The stars, but they become the gray wind

"But... Miss Elaine and all her family and partners are still alive. I think if I have the chance in the future, I can actually go and ask them in person, right?"

"Besides... Miss Elaine is really beautiful... It would be great if I could get close to her, lie on the bed without clothes and sleep with her." Elena showed a crazy face.

"It seems true... Miss Elaine was born over 3000 years ago. According to the data, your civilization's genetic life extension, digital memory uploading, bionic mechanical bodies, and synthetic human technologies were all fully developed at that time. Even the technology known as nanomechanical ascension was already mature, completely transforming one's life form from a carbon-based organism containing a certain proportion of nanomachines into a quasi-intelligent life form composed entirely of nanomechanical aggregates."

"If you want to maintain your original body's life form, you can choose to upload your digital consciousness, use biotechnology to cultivate a clone body that is exactly the same as your original body, and import your consciousness into it."

"If you desire a more powerful body with greater strength and versatility, you can choose to transform yourself into a bionic machine or a synthetic human. Bionic synthetics have physical functions far exceeding your already powerful natural form."

"If one desires greater versatility and near-infinite adaptability to various extreme environments, one can also choose to completely transform oneself into an intelligent nanomachine aggregate. Once fully transformed into a nanomachine aggregate, physical existence isn't even necessary. The extreme versatility and adaptability of nanomachines essentially means that Sky Starians who choose this method of immortality can exist in nearly any material or non-material form."

"As for Miss Elaine... she obviously chose the relatively conservative plan of uploading her consciousness into a cloned body. And her other partners basically all chose the same immortality plan of cloning the body, uploading the consciousness, or bionic synthesis..."

"This is quite interesting... Your understanding of the nanomachines that have been in complete symbiosis with you since the birth of your civilization has actually been quite limited for a long time. Although until 3000 years ago, you had already developed self-replicating nanomachines with built-in antimatter energy, which are far more advanced than the primitive nanomachines that accompanied the early civilization of Sky Star, you still know almost nothing about the origin of those naturally existing nanomachines on the planets beneath your feet that were born together with the Tree of Life, right?" Luo Ying asked Elena the question that had been lingering in her mind.

"So... I'm curious... where did those original nanomachines, just 2nm in diameter, that made up the original cells of the Tree of Life come from?"

Chapter 118: Strange Questions about Civilization's Environment (6000 words)

"We have also conducted a lot of investigations on this, trying to trace the original origins of the Tree of Life and nanomachines. To this end, over the past tens of thousands of years, we have even traveled to more than 5000 star systems within 300 light-years of our mother galaxy, and made these 5000 star systems part of the territory of the Sky Star civilization. During this period, our technology has become increasingly advanced, and our navigation speed has gradually approached the speed of light. Within 300 light-years around the Sky Galaxy, we have found quite a lot of evidence and clues about the possible existence of the 'creator', but what we gained more are only questions." Having said that, Elena sighed, and continued to speak to Luoying with a helpless and distressed expression.

"All the evidence suggests that our civilization may have been created by some more advanced being, but as of today, we still don't have any detailed information about that being."

"The evidence you're referring to... is it the overly regular celestial resonance structure of the galaxy in the sky and the two massive Kerr black holes spinning around each other just 0.5 light-years from the edge of the galaxy?"

"That's just the most inconspicuous and least important piece of evidence we found. You'll understand if you look at this..." Elena waved her hand, and a holographic star map appeared in the room where the two of them were.

"What is this?" Luoying asked curiously.

"Star map. This star map shows the specific positions and relative distances of all celestial bodies within the local bubble, with a radius of 500 light years from the galaxy in the sky as the center."

"At the same time, this 1000-light-year diameter Local Bubble also represents the current limit of the Sky Star civilization's navigation and expansion distance. Aside from a few probes we launched tens of thousands of years ago, all activities of the Sky Star civilization are currently confined to this 1000-light-year diameter Local Bubble."

"Then... the most important clue to everything we have discovered is in this local bubble. You can observe carefully and see if you find any problems in this star map?" Elena deliberately did not reveal the answer, but let Luoying study the star map by herself first.

"Problem? Wait... let me take a look first."

Luoying said as he zoomed in on the holographic star map and examined it carefully.

"Huh? These celestial bodies are... pulsars?"

"And... so close? This distance... is less than 10 light-years away from the Sky Galaxy... right?" Luo Ying quickly noticed something wrong on the star map. There were many pulsars distributed within a range of less than ten light-years away from the Sky Galaxy.

"How can there be so many pulsars at such a close distance? If there were a spherical region of space less than ten light-years away with a multitude of pulsars, wouldn't the gamma-ray bursts they produce be enough to wipe out any form of life?"

"This is one of the doubts I was talking about. With so many pulsars surrounding the Sky Galaxy, life on Sky should have been surprised countless times by the gamma-ray bursts produced by these pulsars. Yet, life and civilization on Sky have persisted. Thanks to the existence of nanomachines, the people of Sky have even evolved the ability to directly absorb radiation and survive."

"Wait, you said one of the doubts?"

"That's right... The abnormally close proximity of multiple neutron stars and pulsars is only one of the suspicious points. The greater suspicion is... the stellar density of this local cannon."

"According to our observations of other areas of the Milky Way, a relatively normal local bubble should contain more than 1000 stars. However, the star density of the local bubble in the area where Sky Star is located is abnormally high. The number of stars in the local bubble with a diameter of 1000 light-years around the Sky Galaxy is more than 10 times that of the local bubbles in other areas of the Milky Way. The local bubble where the Sky Galaxy is located contains at least more than 10,000 stars, and the relative distance between star systems is much smaller than that in other areas of the Milky Way. The matter distribution density of these star systems also appears to be extremely high." As she spoke, Elena drew a line on the holographic star map, and the relative distances between each star were marked in the form of lines and numbers.

"The average distance between star systems in the Local Bubble of galaxies is less than two light-years, and even a considerable number of galaxies have relative distances of less than one light-year."

"What's even weirder is... the types of stars and other celestial bodies in this local bubble are really... a little too rich." Elena pursed her lips and reached out to pull the star map closer, zooming in on one of the stars.

"Do you remember which star has the largest diameter observed by your original civilization?"

"The largest star? Vy Canis Majoris? The one 5000 light-years away from Earth, 28 billion kilometers in diameter, and a billion times the size of our own sun?"

"Generally speaking, compared to relatively stable main sequence stars with lifespans of tens of billions of years, these red supergiants have extremely short lifespans, often only on the order of millions of years. Theoretically, they shouldn't even exist within the Local Bubble of the current galaxy in the sky. According to normal stellar evolution theory, such a large number of red supergiants, including this star, should have turned into supernovae and black holes millions or even tens of millions of years ago, rather than still stably undergoing nuclear fusion and shining brightly in the night sky today."

"Based on our long-term observations and research of all the stars in the Local Bubble of the entire Sky Galaxy, combined with comparisons with observational data on stars in other regions of the Milky Way, we have come to a surprising conclusion... That is, the rate of stellar nuclear fusion of all the stars in the Local Bubble of the Sky Galaxy is much slower than the rate at which stellar mass is consumed by stellar fusion in other regions of the Milky Way. In other words..."

"Is the rate of stellar nuclear fusion reaction in the area where the Sky Star civilization is located slower than in other areas of the universe?" Luo Ying, who was thinking with his head down, continued Elena's words.

"Wait... doesn't this mean... that the cosmological constant in the local bubble region of Sky Star is very likely to be different from that in other regions?" Thinking of this, Luo Ying suddenly realized a blind spot that he almost overlooked.

"No... not really... We've conducted long-term observations and studies of the Milky Way and other parts of the universe, comparing every cosmological constant. We've ultimately confirmed that the various physical constants within the Local Bubble of the Sky Galaxy are no different from those in other regions of the universe. However, for unknown reasons, the stellar fusion rate within the Local Bubble, where Sky Star resides, is inexplicably slower than that of stars in other regions of the Milky Way."

"This question still puzzles us today. Even after the completion of the Grand Unified Theory, we still cannot explain why the rate of nuclear fusion fuel consumption of all the stars in the Local Bubble where the galaxy is located is significantly slower than the theoretical value and the stars in other regions of the Milky Way?"

"This series of doubts makes us even more certain of the existence of a 'creator.' Perhaps the creator of the Sky Star civilization possesses the technological capability to rewrite the fundamental laws governing the universe, manipulating cosmological constants in ways we cannot comprehend or discover."

"At the same time, we are not the only ones who want to know about the creator. The Tree of Life itself also longs to know its true origin." Elena said, crossing her arms and leaning casually on the chair behind her.

"About 118,000 years ago... that is, about 1500 years after the birth of our civilization, we began large-scale space exploration. By that time, individuals in our civilization had only reached the second generation."

"Long-lived species are really great in this regard. The journey that humans took 5000 years and 200 generations to complete has been completed by you in less than two generations. To be honest... I envy you for this." Luo Ying said, touching his chin.

"After all, we might be a created species and civilization... so it's relatively normal for us to evolve and develop more efficiently, isn't it?"

"Furthermore, the civilization of Sky Star has had a clear purpose since its inception. This is very different from human civilization, which has always been in a state of blind development without a clear purpose."

"As I mentioned earlier... the earliest space explorations essentially involved directly utilizing the 100,000-kilometer-tall trunk of the Tree of Life, following the path created within it and reaching beyond the atmosphere. It was during that period that we discovered we could survive unprotected in space."

"Next, we began designing the spacecraft. It's worth mentioning that... while our spacecraft design was still being perfected, the Tree of Life itself had already created a spacecraft made entirely of its own biological materials."

"The design of that spacecraft is quite unique, based entirely on the evolutionary model of the Tree of Life itself. Its sails are made of phosphide blades, its main structure and hull are constructed from carbon nanotube room-temperature superconducting materials, and its propulsion system is powered by a bio-based heavy fusion fuel engine. It can be said that the Tree of Life systematically studied and thoroughly optimized our spacecraft blueprints, which were still under development at the time."

"And the first spaceship of the Sky Star civilization is this biological spaceship that is grown entirely from biological materials on the treetops at an altitude of hundreds of thousands of kilometers on Sky Star." Elena snapped her fingers and a holographic image appeared in the air between the two of them.

"Can a spaceship used for space travel be grown?" Luo Ying on the side complained.

"And the shape of your spaceship always reminds me of that space jellyfish in a novel I read that took off from Venus and eventually flew beyond Neptune's orbit and turned into a star ring..."

"There's no way... In the early days, the Tree of Life's spacecraft, which was designed entirely based on biological materials, had this shape. Although the Tree of Life was able to change the design style according to personal needs when designing this biological spacecraft, it still has a strong sense of what you call biopunk style?" Elena said jokingly.

"But... the most important thing, shouldn't it be the propulsion power of this ship? What civilization would use a heavy fusion propulsion engine for its first spacecraft launch?"

"Civilizations that can only use chemical rockets will be envious and cry. From many angles, this is too shameless, right?" Luo Ying's eyes twitched as he looked at the spacecraft introduction information and related data below the picture. After seeing the column of exhaust speed and acceleration data, Luo Ying couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Pfft! Exhaust speed 201km/s?! Cruising acceleration 0.2g?! Isn't this too outrageous?"

"With a specific impulse exceeding 20,000 seconds and an acceleration exceeding 0.1g, this is definitely a torch ship, right?"

"Is it okay? This speed seems almost like a turtle's pace to us today."

"And considering the relative size of this thing, the space required to install this engine and its own dry mass are too large..."

"Take this ship, for example. As the first spacecraft in our civilization's history, its long axis was over five kilometers long. The dry mass of its engines alone exceeded half the ship's total dry mass. Because of this massive dry mass, the ship couldn't carry much propellant or fuel. Furthermore, the heavy fusion propulsion engine required enormous heat dissipation. The temperature of its rear radiator could even reach over 1000000 Kelvin during operation."

"Pfft!!! The radiator can operate stably at one million Kelvin? !! What kind of crazy temperature is that?" Hearing this, Luo Ying's scientific concepts were once again severely impacted.

"Your materials science... is too weird, isn't it?"

"Actually... back then, we weren't yet able to produce materials of this level. It was mainly thanks to the Tree of Life that we were able to do this. As you know, as our civilization became more advanced, the Tree of Life's understanding of the microscopic world advanced, and its control over nanomachinery reached even deeper into the microscopic realm, allowing it to create materials that were simply incapable of being produced back then."

"Besides... the Tree of Life was essentially a planet-sized computer. The energy consumed per second and the amount of matter it could control at that time were truly that of a Type 1 civilization."

"That's right... your civilization has actually been a Type I civilization since its birth. It just needs some time to master and understand the application limits of the technology it possesses." Miss Luoying said shamefully when she thought of this.

"Using the early spacecraft built by the Tree of Life, the first astronauts of the Sky Star Civilization boarded that spacecraft to conduct preliminary surveys and investigations of various celestial bodies in the galaxy. The time spent on the voyage alone on the preliminary survey of the major celestial bodies in the galaxy was at least several years. At the same time, we also discovered that the Tree of Life built this initial biological spacecraft and left parts of itself in many places it passed through during the voyage. For example, when passing an asteroid, this biological spacecraft, which we named "Explorer", ejected a part of its biological tissue with a large number of nanomachines at the asteroid. After these creatures landed on the asteroid, the nanomachines in them quickly began to devour all kinds of minerals on the asteroid and used them to replicate themselves. In a relatively short period of time, the asteroid was turned into a sensory organ of the Tree of Life in outer space. The Tree of Life can make a certain degree of transformation to this sensory organ, turning it into a living space station or other forms of space infrastructure, such as a biological space dock that can use asteroid resources to manufacture smaller biological spacecraft, or a biological space solar power station that can use sunlight to generate energy while increasing the number of nanomachines by mining asteroid resources.

In addition to this asteroid, the Explorer Sky Star now has some of its own biological tissues left in many celestial bodies and space areas, such as the surface of Planet No. 1, which is closest to the sun. When passing there, the Explorer launched a considerable amount of biological tissues with nanomachines to the sun-facing side, and established a series of facilities on the surface of the sun-facing side to obtain energy from solar energy.

"Of course, there are also the Lagrange points of various celestial bodies within the galaxy. When the Explorer passes through these Lagrange points, it will also leave behind corresponding biological tissues with nanomachines. However, since many Lagrange points lack celestial bodies like asteroids, these biological tissues left there have difficulty obtaining more materials for self-replication. Therefore, those biological tissues with self-replication capabilities left in Lagrange points lacking materials will remain dormant until they can come into contact with materials that can be used for self-replication, or until they can come into contact with resources brought by our subsequent space industrialization in those areas."

"Of course, during this first space exploration of the Sky Star Civilization, we also landed on the surfaces of many celestial bodies and conducted in-depth research on their geological structures and planetary compositions... Of course, there's another point..."

"At the time, we hoped to find any traces that the 'creator' might have left on other celestial bodies in the galaxy."

"Did you find anything?"

"Unfortunately, although we have obtained a large amount of research data from surveys of the surfaces and underground of all celestial bodies, we have found absolutely no clues or traces that the creator may have left behind." Elena shook her head with a regretful expression.

"The entire expedition lasted several years. The Explorer toured the Sky Galaxy and various celestial bodies before returning to the canopy of the Tree of Life above the North Pole of Sky Star. During this scientific expedition, the first astronauts living on the biological ship also noticed a phenomenon. That is, during the voyage, there was no delay or interruption in the mental network perception between them and other individuals on the home planet. At their farthest point, they were at least nearly a hundred astronomical units away from the home planet. This phenomenon further proves that the mental perception network between the people of Sky Star is based on a certain principle of quantum entanglement. Even at a distance of nearly a hundred astronomical units, when information transmitted at the speed of light would experience a delay of hours, the mental perception network between the astronauts on the biological ship and the home planet society of Sky Star and the Tree of Life did not experience any form of delay or obstruction. This perception is beyond the distance and is obviously not limited by the speed of light."

"After this, the Tree of Life experiment, which had previously been overlooked by the Sky Star civilization, began to receive unprecedented attention. Its attempt to verify and clarify whether quantum entanglement could be used to miraculously transmit effective information, had previously received little attention.

"The Sky Star civilization began to try to use more sophisticated means to create macroscopic equipment capable of communicating in this way at a technological level."

"Of course, the Sky Star civilization at the time quickly discovered that while they could solve the macroscopic problem of quantum entanglement's inability to transmit effective information, their solution still relied on miraculous, powerful methods like the Tree of Life."

"Of course, the Sky Star civilization discovered that the essence of quantum entanglement is to rely on micro-wormholes created by the random fluctuations of vacuum foam. If they want to use micro-wormholes created by random fluctuations of vacuum foam to transmit effective information, they can only use strong magnetic fields to confine particles and control their current spin state. The success rate of this method is about one in ten thousand, that is, only one in ten thousand times will succeed. Therefore, this technology must establish a huge number of entangled particle pairs to increase the information transmission efficiency to a barely acceptable level. By deploying a huge number of entangled particle pairs, and then directly observing the spin changes of a large number of particles to send and receive information."

"For example, this method can be used to convey the simplest 0 and 1."

"If a photon's spin changes, it's a one; if it doesn't change, it's a zero. It's similar to Morse code, expressed using 0s and 1s, and like the ancient telegraph, it directly transmits text messages using the most basic 0s and 1s. This is the earliest information transmission method discovered by the Sky Star civilization that can transcend the speed of light."

"This method, of course, isn't without flaws. First, its communication data volume and bandwidth are extremely limited. In the early experimental stages, communications sent this way could only upload three bytes per hour. Although this method can bypass the speed of light barrier, this efficiency is clearly unacceptable. Therefore, in order to increase communication capacity and bandwidth after practical application, we had to choose the same "power-to-achieve-miracle" approach as the Tree of Life, that is, to build giant communication base stations designed based on this principle. So we chose to turn to the Tree of Life for help. Ultimately, with the help of the Tree of Life, we mobilized the nanomachines throughout the planet. Using the powerful computing power provided by the Tree of Life, this planet-sized computing center, we established dozens of these giant communication base stations across the planet. These base stations often cover hundreds of square kilometers, and their ancillary facilities and equipment can even reach several kilometers underground. Despite the large and complex communication equipment, we still successfully constructed the prototype of an early communication system that could ignore the speed of light barrier."

Chapter 119 Sky Star Planetary Rings and Dyson Clouds

"After completing that space exploration, the biological spacecraft created by the Tree of Life has been docked in a dock-like structure at the top of the Tree of Life's canopy at an altitude of 100,000 kilometers."

"That exploration also yielded detailed data on nearly every celestial body in the galaxy, including key information such as geological structure, atmospheric composition, and planetary surface environments. This provided ample preliminary preparation for our subsequent large-scale exploration of other celestial bodies throughout the galaxy."

"In the years that followed, in addition to organizing and studying the scientific research results of this expedition, the Sky Star civilization also began further space industrialization. Using the passages in the trunk of the Tree of Life, we easily delivered large payloads and basic supplies to the planet's synchronous orbit. Relying on the main trunk of the Tree of Life at the height of the synchronous orbit, we established numerous space stations, space docks, and zero-gravity factories around it. Within the space docks built around the Tree of Life, we successfully completed the first large spacecraft built entirely by our own capabilities. Unlike your civilization's early exploration of space, which relied on chemical rockets, the first spacecraft built by the Sky Star civilization used deuterium-deuterium fusion engines for propulsion."

"And unlike your early days of space exploration, when an entire civilization's ability to launch payloads and supplies into space depended on the maximum capacity of a single chemical rocket, the Sky Star civilization possessed the Tree of Life, a natural space elevator at an altitude of over hundreds of thousands of kilometers, as soon as it entered space. Relying on the main road created by the Tree of Life within its main body that can reach the height of synchronous orbit, we can easily transport cargo weighing tens of thousands of tons, or even heavier, all at once to an altitude of tens of thousands of kilometers, for further assembly and construction work. Sky Star's first batch of space industrial facilities were built there. At that time, a large number of space facilities were constructed around the main trunk of the Tree of Life, which grew above the North Pole and was located at the height of synchronous orbit. Forming a space infrastructure cluster the size of a city, this space industrial infrastructure cluster surrounded the main branches of the Tree of Life like a ring around the trunk, and was a famous scenic spot at the time." Elena said this, waving her right hand and opening an image on the holographic projection in front of her, showing the grandeur of the first space city built around the Tree of Life.

"Of course, the reason why the first batch of space infrastructure was built around the Tree of Life was also due to considerations of energy supply... Although these infrastructures are located in a synchronous orbit at an altitude of over 36000 kilometers, they are still much lower than the top of the tree canopy. The solar radiation received by the trunk is converted into microwave electricity. At that time, according to our needs, a part of the energy was specially transmitted by the Tree of Life to the main trunk at the height of the synchronous orbit. At that time, the space facilities built in this area generally had the ability to receive microwave electricity. Probably in the decades that followed, through this part of the construction "As a space-based industrial system standing high above the North Pole, we successfully carried out large-scale development and construction of two satellites on Sky Star. During this process, we have fully developed our own space elevator design and engineering capabilities. Relying on the microscopic processing capabilities of nanomachinery, we already have experience in large-scale production and use of the ultra-high-strength cables required for space elevators. Building on this foundation, less than 20 years after entering space, we began construction on Sky Star's first "artificial" space elevator." For some reason, Elena placed particular emphasis on the word "artificial."

"We already have the Tree of Life, a natural space elevator. But we won't be satisfied with relying solely on the Tree of Life for help. We also want to design and build a space elevator on our own."

"Of course, although this was a major project for us at the time, it wasn't a difficult task. Unlike the various problems you encountered during the design and theoretical demonstration of the space elevator, including the insufficient strength of carbon nanotubes, Sky Star utilizes naturally occurring ultra-high-strength tensile-resistant materials manufactured with the assistance of nanomachines. The tensile strength of the material we used to construct the space elevator cable far exceeds actual engineering requirements, while also possessing a range of excellent properties, including exceptional heat resistance. It can withstand temperatures approaching 2000 degrees Celsius generated by friction with the atmosphere without melting. Furthermore, it maintains room-temperature superconductivity even at temperatures approaching 2000 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, the material's shear resistance is more than adequate. Furthermore, thanks to the nanomachinery used for engineering construction within the planet's atmosphere, the space elevator was built and put into operation in just five years."

"After the space elevator, built on the equatorial continent, was put into operation, Sky Star established a second space industry cluster in synchronous orbit outside the North Pole region, but this second cluster is located above the equator."

"After the construction and commissioning of the first space elevator, our payload transportation and orbital insertion capabilities increased several times. In less than a decade, more than five more space elevators were built and put into operation in the equatorial region. It's worth noting that the ground base stations of these subsequent space elevators were not built on stable continental shelves, but on islands and sea surfaces where the vast mermaid community lives."

"At the time, these six space elevators were the hubs and frontiers of space exploration for the entire Sky Star. Large centrifugal wheeled space stations were built atop each of the six space elevators, each housing at least tens of millions of people."

"During these ten years, the Sky Star civilization gradually gained a thorough understanding of the materials and propulsion systems used in the Tree of Life's biological spaceship. Ultimately, with the Tree of Life's own help and their own efforts, the Sky Star civilization completed a complete technical replica of every aspect of that biological spaceship's systems."

"Using pure technology, we have recreated the various devices and technologies on that biological spacecraft, created using biological materials."

"We successfully replicated the flare engine used on biological spacecraft, based on the principle of heavy fusion, with an exhaust velocity exceeding 200 kilometers per second and a cruising acceleration of 0.2g. After possessing the technology to mass-produce this reactor and flare engine, the Sky Star civilization at that time realized that they actually had the ability to develop every celestial body in the entire solar system."

"What's interesting is that the Sky Star civilization at the time didn't focus on developing the entire star system, but instead planned to carry out another large-scale project, the construction of planetary rings."

"After the six equatorial space elevators were completed, the Sky Star civilization had already come up with this idea... to connect all six space elevator terminals at geostationary orbital altitudes to form a ring around the planet's equator. This ring would not only provide a large living area, but also utilize its enormous diameter to construct a large particle collider whose length would exceed that of the planet itself."

"At the time, the particle accelerator was called the Planetary Ring Equatorial Particle Collider. Of course, relying solely on the microwave power provided by the planet itself to drive the collider was definitely not enough."

"With the help of the ultra-high-strength, lightweight rigid materials provided by the Tree of Life, the ring surrounding the entire planet was built in just eight years. We built a large particle collider on the ring that orbits the entire planet. Of course, due to the enormous amount of energy consumed by this particle collider, and the fact that relying solely on the microwave power continuously emitted by the planet itself is no longer sufficient to operate it long-term, we have built a large number of heavy fusion reactors on the surface of this ring. These reactions provide the energy to drive this giant particle accelerator."

"Incidentally, this giant particle accelerator also produced some unexpected products. The Sky Star civilization began to use the giant particle accelerator to produce antimatter in relatively large quantities for the first time. Of course, this is a story for another time.

"In addition, the Sky Star civilization has discovered something interesting: the Tree of Life itself is changing. The biological spaceship docked in the tree's canopy hasn't remained unchanged over the years. While docked in the organic biomass dock, we discovered that the Tree of Life was modifying the spaceship... Specifically, we discovered that the appearance of the docked spaceship was slowly changing. As the spaceship was modified by a portion of nanomachines released from the trunk of the Tree of Life, we unexpectedly discovered that after the Tree of Life's modifications, the ship's performance in all aspects has been improved. For example, the exhaust velocity has increased significantly, reaching at least 300 kilometers per second, and the cruising acceleration under normal conditions can be maintained at around 1g."

"You said... this improvement process is after you complete the construction of the space elevator and the star ring?" Although Miss Luoying still had some half-understanding of some things at this time, due to the information that the spiritual perception network was transmitting to her, Luoying, who originally did not understand it, began to learn a lot of knowledge in this area. According to the results of Elena and Xiaoyou's examination of herself, the speed of fusion between herself and the spiritual network was accelerating, and it seemed that this fusion seemed irreversible. Perhaps it was the influence of the perception network in this life. For some reason, the more Luoying looked at Elena, the more she liked her, and she even wanted to get together with her. They slept without clothes together, hugged each other intimately, and did naughty things. Elena on the opposite side obviously sensed her thoughts. In Elena's eyes, Luoyang's current appearance was indeed very beautiful. Although Elena had tasted the bodies of many beautiful mermaids, Luoying's current appearance really touched Elena's XP in various senses. Lamia's beautiful and somewhat cute appearance made Elena really want to touch some parts of the other's body with her hands, or taste the taste of the other's lips, and feel the pleasure of close contact with the other.

Although Elena did have this idea at this time, and Luoying obviously didn't want to refuse, both of them still restrained their desires. After all, there would be plenty of time to do such things in the future, and there was no need to rush. The focus now was to let Luoying fully understand the development history of the Sky Star civilization and compare it with the human society where Luoying had lived in the past, to see if they could find clues about the reason why Luoying came here and the information about the mysterious "creator" who existed in the process of the birth of life on Sky Star.

.........

"After completing its transformation, the bio-spacecraft set sail again from the canopy dock of the Tree of Life above the North Pole of Sky Star after decades. At that time, the equatorial ring of Sky Star had just been completed, and we were still perfecting the various functions of the equatorial ring particle accelerator."

"At the time, there was also the idea of ​​establishing an artificial ecosystem and a giant space habitat on the equatorial ring. However, all subsequent construction projects and plans had to wait until the ring particle accelerator was debugged and fully functional before we could proceed with the next step."

"During this period, the bio-spacecraft in the canopy of Sky Star set off again. This time, its destination was Planet One, the innermost planet of the Sky Galaxy. As early as the first space exploration, this bio-spacecraft launched a large number of biomass blocks with nanomachines towards the surface of Planet One. After those nanomachines came into contact with various resources on the surface, they began to replicate themselves frantically on the sun-facing side of Planet One, forming a photovoltaic array structure, continuously collecting solar energy resources from the sun-facing side of Planet One, which is closest to the sun. The bio-spacecraft's second voyage was headed straight for Planet One..."

"After arriving above Planet One, the Bio-Explorer spacecraft began to drop biomass clumps carrying a large number of nanomachines onto the surface of Planet One, just like it did many years ago. However, the scale of this time is far beyond what it was before." Elena called up the footage of this historical record and played it on the holographic projection in front of the two of them.

In the image, the bio-spacecraft Explorer hovered high in synchronous orbit around Planet One. A hollowed-out section beneath the Explorer, resembling a hangar, began frantically dropping nanomechanical biomass clumps onto the planet's surface. Unlike the small drop of nanomechanical biomass released decades ago, this time the scale of the space drop numbered in the tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands. These nanomechanical biomass clumps rained down on Planet One's atmosphereless surface. Upon contact, the nanomachines contained within them began to assimilate the surrounding material, accelerating their own replication. Large numbers of these nanomachines seeped into the rocks and soil of the planet's surface, slowly but efficiently peeling away the planet's outer layer. Only then did the people of Sky Star realize what the Tree of Life was planning to do next... Although the nanomachines dropped onto Planet One weren't consuming the planet very quickly, at this rate of replication, Planet One, far exceeding Earth in both size and mass, would be completely devoured and dismantled in a matter of a few hundred years at most.

While everything was happening on Planet No. 1, the Sky Star Civilization was also communicating with the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life expressed its next actions and goals. The nanomachines on Planet No. 1 would gradually dismantle the entire Planet No. 1 in the following time and use all its materials to build the Dyson Cloud.

According to the calculations of the Tree of Life and the Sky people at that time, after completely dismantling Planet No. 1, the materials they obtained and the Dyson cloud they built could probably collect about 10% of the energy of a star. For the Sky civilization, which was still a Type 1 planetary civilization at the time, this was an incomparably huge amount of energy. After the construction of this Dyson cloud facility was completed, a portion of the energy would be wirelessly transmitted back to the Tree of Life at the North Pole of Sky. At the same time, the Sky people could also use this energy to accelerate the development of their own civilization. This Dyson cloud facility planned to be built by dismantling Planet No. 1 was a win-win option for both the Sky people and the Tree of Life itself.

…………

"However, considering that it would take a considerable amount of time to dismantle Planet One, and the supporting facilities of the Sky Star Ring itself had not been fully completed, the dismantling of Planet One to build the Dyson Cloud was more like a long-term infrastructure construction. While the nanomachines on Planet One were dismantling Planet One bit by bit, the construction progress of the Sky Star Ring in orbit was also accelerating. With the completion of the orbital ring particle accelerator, we began to build a complete artificial ecosystem on the inner side of the orbital ring near the planet. At that time, our experience in building a circular ecosystem entirely by artificial means was not so mature, so we borrowed the help of the Tree of Life and introduced some of the nanomachines that made up the ecosystem directly into the ring. As we expected, these nanomachines began to build an artificial ecosystem in the residential area inside the ring." Elena looked at Luoying opposite her, but saw that Miss Luoying opposite was thinking with her head down.

"Hmm... let me think... If I had to find a way to describe it, you've built a Gaia-like utopia on the orbiting star ring?"

"You can understand it that way... But one thing is, our compatriots at the time didn't have much thought about living in the orbiting star ring. It's not surprising..."

Because when you have already built a perfect utopia, the attraction of building a second utopia on the track will naturally be less.

"For a civilization living in a utopia, they don't envy another utopian civilization."

"The utopia above the sky has a certain appeal, but for the Sky Star, who had already achieved complete material and spiritual satisfaction, the appeal was not particularly great."

Chapter 120: Sky Star Civilization and the Torch Engine Entering the Starry Sky (5000 words)

"But what's interesting is that although the vast majority of Sky Star people at the time had little interest in migrating to the Orbital Ring, even if there were some, only a small number of them went there out of curiosity, or lived there for a long time for scientific research."

"The entire orbital ring is a completely artificial ecosystem created by human means. Although our civilization, thanks to the existence of the Tree of Life, a planetary atmosphere and geological control devices, has never encountered any global warming problems like yours caused by environmental pollution and excessive greenhouse gas emissions during its development and industrialization, Sky Planet itself is... should it be called an ocean Gaia planet?"

"In short, despite never having any environmental pollution issues on Sky Star, an ocean planet capable of altering its environment to meet the needs of intelligent life, the Sky Star civilization is still very persistent in wanting to replicate this environment in artificial space habitats or on other planets."

"For example, the Orbital Ring is one such example. It was an attempt in the early days of the Space Age to create a massive artificial space habitat that could replicate the environment of our home planet on a 1:1 scale. Of course, as you can see, the Orbital Ring above us is the result of this highly successful attempt. Thanks to the planetary computing power provided by the Tree of Life, the artificial ecosystem within the Orbital Ring was constructed quite smoothly. Although not many of our compatriots took the initiative to live there long-term after its completion, the completion of the Orbital Ring and its artificial ecosystem proved that the Sky Star civilization at that time already possessed the engineering capabilities to complete planetary-scale megastructures."

"It was probably around this time... that is, 117,975 years ago... that the development of the Sky Star civilization reached a true turning point..." Elena paused here.