Rebirth of the Super Battleship
Chapter 238: Speculation

Within just a few Planck time intervals, even a ship traveling at curvature speed could only cover a very short distance. Moreover, its speed, trajectory, and other movement parameters had already been factored in by Xiao Yu. The firing module had long since adjusted the launch trajectory accordingly.

Once the firing order was issued, the torrent of tachyons, negative in mass and totaling over one hundred thousand tons, that had been orbiting inside the launch window was instantly unleashed in the direction of the target. Their velocity far exceeded the speed of light. In fact, even now, Xiao Yu had yet to determine their exact speed.

Superluminal communication was based on quantum entanglement, which itself relied on a type of particle Xiao Yu referred to as a1-type tachyon. The Faster-Than-Light detection instruments were based on a3-type tachyons, and the attack module of the negative matter cannon operated using g7-type tachyons. These three types were the most widely used. So far, Xiao Yu had discovered dozens of different tachyon variants, each with subtle differences in properties. For these dozens of types, he could only roughly rank them by speed, he couldn’t measure the exact velocity of any of them, not even the slowest z2-type tachyon.

Among all these variants, there was no doubt that the fastest was the a1-type tachyon, the one responsible for quantum entanglement and widely employed by Level 3 and higher civilizations.

But even at such extreme speeds, Xiao Yu had determined one thing for certain: their speed had an upper limit. It wasn’t truly infinite, contrary to popular belief. He was confident that even superluminal communication technology would face significant delays once distances surpassed a certain threshold, say, if one communicator was on one end of the Milky Way and the other on the opposite end, roughly 100,000 light-years apart. At that distance, not only would communication suffer severe delays, it might even encounter decoherence and fail entirely.

Xiao Yu speculated that it was likely due to this very limitation that Level 6 civilizations had abandoned the superluminal communication technology still widely used by Level 5 civilizations. Instead, they adopted a more advanced form of technology, namely, the “spatial broadcast” technology used by the White Dwarf Alien Beast and the Guardian Civilization.

Xiao Yu had long heard the rumors that Level 6 civilizations had begun to grasp the fundamentals of space technology. This made spatial broadcasting technology a subject worthy of deep contemplation.

Since the one hundred thousand tons of negative-mass tachyons had previously been confined within the negative matter cannon, the system could be considered a single unit. Now that they had been launched, it meant the cannon’s mass had suddenly decreased by over one hundred thousand tons. In other words, its total mass had decreased by that amount in an instant.

This was a phenomenon Xiao Yu had already predicted in his theoretical models, and he had precisely anticipated the consequences it would cause.

At that moment, due to the change in mass, the orbital trajectory of the several hundred million ton negative matter cannon shifted slightly, its orbit edged closer to the brown dwarf. If no adjustments were made, the cannon would, over long periods of time, gradually drift inward until it eventually collided with the brown dwarf.

During the production of tachyons, an equal mass of regular matter was also generated. The positive matter formed from quark aggregation into baryons, then from baryons into basic hydrogen atoms, and finally into the simplest material in the universe, hydrogen gas. Thus, in producing over one hundred thousand tons of tachyons, Xiao Yu had also obtained over one hundred thousand tons of hydrogen gas as a by-product.

However, to manufacture this hundred-thousand-ton torrent of tachyons, the amount of energy Xiao Yu expended, if converted to mass, far exceeded the mass of the resulting hydrogen.

At the exact moment the tachyon torrent was unleashed, Xiao Yu witnessed a miraculous phenomenon.

The interior of a star system contained relatively high matter density, with vast amounts of cosmic dust scattered invisibly throughout. Xiao Yu had already calculated the exact trajectory the tachyon torrent would follow. As the torrent advanced, it cleared out all matter in its path. Once the route was cleared, Xiao Yu’s detection instruments were immediately deployed into the newly formed corridor.

This region, having been swept clean by the tachyon torrent, was now an ultra-high-purity vacuum. In such an environment, many strange and incredible physical phenomena could occur. Xiao Yu speculated that it might have been precisely the discovery of tachyons, and their ability to carve out regions of extreme vacuum by removing all material influence from space, that enabled intelligent beings to begin truly studying space itself. This, in turn, may have been the key for civilizations to reach the Level 6 threshold.

The target ship was approximately ten million kilometers from the negative matter cannon. At that distance, given the transmission speed of tachyons, Xiao Yu could not detect any measurable time delay. In other words, the instant the tachyon torrent was launched, it struck the target ship.

The County-Class vessel vanished.

It disappeared just like that, suddenly, cleanly, without a trace. At that moment, not only did the FTL detection modules on the negative matter cannon lose its signal, but the superluminal communication equipment aboard the Beijing also failed to pick up anything from the County-Class vessel.

Inside the superluminal communicator, the previously entangled quantum pair decohered at the exact instant the ship vanished. This meant that Xiao Yu could no longer establish any communication with the County-Class vessel via superluminal link.

It was simply gone, swift, clean, and utterly silent. No sound, no light, not even the faintest trace left behind.

Such was the power of the negative matter cannon.

“Excellent. Just as I expected,” Xiao Yu thought with satisfaction, immediately launching a full evaluation of the cannon’s current operational status.

This tachyon torrent launch had generated an enormous amount of data. Every part of the cannon, every operational cycle, every reaction during the firing sequence was recorded. By analyzing this data, Xiao Yu could begin finding ways to improve the cannon: increase its power, reduce energy consumption, shrink its size, and lower its mass.

“Begin analysis. I’ll handle 70 percent of the workload. The Luka Civilization will take on 8 percent. The remaining 22 percent is to be distributed among the other races. During analysis, everyone must coordinate and communicate. Any conclusions are to be posted on the internal forum.”

Xiao Yu issued his directive. Under his command, the now nearly ten thousand strong Scientific and Technical Division began working immediately. Like the vital screws in a massive machine, they quietly but indispensably fueled Xiao Yu’s industrial engine.

But even after just a preliminary review of the data from the cannon’s first live firing, Xiao Yu discovered a serious problem.

“Tch… too much damage. This was just a test shot, and already the component failure rate is at 3 percent. It’s completely incapacitated, unable to fire a second shot. Hmm… most of the failures were caused by energy overload. The components simply burned out. That ties back to our material science limits. What a headache.”

Xiao Yu had no intention of allowing a weapon he spent so much time and effort to build to end up as a single-use prototype. But for now, he had no solution.

At this moment, the disadvantage of an unbalanced tech tree once again revealed itself. If all branches of his science had progressed evenly, his materials science should be at least two tiers more advanced than it currently was. But now, Xiao Yu’s military tech and weapon theory had reached the Level 5 Civilization stage, while his material sciences were still languishing in the early stages of Level 4.

“All right… the next focus needs to be dual: continuing research on the negative matter cannon while also launching a new round of material science development. But… most of the scientists under me are military tech specialists. They’re not familiar with material science. Ugh… I still have too few scientists.”

Xiao Yu rubbed his temples, troubled by the dilemma. He didn’t expect these scientists to be polymaths like himself, masters of every field.

The post-firing assessment of the negative matter cannon was now fully underway. Xiao Yu hoped this process would uncover ways to improve the cannon.

At the same time, a comprehensive evaluation had also begun for the over one hundred thousand new technologies developed during the cannon’s construction. Among them, the most valuable and practical by far was undoubtedly the Faster-Than-Light detection technology.

Due to power scale differences, FTL detectors were several orders of magnitude easier to manufacture than the negative matter cannon. This meant that at his current level of technology, Xiao Yu could already miniaturize the detection modules and equip them on his ships.

Yet, after fully acquiring FTL detection technology, a deep suspicion began to grow in Xiao Yu’s mind.

“With the level of technology I currently possess, I can detect a curvature flight vessel within 0.01 light-years if I actively search. The Molian Civilization’s FTL detection tech is definitely far superior to mine. When I escaped their system, it took their support fleet an entire month to arrive, that means I only got about half a light-year away. There’s no reason they shouldn’t have been able to track me. And if they found me, there’s no reason they wouldn’t have hunted me down.”

“Getting robbed by a Level 4 Civilization, having their own market raided, this should be a severe stain on their reputation. And I still possess Alien Beast flesh, something extremely desirable to them. From any perspective, there’s no justification for them not pursuing me.”

“Then… what was the reason?”

Xiao Yu sank deep into thought.

“Could it be because of you… strange star?”

He gazed into the distance, toward the bizarre star ten light-years away, the one that was now only half intact, and muttered softly.

That star remained motionless in space, still quietly radiating its light.