Three Hundred and Sixty Years Gone
The space was so vast that, without the backdrop of the Wolf 1061 Star System, the seemingly incredibly bright exhaust flames of the fleet paled in comparison to the brilliance of the Milky Way. The human fleet itself was not even worth a speck of dust.
Humans often compare the Earth to dust in the universe or sand in the Ganges River, but the so-called Ganges River sand is not a valid analogy for comparing the Earth to the universe.
That size comparison needs to be magnified by several orders of magnitude.
Humanity, navigating the vast galaxy, deeply felt this. The fleet built by humanity with its proud technology silently accelerated in the void, like a firefly.
Its light, which is almost like that of the sun, cannot even penetrate the Interstellar Dust to reach any of the nearest Star System.
A dozen hours later, the Fusion Thruster were partially shut down, leaving only the reactor to maintain the spacecraft's maximum speed and internal energy supply.
After accelerating to 10% of the speed of light, the human fleet entered a phase of constant-speed travel. Constant-speed travel meant that humanity no longer needed to be constantly pressed against the cushioning chair.
The automatic program unbuckles people's seat belts and releases the body safety stabilizer.
People who have returned to normal life have begun to resume their work: those who need to hibernate are hibernating, those who need to do research are doing research, those who need to raise children are raising children, and those who need to have children are having children.
Humanity's current voyage does not have a specific Star System in mind; it is simply heading towards the Sagittarius Arm, based on a map of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Although humans cannot determine through their own observations whether the Orion Arm is truly an extremely Dangerous Star Region, in the past period, humans have received broadcast messages with the same content from probes located in the outer reaches of the Wolf Stellar System on several occasions.
It's still the Silver Heart Alliance, but not the same fleet.
The broadcast signal seemed to be intelligent, able to identify whether a receiver was at least Tier 1 Civilization.
After receiving the signal several times, humans had no choice but to begin to believe in the authenticity of the broadcast.
Humanity doesn't know where the broadcast signal came from, or when the civilizations mentioned in the broadcast arrived at the Orion Arm, but that doesn't affect humanity's determination to leave this star system.
After all, even without the broadcast, the threat of the 'Silver Mist' still exists.
As for why we should head towards the Sagittarius Arm, the reason is simple: with current human navigation capabilities, we can only follow routes where stars are distributed.
The Orion Arm is a protruding branch of the Sagittarius Arm. The universe is three-dimensional, and the Milky Way Galaxy is indeed a flat, mallet-shaped galaxy. Most of the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy are distributed on the Galactic Disk.
If we define the magnitude of the Galactic Disk as up and down, there are up and down directions, but humans cannot fly upwards from the Galactic Disk and then return in a parabolic trajectory.
Sailing across a cantilever is even more of a dream.
Of course, humans also felt that this route was very unsafe, so they tried to travel towards the stars above the Galactic Disk and, within the limits of their navigation technology, stayed as far away as possible from dense star regions to reduce the possibility of encountering Alien Civilization.
By the way, humans have always just wanted to stay as far away as possible, and don't really think that with their 15% travel speed, they can actually fly to the Sagittarius Arm.
This is not a sudden realization of self-awareness, but rather a technological advancement that makes human consciousness extremely difficult to attain.
The Solar System is located roughly in the middle of the Orion Arm, about 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Orion Arm itself spans about 26,000 light-years.
According to human observations, the distance from our current location to the intersection of the Orion Arm and the Sagittarius Arm is at least 13,000 light-years.
With current human travel technology, it would take at least 86,666 years to fly continuously, not even counting the time spent on resupply, maintenance, and development in various Star System along the way.
Besides, even if the equipment doesn't break down, the people will all be old and dead by now. The Hibernation Pod and Life Elixir can't withstand the erosion of such a long period of time.
On a cosmic scale, humanity appears extremely small.
Even after using both Life Elixir, a human's lifespan is only six hundred years, which passes in the blink of an eye. Even if Yue Yuan has five hundred more years of lifespan than others, it is still only a mere 1,100 years.
Without proper hibernation, he would die of old age on the voyage.
So after the fleet entered a state of steady sailing, Yue Yuan continued to serve for another three years before he went into hibernation.
The first resupply destination for the human fleet was a Yellow Dwarf Star 12.8 light-years away. Astronomers used various methods, including the Transit Method, Gravity perturbation method, gravitational microlensing method, and relativistic method, to determine that a massive Gaseous Planet existed there.
Although no signs of Rocky Planet have been found, according to general rules, large Gaseous Planet should have many Rocky Satellite.
With planets as a base, humans can repair and maintain spacecraft, replenish various supplies consumed during the journey, and of course, fuels such as Protium Deuterium Tritium, helium-3, and Helium-4 for Nuclear Fusion.
The human fleet sailed among the stars, and when Yue Yuan awoke from hibernation for the second time, the fleet had been sailing for eighty-five years.
He himself had aged fifteen years.
Eighty-five years have passed, and all of humanity's warships have been fully staffed, with the human population increasing from 970,000 to 1.4 million.
The population growth during the voyage was much smaller than during the forty years in the Wolf Stellar System, but this is normal because many people spent their time in hibernation. Admittedly, some served for forty or fifty years, but not everyone did, and people's desire to have children was not very high under these circumstances.
Therefore, it is reasonable for the population growth to slow down, as many newborns are born accidentally.
As usual, humanity first dispatched probes to explore the Target Star System. Of course, this process was completed by unmanned Scout Spaceship before the fleet even arrived at the Target Star System.
The universe is vast and empty. Even though civilizations may exist everywhere, humanity was neither unlucky enough to encounter another Alien Civilization nor fortunate enough to find another Life Planet.
Human scientists find this result quite reasonable; it would be strange to encounter a civilization or a Life Planet every time you reach a Star System.
After arriving at the Target Star System, humanity did not stay for decades as it did in the Wolf Stellar System. Instead, they replenished their energy and supplies and then continued their journey to the next Star System.
This departure marked another seventy-one years.
Then, they will continue to rely on the Star System for supplies and energy replenishment before continuing their journey.
Fifty-three years, sixty-eight years, forty-seven years, one hundred and one years.
Humanity has stopped and started, relying on Star System time and time again, to forge unprecedented interstellar routes.
Including resupply time, it has been 360 years since humanity left the Wolf Stellar System.
Over six Sexagenary Cycle, humanity's total voyage reached 52.7 light-years, yet the straight-line distance to the Wolf Stellar System is only 36.6 light-years. This is the effective voyage humanity has achieved over six Sexagenary Cycle of the Chinese calendar.
Humanity has once again experienced the vastness of the universe and the ruthlessness of time.