Deep Space Wandering Fleet-Chapter 568 - 565: Eight Years Later

Every hibernation felt as if time stood still.

But when awakening from hibernation, time had already raced far ahead. If one got used to this, they might even look forward to hibernation, because each awakening brought the discovery of tremendous changes in society.

In this way, one could understand why so many people in Earth Civilization had entered hibernation, because they were always hoping for a better future...

If the future became more beautiful, then hibernation was worth looking forward to...

Zhang Yuan gradually regained clarity from his groggy state, his pupils refocusing.

Above him shone bright lights, with a robot nurse taking care of him.

He glanced at the calendar on the wall screen.

[Epoch 7803.10.12.]

[9:30:56]

[56, 57, 58...]

The numbers ticked by one by one.

"Have I been in hibernation for eight years?" He stared blankly for an hour as his brain slowly returned to normal. Then, with a startled expression, he turned to look at the other beds around him where many people were still in a comatose state.

This indicated that the population of the entire civilization had not yet fully revived.

There was no choice, for a civilization, people were most important, only then came tools. Without people, the revival of civilization would no longer be possible. With insufficient tools, it just meant a slightly slower rise.

"Your consciousness is now healthy, and you may choose to notify your family or eat something. Your current pulse is 122 beats per minute, and blood pressure is normal," the robot nurse informed him.

Blinking for a moment, upon awakening, he saw Lin Xuanyuan’s smiling face; she had received the robot’s notification and had hurried over.

"...How is the development going?" Zhang Yuan’s voice was a little hoarse.

"Mm, it’s going smoothly, I guess. The development of the Underground City is at 60%, and 80% of the population has awakened! But we need to expand the population; soon one Underground City won’t be enough... You’ll see for yourself when you go out there!"

"Just rest up and don’t think too much for now."

A week later, Zhang Yuan was officially discharged from the hospital. Some engineer buddies teased him on social media, calling him a scientist who was "completely useless"—otherwise, he should have been awakened as a priority, not left until last.

This made Zhang Yuan rather embarrassed.

Indeed, he was one of the last to come out of the Virtual World and among the later ones to be woken from hibernation, which sounded quite useless.

Of course, these buddies were just joking. How could scientists possibly be useless?

Then, some staff led a new batch of the awakened population on a car tour of the newly constructed Underground City, visiting areas like the industrial, agricultural, residential, educational, scientific, and pollution treatment zones. Nothing special, just the ordinary Underground City layout, which wasn’t much different from the previous ones.

Community staff took Zhang Yuan to his new residence, which was just over thirty square meters, but the couple would still live together.

"The current living space is rather small, but once the shelter is fully developed, you can exchange it for a larger room for free, as per the old model."

This young staff member was explaining the current property policy.

The houses they had purchased on the Big Ice Ball couldn’t possibly be brought here, but many people couldn’t afford to buy them all over again.

Therefore, the government department will restore fixed assets to everyone on a one-to-one basis.

"...Currently, the price of consumer goods is still quite expensive, and it’s necessary to implement a rationing system because our productivity has not fully recovered and we don’t have the capacity to produce excess goods. Please understand this point,"

"No problem, of course no problem! Thank you all for your hard work."

Zhang Yuan waved his hand dismissively. Goods and possessions were extraneous, suffering a little now was normal.

He had amassed such a vast fortune over several lifetimes that he could never spend it all...

Zhang Yuan was someone who couldn’t stay idle. Since he didn’t have work duties at the moment, he decided to take a stroll and see what his old friends were up to.

After emerging above ground, the first thing he saw were round, Water Cube-like structures, each holding tens of thousands of tons of transparent liquid.

"...This round guy is a right-handed neutrino detector, which is also one of our key construction goals. We’d better finish it this year, and then build an even bigger one..."

In nature, right-handed neutrinos do not exist, not even in the collision of neutron stars.

So using these creatures for communication became a very good method.

If we relied on conventional electromagnetic wave communication, it would seem a bit strenuous. Compared to a supernova, it was like comparing the light of a firefly to the brightness of the moon. Humans could easily miss these signals.

Li Zhendong licked his lips and said, "Once the neutron stars collide, the data will be packaged and sent over, including electromagnetic waves and right-handed neutrino signals."

"However, after traversing 1 light year, it’s not easy to discern these neutrino signals. This is when professional information specialists are needed..."

Li Zhendong was an information specialist, so he had been woken up a few years earlier.

Zhang Yuan looked up and saw a surface radar with a diameter of ten kilometers next to the Water Cube, emitting a silvery-white metallic sheen—it was not yet fully constructed.

Tower cranes were moving back and forth, aiding in the construction.

From what was known, the industrial capability of the New Human Civilization was less than a tenth of what it had been in the beginning...

But the toughest stage had passed. With a solid foundation, as a large part of the population woke up, industrial capacity would rise exponentially.

It was estimated that within ten years, they could reach the current population cap of forty million people and recover to their original state.

"Currently, the biggest conflict within our civilization is the academic structure of our population. There are too many engineers, and the number of scientists is severely insufficient. In the future, we will still have to rely on scientists."

"Therefore, the government has already started to expand the population, projecting that in the next fifty years, the population will increase to one hundred million. Over the next millennium, it will slowly expand to two hundred million... two hundred million is a relatively good state for our population."

"To compensate for the shortage of scientists, the best way is still to select talent from the Virtual World. Ha ha, we will be able to meet more old friends in the future!"

However, the number of qualified Transcendents was not that abundant. Adhering to the principle of better none than too many, the standards could not be arbitrarily lowered. Therefore, in the future, the proportion of ordinary people would increase, while the proportion of Transcendents would decrease a bit.

"These coming years are bound to become more and more lively, a major transformation that the New Human Civilization has never experienced before!"

Zhang Yuan suddenly asked, "By the way, have we notified the Radiant Galaxy Fleet? They would want to obtain these astronomical observation data, too, right? Or perhaps, they have already built these things on their own planet."

"Not yet." Li Zhendong frowned slightly and then shook his head gently, "I don’t know what’s going on. We have been industrializing here for eight years now; they should have been able to discover it. However, there has never been any communication between us!"

He pointed at the bright nuclear fusion lighting above their heads, its illuminating glow like a small sun.

Even though they were on a somewhat peripheral planet, in theory, the branches of the Radiant Galaxy should have known they would be coming here these years and would probably have sent some reconnaissance teams...