160: Chapter 160 A blind man weighing 100,000 tons is not worthy of going to heaven, Quantum Star Map activated!

Alien civilization voyage timer: Day 25.

Pangu Laboratory, Level B2.

The twelve screens on the monitoring wall had been lit for three weeks without being turned off.

The one in the very center displayed a real-time feed of the low Earth orbit at an altitude of four hundred kilometers.

Su Che flipped through the space materials consumption list in his hand and drew a circle next to the last item: "Remaining special sintered geotechnical substrate."

Over the past period, the luan bird verification ship had been running back and forth non-stop.

Jiuquan Launch Base and Wenchang Launch Base were working shifts to ship supplies, and Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang's voice over the satellite communication grew hoarser by the day.

"Only twenty-three thousand tons left." Wen Bo set his enamel mug down on the console with a sharp clink. "At this rate of consumption, we'll hit rock bottom within ten days."

"Has CASIC been pressing us?" Su Che asked without looking up.

Academician Li Zhengyang paced over from the propulsion team, weighing his thermos in his hand, which had its lid tightly screwed on for once today.

"They have. They said a high-temperature sintering kiln isn't a microwave. A batch of substrate takes at least forty-eight hours to bake. To speed things up, they have to add more kilns, which requires land approval, wiring, and mobilizing workers."

Su Che folded the list in half and tossed it onto the table.

"No more kilns."

He pulled the keyboard over and opened the digital twin interface on the Mirror World's backend.

The virtual model of the Dry Dock was synchronized in real-time with the physical one in orbit, accurate down to the torque value of every single bolt.

Su Che selected the non-load-bearing partition areas inside the final assembly cabin, his cursor sweeping across seventeen nodes.

The design stress in these positions was far lower than that of the main load-bearing trusses, meaning there was absolutely no need to transport prefabricated parts from the ground.

The on-orbit 3D printing equipment could just ingest space debris and spit them out.

"Modify the components of all seventeen areas to in-situ manufacturing."

Su Che pushed a screenshot of the plan to Lieutenant General Peng Zhenbang's private terminal. "Allocate the saved transport capacity to replenish the final part of the keel truss."

A receipt popped up in the bottom-right corner of the screen: Jiuquan Launch Base, received.

Su Che closed the push notification and leaned back.

The Dry Dock was growing. Its speed was decent, but not fast.

Wen Bo had estimated a figure a few days ago: the overall construction could be completed in about two months.

Two months.

It was enough, yet not enough.

The Dry Dock was just a shell. What went inside it was the key.

Of the five core systems of the 100,000-ton luan bird, three had already been completed: propulsion, takeoff and landing, and self-repair.

The command and control system was scheduled later. It relied on the Global Deep Space Quantum Radar and the Sub-nanometer Quantum Chip, which were currently untouchable.

But there was another one scheduled ahead of command and control.

Navigation.

Space-Based Quantum Star Map Navigation.

An aerospace carrier without a navigation system, once thrown into orbit with its 100,000-ton mass, wouldn't even know where it was.

The prerequisite technologies were not lacking.

Quantum Communication was mature, Yiren AI was online, and the computing power of the Pangu Quantum Computer was abundant.

The only thing left to do was to string these elements together, weaving them into a three-dimensional coordinate network covering the Earth-Moon system.

In his mind, a mechanical voice popped up right on cue.

"[Ding! Missing navigation system detected for the 100,000-ton aerospace carrier. Main storyline research and development task triggered!]"

"[Task Name: A 100,000-Ton Blind Vessel Doesn't Deserve to Take to the Skies!]"

"[Task Content: An aerospace carrier without navigation is no different from a tractor without a steering wheel! Please develop the Space-Based Quantum Star Map Navigation System, enabling the luan bird to achieve nanometer-level coordinate positioning, multi-celestial body collaborative modeling, and interstellar coordinate anchoring within the Earth-Moon space!]"

"[Task Reward: 120,000 Skill Points. Unlock redemption rights for Quantum Star Map Precision Modeling Technology, Space-Based Node Collaborative Navigation Technology, and Interstellar Coordinate Anchoring Technology. Redemption cost: 60,000 points.]"

"[The host's current main Skill Point balance is sufficient. Would you like to redeem?]"

Su Che glanced at the reward column—a 120,000 return for a 60,000 redemption.

"Redeem."

"[Ding! 60,000 main Skill Points consumed. Core technologies unlocked!]"

"[System Tip: Accompanying auxiliary technologies/blueprints/plans have not been redeemed yet, including: Star Map Database Architecture (4,000 redemption points), Space-Based Navigation Terminal Design (3,000 redemption points), and Coordinate Calibration Algorithm (3,000 redemption points). Total redemption points: 10,000.]"

"Deduct from the virtual pool."

"[Ding! 10,000 Virtual Ecology Independent Points consumed. All auxiliary technologies unlocked!]"

A massive data package flooded into his conscious space.

The underlying logic of the three core technologies was crystal clear—

Quantum Star Map Precision Modeling: Using a satellite constellation in quantum entangled states to perform precise three-dimensional calibration of all celestial coordinate points in the Earth-Moon system.

Error limit: Nanometer-level.

Space-Based Node Collaborative Navigation: Satellites, relay stations, and ground base stations form a mutually-verifying navigation grid.

If any node goes down, the remaining ones automatically fill the gap without losing precision.

Interstellar Coordinate Anchoring: Equipping the luan bird with a cosmic-level house number.

Whether flying to the far side of the Moon or into the gaps of an asteroid belt, its absolute position would be locked within 0.01 seconds.

The star map database architecture, terminal hardware blueprints, and calibration algorithms in the auxiliary plans were also restored simultaneously.

After digesting the technology package, Su Che pulled out the materials list and went through it.

Quantum Communication satellites—the military warehouse had a batch of verification models with directly compatible interfaces.

High-precision star trackers—standard inventory items from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

Quantum storage chips—a portion of the 3-nanometer quantum chips used by the Pangu Quantum Computer would be partitioned for storage adaptation.

Yiren AI navigation unit—partitioning a lightweight sub-module from the core.

Everything was already in stock; no extra redemptions were needed.

Su Che picked up his encrypted handheld communicator.

"Dean Liu."

The sound of a chair scraping came from the other end, sounding as if someone had been dragged out of a half-asleep state.

"Have your subordinates handle the daily maintenance of the Mirror World. Pull yourself out of it."

Su Che pushed the technical framework outline to Liu Huaqiang's terminal. "Space-Based Quantum Star Map Navigation. Seven days."

"Seven days?" Liu Huaqiang's voice became much sharper. "Just adapting the underlying interface of Pangu OS will take two days, not to mention fully opening up the signal links of the Quantum Communication satellites..."

"That's why I'm calling you." Su Che switched the handheld communicator to his other ear, freeing up both hands to type commands on the keyboard.

"Academician Qian's optics group will handle the star tracker calibration and docking, Academician Li's physics group will run the theoretical models of celestial coordinates, and you will oversee the Pangu OS adaptation and signal links."

"What about you?"

"Writing the core algorithm."

He hung up.

Su Che created a new encrypted folder on his terminal and typed in the name: *Space-Based Quantum Star Map Navigation: Core Algorithm*.

Academician Qian Zhenhua had approached at some point. Leaving his thermos on the console, he tilted his head to look at Su Che's screen.

"Quantum star map?" The old man smacked his lips. "What scheme do you plan to use for the optical axis deviation compensation of the star trackers? The traditional method won't run on quantum channels."

"We're not using traditional schemes."

Su Che pulled up the architecture document for the coordinate calibration algorithm, flipped to the third page, and slid it over to him.

"Self-calibration via quantum entangled states. No ground relay is needed between the two satellites; optical axis synchronization is done directly through entangled particle pairs. This compresses the calibration delay from seconds down to microseconds."

Academician Qian Zhenhua took the document and flipped through a couple of pages.

"If you can get this algorithm to work, my work with those optical lenses will be a whole lot easier."

Su Che didn't reply. His fingers fell onto the keyboard as he typed the first line of code.

He switched open the digital twin backend of the Mirror World and carved out an independent space in the virtual low Earth orbit scene.

Only two things were deployed in this space: a celestial model of the Earth-Moon system replicated according to real orbital parameters, and a virtual Quantum Communication satellite.

All algorithm deductions and debugging would be run here first.

Once they worked, they would be poured into the real environment.

Lin Waner pushed a dining cart in through the side door.

She didn't stop next to Su Che, but placed a bottle of mineral water where his right hand could reach it and his left elbow wouldn't knock it over, before heading toward the other workstations.

Liu Huaqiang quickly walked into the hall from the elevator with his laptop, a smudge of a fingerprint still un-wiped on his black-rimmed glasses.

He pulled out the chair at the workstation to Su Che's right, connected to the terminal of the Pangu Quantum Computer, and pulled up the underlying interface documentation for Pangu OS.

Academician Qian Zhenhua had already returned to the optics group and was explaining the principle of optical axis alignment via quantum entangled state self-calibration to three young researchers.

Academician Li Zhengyang was huddled in a corner of the propulsion group, his thermos squeezed between his legs, flipping through a brick-thick copy of *Foundations of Celestial Mechanics* with one hand.

The sound of keyboards on Level B2 grew denser.

Su Che took a sip of mineral water and screwed the cap back on.

On the monitoring wall, the Dry Dock at an altitude of four hundred kilometers was still growing, piece by piece.

Five hundred silver-gray robots worked in shifts against the pitch-black backdrop of space, the white light of plasma welding torches flashing silently.

That massive metal skeleton would soon have its own eyes.