Chapter Summaries

Lü Yongchang accepted [Ten]’s assignment to help search for the [Tenth Empire] in exchange for advance compensation, hoping to obtain valuable technology. He discovered that the Homeworld Fortress’s database held only basic maintenance technologies, leaving human civilization’s hoped-for windfall out of reach.

• [Ten] told Lü Yongchang that human civilization had joined the Silicon-Based Alliance and was obligated to help the Tenth Descendants and search for the missing [Tenth Empire].
• Lü Yongchang agreed to search for the [Tenth Empire] but asked [Ten] to provide compensation in advance.
• Lü Yongchang argued that theoretical knowledge would help human civilization grow strong enough for the search, and [Ten] agreed to provide requested technology.
• Lü Yongchang asked for Matter-Energy Conversion Technology, Short-Distance Spatial Jump technology, dimensional technology, and interaction-manipulation technology, but [Ten] found none in its database.
• [Ten] listed the technologies still available, including climate regulation and Homeworld Fortress repair, and Lü Yongchang lamented the lost opportunity as Fang Xu smiled.

Lü Yongchang secured permission to study the Tenth Empire’s Fortress Central Brain in exchange for accepting a trade, then learned that the Empire’s final signal came from somewhere in the Local Group. He realized the mission might require finding the Empire beyond the Local Group, but calmly distanced Human Civilization from the Enroget Civilization’s agreement.

• Lü Yongchang rejected the prospect of choosing maintenance technologies and asked [Ten] to let him visit the Fortress Central Brain control room and Energy Core.
• [Ten] approved the visit to the Fortress Central Brain control room but denied access to the Energy Core, and Lü Yongchang accepted the trade.
• [Ten] transmitted the Empire’s last signal coordinates, and the Research Robots finished their repairs and returned through the teleportation platform.
• Zero opened the coordinates aboard the [Earth], revealing a star map of the Local Group and a signal near its edge.
• [Ten] explained that the Empire may have lost contact because it moved beyond the Homeworld Fortress’s Tachyon Broadcast range, and Lü Yongchang realized the mission could involve searching beyond the Local Group.
• Lü Yongchang calmed himself with tea and reasoned that the Enroget Civilization had accepted the mission, not Human Civilization.

The Research Robot entered the Tenth Empire’s Fortress Central Brain room and revealed a computer made of materialized light rays. After studying the transmitted data, Lü Yongchang concluded that its underlying principle was the grand unified field, raising the possibility that Human Civilization could master the technology.

• The Research Robot completed dust removal in a high-purity vacuum chamber and was permitted to enter the Fortress Central Brain’s control room.
• The robot revealed an enormous sphere of distinct, intertwined light rays, and Lü Yongchang marveled at how the rays were confined without interfering with one another.
• [Ten] confirmed that the sphere was the Fortress Central Brain and explained that materialized photons handled computing and data storage while optical paths transmitted data.
• With [Ten]’s permission, the Research Robot surveyed the central brain from a distance and sent data about the powerful force field surrounding it back to Human Civilization.
• Lü Yongchang analyzed the force-field data and concluded that Light-Ray Materialization relied on the grand unified field.

Lü Yongchang and Mo Zeyang analyzed the fortress’s Optical Brain and recognized that its design could make humanity’s Optical Computer proposal feasible. When [Ten] demanded a G-type star to sustain the Tenth Descendants, he revealed that it would be used with Micro-Universe Technology, but Lü Yongchang refused the request.

• Lü Yongchang studied the fortress’s Optical Brain, while Mo Zeyang realized its technology demonstrated that an Optical Computer could be built.
• Lü Yongchang theorized that a grand unified field and powerful gravitational sources controlled the photons inside the Optical Brain.
• [Ten] allowed Research Robots to examine the Optical Brain from a distance, with the inspection expected to last over a month.
• [Ten] demanded a G-type main-sequence star to replenish the Imperial Fortress’s resources.
• [Ten] explained that the star would be placed in a micro-universe and its energy extracted at over 95% efficiency.
• Lü Yongchang rejected [Ten]’s request for a star.

After [Ten] revealed that the Imperial Fortress needed hydrogen and helium to restore its mobility, Human Civilization began building the [Star Picker] to transport gas giants. Back at Kepler-452, Lü Yongchang rushed to his office after reviewing recent research, leaving his colleagues wondering what research direction he would choose for the newly acquired level seven technologies.

• [Ten] told Lü Yongchang that the damaged Imperial Fortress could use hydrogen and helium as substitutes for its lost mobility, and the two sides completed their exchange.
• The Human Federation sent supplies to the Imperial Fortress, and its research fleet completed its permitted examinations and departed.
• The Academy of Sciences ordered the construction of the [Star Picker], a megastructure designed to transport the more than 1,000 gas giants required by [Ten].
• In Earth Calendar year 3757, the research fleet returned to Kepler-452, and Lü Yongchang awoke from cryosleep.
• After reviewing the Academy of Sciences' recent results, Lü Yongchang hurried to his office, while Fang Xu told Lin Yongnian to wait for him to choose a research direction for the level seven technologies.

After human civilization completed the level five technology tree, Lü Yongchang discovered the level six technologies it unlocked, including a weapon that could trigger supernovae. He also found a branch of spatial weapons and resolved to prioritize starburst technology while investigating the boundary between level five and level six civilizations.

• Lü Yongchang saw that young scientists had completed the level five technology tree after more than a century of peaceful development.
• As the technology tree transformed, Lü Yongchang felt energy enter his body and suspected his body was beginning a gradual quantization like his brain had undergone.
• Lü Yongchang discovered that Star Core Reaction Interference Technology led to the level six Starburst: Star Core Reaction Catalysis Technology, which could artificially trigger a supernova.
• Lü Yongchang noticed a further, unreadable weapon marker above the starburst technology and decided to prioritize researching the starburst branch.
• Lü Yongchang examined the technology tree's lower branches and found Preliminary application of spacetime theory: Spatial Weapon, followed by Spatial Rift Manufacturing Technology.

Lü Yongchang directed Human Civilization to prioritize spacetime theory and reverse-engineer the Tenth Empire’s Spatial Rift-Cutting Devices. After years of research, humanity created its first spatial rift, which lasted five minutes and traveled at 500c.

• Lü Yongchang emerged from his office and announced grand unified field research and spacetime theory as the Academy of Sciences’ priorities.
• Lü Yongchang announced that he would lead the reverse-engineering of the Tenth Empire’s Spatial Rift-Cutting Devices.
• The Academy of Sciences studied the devices’ grand unified field generators, improving warp drives, shields, and weapons.
• In Earth calendar year 3759, Lü Yongchang ordered the first test of a spatial rift generator built by Human Civilization.
• The spatial rift tore through the experimental ship’s hull and lasted five minutes while reaching a travel speed of 500c.

Human Civilization advanced Spatial Weapons and spacetime theory, gaining plans for long-range spatial attacks and new applications of spacetime resonance. The chapter left Lü Yongchang puzzled by a level-six defensive technology node that showed almost no progress.

• Yevgeny proposed equipping small disposable unmanned warships with spatial rift generators to attack targets hundreds of light-years away.
• Wilson became busy developing Energy Weapons after the breakthrough in grand unified field technology, and the Academy of Sciences' regular show ended.
• Lin Yongnian incorporated spacetime faults into spacetime theory and proposed Spacetime Trap Technology to restrict enemy Warp Drives.
• Lin Yongnian proposed Spatial Annihilation, which could rupture spacetime and destroy matter within the target area down to the atomic level.
• Lü Yongchang examined the technology tree and wondered why its level-six defensive technology node had barely changed in brightness.
• The Academy of Sciences' research output surged, including work from the Optical Computer R&D Center led by Mo Zeyang.

Lü Yongchang and the Optical Computer Research Center successfully materialized light into a solid sheet, then built humanity’s first experimental Optical Computer. The computer powered on, but its computing performance fell far below expectations.

• Lü Yongchang prioritized Light-Ray Materialization research after finding the technology in the Technology Tree Space.
• Lü Yongchang and Mo Zeyang began the first Light-Ray Materialization experiment at the Human Federation Academy of Sciences.
• Lü Yongchang touched the solid Light Paper and announced that the experiment had succeeded.
• The Optical Computer Research Center built an experimental Optical Computer from materialized light a few months later.
• Lü Yongchang ordered a computing-power test, which revealed that the computer performed far below expectations.

Lü Yongchang found that the first optical computing prototype offered far less computing power for its size than the Academy of Sciences had expected, and suspected its architecture was the problem. The team built a second prototype modeled on the Tenth Empire’s fortress central brain, which was completed months later at over a thousand times its size.

• Lü Yongchang calculated that even advanced manufacturing would give an optical computer only a modest advantage over an optical quantum computer, far short of the Tenth Empire’s central brain.
• Lü Yongchang’s quantum-state brain activity rose as he analyzed the experimental data, but he found no malfunction that explained the prototype’s weak performance.
• Mo Zeyang suggested that the optical computer needed a different architecture from the optical quantum computer, and Lü Yongchang proposed testing the design of the Tenth Empire’s central brain.
• The research and development center used observations of the fortress central brain to build a second optical computing prototype and make modest manufacturing improvements.
• Several months later, the second prototype was completed with a spherical, multilayered structure, but it was over a thousand times larger than the original and had to be housed in a planetary fortress laboratory.

Lü Yongchang discovered that the fortress central brain belonged to level seven technology, while humanity’s optical computers had already succeeded as its precursors. He rejected the researchers’ suggestion to give up and urged them to study the gap as an opportunity to advance human civilization.

• The second optical computer prototype surpassed Zero’s quantum computer array but still fell far short of the fortress central brain, and Lü Yongchang suspected it concealed a crucial technology.
• Mo Zeyang and the researchers checked the data and architecture repeatedly but found no errors explaining the central brain’s superior performance.
• Lü Yongchang examined the technology tree and found that the [Optical Brain] node was lit, with a thread leading toward level six civilization’s fog-shrouded upper reaches.
• After several days, Lü Yongchang told Mo Zeyang that humanity had already succeeded in developing optical computers and identified the fortress central brain as level seven technology.
• When Mo Zeyang and the researchers asked whether they should give up, Lü Yongchang refused and called the performance gap an opportunity to deepen human civilization’s technological foundations.

Lü Yongchang ordered the Academy of Sciences to concentrate its efforts on cracking optical computer technology, hoping to cross the barrier to level seven civilization technology. After two years of major progress, the researchers still could not identify the crucial breakthrough, and Lü Yongchang remained convinced the answer was just beyond their reach.

• Lü Yongchang suspended nonessential research and summoned every Level I Academician to work on optical computer technology.
• Zero sent the highest-priority summons, and Level I Academicians across Kepler-452b gathered at the Academy of Sciences Central Research Institute.
• The assembled researchers began the effort to crack the fortress central brain technology of a level seven civilization.
• By Earth calendar year 3763, their collaboration had advanced optical computers to mature technology with 80% more computing power than optical quantum computers of the same size.
• Lü Yongchang reviewed the Imperial Fortress central brain scans again, feeling close to the answer but unable to cross the technological gap.

Lin Yongnian proposed that the strong gravitational sources in the Tenth Empire's Fortress Central Brain might have another spacetime-related function besides bending light. Lü Yongchang found their arrangement puzzling and ordered a scaled experimental model, leaving the researchers hopeful for a breakthrough.

• Lin Yongnian noticed a possible connection to the research and brought his hypothesis to Lü Yongchang.
• Lin Yongnian suggested that the fortress's strong gravitational sources might serve a purpose beyond bending light.
• Lü Yongchang mapped the gravitational sources in the Fortress Central Brain model and found that their arrangement did not match known spacetime technologies.
• Lü Yongchang ordered a scaled model that reproduced the gravitational sources' positions and strengths without optical paths or components.
• The academicians began proposing hypotheses, and Lin Yongnian gained recognition for his discovery.

Lü Yongchang and the Human Federation Academy of Sciences tested a replica of the Imperial Fortress’s gravitational-source arrangement, but their strongest fields produced no spatial anomalies. After Zero moved the sources closer together, light and dust began vanishing into space and reappearing elsewhere, forming a complex, self-circulating structure.

• An experimental ship carrying nested Grand Unified Field Generators departed Kepler-452b after academicians built a scale model of the Imperial Fortress’s gravitational sources.
• Lü Yongchang ordered Zero to increase the sources’ strength while researchers observed light beams and suspended dust in the vacuum laboratory.
• The generators reached their maximum output without causing spatial rifts, black holes, or other known spatial phenomena.
• Lü Yongchang instructed Zero to reduce the spacing between the gravitational sources, and the academicians watched as the markers gradually moved closer.
• After the sources’ spacing was halved, light and dust vanished into space and reappeared in other locations, eventually forming a complex, multilayered, self-circulating structure.

Lü Yongchang and the academicians discovered thousands of anomalous spatial structures inside the experimental area and began the Unlocking Operation to dismantle them. Their brute-force tests caused repeated damage, and the 436th attempt ended with a spacetime vortex swallowing equipment and part of the ship before the experimental ship exploded.

• Lü Yongchang realized the suspended dust and light formed a self-cycling spatial structure and suspected it might explain a level seven civilization's Optical Computer.
• Lü Yongchang counted 7,342 spatial anomaly points, corresponding to 3,671 anomalous structures, and concluded they had to dismantle the structure piece by piece.
• Lü Yongchang and the academicians began the Unlocking Operation, but their models could not identify a safe place to start.
• Yevgeny proposed randomly shutting down gravitational sources and using exhaustive testing and bisection to isolate the anomalous structures.
• On the 436th attempt, shutting down a gravitational source created a vortex that swallowed generators and part of the deck, and the experimental ship exploded.
• Lü Yongchang watched the explosion and glanced at the embarrassed Yevgeny.

Lü Yongchang and the academicians traced the experimental ship’s bizarre spatial displacements to anomalous spacetime structures and isolated one for study. Lü Yongchang modeled its shape as a Klein bottle, prompting Lin Yongnian to ask whether the spacetime region had formed that structure.

• Lü Yongchang learned that the swallowed ship sections had been displaced into the Antimatter Reactor without damaging the intervening walls, and ordered further experiments.
• Repeated trials confirmed that shutting down the gravitational source caused a spacetime vortex to transport the Grand Unified Field Generators and deck sections to random locations.
• In Earth Calendar year 3764, the researchers successfully isolated an anomalous spacetime structure formed by twelve gravitational sources inside the twenty-sixth experimental ship.
• Lü Yongchang used the cleaner data from the isolated structure to model its distorted spacetime shape as a Klein bottle.
• Lin Yongnian asked Lü Yongchang whether the region of spacetime had formed a Klein bottle structure.

Lü Yongchang and the academicians decoded the Fortress Central Brain’s four-dimensional Klein-bottle architecture and used it to build humanity’s first beyond-level-six Optical Brain. When it activated, the technology tree briefly reached toward level seven before labeling the invention an incomplete, secondary-risk technology.

• Lü Yongchang explained to Lin Yongnian that gravity sources were projections of a four-dimensional Klein bottle and that level-seven civilizations extended spacetime theory into other dimensions.
• After months of work, Lü Yongchang and the academicians mapped the Fortress Central Brain’s four-dimensional structure and discovered that most of it lay beyond three-dimensional space.
• Lü Yongchang made the exhausted academicians take three days off, then studied the model and recognized how difficult it would be to adapt the mature design.
• In Earth Calendar year 3766, Lü Yongchang led the creation of a beyond-level-six Optical Brain that copied the Fortress Central Brain’s architecture but had limited computing power.
• The technology tree began extending Optical Brain technology toward level seven, then formed a node labeled “Secondary-risk technology: Four-Dimensional Optical Brain (incomplete).”

Over three centuries, Human Civilization used breakthroughs from the Four-Dimensional Optical Brain and Nus Civilization to advance its technology and extend human lifespans, while expanding the Pan-Human Federation into a vast territory with many vassals. Concerned that its outdated planet-class warships would leave it vulnerable to another level six civilization, Lü Yongchang shifted research priorities toward warship development.

• Lü Yongchang recognized that secondary-risk technologies such as the Thought Imprint and Four-Dimensional Optical Brain were incomplete technologies from a higher-level technology tree, with major risks in their research and use.
• By Earth Calendar year 3767, research on the Four-Dimensional Optical Brain had advanced spacetime theory and grand unified field theory, while Academician Mao Zhengzhi, Academician Lu Siyuan, and their team obtained lifespan extension technology from the Nus Civilization.
• The Academy of Sciences set a baseline lifespan of about a thousand years and used a contribution-based system for further extensions, with Zero responsible for assessing eligibility.
• Over the next three hundred years, the Pan-Human Federation expanded across 1,000 light-years and gained more than a thousand vassal civilizations, including three level five civilizations defeated by its level six military technology.
• In Earth Calendar year 4050, Lü Yongchang worried that Human Civilization's planet-class starships were inadequate against a rival level six civilization and redirected more resources and Zero's computing power toward warship research.

Lü Yongchang visited the Materials Research Center to observe its attempts to manufacture strong interaction material for Human Civilization’s warship defenses. The 149th experiment failed when the growing neutron material became unstable and exploded.

• Lü Yongchang asked Zero about research into strong interaction material and went to the Materials Research Center.
• Lü Yongchang watched Academician Ding Chengwang and the researchers begin their 149th manufacturing experiment.
• The researchers formed a one-micrometer square of densely packed neutrons on a light plate.
• Academician Ding Chengwang ordered the grand unified field strength increased as the material reached its critical dimensions.
• Lü Yongchang predicted failure, and the material scattered and decayed after an explosion contained by the force field.

Lü Yongchang identified a flaw in Ding Chengwang’s strong interaction material experiments and derived a correction that could let the research progress. He concluded that dense neutron armor was impractical for the planned Star-Class starship and proposed using densely packed atoms instead.

• After Ding Chengwang’s 149th failed experiment, Lü Yongchang pointed out that the calculations had missed higher-dimensional spacetime effects from the Grand Unified Field.
• Lü Yongchang derived the corrected equations, and Ding Chengwang followed enough of the reasoning to ask to save the work for further study.
• Lü Yongchang explained that dense neutron material would be limited to pieces no larger than ten centimeters and would be impractical for covering a Star-Class starship.
• Lü Yongchang proposed making the starship’s outer armor from densely packed atomic layers instead.