Light Speed ​​War

Chapter 29: Energy Crystal

The small sniper ship slowly entered Procyon's companion star. The surface of the companion star was a hydrogen nebula, and further inward, it was composed of carbon, oxygen, neon, and magnesium. Because there was no longer any nuclear fusion reaction inside, no energy was generated in the core. The interior was no longer supported by the heat of previous nuclear fusion to resist gravitational collapse, but by the electron degeneracy pressure generated by the extremely high density of matter.

The small sniper ship traveled along the way, transmitting long-range communications and observation results.

An hour later, the small sniper ship entered a huge, dark void region. However, the detectors clearly detected a super-energy flow at the center of the region, which was almost the same as the discovery of Sirius's companion star. Zhou Yuan and the others were very excited.

Five minutes later, the detector observed a super-bright photosphere, approximately 80 meters in diameter, in the core region of the companion star. The photosphere's surface was surrounded by a rapidly rotating halo. Ultra-high frequency wide-area spectral analysis revealed that the photosphere contained numerous light particles moving rapidly back and forth, and also exhibited intricate optical filament patterns.

The miniature sniper ship's teleportation ring activated, emitting an extremely fine, intense light pulse that instantly tore apart the halo on the surface of the light sphere, exposing its internal structure. The teleportation ring then quickly cut off the intense light pulse and activated the dialing system. From within the now-opened, ultra-bright light sphere, a beam of light particles along with filamentary patterns was transmitted. The miniature sniper ship's teleportation ring quickly closed, and the halo on the light sphere's surface automatically healed. The transmitted light particles and filamentary patterns arrived at a portal already positioned near the companion star. This beam of light particles and filamentary patterns was frozen by a super-stable "light trap." The secret of the "light trap" lies in preserving the information of the light pulse by establishing "quantum conflicts."

As a result, a portion of the intelligent energy entities frozen by the "light trap" were transported to Earth's portal by Nanhe San's portal, where the Earth Federation Academy of Sciences quickly began detailed scientific research.

To facilitate future human exploration of the intelligent energy samples from Procyon's companion star, the small sniper ship that made a significant contribution will remain in the core of Procyon on standby, while the portal near Procyon will be preserved and guarded by a small divine messenger warship controlled by a super artificial intelligence.

According to Zhou Yuan and others' speculation, since Nanhe San has the masterpiece of the "Light-Descent Civilization", there must be an anomaly near Nanhe San, and there may even be a war involving the "Light-Descent Civilization".

The Earth Star Fleet continued its journey, heading towards Rutan.

Rutan Star is located 4.2 light-years from Procyon (based on the speed of light in this space, 4c0), and its luminosity is relatively weak.

Galactic Era 87, Star Marker (1, 1, 4, 4c0).

"Report: There is a large nebula surrounding Rutan Star. According to observations, this nebula stretches for approximately 0.56 light-years (based on the speed of light in this space, 4c0). The temperature in this region is higher than in other areas. Based on elemental mass spectrometry analysis, this nebula is a metallic ocean, containing two metallic elements that are outside the range of our periodic table!"

This nebula shrouds Rutan Star in a dark veil, making it appear and disappear in the mist.

This nebula is clearly a cloud of metal debris left over from a large-scale war!

The "Earth Interstellar Fleet" halted at the outer edge of the nebula. More than ten million small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) took off from various warships and plunged into the sea of ​​metal nebulae. Each UAV carried small observation equipment and would immediately sound an alarm if it detected any valuable intelligence. These UAVs traveled at extremely high speeds and quickly took their positions and distributed throughout the metal nebula, conducting a grid search based on the shortest delivery routes for mail carriers in each region.

Half an hour later, the Earth Interstellar Fleet received alerts from four drones that had detected unusual activity. The screens showed that each of the four drones contained a small object. The drones grabbed the four objects and brought them back to the fleet. All drones then returned to their positions.

Of these four small objects, two surprisingly belonged to the gods of Thor: a portal compass and an energy crystal. The other two objects' metallic elements were beyond human technological comprehension. One object was a rectangular metal box with a pale blue sheen; its surface was uneven, resembling either some kind of writing or a button. The other object was a translucent metal sphere containing a complex, embossed three-dimensional pattern.

Zhou Yuan and the others didn't know how to analyze it for a while, so the entire "Earth Interstellar Fleet" decided to take the four small items back to Earth.

A day later, a large portal was set up near Rutan. The Earth Star Fleet used the portal to reach the portals of the five stars in sequence and return to Earth's near-Earth space.

Zhou Yuan and his companions arrived at the Earth Federation Academy of Sciences with four items in their hands.

After nearly 80 years of development, Planet E, also known as the New Earth, is now a vibrant, prosperous, and powerful planet. Humanity's technology, military, and industry are vastly different from what they were before.

The Earth Federation Academy of Sciences has made significant progress in its research on the intelligent energy entity captured in the core of Procyon. Scientists led by the civilization have discovered that the energy entity's light path—the mechanism that imbues energy with intelligence—is indeed akin to artificial intelligence. This light path binds the photons carried by the energy entity, and the light path itself is a condensed antimatter particle that self-traps into a "light trap." When the light path is activated, the energy entity becomes intelligent, and the antimatter particles of the light path and the matter particles of the energy undergo annihilation, releasing a massive amount of ultra-high energy. In a sense, the "Light-Descending Civilization" is using an intelligent, suicidal, continuous beam of light bullets that annihilate matter and antimatter.

So, when Zhou Yuan and his group returned, scientists from the Civilization demonstrated their self-developed warship equipped with an intelligent energy body light bullet system. Of course, the power of the intelligent energy body light bullets didn't seem to be as formidable as those from the "Light-Descending Civilization." However, the ultra-high-energy gamma rays emitted by the warship easily shattered and vaporized over 2500 small divine messenger warships lined up one after another! And that wasn't all; the rays from the vaporized target ships continued to travel far into the distance until they disappeared from sight. Zhou Yuan and his group were astonished; the power was indeed considerable, seemingly even greater than that of the sniper ship. Humanity on Earth had finally gained a new type of super warship: the intelligent energy body warship.

After watching the demonstration of the intelligent energy warship, Zhou Yuan introduced the discoveries on Rutan Star at the Academy of Sciences conference. He then pointed to four objects floating in the air and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, that metal box and that translucent metal sphere contain metals unknown to humankind. The Academy of Sciences needs to conduct scientific analysis on these two objects immediately. The other two objects clearly belong to the Thor Gods civilization. Judging from the metal debris nebula on Rutan Star, the 'Light-Descent Civilization' likely used Procyon's companion stars as gamma-ray superweapons and waged a brutal war against the Thor Gods civilization and another unknown civilization. Let's call this unknown civilization the 'Metal Civilization' for now. Judging from the outcome of the war..." It is estimated that the 'Light-Descending Civilization' has achieved a complete victory. Furthermore, I am deeply impressed by the power of the intelligent energy warships. Here, I would like to propose an improvement, which I anticipate will be quite challenging. Now that we can create light paths or quark circuits, why can't we create photon engines or quark engines? If intelligent energy beings are equipped with photon engines or quark engines, then the photon beams from these beings could bend, instead of following a straight trajectory, much like the guided missiles created by humans on Earth long ago. Why do I propose this idea? Because it breaks the tradition of straight-line beam propagation, and more importantly, we could use guided intelligent energy light bullets to conduct long-range, covert strikes against the enemy!

Everyone seemed fascinated by Zhou Yuan's idea, imagining how wondrous it would be if beams of intelligent energy could truly bend. While creating optical paths or quark circuits is relatively easy now, creating photon engines or quark engines still appears to be very difficult. Nevertheless, it's a magnificent idea!

Regardless, the Earth Federation Academy of Sciences immediately launched a scientific analysis of the four objects.

The two artifacts from the Thorian civilization, especially the small energy crystal, are particularly important for enhancing the energy storage capabilities of Earth's human warships and various devices.

Through in-depth analysis and quark transmission microscopy, the outer shell of the energy crystal is revealed to be a magnetic block annealed and magnetized under ultra-high temperature and pressure in a super-strong magnetic field. This magnetic block can confine high-density energy photons within it; the energy of a one-centimeter square energy crystal is equivalent to the explosive energy of one hundred H-bombs. This energy crystal can provide power to large warships or super artificial intelligence computers, significantly reducing the size of warships or equipment and greatly decreasing the warship's load. If all the power supply equipment of a warship were replaced with energy crystals, the warship's speed could be increased threefold.

The energy source of energy crystals is very common: stellar energy. Energy crystals absorb stellar light energy, and an energy crystal can be fully charged in just half an hour.

Humanity on Earth chose the Procyon binary star system as its primary manufacturing base for energy crystals. The high temperature and pressure conditions of Procyon are ideal for creating the outer shells of these energy crystals. These shells are then annealed and magnetized by a powerful magnetic field near the primary star before being transported back to absorb stellar energy. This streamlined process mass-produces the energy crystals needed by humanity. Finally, these mass-produced energy crystals are transported back to Earth through a remnant Procyon portal for use on human warships and equipment. Additionally, on the white dwarf star, the Sun, humanity also dispatches AI-piloted spaceships and intelligent robots to mass-produce energy crystals, transporting them via a portal.

The creation of energy crystals allows warships to obtain unlimited kinetic energy from stars while navigating interstellar space, making long-term, continuous voyages possible. Energy crystals also enable the miniaturization of large colliders and allow for faster-than-light travel via wormholes.

Based on the powerful energy storage and release capabilities of energy crystals and the directional attack capabilities of intelligent energy bodies, humanity has developed a super-powerful shield technology, known as the intelligent energy body shield. The concept involves covering the surface of warships with miniature energy crystals and intelligent energy body arrays. When the enemy attacks, the intelligent energy bodies are activated, powered by the energy crystals, and fire ultra-high-energy beams to destroy or weaken the enemy's attack. Following this idea, humanity has also deployed larger-power energy crystals and intelligent energy body arrays throughout the warships, allowing for the firing of intelligent energy beams from various points on the ship during combat, enabling multi-directional and multi-angle sweeping attacks on numerous enemy warships.