A Colossus rushes in at the start

Chapter 80 The Mainframe's Spending Was Too Generous

Reality is always more magical than stories, because stories are made up by people, and there is a group of people who listen to the stories and demand that the stories be logical and reasonable, while reality does not have such demands.

Donard hadn't believed this view before, but now she had no choice but to.

Just minutes ago, as the chief administrator of the Shalan civilization, she received a message from the listening station: the exploration fleet heading to the Mesa system was unable to leave the Mesa system no matter what they did; there were no other star systems left in the universe outside the Mesa system...

It's crazy, but it's true. No matter which direction the exploration fleet tries to leave the Mesa system, it will eventually end up heading towards the Mesa system.

The direction of motion of all matter, including photons, will return to the Mesa Galaxy after leaving it.

More importantly, all of this is man-made.

To be able to do something like this is nothing short of a miracle.

Recalling the gravitational wave information received by the Allied fleet during the final battle at Bainazu.

[All mass in this galaxy now belongs to the Babel Swarm. All civilizations possessing wormhole and microcosm technology are urged to immediately leave the swarm's galaxy. The Babel Swarm will soon launch a massive cleansing of civilizations across the entire galaxy. At that time, any civilization existing in this galaxy will be considered an enemy of the swarm and will be eliminated. Civilizations with any sense left should leave as soon as possible. Don't say you weren't warned.]

The Great Purge—even just from the literal meaning, Donard could understand its devastation.

What Donard was most concerned about were the two technologies mentioned in the message: wormholes and microcosms. Judging from the content of the message, it was clear that it was specifically intended for civilizations that possessed these technologies.

What about civilizations that didn't master these technologies?

What are you going to do with this mysterious Babel Tower bee swarm?

Suddenly, a chill began to spread from Donade's heart.

Those things that can't leave will naturally remain in the Mesa Galaxy as matter, forever...

Donad grew increasingly uneasy and contacted her civilized diplomat.

"Please contact the Mesa Mechanical Corps for me; I need to communicate with them about something."

"Okay, please wait a moment."

……

"How long until the Great Purge?" Lu Shang asked in the swarm network.

娜娜莉道：「还有9年4月21天8小时34分。」

Using the visual senses of planetary creatures, Lu Shang glanced at the Mesa Galaxy and stretched lazily.

"Time is passing so slowly, I'm losing patience."

Waiting is tedious, especially wasting time on things you're not really interested in. Lu Shang believes that life should be spent entirely on things you find worthwhile; that's what makes life real, and that's what makes you a human being.

Upon hearing this, Nanali tentatively asked, "A large-scale purge right now?"

Lu Shang replied, "No, I plan to slow down my own time. Call me when the time is up."

He was not prepared to change the original plan, which was a summary based on consideration of various possibilities. Changing it suddenly could easily lead to unforeseen changes.

Minor changes are fine, but major changes will bring a lot of trouble when they occur.

For example, a highly technological civilization might be preparing to open a wormhole or create a miniature universe to leave, only to be forced by a swarm of bees to launch a dimensional reduction attack.

Therefore, Lu Shang decided to have the bee swarm slow down the passage of time.

From his perspective, the effect is the same anyway.

Nanali didn't object to Lu Shang doing this. Right now, the swarm didn't really have any serious issues or strategic decisions that required Lu Shang to make the decisions.

However, after thinking carefully for a moment, it asked, "What if someone needs to contact you during your time slowdown?"

Lu Shang said, "Then stop slowing down. I'm not asking to slow down my own time to speed up for some special mission in the future. I'm just too lazy to wait."

Suddenly remembering something, Lu Shang continued, "Oh, right, the book 'The Secret Story Between the Chief Officer of the Star Alliance and the Swarm Mastermind' by Fusotis looks pretty good. You can arrange to send that civilization 20,000 tons of antimatter as encouragement, so that they can produce even better works in the future."

Nanali paused for a moment, then reacted and said speechlessly, "...I completely don't understand the point of you looking at this kind of thing, and you even have to give 20,000 tons of antimatter, which is the hard currency in the Vorsotis Galaxy."

Antimatter is a natural energy source. When it encounters matter, it undergoes a complete annihilation reaction, releasing high-energy photons, or in other words, high-energy gamma rays.

This perfect mass-energy conversion, its natural energy storage properties, and the difficulty of its production made antimatter a hard currency for interstellar trade among many civilizations in the former Vorsotis galaxy.

It doesn't matter if the financial system collapses, as antimatter can compensate for it. After all, energy can neither appear out of thin air nor disappear out of thin air.

The 20,000 tons of antimatter that Lu Shang offered was no small sum among the many civilizations of the Star River Alliance.

"Matter is the foundation of everything, don't you agree?" Lu Shang asked.

Nanali thought for a moment and agreed, "I agree."

Everything in the universe is material; so-called energy, fields, and the like are just another form of manifestation of matter.

Lu Shang then asked, "What about thought? Is thought material?"

Nanali had thought about this question long ago, so she didn't need to think for long before she could answer Lu Shang: "Thoughts originate from matter. Without matter, there is no thought. To put it microscopically, an individual's thinking is nothing more than the result of the interaction between one particle and another. Therefore, thought is material."

Lu Shang nodded in agreement, then asked, "So if my brain never received any information from the outside world from birth, how can I expand my thinking?"

Nanali fell silent for a moment. It imagined the scenario Lu Shang had described: confining a brain in a closed-loop spacetime, ensuring the brain's activity, and then extending it to a huge timescale.

Then Nanali discovered that this brain seemed to be able to think about very limited things.

If we were to take such a mind out of the closed-loop spacetime and place it in Lu Shang's original position, could it do better than Lu Shang did back then?

Nanali seemed to understand something, and asked somewhat curiously, "Can watching TV dramas produced by the Star Alliance civilizations expand the thinking of intelligent individuals?"

Lu Shang corrected, "No, no, no, that's too one-sided. Expanding your thinking means constantly acquiring information from the outside world."

"Just because you think some information is useless now doesn't mean you'll find it useless in the future. The future is full of unknowns, and you have no idea whether your thinking logic will change after reading some information. For example, as I'm telling you this now, isn't your thinking constantly changing? I had the same feeling when I watched that alien TV series."

Nanali suddenly realized, "Lu Shang, there's always so much to learn from talking to you."

Lu Shang nodded habitually.

Yeah, I even believed it myself...

In fact, Lu Shang was willing to give 20,000 tons of antimatter for no complicated reason; it was simply because he didn't think antimatter had much value.

Firstly, antimatter is completely useless to the bee colony. The industrial system of the Babel bee colony is based on matter and psionic energy, leaving no room for antimatter to play a role.

Furthermore, the swarm possesses psionic abilities, allowing it to directly interfere with the motion of particles. This convenience makes the swarm's antimatter production technology more efficient than that of other civilizations in the Star Alliance.

When diamonds are more plentiful than sand on the ground, and their manufacturing cost is very low, and there is no industrial demand, can these diamonds still have a high actual value?

(End of this chapter)