Warp Ladder

The Warp Speed Travel drive test was successfully completed without any surprises. Then, humans built several small Warp test ships and went to test Warp Speed Travel near the few remaining Gaseous Planet, and then near stars.

As expected, Warp Speed Travel is prone to veering off course in regions closer to planets and stars, especially when close to stars. One unmanned test vessel even crashed directly into a star.

After numerous tests, it can be generally determined that the Gravity of a star like the Sun affects Warp Speed Travel within a range of approximately 0.8 to 1 Astronomical Unit. This is not a definitive value because the extent of this effect depends on the stability of human-made equipment, specifically the level of Warp Speed Travel technology.

The more thorough the research into Warp Speed Travel technology, the more advanced the Warp Engine, the less affected by stellar Gravity. In fact, when this type of travel technology develops to a very high level, it may be possible to completely ignore the influence of stellar Gravity.

Just like how the Awakeners and the Harvesters directly attached themselves to the Stellar Chromosphere and started Warp Speed Travel.

As for the influence of planets, the range is relatively small due to their relatively weak Gravity. Tests have shown that human experimental ships are essentially unaffected unless they enter the orbital range of Gaseous Planet. For planets like Earth, human ships only need to worry about Warp unless they enter their orbit to dock or conduct ground-to-orbit transport.

In other words, once all ships have completed their upgrades, humanity's Great Fleet can sail directly into the interior of Star System, as long as they avoid getting too close to the star's interior. This is not much different from theoretical calculations.

It makes sense. Gravity, as the weakest of the Four Fundamental Forces, has an infinite range, but it is still not enough for a spacecraft that can directly generate Gravity Well and thus achieve Warp, unless it comes close or encounters an extreme celestial body, such as Neutron Star or a black hole.

This result has greatly pleased human scientists, as it means that in the future, humans will be able to achieve rapid maneuvering inside and outside Star System, and can quickly enter Warp mode to leave after detecting danger.

Another purpose of the Warp Speed Travel experiment is to test the Warp speed that humans can currently achieve.

Strictly speaking, using speed to describe Warp is not very accurate, because Warp Speed Travel is not ship movement in the traditional sense, but since everyone understands this, there is no need for humans to change these terms.

After multiple rounds of testing, scientists determined humanity's current Warp level. Initially, when the Warp Engine was not running at full power, the experimental vessel only reached one time the speed of light.

As people increased the Warp parameters and boosted the engine power, the Warp speed of the test ship immediately soared, from 1 times the speed of light to 10.079 times the speed of light.

This value is highly accurate because it matches exactly the result calculated by humans from the Warp formula. Scientists can also calculate, based on this company's calculations, that there is theoretically a next level of Warp speed within humanity's current "Gravity Well Warp," which they have determined to be 38.941 times the speed of light.

However, this Warp, which is several times the speed of light, is something that current human Warp Engine cannot achieve at full power.

Scientists are quite confident about this, believing that there is still room for improvement in human Warp Engine. As long as we continue to improve the technology and enhance our manufacturing capabilities, we will definitely be able to achieve the speed of light at 38.941 times in the future.

Human scientists directly divided Warp Speed Travel into three Warp levels: 1x light speed, 10.079x light speed, and 38.941x light speed. These Warp levels were then directly assigned to the Warp Gear of ships by human engineers.

Yes, Warp Gear.

There are three Warp 1 is 1 times the speed of light, Warp 2 3 is 10.079 times the speed of light, and Warp 3 is 38.941 times the speed of light. Of course, currently, human Warp ships only have two speeds, Warp 1 and Warp 2; Warp 3 has not yet been realized.

This speed limit isn't arbitrarily set; it's determined by the calculated degree of spatial distortion based on the formulas used in Gravity Potential Well Technology. Moreover, it's reflected in the display of creation; Warp 2, at 10.079 times the speed of light, acts like a technological threshold.

Human engineers vividly remember this: when they were testing Warp Engine, they discovered that the first-generation Warp Engine simply couldn't break through double-digit speeds of light. After years of dedicated research, they finally discovered the problem: a matter of manufacturing precision. Only after further improving the precision of the manufacturing process did they manage to break through the one-time Warp Engine, achieving a gradual increase from one time the speed of light to 10.079 times the speed of light.

At that time, the human engineers didn't realize that their ability to break through the barrier of twice the speed of light in such a short time was entirely due to human Mechanical Specialization. Humanity had always been highly advanced in mechanical technology, even surpassing comparable civilizations like the Crimson Flame Civilization, which enabled their rapid success.

It could be said that, unknowingly, humanity, through its mastery of mechanics, has crossed a small Technology Barrier to becoming Level 4 Civilization.

If we follow the classification of civilization levels by the Top Civilization in the Milky Way Galaxy, humanity, after entering the Level 4 Civilization, quickly jumped from the initial stage of the Level 4 Civilization to the intermediate stage of the Level 4 Civilization.

Of course, humanity is unaware of this until one day in the future, when it encounters a civilization with a speed of only 1 times the speed of light, and then realizes how much other civilizations envy its ability to break through the barrier of 1 times the speed of light in such a short time.

Moreover, without humanity's own awareness, human engineers even felt that with the current level of human manufacturing technology, breaking through the 10.079 times speed of light barrier was not a difficult task. They believed that further breakthroughs in mechanical technology would allow them to create Warp Engine with higher precision and efficiency.

All of humanity felt that improving their mechanical manufacturing skills was not difficult and that it was only a matter of time. The Mechanical Mastery that arose from becoming Wandering Civilization brought benefits to humanity that they themselves were unaware of.

Similarly, humanity is currently unaware of what this mechanical talent would mean if other civilizations knew about it.

It wasn't until the discovery that more civilizations were stuck at speeds of 1 or 10.079 times the speed of light that humanity realized what we once took for granted was incredibly difficult for some civilizations.

(P. S.: The Warp multiplier is borrowed from Star Trek. I know some people will criticize the author if I don't mention this, just like some chapters in the previous text.)