"Patriarch, you've been coming quite frequently. I'll have to lock this meeting room next time," Academician Li said with a smile.
" Academician Li, forget about locking the door. As long as you rescue my people, I wouldn't mind if you used me as firewood."
"Chieftain, according to the agreement, we need to rescue your people in order to obtain the method to cut through space," Hu Yu said.
"General, over the past 20 years, I have witnessed the development of the Alliance and come to know you humans in a new light. You have devoted yourself wholeheartedly to rescuing my people. If I were to hold anything back, in your human terms, that would be unethical."
"It's good that the clan leader trusts us."
"You can't distrust him. Our prince is almost human, and he spends all his time on your planet teaching your children."
"The prince is naturally kind-hearted and loves our human dolls. He has nurtured many talented people for us, and I believe he will be a good chieftain in the future."
"General, Academician Li, all of us elders have unanimously agreed to tell you the method for cutting space. In fact, you already know the general idea. We release energy to form an extremely dense state at the edge of the area that needs to be cut. When the energy reaches an extremely high density, it will cut space apart."
"Cut through space with ease because matter contains extremely high energy. A cardboard box or a wooden crate, when sealed, can be seen as cutting through space. The same principle applies to using energy. When all the energy at the edge of a spherical space reaches a limit, the spherical space will sink into the larger universe. The curvature of the larger universe will then hide the entire spherical space."
"I see."
"I don't quite understand. I understand that space is being cut, but the mass and energy of the cut space are far from enough to bend the universe. How could this cause the universe to fold?" Hu Yu asked.
"General, it's like this, do you remember what it was like when Academician Liu was preparing to create a black hole?"
"I still have some recollection of it; after the energy spheres fused, the energy density increased so much that a single point would absorb all the energy."
"Yes, the Tree Race probably uses the same principle, except that the energy we lost back then may have gone to the fourth dimension, while the energy density of the Tree Race's method may not have reached the density of the fused energy spheres. After all, our energy has been materialized and belongs to an extremely high energy density. If it weren't for the special method we obtained, which allowed the energy to be materialized, this density of energy would likely have greatly distorted space and caused space to fold."
"Does Academician Li mean that as long as the surrounding energy density reaches a critical point, it will cause the space inside to move as well?"
"Yes, if this piece of paper were two-dimensional, and we were to draw a circle inside it with a knife, the area where the knife would cut would represent a dense cutting of three-dimensional energy. The circle would immediately separate from the paper, and nothing inside the circle would change. The same would be true for three-dimensional paper; it's essentially an enhanced version of how we move planets."
" Academician Li is right, that's indeed the case," the clan chief added.
"Understood."
"The difficulty lies not in the cutting itself, but in the control of energy. Precisely controlling all the energy within a certain range is extremely difficult, and that is the real secret to our ability to cut through space."
Hu Yu and Academician Li Youwei immediately looked at the Tree Race Chief with expectant eyes.
"This secret is still related to the space within our bodies. In fact, the space within our bodies is another world, a compressed space."
"Compressed space!!!"
"Yes, this space was just an ordinary cavity when it was first created. But as we grow, all the energy we absorb is stored in this space. No matter how much energy we absorb, the expansion rate of this space is only in line with our body size, and it will not expand or shrink because of the amount of energy. The energy density inside also remains at a specific state. In other words, as we grow and absorb more energy, the space inside also grows, but it does not grow on the outside. In fact, it is compressed."
" The Tree Race is truly a gift from the universe."
"There are advantages and disadvantages. If it weren't for this space, we wouldn't have fallen to this state, becoming the target of all civilizations. When we need to cut through space, it requires the cooperation of many people to release a large amount of energy. Then, I or the Great Elder release our own space. Our space expands, and the edge of the space pushes the energy forward. Because the expansion speed is extremely fast, the released energy is quickly squeezed to the limit by the expanding space. Then the space is cut and falls into the fold of the greater universe."
"To maintain the state of the space, we must constantly maintain the size of the internal void. The outer space has been folded, so energy will not leak out, but energy will still radiate inward. Only by constantly impacting energy with the space can we maintain a stable state, and this stable state is extremely easy to break, just like how you can force us out with a gravity bomb."
"But we don't have that kind of space, so it seems that cutting it out will be very difficult."
"I'll discuss this with Academician Liu Academician Zeng later. It's still difficult for us to achieve this for now, so if it can be done this time, we'll still need the clan leader's cooperation."
"That's to be expected, but the energy required is enormous. Each time we consume the energy of 50 million elders, we can only carve out a small space with a diameter of 200 astronomical units. Although the territory of the Far Watcher Civilization is concentrated in one place, it would still require at least 1,000 astronomical units to encompass it all. The energy coverage area is 25 times that of ours, and we simply cannot obtain that much energy."
"Chieftain, the thickness of your spatial cutting ability shouldn't exceed one centimeter, right?"
"Yes, it's very thin, just enough to cut."
"My estimate was correct, so we might need the cooperation of one to two billion elders."
" Academician Li, so many?" The Tree Race Chief was also surprised.
"Indeed, I have roughly calculated the energy consumed by your space-cutting process and have a general idea of the energy layer's thickness. However, we don't need to cut space now; we only need to use energy to surround the territory of the Far Watcher Civilization. Therefore, the thickness of the energy layer formed by the same amount of energy can be increased. The exact increase will depend on my research results. I need to convert the energy layer into Reversed State. I don't yet know if this rarefied energy can be converted, and even if it can, its intensity will be sufficient. If the intensity is high, less energy will be needed; if the intensity is low, more energy will be needed. We might even have to change our plans or re-research a new Reversed State. However, if we don't have enough elders, we can only use a portion of the energy spheres to cooperate with this."