Chapter Summaries

Li Qingsong spent more than eight months manufacturing and positioning a vast arsenal on Luoshen Star, then launched 350 billion bullets toward Adversary Star. The bullet swarms reached the planet’s vicinity after the disguised warships were destroyed, and the enemy detected them with the earliest rounds still hours away.

• Li Qingsong used more than 900,000 clones to produce 350 billion specially designed bullets and one million firearms over six months.
• Li Qingsong deployed the firearms across Luoshen Star and created a cloud of debris to conceal their firing from enemy probes.
• Li Qingsong’s guns fired in rotating batches, sending more than 40 million bullets per minute toward Adversary Star for three days.
• The 350 billion bullets traveled through space for nearly three months and reached Adversary Star shortly after the second batch of disguised warships was destroyed.
• The enemy detected the bullet swarms while the earliest rounds were still more than 100,000 kilometers from Adversary Star.

Li Qingsong unleashed a vast bullet swarm against Adversary Star, aiming to destroy its industrial bases while the enemy fleet fled beyond the heaviest bombardment. The factories were devastated, and even the fleet’s advanced defenses began to let projectiles through.

• Li Qingsong watched the mothership and its escort flee Adversary Star to escape the incoming bullet swarm, while the mothership suffered further damage during its desperate acceleration.
• The fleet stopped tens of thousands of kilometers from Luoshen Star, and the escort ships gathered in front of the mothership to intercept projectiles.
• The bullet swarm struck Adversary Star, vaporizing surface materials and tearing apart factories across the exposed landmass.
• As Adversary Star rotated, the three-day barrage reached factories previously sheltered by terrain or the planet itself, leaving only some underground facilities protected.
• Li Qingsong watched the warships intercept most of the bullets with lasers and Electromagnetic Cannon Shells, but impacts began flashing across the mothership and escort ships.

Li Qingsong sent reinforcements and supplies toward Adversary Star while the enemy repaired its damaged base and ships. After the first five hundred Mercury-class Battleships arrived, he drew the enemy fleet out, then turned back to attack when it refused to pursue.

• After three days of bombardment, Li Qingsong finished destroying the surface structures on Adversary Star, and his forces began accelerating five hundred Mercury-class Battleships and fifty cargo ships toward the battlefield.
• Li Qingsong kept producing ships, ammunition, fuel, and missiles at the Main Base, sending repeated cargo loads toward Adversary Star and dispatching five newly built Mercury-class Battleships after them.
• The enemy warships stayed near Adversary Star and shuttled between its surface and their mothership to repair their base and restore supplies.
• When the first five hundred Mercury-class Battleships arrived, half the enemy fleet charged at them, and Li Qingsong ordered his ships to retreat while firing everything they had.
• More than ten Mercury-class Battleships were destroyed before the rest escaped, and the enemy ships returned to the mothership instead of pursuing.
• Li Qingsong maneuvered his fleet back toward the enemy and began another bombardment with machine guns, autocannons, and Interstellar Missiles.

Li Qingsong wore down the enemy fleet by repeatedly attacking and retreating, then personally led an assault that captured the mothership and its surviving aliens. After taking control of the aliens, he learned their language and prepared to begin interrogations.

• Li Qingsong used resupplied Mercury-class Battleships to harass the enemy, forcing them to spend their dwindling fuel and supplies.
• The enemy tried intercepting supply containers, then stopped; during a later pursuit, one enemy warship broke formation and Li Qingsong's fleet destroyed it.
• After the enemy fleet dwindled to five damaged warships, Li Qingsong transferred into a clone and led the newest warships toward Adversary Star.
• Li Qingsong arrived with his original body, and the Mercury-class fleet eliminated the last five enemy warships.
• Li Qingsong's clones boarded the mothership, captured its surviving aliens, and gathered the survivors from Adversary Star's underground bases.
• Li Qingsong analyzed the aliens' language and writing, mastered them within days, and prepared to interrogate the captives.

Li Qingsong interrogated the surviving aliens and learned that they were an environmental vanguard from the Lantu Ke Civilization Migration Fleet, whose main fleet was expected to arrive in the Solar System within a few hundred years. Momo Lansi revealed that the Lantu Ke civilization had chosen the Solar System because its life-bearing planet seemed suitable and appeared to lack an intelligent civilization.

• Li Qingsong used clones to search the aliens' devices and interrogate their prisoners, while his clone challenged Momo Lansi over the aliens' defeat.
• Momo Lansi warned that the aliens' main fleet would arrive and could destroy Li Qingsong's forces, so Li Qingsong had him shocked until he answered questions.
• Momo Lansi identified himself as Security Department Head of the Lantu Ke Civilization Migration Fleet's environmental vanguard, and Li Qingsong traced their home system to Gliese 625, 21.3 light-years away.
• Momo Lansi claimed both civilizations had migrated to the Solar System and suggested that Li Qingsong's own main fleet had been lost.
• After further punishment, Momo Lansi said the Lantu Ke civilization had selected the Solar System because its scientists detected a suitable life-bearing planet that seemed to have no intelligent civilization.

Li Qingsong interrogated Lantu Ke captives and discovered that their leaders had concealed the reasons for the migration and deceived them about Earth. He suspected Lantu Ke Civilization was connected to Human Civilization’s disappearance as its main fleet continued toward the Solar System.

• Li Qingsong tortured Momo Lansi and other captives after they repeatedly said their surveys had found no Industrial Markers in Earth's atmosphere.
• Li Qingsong found the same claim in the mothership's database and concluded that the captives believed it, so Lantu Ke's upper ranks had likely deceived them.
• Li Qingsong questioned Momo Lansi about plans for predatory resource extraction and learned that he knew only that the fleet had been sent to survey the system.
• Momo Lansi said the Commanders had ordered the civilization to flee an approaching natural disaster, though he did not know what it was and trusted their orders completely.
• Li Qingsong suspected Lantu Ke Civilization had played a part in Human Civilization's disappearance and noted that its main fleet would arrive in about four hundred years.

After defeating the Lantu Ke Civilization, Li Qingsong salvaged its mothership, wreckage, bases, and prisoners to accelerate his technological development. Two years later, he used a newly developed telescope to study Earth and found no evidence of industrial activity, leaving him wondering where he had come from.

• Li Qingsong collected the Lantu Ke Civilization's wreckage, bases, mothership, and prisoners, then returned to Luoshen Star and resumed construction and research.
• Li Qingsong assigned 300,000 clones to reverse-engineering the alien technology and used prisoners' testimonies to develop technologies he could apply.
• In the second year after the war, Li Qingsong completed a large-aperture, high-resolution Optical Telescope and positioned it 100,000 kilometers from Luoshen Star.
• Li Qingsong aimed the telescope at Earth and analyzed five hours of observations and atmospheric spectral data.
• Li Qingsong found no Industrial Markers in Earth's atmosphere and wondered where he had come from.

Li Qingsong mobilized his clones to develop a probe capable of reaching Earth, building deep-space communications, telescopes, and giant multistage rockets. After repeated rocket failures, he completed the preparations and placed the probe atop the fifth rocket, ready for launch.

• Li Qingsong redirected hundreds of thousands of clones to develop an Earth probe and its deep-space communications system.
• He deployed ten optical telescopes and built antenna arrays around Luoshen Star and Adversary Star to observe and communicate across the Solar System.
• Li Qingsong had five enormous three-stage rockets built and tested their designs.
• The first rocket exploded, and subsequent rockets failed from second-stage ignition problems and hydrogen embrittlement.
• After further failures and redesigns, Li Qingsong achieved a successful rocket test and placed the probe atop the fifth rocket.
• Li Qingsong completed the communication, navigation, and tracking preparations for the probe launch.

Li Qingsong launched a chemical-fueled probe from Luoshen Star toward Earth, while Momo Lansi waited for the Lantu Ke Civilization’s fleet to arrive. After a journey of several years, the probe reached Earth orbit and sent back its first images of a pristine planet.

• Momo Lansi watched the rocket launch and resolved to cooperate until the Lantu Ke Civilization’s main fleet arrived, when he planned to ask again why its people looked alike.
• Li Qingsong’s giant rocket sent the probe speeding toward the sun, where it would use the sun’s gravity to build speed before heading for Earth.
• Over the following years, Li Qingsong continued developing technology with the help of captured Lantu Ke People as the probe crossed the Solar System.
• The probe passed Neptune and Jupiter, looped around the sun, and burned its fuel to slow down before entering Earth orbit.
• Li Qingsong received the probe’s images of Earth and saw oceans, forests, grasslands, and deserts on a seemingly untouched planet.

After discovering that every trace of humanity had vanished from Earth, Li Qingsong accepted that he could rely only on himself to defend the Solar System from the Lantu Ke Civilization. He tested a new generation of clones and increased his maximum consciousness connections to 4,981,137.

• Li Qingsong found no trace of Human Civilization on Earth, though his memories and stored records convinced him that humanity had once existed.
• Li Qingsong concluded that the Lantu Ke Civilization had not caused humanity's disappearance, but resolved to defend the Solar System from its main fleet.
• Li Qingsong decided to spend his remaining four hundred years preparing for war and to increase the number of his consciousness connections.
• Li Qingsong used Lantu Ke biotechnology to develop a new clone cultivation facility, which produced millions of clones.
• Li Qingsong connected to the new-generation clones, raising his maximum number of consciousness connections to 4,981,137.

Li Qingsong expanded Luoshen Star’s research and development until dwindling resources made the development of Adversary Star necessary. After two years of work, he completed 45-nanometer chip technology, giving him a foundation for AI research.

• Li Qingsong tested a new generation of clones, raising his maximum consciousness connections to 5,002,264, then used millions of clones to develop Luoshen Star.
• Li Qingsong’s research accelerated across scientific fields, but years of mining and industrial work depleted Luoshen Star’s resources.
• Li Qingsong decided to prioritize more efficient propulsion, advanced AI and chip technology, and electromagnetic catapult technology to prepare for developing Adversary Star.
• Li Qingsong’s clones spent two years building a new lithography machine and producing chips with a 45-nanometer process.
• Li Qingsong examined a new chip containing one billion transistors and concluded that it could support AI technology development.

Li Qingsong completed a massive 45-nanometer chip factory and brought his total chip production capacity to 520 million per year. He then built and activated a supercomputer, which began training on data gathered throughout his industrial base.

• Li Qingsong completed a 10-square-kilometer 45-nanometer Chip Factory in half a year, and it joined his older factories in production.
• Li Qingsong’s factories reached an annual output of 520 million chips across multiple manufacturing processes.
• Li Qingsong designed a supercomputer with help from thousands of clones and completed the Supercomputer Center.
• Li Qingsong’s clones installed roughly 130,000 chips across 65,536 nodes, and he powered up the supercomputer with a dedicated power station and water-cooling system.
• After testing the system, Li Qingsong uploaded learning algorithms and fed them data from his factories, vehicles, research bases, and other facilities.

Li Qingsong trained industrial AIs using abundant, authentic factory data, upgraded communications with fiber optics, and began automating production. After the Steel Industry AI reduced the workforce needed at a steel factory, he named his coordinating central AI Jade Emperor and turned to research on more efficient interstellar propulsion for developing Adversary Star.

• Li Qingsong replaced communications cables between bases and chips with fiber optics, built five more supercomputers, and began training specialized industrial AIs and a central AI.
• Li Qingsong deployed the Steel Industry AI at a steel factory, where it automated time-sensitive work and reduced the required clones from four thousand to twenty-five hundred.
• Li Qingsong began intelligent upgrades at other metallurgical factories while training AIs for planting, animal husbandry, chemicals, transportation, and other industries.
• Li Qingsong named the still-incomplete central AI Jade Emperor and continued feeding it data and training it.
• Li Qingsong shifted his attention to more efficient interstellar propulsion, where tens of thousands of clones researched fuels, materials, engines, and spacecraft design.

Li Qingsong developed a more efficient methane-and-liquid-oxygen engine to reduce the cost of travel between Luoshen Star and Adversary Star. The engine powered an upgraded Mercury-class Battleship, and its success allowed Li Qingsong to begin planning large-scale exploration of high-mass planets in the Inner Solar System.

• Li Qingsong directed research clones to improve propulsion technology through advances in materials, engine structure, and cooling systems.
• After hundreds of days of tests, Li Qingsong’s clones built a new engine using methane and liquid oxygen.
• Li Qingsong commissioned a Mercury-class Battleship equipped with more weapons and ammunition but less fuel than its predecessor.
• Li Qingsong ordered the new battleship to test its engine, and it achieved greater acceleration and combat endurance than the old model.
• After the ship passed inspection, Li Qingsong recognized that the engine improvements could benefit future spacecraft and rockets, enabling large-scale exploration of high-mass planets in the Inner Solar System.

Li Qingsong launched more than a thousand probes to survey distant celestial bodies and led a fleet carrying 3.3 million clones to begin developing Adversary Star. He left Jade Emperor AI in charge of Luoshen Star, and arrived at Adversary Star determined to demonstrate large-scale planetary development.

• Li Qingsong sent over a thousand probes toward the planets, moons, and dwarf planets to survey their resources.
• Li Qingsong entrusted Jade Emperor AI with managing Luoshen Star while he prepared to develop Adversary Star.
• Li Qingsong assembled a fleet of more than fifteen hundred spacecraft, including cargo ships carrying 3.3 million clones, machinery, and supplies.
• As the fleet traveled away from Luoshen Star, communication delays increased, and Jade Emperor AI took over the base cluster's basic operations.
• Li Qingsong and the fleet reached Adversary Star's orbital space after just over four months, and he vowed to show what real planetary development looked like.

Li Qingsong rapidly industrialized Adversary Star, building tens of thousands of factories and bases and installing AIs to manage them. After five years, the planet’s basic and advanced industrial facilities were complete, but the Large Electromagnetic Catapult remained unfinished.

• Li Qingsong deployed thousands of landing ships and 3.3 million clones to build hundreds of factories and infrastructure across Adversary Star at once.
• A power plant, methane and oxygen mines, and a steel factory came online, allowing Adversary Star to generate its own power and steel.
• Li Qingsong built huge planting and animal husbandry bases to supply food for the clones.
• After three years, Li Qingsong began producing clones and chips locally and installed more than a hundred supercomputer bases running industrial AIs, led by Jade Emperor AI.
• After five years, Li Qingsong completed tens of thousands of basic and advanced industrial facilities, but still had to build the Large Electromagnetic Catapult.

Li Qingsong began using a Large Electromagnetic Catapult to move Adversary Star’s enormous volume of bulk goods into space, where small thrusters could send them toward Luoshen Star. The first cargo container escaped Adversary Star and set off on a journey expected to take about 1.4 years.

• Li Qingsong began building electromagnetic catapults on Adversary Star’s slopes, linking them to power plants, factories, railway lines, and port facilities.
• After more than a month of construction, Li Qingsong watched as the first 1,800-ton cargo container was secured to a launch carriage on a thirty-kilometer track.
• The catapult accelerated the container to 800 meters per second and launched it into a stable orbit around Adversary Star.
• The Transportation AI attached small thrusters, calculated the container’s course, and accelerated it to escape Adversary Star’s gravitational field.
• The container began its 1.4-year journey to Luoshen Star, while Li Qingsong relied on cargo ships for goods that needed faster delivery.

Li Qingsong completed twenty cargo launch bases on Adversary Star and sent resources toward Luoshen Star, then resumed construction and research after the supplies arrived. With the resource crisis resolved, he prepared to begin developing the Venus-class Battleship.

• Li Qingsong watched Launcher No. 1 operate and calculated how the twenty launch bases could smooth their enormous electricity demands.
• Li Qingsong finished construction on Adversary Star, and more than a thousand cargo containers began their journey to Luoshen Star.
• Li Qingsong returned to Luoshen Star with half of his 3.3 million clones and restarted construction, though local resource shortages limited progress.
• After a year, the first cargo container reached Luoshen Star, and Li Qingsong's workers unloaded its refined Oxygen Ore.
• Further containers delivered a variety of resources, resolving Li Qingsong's resource crisis and allowing stalled projects to resume at full capacity.
• Li Qingsong decided to begin research on the Venus-class Battleship.

Li Qingsong mobilized more than a million clones to solve the technical problems required to build a Venus-class Battleship. After two years of research and custom manufacturing, the spherical spacecraft was completed and launched on its first test flight.

• Li Qingsong assigned around ten thousand clones to review current technologies and identify what was needed for the Venus-class Battleship.
• The review identified roughly nine major categories, 377 subcategories, and around 16,000 specific technical problems to solve.
• Li Qingsong devoted more than one million clones and roughly five thousand laboratories to research across armor, weapons, radar, propulsion, and spacecraft structures.
• After two years, Li Qingsong and the clones solved all 16,000 technical problems and began manufacturing the Venus-class Battleship's components.
• The Final Assembly Plant assembled the components into a 20-meter-tall, 800-ton spherical spacecraft, and Li Qingsong ordered its four thrusters to ignite.

Li Qingsong tested the Venus-class Battleship’s maneuverability and weapons against more than twenty retired Mercury-class Battleships, destroying them all in under an hour. The undamaged ship returned to the Ground Base, where Li Qingsong expressed his satisfaction with it.

• Li Qingsong’s clones tested the Venus-class Battleship’s twelve engines, using them to accelerate and decelerate sharply in any direction.
• The Venus-class Battleship detected the Mercury-class Battleships from beyond their radar range and opened fire with its machine guns, destroying several before they could respond effectively.
• The Mercury-class Battleships scattered, but the spherical ship’s guns covered every direction and destroyed more of them.
• The Venus-class Battleship fired Rocket Launcher Shells and Interstellar Missiles, destroying the remaining Mercury-class Battleships.
• The Venus-class Battleship returned to the Ground Base with only minor dents in its armor, and Li Qingsong declared himself satisfied.