Rebirth of the Super Battleship-Chapter 58: Departure, Tianyuan B

Due to Tianyuan A being gravitationally locked by Tianyuan IV, the far side of Tianyuan A would remain in eternal darkness. Under the cover of this darkness, Xiao Yu would initiate another era of monumental construction.

This time, Xiao Yu made up his mind. Until he possessed sufficient self-defense capabilities, he would never again leave the Tianyuan IV star system, a place abundant with infinite resources.

The universe was simply too dangerous. Setting aside naturally occurring hazardous regions such as supernova explosions, black holes, and neutron star territories, the mere existence of various alien civilizations was enough to instill terror in Xiao Yu.

Xiao Yu was like a stumbling toddler, walking cautiously through a perilous jungle teeming with ferocious beasts. Every step had to be taken with the utmost care; a single mistake could result in him being seized by a predator and turned into sustenance.

“For survival, and to preserve… the legacy of human civilization, I must live on,” Xiao Yu thought silently as he operated the new flagship, Tianyuan, deploying around 200 satellites to establish signal coverage over Tianyuan A.

Living aboard the Tianyuan, Xiao Yu remotely controlled over 200,000 robots on the surface to begin constructing his base.

The surface of Tianyuan A was generally flat, but upon closer inspection, it was filled with numerous impact craters. These craters were inevitable; during the early stages of any star system’s formation, chaos reigned. The space was filled with countless headless asteroids recklessly colliding with anything in their paths.

A planet’s initial accumulation of matter relied on such asteroid impacts. It was foreseeable that over the eons, Tianyuan A’s size and mass would gradually increase, although its growth rate would lag behind that of Tianyuan C.

These asteroids brought an abundance of minerals to Tianyuan A, providing Xiao Yu with a stable supply of raw materials for building spacecraft, bases, and more.

The first project Xiao Yu undertook was the construction of a massive scientific research facility. In this facility, Xiao Yu planned to conduct research on various fronts, including long-distance communication, energy cannons, energy shields, advanced nanorobots, and more efficient nuclear fusion engines.

Simultaneously, using the central research institute as a hub, Xiao Yu initiated large-scale geological surveys on Tianyuan A to search for necessary elements. At identified mineral deposits, he began constructing large-scale mining bases. The collected resources would be used to build a large particle collider in orbit around Tianyuan IV.

Additionally, Xiao Yu embarked on a massive space gun turret construction project. While the chaotic asteroids brought valuable resources to Tianyuan A, some of them posed risks to Xiao Yu’s construction efforts. For instance, if an asteroid were to strike directly at the central research institute, it would cause immense trouble.

To prevent such scenarios and to address certain vague concerns in his mind, Xiao Yu constructed these space gun turrets to the highest standards of capability and quality. Besides conventional high-power laser cannons, the turrets were also equipped with Xiao Yu’s newly developed energy weapons. Xiao Yu planned to build a total of 10,000 such space turrets.

The scale and capability of these constructions made it unclear whether they were primarily meant to prevent asteroid impacts or to fend off potential alien fleet attacks.

It must be said that although the Dark Universe Principle could not yet be verified as true, the conflict with the Moluton Civilization of the Lizardmen had already left a profound psychological scar on Xiao Yu.

Apart from the central research institute, mining bases, construction bases, and space gun turrets, Xiao Yu also built an enormous structure.

According to Xiao Yu’s blueprint, this structure would be hundreds of meters tall, with tens of thousands of them distributed according to specific mechanical principles across Tianyuan A’s equator, poles, and the day-night boundary.

This was none other than… the planetary engine.

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In Xiao Yu’s comprehensive plan, the large particle collider around Tianyuan IV would be constructed in an orbit 38 million kilometers away. Considering fuel replenishment, construction material transportation, and energy acquisition, this location was deemed the most suitable.

However, building it in this location would subject the massive instrument to severe gravitational disturbances from Tianyuan A, disrupting its orbital operation. Thus, to eliminate the gravitational influence of Tianyuan A and to test his concept for constructing high-powered nuclear fusion engines in a real-world setting, Xiao Yu decided to undertake something monumental.

That was… to build tens of thousands of large planetary engines to push Tianyuan A’s orbit 10 million kilometers closer to Tianyuan IV. At that point, Tianyuan A’s orbit would change from its current distance of 30 million kilometers to just 20 million kilometers from Tianyuan IV.

This was an extraordinary project, an endeavor unimaginable on the Earth of the past. However, Xiao Yu had now mastered sufficient technology for building large-scale nuclear fusion engines and possessed a deep understanding of celestial mechanics. Theoretically, such a colossal project was entirely feasible.

During the construction process, Xiao Yu could systematically test every piece of technology he had developed and gather a wealth of experimental data. This would be immensely beneficial for Xiao Yu to comprehensively master his current technological capabilities. This project was akin to an exam, testing the extent of Xiao Yu’s technological proficiency.

If this project were ultimately successful, Xiao Yu’s technology would undergo a tremendous leap. At that point, he would be able to increase his maximum travel speed from 900 kilometers per second to 1,500 kilometers per second.

The principle of shifting the planetary orbit was straightforward: using these planetary engines to decelerate Tianyuan A. As its orbital velocity would no longer counteract Tianyuan IV’s gravitational pull, Tianyuan A would gradually fall closer to Tianyuan IV. Then, once Tianyuan A reached the desired orbit, the engines would accelerate the planet to stabilize its new orbital speed.

Of course, this process would be extremely slow. According to Xiao Yu’s plan, the entire procedure would take ten years to complete.

Generally speaking, except for barren planets like the special cases, any naturally formed planet would contain some amount of various minerals. Tianyuan A exemplified this concept. Regardless of abundance, Xiao Yu found all the elements he needed on Tianyuan A.

Thus began an era of grand construction. After completing the central research institute and various mining bases, Xiao Yu moved on to building ground-based component processing plants. Using these processing plants as the foundation, Xiao Yu constructed ground-based spaceship factories and space elevators. Once 500 space elevators were completed, Xiao Yu immediately started building space docks. When all the preparations were complete, new spacecraft were produced in a continuous stream.

As soon as the new spacecraft were built, Xiao Yu organized a long-range fuel collection team composed of the Tianyuan, 50 Town-Class ships, and 300 Village-Class ships.

Due to the absence of long-distance communication technology, Xiao Yu had to personally lead this first resource collection mission. Only by doing so could he have full control over the process and develop corresponding automation programs for future operations.

Against the dazzling backdrop of Tianyuan IV, the over 300 ships of Xiao Yu’s fleet simultaneously emitted bright blue flames from their thrusters as they set course for Tianyuan B.

The orbital distance between Tianyuan A and Tianyuan B was 400 million kilometers. This was the shortest distance; at present, due to their differing positions in their respective orbits, the distance had expanded to 500 million kilometers. At Xiao Yu’s current speed of 900 kilometers per second, the journey would take only six and a half days. Including acceleration and deceleration time, the trip would not exceed seven days.

Along the way, Xiao Yu experienced firsthand what vitality meant. The material density within the Tianyuan IV system was dozens or even hundreds of times higher than that of the solar system. Every so often, Xiao Yu encountered a large meteorite with a diameter exceeding five meters, roaring aggressively through interstellar space. Some stray meteorites posed no issue, but those directly in the fleet’s path had to be destroyed with laser cannons. Such encounters became a constant nuisance for Xiao Yu.

This was a common characteristic of young stars. A stable system like the solar system would take at least billions of years to form through the gravitational interplay between major planets and the central star. During this process, asteroids were either expelled, forming regions like the Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud, aggregated into stable orbits like the asteroid belt, or attracted by larger planets and collided. Only after billions of years could a stable state emerge.

Clearly, Tianyuan IV, a star less than a billion years old, still had some time before achieving such stability.

The meteorite encounters reached their peak as Xiao Yu approached the asteroid belt. Unlike the solar system’s asteroid belt, which was sparse, Tianyuan IV’s asteroid belt was dense and lived up to its name. Point a telescope in any direction, and thousands of meteorites could be seen. The density was so great that even with Xiao Yu’s current technology, it was impossible to traverse directly.

Left with no choice, Xiao Yu slowed the fleet, using laser cannons in all directions to painstakingly make his way through the asteroid belt.

By the time the fleet arrived at Tianyuan B, eight days had passed—one day longer than expected. Xiao Yu muttered a silent curse, reassessed the mining difficulty on Tianyuan B, and plunged headfirst into its atmosphere.