157: Technological Explosion and the "Unrelated" Star Core

The "Silent Zone" had become a temporary Shelter for the ark team.

Although surrounded by the void of the rule gaps, at least they didn't have to worry about being torn apart by storms or chased by "Scavengers" at every turn.

Everyone could finally catch their breath and pour their main energy into the grand plan of the "Star Network" proposed by Wen Youyi.

The entire Shelter instantly turned into a bustling, large-scale... construction site and laboratory.

Senior Brother Zhang was the busiest among them.

Three or four light screens of spiritual power hovered in front of him simultaneously, densely packed with sketches of energy circuits, matrix calculation formulas, and various strange symbols.

On one hand, he had to research how to use the newly acquired "star iron" and other Materials to reinforce the ark's hull and shield generator (in his words, "Let's upgrade our broken boat to an iron ship first, so it doesn't fall apart at the slightest touch"), and on the other, he had to lead Ying and several "Purifiers" who studied Formations to fully tackle the core technology of the "Star Network"—how to build a stable, covert, and efficient energy information transmission channel.

"No, no, the attenuation coefficient of the energy ripples here is too high. According to this model, the signal will become background noise before it travels a hundred miles..."

"Try using Star Core Power as a carrier wave? Its fluctuation characteristics are more stable..."

"But the Star Core fluctuation is too conspicuous and easily monitored by the "spirit net" for abnormal fluctuations. We have to "encrypt" it, wrap it in a shell..."

Such arguments often erupted in the laboratory, occasionally accompanied by small energy flashes and a pungent, burnt smell—that was usually when some experimental Formation overloaded and burned out.

Zhao Iron Pillar had become the chief laborer and head of security.

Leading two other strong "Purifiers," he was responsible for the initial forging and shaping of the heavy "star iron" metal ingots according to Senior Brother Zhang's requirements.

The clanging sound of hammering became the background music of the Shelter.

"Heave! Eighty! Heave! Eighty!" Zhao Iron Pillar shouted his self-invented chant, swinging a large hammer temporarily condensed from Star Power, sweating profusely as he hammered a red-hot piece of "star iron," preparing to forge new weapons and armor for himself and the others in the team.

Although the process was rough, the base Materials were good, so the finished product would definitely be excellent.

Wang Wu was responsible for internal affairs and intelligence organization.

Using the "star chain" and "Mind Net," he carefully maintained minimal contact with the "Star Sparks" awakened in the outside world, screening and summarizing the fragmented information coming from all sides, trying to piece together the latest movements of the "Creation Heavenly Court" and its minions.

As for Wen Youyi himself, he had entered a state of "deep seclusion."

He sat cross-legged beside the altar, his mind almost completely immersed in his Sea of Consciousness, fully "decompressing" and "compiling" the ancient knowledge, and attempting to integrate it with what he had learned, seen, and heard.

This process was even more difficult and... interesting than he had imagined.

He discovered that the ancient starship civilization's understanding and application of energy had both commonalities and stark differences from the Cultivation Technique, Formations, and even the scientific thinking of his previous life in the Immortal Realm.

It was like writing a program using C++, Java, and Python at the same time; the syntax was different, the logic was distinct, but the ultimate goal was to achieve functionality.

"Tsk tsk, this 'basic energy shaping' isn't that just 3D printing at a microscopic level? Using Mental Energy to guide the arrangement and combination of energy particles to form a specific structure... If one could learn this, wouldn't it be creating things out of thin air?"

"Oh? This 'environmental rule adaptability simulation'... this is something. It's equivalent to adding a dynamic camouflage System to oneself, automatically adjusting one's own energy fluctuations to be in sync with the environment. It's high-level invisibility!"

"Hahaha! The design idea of this 'logic lock' is practically a tailor-made backdoor for the "spirit net"! Utilizing the loopholes in its own rules to achieve privilege bypass... Although it's only basic theory, the direction is correct!"

He sometimes frowned in deep thought, sometimes clapped his hands and laughed, like a child who had discovered a new toy.

Many areas that seemed mysterious and profound in the Immortal Realm, requiring "Comprehension Ability" and "Opportunity" to touch, were broken down into "technologies" that could be learned and optimized in the ancient civilization's knowledge System.

Of course, the Fusion process was not all smooth sailing.

Once, he tried to combine a starship's "energy diversion technique" with his own "Star Domain," which almost caused the structure of the Domain to collapse, leaving him severely injured.

Another time, he tried to understand a theory about "high-dimensional information projection," which left him dizzy, feeling as if his brain was a USB drive filled with garbled code, almost causing it to format.

Besides digesting knowledge, he had an even more important task—"training" the Star Core.

The complete Star Core was the core of the "Star Network" plan, the main server CPU of the future.

But this thing was currently more like an arrogant, primitive System that followed ancient instructions; many functions required "permissions" or specific "instruction sets" to be called.

Wen Youyi's approach was very simple—coax and deceive, wear it down.

He no longer just crudely extracted the Star Core's energy as before, but tried to use his own Mental Energy, just like writing code, to "communicate" with the vast and ancient consciousness within the Star Core.

"Brother Core, let's negotiate, shall we? You see, we are now grasshoppers on the same rope. You help me, and I can take you to find more 'brothers' (other star core fragments), helping you restore your past glory, right?"

"Hey, yes, that's it, split a tiny bit of power and run it along this path... See, isn't this more efficient? And the efficiency is even higher?"

"Brother Core is awesome! Brother Core is mighty! I knew you were righteous!"

He was like the most devout programmer, debugging the "API interface" and optimizing the "algorithms" for the "server" over and over again.

This process was extremely mentally exhausting, and progress was as slow as a snail crawling.

Most of the time, the Star Core was indifferent, only instinctively maintaining the operation of the Shelter and the connection of the "star chain."

But occasionally, after Wen Youyi's countless attempts, or when a certain idea happened to touch the underlying logic of the Star Core, the Star Core would send a faint fluctuation of approval and cooperatively adjust its energy output.

Whenever this happened, Wen Youyi would be moved to tears, feeling more accomplished than when he successfully ran "Hello World" for the first time in his previous life.

Under his "wearing down" tactics and the technical Breakthroughs of Senior Brother Zhang and the others, the Shelter was quietly changing.

On the hull of the "ark," reinforcement components forged from "star iron" and armor plates with faintly flowing runes began to be embedded; it finally didn't look like a broken boat that would fall apart at any moment.

A few silver-gray metal balls that had been successfully "reflashed" by Senior Brother Zhang (now named "little broom No. 1, No. 2...") were diligently cleaning every corner of the Shelter, and even starting to try to help carry some lighter Materials according to simple instructions.

And the most important Breakthrough came from Ying.

Combining the analysis of the "spirit net" structure in the ancient knowledge with the "logic lock" idea provided by Wen Youyi, she successfully designed a brand-new "signal encryption shell."

This encryption shell could disguise the Star Core's fluctuations as some kind of harmless energy radiation naturally existing in the rule gaps, greatly reducing the risk of being monitored by the "spirit net."

The cornerstone of the "Star Network" was being solidified, piece by piece.

The sprout of a technological explosion was quietly growing in this silent rule gap.

Wen Youyi looked at the busy and hopeful scene before him, rubbed his swollen temples, and grinned:

"Once we get this 'local area network' up and running, watch me hit the 'main server' of that 'Creation Heavenly Court' with a DDoS attack (although he wasn't sure if the other party used the IP protocol)..."

(End of chapter)