241: Chapter 241 Setting Sail Again

Gao Yu quickly got into his work state.

This concerned the survival of all humanity; fortunately, the talent and knowledge reserves were sufficient, it just required time.

But time was exactly what they lacked; water, food, and fuel were all issues.

If any one of them was exhausted, humanity would face extinction.

Gao Yuan began to find the situation tricky.

Every piece of technical equipment had to be started from scratch, as almost all complex machinery had failed.

Now, a complete system of civilization had to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Days passed by.

Another month went by, and someone used a steam engine to manufacture solar photovoltaic panels! Although the efficiency was low, there was no shortage of light energy on this meteorite.

This could be considered a solution to the problem of continuous power.

Half a month later, someone else built a hydrogen engine; in the gas cloud, there was no shortage of hydrogen and oxygen.

With this hydrogen generator, combustion would not only completely solve the energy problem but also the water problem.

Humanity began to enter the fast lane of revival.

Now, only the food problem remained...

Luckily, food was still relatively sufficient, as almost all the food stored in the fleet had been brought in.

Before they knew it, a year had passed...

Gao Yuan began to grow restless; humanity had built simple cities here, but the food problem still hadn't been solved.

Various simple machines had already entered mass production.

However, smart devices were still not viable because there were no chips... chips required high-precision instruments, and in humanity's current state, such instruments could not yet be produced.

Without smart devices, the speed of development was limited.

Previously, it took humanity nearly five hundred years to move from the steam age to the smart age; now, even with technical reserves, the industrial system progressed in stages, and it was impossible to replicate the path taken before in just a few months.

Gao Yuan looked at the sky; the sky here was always a blue-purple, with no distinction between day and night, and the light was sometimes bright and sometimes dim.

Gao Yuan couldn't contact other human bases now, and he didn't know how they were doing.

At that moment, a car stopped beside Gao Yuan.

"Marshal, it's a success!"

"A success?"

"Yes, the Academy of Sciences has completed the editing of photosynthetic bacteria, and now the first batch of photosynthetic bacteria has successfully synthesized starch!"

Gao Yuan was overjoyed...

This was a good start...

Although there was still a long way to go, synthesizing starch was a crucial step; at least they wouldn't starve to death...

However, the nutrition wasn't comprehensive yet; they still needed to synthesize various vitamins and proteins! But protein is the most basic component of organisms, so since they could synthesize starch, synthesizing protein should already be achievable!

"Come, let's go take a look..."

"There's an even bigger surprise!"

"What? The Academy of Sciences modified the genes of cucumber seeds, and now cucumbers can be grown on Meteorite No. 1!"

cucumbers?

Gao Yuan was stunned...

"Yes, when we arrived, we actually brought many plant seeds, including human embryos, for the purpose of continuing human civilization. But this place isn't very suitable for Earth's vegetables; the ultraviolet rays are too strong, the air isn't quite right, and the carbon dioxide content is too low! There's no suitable soil here, but our scientists have made modifications so that vegetables can be grown indoors!"

"Why indoors?"

"Because there's too little carbon dioxide outside. Indoors, we can use artificial carbon dioxide, and indoors can filter out some of the ultraviolet rays! The modified cucumbers can secrete an acidic liquid to corrode rock, allowing the root system to penetrate the rock layer!"

Gao Yuan looked pleasantly surprised; they had vegetables now...

And they had food.

He arrived at the Academy of Sciences, which was already an ocean of joy.

Everyone was celebrating.

The success with food marked that humanity now had the capacity for long-term sustainability.

As long as they didn't die, they would eventually be able to leave.

Gao Yuan saw Gao Yu standing calmly on a high point, looking at the sky!

"This Saturnian son of yours is very impressive; those eyes of his are like they have special powers, even more effective than many precision instruments!"

"He's alright!"

Gao Yuan was still surprised; this son had given him several surprises.

His eldest son did nothing but fight all day.

During this time, without even a mecha, he was bored to death.

After encouraging the researchers with a few words, Gao Yuan left...

Humanity gradually began to get back on track...

This meteorite continued to fly forward within the Spiral Arm.

Living on it, they could see new scenery every day.

Five years later, an aircraft finally took off from the meteorite.

The meteorite's gravity was very low, and its first cosmic velocity was very small—only one percent of Earth's. Even a slightly better plane could enter space.

Therefore, as long as modern aircraft were manufactured, it meant they possessed spaceflight capabilities.

Gao Yuan immediately went to check on the other human bases; some had already seen their human populations go extinct, some were still barely surviving, and some, although they had developed some technology, hadn't been able to leave their bases due to limited capabilities.

Now, Gao Yuan's arrival allowed the human bases to be connected once again.

When they saw the human aircraft, the people at Base No. 5 cried with excitement.

They thought they were going to be trapped and die here as well.

Several years had passed, and people had already lost hope.

Now, seeing their comrades' aircraft arrive...

Their eyes immediately filled with tears.

Hundreds of millions of humans began to enter the fast lane, and large amounts of resources were being mined.

Another five years passed...

Humanity finally manufactured high-performance chips again, which provided the initial production capacity for smart devices.

Warships and mechas were once again put on the agenda.

After twenty years of high-speed construction, the surrounding meteorites had all been transformed into the Human Fleet.

Antimatter was also manufactured; to restore their former glory, humanity had spent the efforts of an entire generation.

Many people had grown old.

But Gao Yuan still remained young.

He felt it was time to set out once again.

Humanity possessed the capability for long-distance interstellar travel.

Now they were to enter the true Spiral Arm Core; the massive Human Fleet set out once again, just as they had when they first departed from Earth.

But this time, upon leaving, no one felt any attachment to this place.

The flight of aircraft within the gas cloud would encounter immense air resistance, so the Human Fleet's current top speed was only 1% of the speed of light.

Furthermore, it required a massive amount of energy; for the same distance, the energy consumption was more than ten times that outside the Spiral Arm.

Moreover, the conditions inside the gas cloud were complex, and it lacked long-range detection capabilities.

Gao Yuan intelligently manufactured a large number of long-range communication satellites; these satellites could distribute themselves in a fission-like manner through their own manufacturing capabilities. Whenever they encountered a metallic meteorite, these satellites could automatically manufacture more satellites on it. Once manufactured, these new satellites would continue to travel further, repeating the previous process.

To travel long distances, they had to figure out exactly what the situation was in these airspaces.

To avoid plunging headlong into a newly formed star due to an unexpected situation...