Chapter Summaries

Lü Yongchang explained the dual-universe theory and helped humanity make rapid progress in higher-dimensional technology, advancing it to a level eight civilization. When humanity tested its first wormhole, the Saikol Civilization mistook it for a Gardener Faction attack and destabilized it, forcing Lü Yongchang to intervene.

• Lü Yongchang described the universe and antiverse to the academicians, then demonstrated his quantum-state body and offered an explanation for his transformation and cosmic image.
• Over the next century, Lü Yongchang's higher-dimensional understanding accelerated the Academy of Sciences' research, leading to mature four-dimensional leaps and four-dimensional shields.
• Humanity's advances propelled it from a quasi-level eight civilization to level eight, followed by a further technological explosion.
• In Earth Calendar year 14370, humanity's wormhole experiment caused a spacetime fluctuation that alarmed the nearby Silicon Ray and Saikol Civilization.
• The Saikol Civilization mistook the wormhole for a Gardener Faction intrusion and tried to create a nearby wormhole, destabilizing humanity's experiment.
• Lü Yongchang ordered Zero to stabilize the wormhole and sent the Saikol Civilization a message clarifying that humanity had created it.

Human Civilization successfully tested wormhole travel, confirmed it had reached level eight, and began constructing Neutron Star-Class Starships. Silicon Ray and the Saikol Civilization watched as Human Civilization's technology and industrial capacity surged ahead.

• Human Civilization's first wormhole experiment sent a Mobile Experimental Ship across a hundred thousand light-years in minutes, prompting the Saikol Civilization to ask whether humanity had advanced to level eight.
• Human Civilization confirmed it had mastered the Vacuum Zero-Point Energy Engine 170 years earlier, and the Saikol fleet withdrew a hundred light-years away.
• By Earth calendar year 14500, Lü Yongchang oversaw successful Dark Matter Partial-Derivative Shield research as advances in weapons and quark material strengthened the fleet.
• Lü Yongchang proposed rebuilding the fleet, and the Academy of Sciences redesigned the smaller, spatially compressed Neutron Star-Class Starships.
• Human Civilization deployed thousands of Starship Factories from the micro-universe and began mass-producing ships, leaving Silicon Ray and the Saikol Civilization relieved they were not its enemies.

Lü Yongchang decided that the Human Civilization had to leave the M87 Galaxy to search for a naturally occurring four-dimensional cavitation bubble, and the Saikol Civilization agreed to follow. The Human Fleet reached the Shapley Supercluster and planned to rendezvous with the [Tenth Empire] in the Boötes Void.

• Lü Yongchang told the Saikol Civilization that the Human Civilization’s dimensional research had stalled and that it needed to seek a naturally occurring four-dimensional cavitation bubble.
• The Saikol Civilization warned Lü Yongchang about the escalating war across the Laniakea Supercluster, but then agreed to follow the Human Civilization.
• In Earth Calendar year 15000, the Human Fleet and the Saikor fleet entered a wormhole and left the M87 Galaxy, while Silicon Ray stayed in the Human Civilization’s micro-universe.
• The Cleaners Civilization did not interfere as the fleets departed, since it was focused on the war and repairing its accelerator nodes.
• In Earth Calendar year 15500, the Human Fleet reached the Shapley Supercluster and planned to cross it toward the Boötes Void to meet the [Tenth Empire].

Ten years later, Lü Yongchang’s fleet entered an unnamed galaxy and deployed self-replicating probes as part of the Universe Listening Plan. After assessing the galaxy as small and largely undeveloped, he ordered the fleet to warn its level five civilizations and prepare to move on toward the Boötes Void.

• The fleet entered the unnamed galaxy and released self-replicating probes to map its star systems.
• The probes revealed a small, resource-poor galaxy with almost no civilizations above level five and no signs of the Cleaners or the Gardener Faction.
• Lü Yongchang ordered the fleet to head for the galaxy’s center and send a Tachyon Broadcast to the level five civilizations.
• Lü Yongchang ordered the fleet to replenish the micro-universe’s supplies, reactivate the wormhole, and hasten toward the Boötes Void.

At the Human Federation Academy of Sciences Dimensional Research Center, Lü Yongchang reviewed another failed dimensional ascension experiment and considered revising its parameters. As he examined the expanding results of the Universe Listening Plan, probes in the Q56DK Region detected anomalous spacetime fluctuations.

• The Human Fleet settled near the galaxy’s central black hole while [Kuafu] opened a gateway to the greater universe and the [Star Picker] transported stars toward the fleet.
• Lü Yongchang learned that the 3,698th dimensional ascension experiment had failed because the artificial four-dimensional space was unstable.
• Lü Yongchang postponed the next approach and decided to revise the experiment’s parameters.
• Lü Yongchang reviewed the Universe Listening Plan and noted that its self-replicating probes had crossed several nearby galaxies.
• Zero warned Lü Yongchang that probes in the Q56DK Region had detected anomalous spacetime fluctuations.

Lü Yongchang detected an immense spacetime fluctuation five million light-years away and took the Human Fleet to investigate. The fleet arrived as a vast, twisting bubble formed in a barren region, and a threadlike presence near a distant galaxy’s central black hole noticed the disturbance and sent tachyon signals.

• Lü Yongchang determined that the growing fluctuation resembled a natural micro-universe intersection rather than a wormhole or curvature navigation.
• Lü Yongchang ordered Zero to recall the resource-collection starships and prepare the fleet to depart.
• A transparent bubble expanded to a hundred light-years across near the outskirts of the Shapley Supercluster, warping nearby spacetime.
• The Human Fleet emerged from a stable wormhole near the bubble.
• A mass of threads near a satellite galaxy’s central black hole sensed the distant fluctuation and sent tachyon signals.

Thread and Ant detected a newly fallen fragment and decided to investigate, fearing Human Civilization might obtain it and become a threat. Meanwhile, Lü Yongchang sent probes toward a strange soap-bubble structure, but its fluctuations swallowed the entire batch.

• Thread detected a fragment and told Ant that it had fallen after more than a hundred thousand years.
• Thread warned Ant that Human Civilization could become another Cleaners Civilization if it obtained the fragment, and Ant eventually set out with Thread toward the bubble eighty million light-years away.
• The nearby Cleaners branch inspected the spacetime fluctuations and reported them to its parent civilization without intervening.
• Lü Yongchang ordered Zero to send probes toward the soap-bubble structure for study.
• A fluctuation swallowed the first probe, and a stronger one soon engulfed the remaining probes despite Lü Yongchang's order to recall them.

Lü Yongchang and the Dimensional Research Center investigated a vast, fluctuating bubble structure and identified it as a naturally occurring four-dimensional space rather than a micro-universe. They realized it was dying as three-dimensional space assimilated it and urgently called for research before it disappeared.

• Lü Yongchang ordered Zero to move the fleet away from the bubble, which reminded him of a micro-universe, though its visible outline and lack of a portal set it apart.
• The bubble distorted and receded, revealing the lost probes, and Lü Yongchang ordered Zero to send Carrier-Based Drones using their four-dimensional leap function to recover them.
• Fang Xu reported that the probes had suffered cross-dimensional damage, with their internal structures destroyed in unnatural ways.
• Lü Yongchang concluded that the bubble was a naturally occurring four-dimensional space, a four-dimensional cavitation bubble structure sought by the Tenth Empire.
• Fang Xu and Lü Yongchang realized that three-dimensional space was assimilating the bubble and ordered the team to study it as soon as possible.

Lü Yongchang’s research revealed that the four-dimensional cavitation bubble came from a neighboring four-dimensional universe and was protected temporarily by cosmic bubble incompatibility. New calculations reduced its expected lifespan to one year, while a fleet near the Boötes Void received a powerful tachyon signal.

• Human Civilization sent research ships and the Dimensional Research Center to study the four-dimensional cavitation bubble, and Lü Yongchang initially estimated that it would survive for ten years.
• Silicon Ray and the Saikol Civilization worried that Human Civilization might not share its discovery with the Tenth Empire, but a message from Human Civilization relieved them.
• A hundred years later, the Silicon-Based Alliance activated its Wide-Area Tachyon Broadcast again as the Human Fleet and the Tenth Empire traveled closer together.
• After sacrificing many probes, Lü Yongchang concluded that the bubble was a fragment of a micro-universe from a neighboring four-dimensional universe, protected temporarily by cosmic bubble incompatibility.
• Lü Yongchang revised the bubble’s expected lifespan to one year and warned the researchers that time was running out.
• A powerful tachyon fluctuation reached a fleet replenishing near the Hercules Supercluster and Boötes Void, and its cylindrical beings hurried toward the signal.

The Tenth Empire approved a military alliance with Human Civilization and warned that the Gardener Faction might attack over the four-dimensional cavitation bubble. As Human Civilization prepared its defenses, Lü Yongchang sent modified probes into the bubble to test four-dimensional exploration equipment, and their signals vanished upon contact.

• The Tenth Empire's High Council approved a military alliance with Human Civilization by a 95% majority and ordered its fleet to prepare for war.
• Lin Zile told Lü Yongchang that the Empire had agreed to the alliance and warned that the Gardener Faction might attack; Lü Yongchang put the Human Fleet on a war footing.
• Human Civilization deployed warships, minefields, and Self-Replicating Probes around the bubble while Lü Yongchang completed preparations for autonomous four-dimensional exploration probes.
• Lü Yongchang ordered the first modified probes to approach the bubble and activate their four-dimensional coordinate sensors and exploration programs.
• The probes reached the bubble, their signals disappeared, and Lü Yongchang waited to learn whether they could retreat as planned.

The probe successfully entered a four-dimensional cavitation bubble and revealed a strange stellar system, while its shifting viewpoint exposed the probes’ internal structures. Lü Yongchang ordered a second survey and argued that humanity needed to prepare for four-dimensional environments, though he ruled out entering one himself for now.

• Lü Yongchang and the academicians watched the probe’s signal return and learned that it had safely exited the cavitation bubble.
• The probe’s footage showed a four-dimensional stellar system with a star and battered planets that changed apparent size as the viewing angle shifted.
• The academicians saw how a four-dimensional viewpoint revealed the probes’ internal structures through successive cross sections.
• Lü Yongchang rejected the idea of entering four-dimensional space before humanity mastered dimensional ascension technology, but said it might be possible once safety was ensured.
• Lü Yongchang ordered Zero to send the probes on a second survey mission and explained to Fang Xu that people needed to adapt to four-dimensional environments before starships ascended.

The probes returned from a month inside the four-dimensional cavitation bubble with only 319 survivors, and their data revealed a technological artifact near a dying star. The artifact answered the probes, identifying itself as the Troy Civilization Transformation Center and demanding proof of identity.

• Zero sent the probes back into the four-dimensional cavitation bubble to explore for a month.
• The probes returned with their signals restored, but only 319 of the more than 4,000 deployed probes survived.
• The data triggered a Level I alert after detecting an unknown civilization's technological artifact in the four-dimensional stellar system.
• Lü Yongchang watched probe footage reveal a vast structure of interlaced rings near a dim star.
• The Academy of Sciences' message reached the structure, which replied, “Troy Civilization Transformation Center. Please provide proof of identity.”

After the Troy ruins disrupted their research, Lü Yongchang led Human Civilization to master dimensional ascension and descension while exploring the four-dimensional cavitation bubble. With the bubble set to vanish soon and the Troy Transformation Centers still unexplored, he ordered Earth to ascend and enter it in ten days.

• Lü Yongchang reassigned academicians to study the Troy Civilization and accelerate four-dimensional research.
• The Dimensional Research Center developed a four-dimensional probe and a new dimensional ascension device, then launched the third exploration mission.
• Humanity brought back a gold hypercube that had ascended to four dimensions, then later achieved dimensional descension and mastered complete dimensional ascension technology.
• Lü Yongchang concluded that the Troy Civilization had vanished and that automated systems were responding from its ruins across twenty-seven stellar systems.
• With fifty days left before the bubble vanished and volunteer ascension experiments reaching a 100% success rate, Lü Yongchang ordered Earth to ascend into the bubble in ten days.

With the four-dimensional cavitation bubble nearing collapse, Human Civilization began raising the [Earth] and its crew into four-dimensional space using the Dark Matter Stabilization Field. The ascension proceeded without the horrific accidents of earlier experiments, as the fleet prepared to wield the ability to bypass three-dimensional defenses.

• As the four-dimensional cavitation bubble flickered and its membrane weakened, the fleet received a tachyon signal from the [Earth] and advanced toward it.
• On the [Earth], Lü Yongchang ordered the Dark Matter Stabilization Field activated, and Fang Xu reported that it was operating normally.
• Lü Yongchang ordered High-Dimensional Printing to begin dimensional ascension, while Zero and the Zero-Point Furnace supplied the calculations and energy.
• The gray projection spread over the [Earth] and its crew, and Fang Xu experienced the disorienting sensation of entering four-dimensional space.
• Fang Xu recalled an earlier experiment in which frightened volunteers accidentally manipulated their own organs, prompting the Academy of Sciences to study four-dimensional observation and attacks through the fourth direction.

After the fleet reached the Troy Civilization Transformation Center, Lü Yongchang ordered it to bombard the structure and send combat robots inside. The robots found a glowing hypercube with an accessible data port, and Zero began decoding its information.

• Lü Yongchang completed dimensional ascension and ordered the fleet to activate its four-dimensional navigation systems as it entered the cavitation bubble.
• The fleet arrived at the Troy Civilization Transformation Center, and Lü Yongchang fired the flagship’s antimatter cannon after it requested identification.
• Lü Yongchang ordered the fleet to continue firing until the bombardment damaged most of the center’s outer shell and its warnings stopped.
• Lü Yongchang sent combat robots into the center, where Zero guided them through dark corridors to a vast plaza and a glowing hypercube.
• Lü Yongchang ordered the robots to connect to the hypercube’s data port, and Zero detected a self-decoding system and began decoding its information.

Lü Yongchang and the researchers discovered that the Gardener Faction descended from the Troy Civilization and other advanced civilizations that fled their collapsing universe. The chapter left the origin story of [Hua] unresolved, as Lü Yongchang suggested the transformed Troy Civilization might have reproduced.

• Zero decoded the Hypercube’s log, which recorded the Troy Civilization’s rise and its universe’s impending collapse.
• Lü Yongchang read that the Troy Civilization’s Core Plan fused individuals’ consciousnesses into a powerful civilization life-form capable of surviving in three-dimensional space.
• He Bilin asked whether the Troy Civilization and its allies were the Gardener Faction’s predecessors, and Lü Yongchang confirmed that the Gardener Faction were Outsiders.
• Lü Yongchang identified the Core Plan’s product as the powerful cores inside Gardener Faction organisms and noted that their original universe was four-dimensional.
• Fang Xu questioned [Hua]’s claim that it came from the Triangulum Galaxy, and Lü Yongchang said the transformed civilizations might have reproduced.

Lü Yongchang realized that the Gardener Faction’s annihilation plan would destroy the matter universe and the antiverse to create a new universe, and that the Cleaners Civilization’s energy extraction could hasten the catastrophe. Twenty days later, the Human Fleet escaped the failing four-dimensional bubble with the Troy Civilization’s Hypercube data and headed for safety.

• Tao Yuda asked whether the Hypercube log contained details about the annihilation plan, but Lü Yongchang found no further information.
• Lü Yongchang concluded that the Gardener Faction planned to trigger annihilation between the matter universe and the antiverse, releasing enough energy to create a new universe.
• He Bilin realized that the Cleaners Civilization’s universe-spanning acceleration plan would worsen the cosmic collapse and threaten the Gardener Faction.
• Twenty days later, the Human Fleet ended its exploration and left the four-dimensional cavitation bubble with the [Troy Civilization Transformation Center]'s Hypercube information storage device.
• The fleet descended to three dimensions, opened a wormhole, and traveled to a safe region ten thousand light-years away.

A four-dimensional cavitation bubble collapsed into the three-dimensional universe, while Thread and Ant learned that Human Civilization had vanished and might be near the bubble. The Gardener Faction discovered the same disappearance and ordered a search, as Thread and Ant opened a wormhole to investigate.

• The four-dimensional cavitation bubble dissipated, releasing energy and matter as the region underwent dimensional reduction.
• Thread and Ant detected fluctuations from the fragment and learned from a tachyon broadcast that Human Civilization had disappeared.
• The Gardener Faction recalled how the Cleaners Civilization and Human Civilization had disrupted its annihilation plan, then ordered a search through the timelines for humanity.
• Thread and Ant learned that Human Civilization had reached level eight and might be near the four-dimensional cavitation bubble.
• Thread and Ant opened a stable wormhole and hurried toward the bubble, fearing a brutal battle.

Lü Yongchang approved Wenren Zelin’s proposal for dimensional weapons, and Human Civilization stayed in the Unnamed Galaxy to develop its technology while awaiting the Tenth Empire. Twenty years later, [Thread] and [Ant] arrived searching for Human Civilization and received a warning to leave its territory.

• Wilson brought Lü Yongchang a proposal for dimensional weapons from Wenren Zelin at the Weapons Research Center.
• Lü Yongchang approved the proposal and promised the Dimensional Research Center’s full support.
• Human Civilization kept its fleet in the Unnamed Galaxy to develop dimensional weapons and wait for the Tenth Empire.
• Twenty years later, [Thread] and [Ant] emerged from a wormhole while searching for Human Civilization.
• Human Civilization broadcast a warning telling [Thread] and [Ant] to leave its territory.

Human Civilization identified an approaching enemy as [Thread] and, after it charged toward their galaxy, Lü Yongchang ordered a declaration of war and activated the spacetime trap. The trap forced [Thread] out of curvature travel and struck it with spatial annihilation and a dark matter chain reaction, while [Ant] watched in horror and sought help from [Membrane].

• [Thread] rushed toward Human Civilization after receiving its tachyon broadcast, while [Ant] followed and sent a support request.
• [Ant] realized few Gardener Faction Civilizations were nearby, and [Thread] told it to contact [Membrane].
• Zero could not identify the approaching enemy, and Lü Yongchang ordered Human Civilization to declare war and activate the spacetime trap.
• The spacetime trap forced [Thread] out of its faster-than-light curvature state, and spatial annihilation damaged its silvery filaments.
• Human Civilization's space mines detonated a dark matter chain reaction around [Thread], and [Ant] cried out as it saw the black radiance.