The stars, but they become the gray wind

"If we really want to mass-produce antimatter, the safest and most reliable method is to build a giant particle accelerator."

"However, at this stage, it is still too early to build particle accelerators orbiting gas giants or even stars to produce antimatter."

"That's right. At this stage, the energy generated by the various fusion technologies of the hypermatter era is more than enough for us. After all, we're not going on an interstellar journey."

"The super-material age?" Aze asked with a curious expression.

"A rather unpopular work that ranks the technological levels of civilizations."

"One of the key criteria for the hypermatter era is the complete mastery of various technologies based on fusion principles, from the simplest deuterium-tritium fusion to the most challenging CNO cycle (carbon-nitrogen-oxygen cycle) fusion, and even the silicon-oxygen heavy fusion reaction that only occurs in rare supergiant stars in the universe."

"Heavy fusion... Speaking of which, using the materials we have on hand, in addition to deuterium-deuterium fusion and cold fusion, at this stage we can directly produce a protium-hydrogen fusion reactor as a proton chain reaction, right?" Aze said boredly while sitting on the bench, supporting his chin with his right hand.

"Hydrogen-hydrogen fusion is indeed no problem for us at the moment, but we don't have any demand for it at this stage."

"But even if there's no demand, just creating temperatures over 100 billion degrees is a pretty remarkable milestone for us, right?"

"???"

"Think about it, it's just like playing a game. Every time you complete a task, I will give you a stage achievement. This alone is very attractive, right?" Aze explained, raising his index finger.

"Besides, wouldn't it be pretty cool to artificially create the protium-hydrogen fusion reaction on Earth that can only be seen in the sun or blue giant stars?"

"Don't forget, we are the first people on this planet to ignite nuclear fire with seawater." After Aze's reminder, Kalisi realized that a group of people seemed to have created many world firsts on this planet.

"Let's count the ways. First, we built the first deuterium-deuterium fusion reactor on this planet, achieved the deepest excavation depth on the planet, constructed the first giant mass accelerator ever built on this planet, the first cold fusion reactor, the first supersonic flight vehicle, and the first man-made flight vehicle to cross the Karman line in the atmosphere and enter space."

"Unconsciously, we seem to have earned a lot of achievements." Aze counted the engineering miracles and technological achievements that the few of them had achieved on his fingers.

"Why are you so concerned about this? We don't care how the human history of this planet will record us in the future... huh???" Yuki had just retorted when a long string of achievement prompts that seemed very confusing to him suddenly appeared on the edge of the AR holographic vision.

Unlocked achievement: Take the hard way!

Unlocked achievement: Electric Fishing!

Unlocked achievement: The Power of the Sun!

Unlocked achievement: Fusion Power Generation!

Unlocked achievement: The Deepest Point in the World!!!

Unlocked Achievement: Tracks to the Stars?!

Unlocked achievement: Wu Dad Device 1彲冷复化!

Unlocked achievement: Breaking the speed of sound!

Unlocked achievement: Fly into space!!

…………

"Huh? What is this?" Yuuki, Carlisle, Aze and the other two looked at the large number of prompt messages popping up in the holographic vision and subconsciously wanted to turn them off, but they were unable to turn off these achievement prompt messages that kept popping up.

"I just think that Miss Zemingluo's suggestion is very interesting, so I'll give you a surprise! How about listing out your current achievements for you?" At this moment, Kawu Baba Qiliu Albert's somewhat mischievous voice sounded in their minds without warning.

"You scared me. It turns out you were the one who did this." Yuki sighed helplessly at the mischievous behavior of his nominal boss.

"Don't worry, I just thought I'd give you some achievement reminders to motivate you. If you don't like it, I can also not do it." Cabot said with a smile in the minds of several people.

"Forget it...it's no big deal anyway." Carlisle seemed indifferent to this.

"To be honest, I don't like this very much. You'd better turn it off." Yuki muttered with a frown.

"Okay, since my men don't like this, I'll turn it off." Listening to Cabot's voice, Yuki could already imagine that the naughty blue ghost was closing one eye, sticking out his tongue in front of him, playing a prank on him, and looking like he was playing a mischievous trick.

"But I still want to say that doing more engineering and construction is always beneficial, isn't it?"

"You mean to suggest that we build a protium-hydrogen fusion reactor on this planet that can reach the temperature and pressure of the core of a blue giant?" Yuki asked, extending his index finger and rubbing his temple.

"It's not just about completely replicating the protium-hydrogen fusion reactor that produces massive stellar nuclear fusion. Having more energy available is always a good thing."

"Okay, so you're suggesting we expand our energy infrastructure?"

"Right. After all, excess energy can be used for other things, right?"

"Even using the excess energy for artistic creation is fine!" Cabot said in a very mischievous tone.

On an uninhabited beach on the other side of the island, Cabot was lying leisurely on a lounge chair, looking at the midday sun in the sky, and ended his mental conversation with the three people.

"I subtly hinted to them that for what would happen in the next few years, it was better to be prepared than to be unprepared at all." Looking at the sun hanging high in the sky, Cabot's blue eyes, hidden by sunglasses, were shining, as if he was observing something above the sky.

"A shell made of hadronic material capable of withstanding impacts from objects traveling at near-light speeds of up to three levels... a propulsion system using the gamma-ray jets produced by the annihilation of matter and antimatter as its propellant, a self-repair system based on a rather rudimentary self-replicating mechanism, an instrument capable of monitoring various possible communication methods commonly used by intelligent life forms, including gravitational waves, neutrinos, and electromagnetic waves, and a planetary atmosphere and spectrum analyzer... Interesting... Really interesting."

"Although the hadron material used in the detector's outer shell is clearly still at a rather immature stage, the fact that you're able to create a material that requires modifying the subatomic structure of matter demonstrates the remarkable capabilities of your technology."

"But what's even more interesting is... the way this probe is accelerated to near the speed of light... by repeatedly performing gravitational slingshot acceleration between two rapidly spinning black holes?"

"They really did come up with this method. It's worth it that I left two black hole systems orbiting each other near their home galaxy. I spent a lot of effort to ensure that the gravity of those things would not affect the stability of their home galaxy during the long process of celestial evolution."

"It seems that after my sisters and I concealed our involvement in the formation of their intelligent species and civilization, everything they developed was just as we planned. They are a truly perfect species."

"A perfect species and civilization that has encountered almost no obstacles or bottlenecks in its development, has never had any stains, and has not made any mistakes that other civilizations would make. It is almost born to symbolize the word utopia. They are also my dearest daughters." Cabot, who was lying relaxed on a beach chair, said in a very calm tone.

第104章命运交汇的1908年6月30日（5000字）

Watching the elevator door open in front of him, Renlong walked into the elevator, grabbed the handle hanging from the top of the elevator, activated the magnetic adsorption device on his foot, and entered a three-digit number on the keyboard on the elevator wall. As the elevator door closed and pressurized, driven by the vertical electromagnetic catapult track, the elevator car descended deep underground in the vacuum elevator shaft at a speed of more than 2000 kilometers per hour like a vertically moving cannonball, and the numbers on the altitude meter on the elevator wall continued to increase, but there was a small minus sign before this string of numbers.

Renlong's body in the elevator also felt a sense of weightlessness as the elevator rapidly descended, but because the magnetic boots on her feet firmly fixed Renlong's body to the floor, the dragon girl with short white hair did not float up in the elevator car.

While the elevator was descending, Renlong monitored the operating conditions of various facilities on the island through his brain, until the elevator operating panel on the bulkhead made a "ding" sound, the string of numbers after the negative sign on the altimeter no longer increased, and the sealed elevator door slowly opened.

As the hatch opened, Renlong arrived at the deepest part of the elevator shaft, the deep experimental center at the boundary between the solid and liquid layers of the mantle.

Taking a quick glance, he saw the liquid mantle and magma surging from the deep region of the earth outside the fully transparent insulation channel. Even through a thick layer of fully transparent protective material, Renlong seemed to still be able to feel the rolling heat wave coming towards him.

But coming here to see the spectacular scenery deep in the earth was not the purpose of Renlong's trip. She did not stay in the tunnel for too long. She just turned her head to observe the scenery outside the tunnel for a while, and then she set off again to the destination of this trip: the heavy element fusion reactor located in the Deep Earth Experiment Center.

In the heavy element fusion reactor monitoring center of the Deep Experiment Center, Carlisle sat leisurely on the office chair with her feet propped up on the monitoring table, looking at the heavy element fusion reactor roaring outside the window with a comfortable look on her face. The door of the monitoring room slid open with a prompt sound, and Renlong walked into the monitoring center, walked to the water dispenser by the wall, poured himself a glass of cold boiled water, and then Renlong came to Carlisle with a paper cup filled with cold boiled water, and looked at the main structure of the heavy element fusion reactor outside the window like a mountain with her.

"This thing is such a huge energy consumer. Most of the energy generated by several major cold fusion reactors on the surface and the two newly built hydropower platforms is supplied to this thing." Renlong sighed as he looked out the window.

"Yes, after all, fusing heavier elements after iron doesn't release energy, it absorbs it. We've put a lot of effort into making these heavy elements, collected from deep within the Earth and with a density far greater than iron, fuse."

"Using artificial means to create temperatures exceeding hundreds of billions or even trillions of degrees Celsius and extreme pressures close to those at the core of a star to synthesize heavy elements beyond number 120 is indeed a very troublesome task."

"Although the half-lives of most heavy elements after the 120th are frighteningly short, there are still some elements that can exist stably. It seems that the hypothesis of the island of element stability is indeed correct... However, there is something I want to say." At this point, Calisi frowned.

"What's the matter?"

"Since we want to produce heavy elements beyond 120, why don't we build a particle collider?"

"We have to use this super heavy element fusion reactor to force miracles. In order to maintain its operation, we have to continuously input energy into it to support the fusion of iron and other heavy elements into heavier substances, and synthesize elements after 120. The high energy consumption is almost draining the energy of the cold fusion reactors on the ground. It always feels like a bit of a waste of force if we keep doing this." Calisi complained.

"Well, well... the main reason is actually quite simple. This heavy element fusion reactor is relatively small."

"Small? Are you sure this thing is small? The main body of the reactor alone is over ten kilometers in diameter. Add in the attached heavy element collection and refining equipment, and it's almost as big as a planetary engine. Are you sure this thing is small?"

"At least when it comes to producing heavy elements after the 120th element, it's quite small. Otherwise, if we were to produce heavy elements according to our needs, we would probably need a circum-equatorial particle collider that's tens of thousands of kilometers long to maintain the current production of heavy elements."

"Although building a circum-equatorial particle collider isn't difficult with our current engineering capabilities, the large-scale terraforming of Earth along its path would be very troublesome, potentially affecting the surface ecosystem and human settlements in the equatorial region. We don't want to overturn everything we encounter along the way."

"And there's another point I don't want to mention explicitly: if we build all of this infrastructure, what will future humans on this planet build?"

"I would rather the humans on this planet build such a device on their own once their technology has developed to a sufficient level. We don't want to let a bunch of unrelated humans reap the fruits of our labor."

"Hearing you say that, I think I understand. But you said this is the main reason? Then there must be secondary reasons, right?" Carlisle noticed that Renlong specifically mentioned the word "main" when explaining the reason.

"So... what about the secondary reason? Can you tell me about it?" Carlisle lowered her feet that were clinging to the console, turned her chair, and looked at Renlong curiously.

"The secondary reason... Have you noticed that Cabot seems to be hiding something from us lately?"

"Cabot? It seems like I haven't seen her much lately... What's wrong?"

"Ever since you went to Europe a few years ago, I've felt like Miss Cabot has been hiding something from us, and lately this feeling has become even more pronounced... I feel..."

"It's like she's hiding something from us?" Carlisle continued, following Renlong's words.

"That's right... Ever since we came into this world, even though we were just helping Miss Cabot with some work during her holidays... I always had a feeling she wasn't telling us the truth, at least not completely."

"And she recently...intentionally or unintentionally reminded me of a few things."

"Remind? Remind you of what?"

"She reminded me that it would be best to build more production facilities with short construction periods, diverse functions, and relatively small size. They might be of great help to us in the future, and she also reminded me not to rush into developing things beyond Earth."

"Is that... the reason why you didn't build something like the equatorial particle accelerator?"

"Instead, they chose to build a smaller heavy element fusion reactor deep in the mantle to produce heavy elements after 120?"

"The above is understandable, but...don't rush to develop beyond Earth?"

"Hmm...it's indeed a bit suspicious?" said Carlisle, tapping the table with her index finger.

As Charlotte's maid, Beata was now very at a loss, because she had just opened the door of the study and saw Charlotte and Ange hugging each other. The two were kissing each other passionately and panting. Beata unfortunately happened to witness this scene. The two people in the room who were in love also hurriedly covered their bodies with their hands after seeing Beata opening the door, and hurriedly separated. Looking at Beata, who was very flustered with steam coming out of his head and his face flushed, he slammed the door shut.

"Your Highness...Princess...what are you doing in your room?!!!" Hearing Beat's excited voice that sounded like a scream outside the room, Angel and Charlotte in the study hurriedly picked up the clothes on the ground and put them on.

"Beate, I'm sorry to scare you. I didn't expect you to come in suddenly." Charlotte, who had put on her clothes, walked to the door and shouted to Beat who was hiding outside.

"Your Highness, you really are... You should consider the occasion when doing this kind of thing. Although I know you have established a relationship with Miss Angel, you can't just do this kind of thing in the study in broad daylight... Do this kind of thing!!!" Outside the door, Beat covered her eyes with an expression of disbelief, and scolded Charlotte in the room.

"What's the matter? What's the matter? What happened?" At this time, Dorothy, who had just come in from outside, looked at Beatrice squatting outside the study door with a red face and covering her eyes with her hands, and her curiosity was immediately aroused.

"Miss Dorothy, Her Royal Highness the Princess and Miss Anjie are doing that in broad daylight... openly... openly..." Thinking of the scene she had just witnessed, steam began to come out of Beatrice's head again, her cheeks were as red as a monkey's butt, and she could not speak clearly.

"That? Oh... I understand!" Dorothy clenched her right fist and hit her left palm, and immediately understood what Beatr meant.

"I can't believe you usually look so abstinent, Angel, but you're surprisingly good at this?" Dorothy, with an expression of an old driver, said loudly and happily to the closed door of the study.

"This... is what Charlotte said she wanted to play..." Anjie's weak protest was heard from the room.

"But Ange, you looked happy just now." In the room, Charlotte turned around, hugged Ange, and kissed her lips without any hesitation and said.

"Woo..." Feeling Charlotte's somewhat overbearing kiss, Anjie protested silently.

Listening to the conversation coming from the room, Beat, who was squatting outside the door, blushed even more. Dorothy covered her mouth, almost unable to suppress her expression.

At this time, in addition to the two people involved and Dorothy and Beatrice outside the door, there was actually another pair of eyes staring at this place.

Just now, when Charlotte and Ange were doing something naughty in the study, there was actually an optically invisible drone in the study, which was using the sensors and cameras on its body to record the whole process of Charlotte and Ange doing that thing.

On the other end, Aze, who was controlling and observing the images sent back by the drone, had a look of great interest on her face and rolled around on the bed excitedly like a maggot. She had just watched Charlotte and Angel's behavior in the study from a close-up perspective. If Aze still had a nosebleed at this time, then her nosebleed must be raging and unstoppable.

In fact, through the drone's sensors, Aze already knew that she would run into Charlotte and Ange doing that thing before Beat opened the door, but she did not stop it. Instead, she looked at Charlotte and Ange who were caught by her maid with a happy face. After being seen naked by Beat, her good friend and best friend, she put on her clothes shyly and panickedly and explained to Beat.

"So cute... Especially the expression he showed when Beat saw him, it was so great!" Aze twisted his body on the bed with joy like a maggot.

"And... I didn't expect it. I thought Charlotte and Ange, princesses who had been raised relatively conservatively, would be surprisingly creative in this area."

"What a great material! It's worth keeping!" Aze said as he clicked the save button on the live broadcast footage sent back by the drone and recorded it in his brain.

"When Mary grows up, maybe I can show her this video of her two sisters... hehe... that scene will definitely be very interesting!" Aze thought with a happy smile on his face.

At this time, it was June 1908, and more than six years had passed since Charlotte and others came to Taylor Island. Although six years had passed, both Charlotte and others and Mary's bodies had almost stopped growing under the action of nanomachines. Their appearance was as if frozen, and they would always remain at the age when they first arrived on the island.

For six years, several people have been consuming food and drinking water containing trace amounts of active nanomachines. The air they breathe on the island is also filled with nanomachine units invisible to the naked eye. These nanomachine units have subtly changed the bodies of everyone as carbon-based creatures. For example, half a year ago, Qianshi accidentally cut her finger while practicing swordsmanship, but she later observed that her finger, which was cut by the sharp blade, healed in just a dozen seconds, and the seeping blood was completely absorbed by the skin, leaving almost no trace of the wound.

For example, Dorothy, who likes drinking, still likes alcoholic beverages very much after coming to the island. In fact, because the island provides a richer variety of alcoholic beverages with more diverse flavors, she has become more fond of drinking in recent years. However, she also noticed that no matter how high the alcohol content of the beverage is, it is almost impossible to get drunk. Most of the alcohol is completely broken down by nanomachines within a short time after entering the stomach. Even after drinking more than a dozen bottles of vodka with a concentration of more than 95%, Dorothy still did not feel drunk at all, as if what she had just drunk was not alcohol, but water.

On the other hand, the person who experienced the most obvious transformation and strengthening effect of nanomachines on the body was undoubtedly Beata, Charlotte's maid. After getting up one morning, she was somewhat horrified to find that the voice-changing device in her throat had fallen off, and her throat, which was damaged by her father's original technical transformation, was repaired as before. Although she had lost the ability to imitate other people's voices, looking at her smooth throat in the mirror and feeling her original voice, Beata still felt like she was dreaming.

There is another person who has also deeply experienced the powerful repair effect of nanomachines on the body. That is Angel. Every time they do that kind of thing, when Charlotte plays with her and she can't get out of bed, the powerful repair effect of the nanomachine can almost always ensure that she is full of energy the next day. As a result, because she often seems too nonchalant the next day, Charlotte will pull her into the room at night to continue doing that kind of thing.

Let's put aside Charlotte and Ange's loving life and daily dog-food feeding for a moment and turn our attention to the group of four. In the past few years, several cold fusion reactors have been built on the island and connected to the grid. In the underground cavity in the center of the island, Calisi and Renlong even experimentally built a fusion reactor based on the proton chain reaction, also known as the protium-hydrogen reaction.

After completing the construction of this reactor, Renlong was obviously not satisfied with it, and further built a super fusion reactor based on the CNO (carbon, nitrogen and oxygen) cycle, which completely replicated the stellar reaction, to satisfy his sense of achievement and curiosity. (Note 1)

It's worth mentioning that Miss Cabot has been elusive lately, and Charlotte and the others have only had a few encounters with this supposedly superior Cabot over the years. They still know nothing about Cabot's true background.

It's not that the foursome didn't notice Cabot's suspicious behavior during this period, but because Cabot used controllable mind tuning on them, they were able to temporarily ignore their overly suspicious behavior. Even if they realized that something seemed wrong after they were no longer under the influence of the mind tuning, they would take the initiative not to delve too deeply into it. For example, Renlong, although he had realized that Cabot was hiding something from them, under the influence of the mind tuning, neither Renlong nor Calisi asked about the matter.

…………

As time entered June 1908, Taylor Island became increasingly hot as summer arrived. As an island in the North Pacific Ocean close to the equator, the foursome and Charlotte's group all felt the strong breath of summer as they felt the heat waves brought by the summer sun hanging high overhead.

But the few people who were feeling the breath of summer did not realize one important thing, that is, it was now June 1908. At this time, the probe that was originally in the outer solar system had completed its orbit change and was constantly approaching the earth. There was only less than a month left before the orbit of the probe intersected with the orbit of the earth.

The summer of 1908 was destined to be anything but peaceful. The probe from 20,000 light years away, the Gray Winds on Earth, the senior star governor Cabot from the combined fleet, and the civilization still at the other end of the starry sky that was about to meet these sisters whom they had never met, all of these would converge on this unremarkable blue-green planet.

Note 1: Regarding the real-life CNO cycle fusion reaction, it is one of the two known fusion reactions in which stars convert hydrogen into helium. The other is the proton-proton chain reaction (PP cycle).

Unlike proton-proton reactions, which consume all components, the CNO cycle is a catalytic cycle. In the CNO cycle, four protons fuse, using carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotopes as catalysts. Each proton is consumed in one step of the CNO cycle but regenerated in a later step. The final products are a particle (a stable helium nucleus), two positrons, and two electron neutrinos. The CNO cycle appears more suitable than the pp chain as a working model for controlled nuclear fusion using proton burning.

The CNO cycle is divided into two types: cold CNO and hot HCNO.

Cold CNO dominates in the cores of blue dwarfs larger than 1.3 solar masses, while HCNO dominates in the cores of stars with greater density and temperature. The difference between them is whether the reaction intermediates decay.

The CNO cycle has a very serious problem. The carbon and oxygen that serve as catalysts have a half-life of several minutes, and the fusion products must decay before the next step can be taken. The limiting (slowest) reaction in the CNO cycle is the process in which nitrogen-14 captures protons to produce oxygen-15. This makes the overall reaction rate of the CNO cycle very low, and a large reactant concentration is required to maintain reaction equilibrium and increase power.