright, alright, don’t ask so many questions; who gets to work right after waking up from a coma? The patient still needs to rest! His whole body has been paralyzed!"

"Being able to wake up means there shouldn’t be any problems now. All physiological indicators are normal, and bodily functions can gradually recover... This consciousness upload technology of the Huantai Civilization, isn’t very advanced, eh? Look what it’s done to him."

Chen Mu glared, but dared not speak out of turn in front of the doctor. She was the best doctor in the embassy and held a high position.

Zhang Yuan smiled wryly to himself, wanting to speak but finding he really couldn’t, only managing to utter a weird "Wulu" sound.

The consciousness upload at the Huantai Civilization Trading Market and the superluminal communication were both provided by the Amoeba Civilization, not tailor-made for humans. In contrast, human consciousness upload technology was provided by the Gaia Civilization. Needless to say, there’s a significant difference between the two.

The Gaia Civilization, after all, was the leader of the entire Gaia Faction, quite likely even more powerful than the Amoeba Civilization.

He was eager, but he couldn’t speak, having disengaged from the "Strong Artificial Intelligence state" and lost several types of "Perception" not possessed by humans, which essentially paralyzed his entire brain. Recovery might take a very long, long time.

He controlled his fingers, making the common aerospace gesture for "return."

Because the gesture was too subtle, he had to repeat it several times before his companions could make it out clearly.

After grasping the meaning, Chen Mu was delighted, "Old Zhao, you take him back first since we’ll have to return to the base eventually. Take that storage device back too, our research equipment here is inadequate..."

"I have to stay at the embassy for a while longer. You’ll be in charge of everything from now on."

The number of humans active in this trading market had risen to three thousand, including some scientists involved in diplomacy, as well as some trade negotiation personnel, plus additional cooperation in industry and scientific research. Consequently, there are still many related tasks, and Chen Mu couldn’t leave just yet.

"No problem, I’ll go and apply for the return trip right now!" Zhao Qingfeng nodded enthusiastically.

Soon, a group of people escorted Zhang Yuan, who lay on a hospital bed, onto a small shuttle. The Huantai Civilization, unquestionably excellent in terms of credibility, didn’t set up any obstacles. Instead, they were very eager to purchase the "New Civilization History" from humans, constantly singing praises without showing any airs of a Fourth-level Civilization.

Zhang Yuan couldn’t speak now, and even opening his eyelids was exhaustingly difficult. Inside, he was very eager, but this urgency was of no use.

He felt that his current condition was not so much related to the "Consciousness Upload" but rather a side effect from exiting superdimensional perception.

He had now lost a series of perceptions granted by "Sigma," including magnetic field perception, ultraviolet perception, infrared perception, and neutrino perception, as if his mind was missing something.

It was like suddenly going blind in the third, fourth, and fifth eyes, leading to his current paralyzed state.

Having witnessed a much broader world, Zhang Yuan felt that human perception was extremely limited. Trying to truly comprehend the universe with the traditional five senses was as futile as a blind man feeling an elephant.

Imperfect perception might, after much struggle, manage to sketch out what an elephant looked like.

But a civilization with stronger perception abilities needed only one glance... That was the direct difference between them.

At the same time, there was a huge indirect gap related to intelligence!

"I should switch fields and conduct research in this area... Without these super perception abilities, humanity remains a lower species. Once we have this perception combined with high-speed thinking abilities... Level 5 civilization is nothing much, right?"

"Must switch fields, must switch fields!"

With his eyes closed, Zhang Yuan made up his mind secretly.

Because of this experience, unique only to him, mere words couldn’t describe it to others. A person born blind couldn’t imagine the world seen through eyes. A deaf person couldn’t know the world as the hearing do.

Similarly, humans couldn’t imagine a multi-dimensional perceptual world.

Now, he felt like he had withdrawn from the superdimensional perceptual world and reverted to human vision, thus he was very unaccustomed and it might take many days to recover.

Due to the long journey, the entire shuttle crew consisted of about twelve people and required at least a month. Staying on such a small shuttle for such a long duration was frankly very boring, so normally everyone would go into short-term hibernation in the hibernation chambers.

However, Zhang Yuan couldn’t hibernate; he wanted to use this time to fully recover his body!