Having left Earth Star and arrived in space, Li Xingkong's assessment journey is now one-third complete. The next step is to plan the route to the moon.
Although it maintains contact with the ground control center, the flight trajectory of Moon-Chasing Island is ultimately controlled by Li Xingkong. This presents a significant problem: unlike rockets, its trajectory cannot be directly calculated and route planned by a computer.
Li Xingkong could only proceed along the approximate path provided on the ground, based on his own understanding.
The crucial point is that there is no specific frame of reference in space. Although Li Xingkong has obtained the detailed route map for the path planning, he cannot confirm his current location.
So after Li Xingkong followed the route given on the map and traveled a certain distance outwards in a large arc towards the outer Earth Star, he was surprised to find that his flight direction no longer matched the given route.
Earth Star was indeed still beneath his feet, and it was indeed getting farther and farther away, but he still hadn't found the moon, and he Taishang say where he was right now.
In any case, considering the distance from Earth Star, his current location is definitely farther than when he last came to space.
Once in space, Li Xingkong's speed gradually increased. With no resistance in space, he could only fly faster and faster.
After checking the route several times and realizing he was indeed somewhat lost, Li Xingkong was speechless.
Without map navigation, it's really hard to get anywhere.
Fortunately, after flying along his current direction for a while longer, Li Xingkong finally caught sight of the moon.
There's no way to recalculate the route right now, and Li Xingkong doesn't even know his own location, so there's no way to get it measured from the ground.
The researchers on board were a diverse group, but there were no professional astronauts.
Even if there were, there probably wouldn't be any way to communicate with them.
Therefore, Li Xingkong now only has one option left --
That means taking Moon-Chasing Island on a real journey to the moon.
Ignoring route planning and time consumption, they flew directly towards the moon based solely on its visible position.
As long as you fly fast enough, you can eventually reach the moon.
Just as Kuafu chased the sun in ancient times, Li Xingkong chased the moon today, truly reflecting the Myth.
The only Kuafu is that Kuafu ran on two legs, while Li Xingkong flew using his own limited cultivation.
The things they did were pretty much as expected.
Fortunately, the destination this time wasn't too far. No matter how the moon moved, it was still within the range of my naked eye's vision. Even if I took a longer route, I could still catch up.
If he were to go to the neighboring galaxy right now, a simple redshift or blueshift would be enough to give him a run for his money.
In the records of previous civilizations that Li Xingkong had read, there was a powerful figure from a certain civilization who, after dominating his original home star system, wanted to travel to a neighboring star system. However, having never observed the red-blue shift phenomenon, he could not find the correct location while constantly chasing the position of the next star system.
After years of relentless pursuit, he still failed, which ultimately led to him developing a mental block.
They believe that the entire world, apart from the original galaxies, is fake, nothing more than a mirage, and therefore unattainable.
It wasn't until later cultivators had a sufficient understanding of the entire universe that they found him in some dark corner of a certain universe. But by then, due to a long period of not communicating with people, he had forgotten his language abilities. The long-term loneliness also led him to repeatedly and deliberately delete these lonely and boring memories, eventually turning himself into a madman.
"I knew this wouldn't go so smoothly."
Carrying the Moon-Chasing Island, Li Xingkong began his true, arduous journey to the moon. He spoke with the system, somewhat helplessly.
"Tsk tsk, although you did do some preparation beforehand, it seems you still didn't do it properly."
The system, however, remained unhurried and even somewhat gloated. Although Li Xingkong always made some preparations, they were all based on his own understanding. Once the situation exceeded his expectations, Li Xingkong's actions, without any preparation, tended to be more reckless.
"It was my first time traveling so far from home, who knew something like this would happen?"
Li Xingkong was genuinely unaware of these details. He had assumed that traveling in space would be similar to traveling on Earth, given the large number of ground staff present and the fact that no one had mentioned how difficult it would be to go to the moon.
Probe satellites and lunar rovers—those are things that can be launched on a whim.
Why did things start going wrong when it came to him?
Damn it, I should have brought a scholar specializing in aerospace. Even if bringing him wouldn't have helped much, at least he could have given Li Xingkong some pointers to avoid encountering other problems.
"This is the ground, how did you veer off course?"
Just as Li Xingkong pressed on with renewed vigor, chasing after the moon in a straight line, a message arrived from the Li Xingkong.
Communicating with the ground from space is problematic because of the high latency.
He received the message several minutes after it had been sent.
"There's nothing I can do. I'm not a computer; the frame of reference changes too much. I just can't keep up with the speed."
By the time Li Xingkong the message back, ten minutes had passed between the two ends.
After receiving Li Xingkong's message, those on the ground were somewhat amused and exasperated.
Previous spaceflights were all numerically controlled, with all flight activities under computer control. This time, however, artificial propulsion was involved, and there was no experience on the ground with docking with humans.
As before, a route coordinate diagram was provided, and it was ready to be input into the corresponding system for control.
But unexpectedly, the person receiving the blueprints this time was a real person—this was a first for a young woman.
Soon, people on the ground began discussing how to pinpoint Li Xingkong's current location and how to plan a route for him to quickly reach the moon.
After all, Moon-Chasing Island is already in space, and many people are still paying attention to it. It would be quite funny if its route went wrong at this point.
Is Li Xingkong's current approach feasible? Yes, it is, but it's the most foolish one.
What the ground control wants to do is calculate for Li Xingkong which direction he should fly in a straight line so that he can have a close interaction with the moon in lunar orbit.
After all, the moon rotates, Earth Star rotates, and the Solar System rotates.
As human beings, when faced with a world where everything is in motion, the first feeling we experience is a sense of disorientation, as if we've inadvertently stepped into a maze.