Deep Space Wandering Fleet-Chapter 589 - 586: 30 Years of Progress

And so it was, under the meticulous guidance of Zhang Yuan, the scientist, that by the 30th year, nearly all the systemic flaws related to optical perception had been fully repaired.

About one-tenth of the Tos People had acquired vision through surgery, and this percentage was still on the rise. This collaborative experiment was extremely beneficial for both civilizations—the Tos Civilization obtained something they had longed for, and humans received substantial rewards and valuable work experience.

The work was not in vain. Under Zhang Yuan’s leadership, the Superdimensional Perception Laboratory had expanded to 690 talents—a team highly experienced and capable. Even without Zhang Yuan, the core figure, many tasks could proceed independently. Only then could it be considered a normal laboratory.

The current focus of work would gradually shift to researching "Pseudo-men," the step before strong artificial intelligence, as well as the perfection of Extra Perception, which would certainly keep everyone busy for a while.

"How is the Tos Civilization doing? It seems they haven’t provided feedback in several days."

One day, Zhang Yuan asked a Diplomat.

"All is well! They might be playing with smartphones, want to go and see?"

Indeed, the Tos People were an exceptionally adaptable species. In just one or two months, they could adapt to movement under visual conditions in the first phase. In three to five years, they could completely adjust.

And once they adapted to optical perception, they discovered that their previous senses were uncomfortably lacking. Mobile games had become their new toy—ahem, it seems we’ve digressed a bit!

In short, those Tos People who had gained visual perception worshiped Zhang Yuan, the grand scientist, with fervent enthusiasm, as if meeting their reborn parents. Each time Zhang Yuan visited those experimenters who had undergone surgery, he was treated to a series of formal gestures.

Even Captain Feng of the New Human Civilization didn’t hold half the stature of Zhang Yuan!

This situation left Zhang Yuan quite embarrassed—not because of his high status, but because the rituals were too troublesome. Just standing there in a daze was akin to meditating for an hour or two; the longer the meditation, the better, but who could withstand that repetitively!

"...Respected New Human Civilization, our friendship is as broad as the Milky Way! However, we must say, we need to return."

"Our greatest goal this time was optical perception, and now, this discipline has completely matured. After more than a decade of testing, we can hardly find any flaws and have come to deeply understand its convenience."

"We want to quickly teach this new technology to our headquarters in the rear. We have yearned for light for a whole forty thousand years. Until we truly possessed it, it was hard to describe the feeling, truly difficult. Even our greatest Saint could not depict the sensation of light."

"Once we have light, we never want to lose it again..."

The leader of the Tos People kept praising Zhang Yuan’s team, even wanting to whisk them away as if they were alive.

Carving out a skylight in the depths of one’s mind is undoubtedly a real challenge!

The scientists within the Tos Civilization were not fools. They had discussed it for a long time, still marveling at its difficulty. Forty thousand more years would still not suffice.

Overall, it was inevitable that the two sides would become close friends.

As for the tremendous price paid by the Tos Civilization—it was worth it, absolutely worth it!

In this meeting, after the leader finished speaking, it was Zhang Yuan’s turn to speak. He cleared his throat and said, "Friends of the Tos Civilization, regarding the issue of visual imaging, there are no major problems as of now. The only difference is that in your world, there are only two colors, black and white, but in fact, there are many more colors in the world."

"These are what we typically refer to as the three primary colors: red, blue, and green. With these three colors, many more can be combined."

"Therefore, the next task is to form a recognition of various colors in the mind. Regarding the New Human side, I will gift you the data on Extra Colors. However, due to the differences in the brains of individuals from both civilizations, it is not possible to be entirely interchangeable."

Adding colors equates to extra work, so humans didn’t plan to assist them in doing so. The Tos People needed to perform their own technological upgrades.

After all, with each new color added, the workload would increase considerably. Whether the upgrade could be successful or not wasn’t something people were going to concern themselves with too much; such labor-intensive work had already consumed so much of the scientific workers’ youth...

Even though the two parties had formed a very profound friendship, it was impossible to arrange everything perfectly, as that would take hundreds of years.

For the Tos Civilization, having eyes that could distinguish black and white was already sufficient, a thousand to ten thousand times better than the past. Blindly adding colors might cause cognitive confusion in the brain, so it was preferable to use them as is for the time being.

As for subsequent upgrades and development, these would naturally have to rely on oneself, rather than blindly depending on others. They also knew that between civilizations, the most important aspect was interests. Good relations meant mutual assistance and maintaining long-term friendships, not shamelessly sticking close, gaining a little advantage, and risking a significant loss.

Besides, if they couldn’t manage the upgrades themselves, they would still have to rely on people like Zhang Yuan.

Therefore, the next meeting’s content involved summarizing the progress made in cooperation over the past thirty years and envisioning the future development direction: the most important, of course, was the series of trades brought about by "optical perception." Apart from that, there were numerous scientific collaborations.

First, the mutual Curvature Technology breakthroughs had reached thrice the speed of light and then hit a bottleneck.

There was a significant threshold here, not easily crossed in a short period of time; it might require a lengthy accumulation of experience to make gradual improvements.

Regarding Planet-level Curvature Technology, there had been certain progress, but it stumbled at a particular juncture. Its core was a highly complex mathematical problem that couldn’t be urgently addressed and had to be abandoned for the moment.

Second, after extensive military exercises, a layered attack approach centered on super-high maneuverability had been developed in the military realm.

New Human Civilization now possessed military strength that could thoroughly overwhelm any third-level civilization. Even if the adversary had a War Star as a support, humans could achieve victory with virtually no casualties.

Once through a Light Barrier, the trajectory of a Curvature Spaceship became difficult to track, and if the enemy couldn’t even capture it, how could they shoot it down?

On the other hand, after long-term research, high-sensitivity laser radars, electronic jamming, and a series of antimatter weapons all had significant breakthroughs.

People discovered that warfare between Level 4 civilizations was still rare. Because escaping from war was just too easy!

A general described in his report, "...But we believe that the likelihood of conflict between Level 4 civilizations will become more common compared to during the third-level civilization era. Yes, wars are unlikely to break out, but the probability is much higher than that at the third level."

"Third-level civilizations deter each other, often neither able to defeat nor escape the other."

"Level 4 civilizations, the side that initiates the attack, has a significant first-mover advantage."

"The defending side is at a substantial disadvantage."

"If a war does break out, it is likely to result in a swift victory or defeat."

Apart from "Curvature Missiles" that could exceed the speed of light, no other weapons could catch up to a Curvature Spaceship.

But in the vast Universe, where should the Curvature Missiles be fired? Could their hit rate reach one in ten thousand?

It’s challenging—extremely challenging. At present, human Curvature Missiles could only hit high-speed targets within a distance of 2 light-minutes, and such targets needed to emit obvious traces of movement, like strong light or intense infrared radiation.

Otherwise, the missile’s hit rate would plummet.