I Have A Super USB Drive

by <unknown>

  Not, it was something more than a mere illusion...

  Chen Chen further dissected the matter. He was well aware of his mental psyche. If even the subspace was unable to impose its effects on him, how was it possible for a newborn to strike him with such a powerful illusion?

  If it was not a mere illusion, then what did it imply?

  "All of the existing psionicists so far have had their psionic abilities artificially injected, so this makes this child the first, and also the only psionicist with natural psionic abilities."

  Chen Chen muttered to himself. Was this the explanation for why he saw what he saw earlier?

  Again, he recalled the images that he saw earlier, of the ancient hospital and the looming shadow. The entire imagery suddenly reminded him of something vaguely familiar.

  He had an inkling suspicion that the presence he felt earlier was something he had experienced before. It was almost a decade ago but the sheer remembrance of it sent shivers down his spine.

  There was no bout about it, what he sensed just now was the presence of the subspace.

  "Why would I feel the subspace's presence when the world's first natural psionicist was born?"

  Chen Chen could tell that he was very close to grasping the truth. Though he was still several pieces away from solving this puzzle, one thing that he could declare with complete confidence was that this was a bad omen of things to come.

  "Sir Commander."

  While these puzzling thoughts were still swirling in Chen Chen's mind, Nancy suddenly reported to him, "I just received news that just half an hour ago, the Blacklight had broken through the Mandeville Point and entered the subspace."

  Chen Chen's furrowed brow took on an even more pronounced shape upon hearing of this news. If not for what he had just experienced, he would have regarded this piece of news with mild interest. However, the uncanny timing of the two events suggested it was more than a coincidence.

  Could it be that the Blacklight entering the subspace had something to do with the birth of this child?

  It proved difficult to grasp the connection between these two events. It would appear that apart from the uncanny timing, nothing else noticeable connected the two.

  Eventually, he decided to take a harsh approach. "Nancy, send the Black Knights and take away the baby. I know there's something major we can discover from the baby. I can't let this opportunity pass."

  "Understood."

  Nancy answered dutifully. It was cruel to take a child away from a mother, but this was not the time to question the ethics behind it. The existence of this child could potentially be a gigantic threat. Chen Chen had to address it as soon as possible. If he allowed himself a moment of weakness because of concern for the mother, he might come to regret it later on.

  Chen Chen had lost interest in touring the Ares Science City from thereon and headed back to the Spire 2 base. Within half an hour, a Black Knight came to him and presented a barely an hour old newborn baby to him.

  Chen Chen slowly took the baby from the Black Knight with a grave look in his eyes. He saw that the baby boy's body was flushed with red and wrinkled. He looked like a tiny old man.

  This was nothing out of the ordinary. Newborns usually looked like this and in several days, the boy would look like a healthy little toddler.

  Chen Chen took another look at the baby in his arms and proceeded to use Field to inspect the baby, but managed to find nothing worth noting. Then, he used his psionic energy instead to perform a similar inspection and this time, he sensed faint traces of psionic energy inside the baby.

  It would appear that the baby's psionic class was spiritual as well, which was not surprising since it was inherited to him from his parents. The psionic energy in the infantile body was extremely weak, even weaker than the initial psionic concentration of the individuals who received the L compound injection. However, there was also a vibrant liveliness brewing underneath...

  A natural psionicist.

  Chen Chen took a deep breath and had the Black Knight take the newborn baby from him. The constant movement seemed to have spooked the baby and he started crying again.

  "Let's not shelter this boy in the base. Take him somewhere safe in the Ares Science City."

  Chen Chen darted one final glance at the baby before noting, "Make sure he receives proper nutrition and create a convincing family background for him. The Black Knights can pose as his parents. I want to know every single thing there's to know about him as he grows up such as his mental state, physical growth, everything."

  "Got it."

  Nancy answered, but seemed puzzled by Chen Chen's motivations. "But why are you doing this..."

  "All I can tell you is that this has something to do with the subspace."

  Chen Chen answered without providing much detail, then left promptly.

  Everything that occurred today raised an alarm in Chen Chen.

  Although delving into the subspace was highly beneficial for the progress of mankind's galaxy colonization, it was not without its drastic drawbacks as well.

  What happened today was the first of many dangers to come. The birth of this child seemed closely related to the existence of the subspace.

  There was no telling what the consequences of this would be and even now, Chen Chen was only acting based on his instincts. What he knew as a certainty was that something was lurking inside the subspace that could wipe out mankind in a split second and he could sense something similarly ominous in the baby,

  If his gut did not deceive him, this was something almost apocalyptic.

  Chen Chen thought about this for some time and relayed his thoughts to Little X upon returning to Earth.

  Although Little X was mature enough now to make a vast majority of decisions independently, it was still a long shot to expect her to understand something so profound and without established rules such as this. After all, she was a programmed AI, not a carbon life-form like humans.

  "One way or another, we'll have to approach this with extreme caution."

  Chen Chen added. "I also need you to keep your eyes peeled on other married psionicists couples out there. There's a likelihood that their children will be natural-born psionicists as well. There's no guarantee about this. Perhaps I'll feel a similar suffocating aura if they give birth to more natural psionicists?"

  ...

  The days went by in the blink of an eye. Shaw had spent more than half a year in the subspace by this point.

  Shaw's days filled with nerves and agitation slowly transitioned to unwavering confidence on the job. Unfortunately, this also meant that his initial fixed concentration was muddled with mild moments of complacency. Now that he was accustomed to his job, he would navigate the spaceship while making small talk with his assistants.

  "Captain, there's a bright ocean three hundred thousand kilometers ahead of us."

  Marcy's voice sounded like fresh dew in the middle of a desert. She gazed at the distant glittering spots a great distance ahead of them. These strange white spots glittered constantly and rolled around the subspace like tiny little fireflies.

  "We can pass straight through them, they can't hurt us."

  Shaw gave the order. The spaceship cut straight through this so-called bright ocean without pause.

  There was no telling what these strange glittering entities were, but what was evident was that they could not harm the Blacklight. They scattered into all directions when the spaceship passed through them without resistance. Some of them vanished into thin air but were quickly replaced by new glittering spots appearing almost instantly after.

  Although this enchanting ocean stretched for a great distance, the spaceship coursed through it in a matter of seconds, leaving behind a torrent of subspace streams in its tracks.

  "Have we documented these things into the database?"

  After passing through the ocean, Shaw asked his assistants.

  Gordon replied dutifully, "Yes Captain, there are already several entries of this phen
omenon in the database already."

  Shaw smiled. He enjoyed being captain of a spaceship. "Alright, let's keep pushing on."

  Chapter 616: Dyson Cloud |

  When the Blacklight, the first extraterrestrial emigrant spacecraft in human history, entered the subspace, it disappeared from this universe and no signal would be transmitted back. Chen Chen would not know whether it succeeded, became trapped in the subspace or had been annihilated at once.

  Before it returned to the solar system, no one would know anything about the Blacklight.

  On this side of reality, Chen Chen's experiments on subspace navigation were still going on, and he did not slack off just because the Blacklight had gone on a mission.

  At the same time, with the birth of the subspace engine, Chen Chen decided on his own to build ten large transport ships comparable in size to aircraft carriers. These ships could carry over a thousand small unmanned mining ships that were less than ten meters in length.

  In this way, the large transport ships could warp directly into the subspace from the Mars orbit each time, then sail out at the Mandeville Point of Pluto, and finally enter the Kuiper belt, where they could gather more resources and bring them back to human society.

  A round trip like this would save them an endless amount of time. At the same time, short-term subspace navigation was not that dangerous. Even if a large transport ship ran into trouble and was damaged, this kind of loss was fully bearable.

  Meanwhile, this simple and efficient resource collection system also gave Chen Chen a bold idea…

  "What, you want to build a Dyson sphere?"

  On the top floor of the Blacklight Building in the Eco Science City, Little X looked at Chen Chen incredulously as if she wanted to see if he was pulling her leg. "We don't lack energy for the time being. Do you want to do this?"

  "No, building a Dyson sphere is completely impractical."

  Chen Chen shook his head. "Let's not talk about the technical feasibility. With the resources we have now, if we want to build a Dyson sphere that envelops the sun, I'm afraid we'll practically have to take apart all the planets of the entire solar system. What I want to build is not a Dyson sphere. It's a Dyson cloud or a Dyson ring."

  Chen Chen slowly stood up with a fanciful expression. "To avoid long-term problems, we must solve them in the present. Although our nuclear fuel is mainly composed of deuterium from seawater and helium-3 from the moon for nuclear fusion reaction, we must acknowledge that the helium-3 on the moon is limited. According to our current prospecting, there are about 700,000 tons of helium-3 on the moon. Based on the power consumption standard of human society in 2040, 700,000 tons of helium-3 can supply humanity's consumption for three centuries."

  "Three hundred years is already a long time for humankind."

  Little X persuaded. "Perhaps three hundred years later, humans will still be able to discover new helium-3 mines and even new energy sources."

  "That being said, why not act now?"

  Chen Chen's tone changed. "And don't forget, this number looks a lot, but do you still recall the electricity consumption standard in 2020?"

  "2020?"

  Little X was stunned and then she blurted out in realization, "Twenty years ago, the global power generation was 2.8 trillion kWh and in 2040, the global power generation was 56 billion kWh, an increase of two thousand percent over this period."

  "That's right, that's twenty times!"

  Chen Chen solemnly said, "Human demand for electricity in twenty years will be twenty times that of what it was before. This number will continue to expand with the continuous development of human society. Can you say that in ten years, the helium-3 resources on the moon can provide for humanity for three hundred years?"

  Little X fell silent at once.

  Indeed, if human electricity consumption continued to expand according to this index, it was likely that the helium-3 resources on the moon would be exhausted in 50 years at most.

  "Therefore, we mustn't put all our eggs in one basket."

  Chen Chen said gravely, "In the foreseeable future, we have to find a new energy solution, and now, a path has already been laid out in front of us over a century ago. This is the best way forward for us so far."

  Little X nodded with some understanding at this. "So, we have to develop a Dyson cloud."

  The so-called Dyson cloud was the same thing as a Dyson sphere. The only difference was the amount of engineering labor required. The concept of the Dyson sphere was first proposed by Freeman Dyson, Einstein's assistant, in 1960.

  He once imagined that the energy contained in a planet like the earth itself was very limited, far from enough to support the development of civilization to an advanced stage. In a star system, most of the energy — the radiation from stars — was wasted as it dissipated into thin air. Although humans had solar energy devices, the energy received was only a grain of sand in a desert compared with the total energy radiated by the sun at any moment.

  Therefore, he believed that the sun was a gift from the universe to humankind. A highly developed civilization must have the ability to enclose the sun in a massive spherical structure so that most of the sun's radiant energy was intercepted. Only in this way would enough energy be captured to support the development of human civilization.

  Thus, he envisaged the Dyson sphere — this was a giant man-made structure with a diameter of about 200 million kilometers, used to encase the sun. Such a structure was composed of satellites orbiting the sun that completely blanketed the surface of the sun. Moreover, through a method similar to solar energy conversion, most of the energy emitted from the sun was intercepted and converted into electrical energy required by humans.

  This was the definition of a Dyson sphere.

  However, later generations refuted this theory because most people thought that ordinary civilizations did not have the ability to make Dyson spheres because a giant celestial structure with a diameter of more than 200 million kilometers would cost an ordinary civilization over a thousand or even ten thousand years. At the same time, it would consume almost all of the materials in the entire galaxy, which was an impractical project for an ordinary civilization.

  As for those advanced civilizations that could pursue the stars and seize the moon in the wave of a hand, naturally, they would already have energy conversion technologies that were more sophisticated. The construction of a Dyson sphere was beneath them.

  To put it simply, the idea of a Dyson sphere was a little pointless. The civilization that needed it was not capable of building it and the civilization that was capable of building it might not necessarily think that it was worthwhile. That was all.

  Therefore, gradually, later generations designed a compromise based on the idea of ​​the Dyson sphere, that was, turning the Dyson sphere into a series of circles. Countless rings would surround the sun, just like clouds over the sun.

  Compared with the engineering labor of the Dyson sphere, the Dyson cloud might only need one-thousandth to one-ten-thousandth of the work. Of course, the energy obtained would be reduced accordingly, but the advantage was that humans could control the construction cycle at will and quickly harvest the corresponding solar energy source. With the continuous development of human civilization, the number of Dyson clouds could be constantly increased until a Dyson sphere was fully formed one day in the future.

  Little X quickly understood Chen Chen's plans. After all, humans could not use the helium-3 resources on the moon forever. It was the same with petroleum, which was a limited resource. Before nuclear fusion had been developed, humans kept relying on the conversion of petroleum to energy. Forget about the fact that it was limited, it even polluted the earth's environment.

  Consequently, humankind started to experiment with nuclear fusion a long time ago, but now, Chen Chen was just like people in the past, looking for a new energy system in advance.

  A Dyson cloud was the one that best met the requirements.

  Thinking of this, Little
X's supercomputing capabilities instantly came up with several construction plans, but all of them had some flaws that needed to be refined. She could not help advising, "Sir Godfather, if you build a Dyson cloud, Mercury should be a good choice."

  "Naturally."

  Chen Chen replied, "First of all, Mercury is the planet closest to the sun, so it's simple to collect the materials. Second, the main components of Mercury are metals and silicates. These elements are also required for the construction of solar panels. These conditions all align as if they are a blessing from heaven."

  Little X spread out her hands and said again, "If you want to build a Dyson cloud quickly, I'm afraid you'll need an entire industrial chain."

  "That isn't difficult either."

  Chen Chen replied, "The surface temperature of Mercury is around 400 degrees Celsius. This temperature is still bearable to some robots with thick armor. We only need to build one kind of robot, which must have three abilities:

  "First, it must be able to withstand the high temperature of Mercury's four hundred degrees; second, it has the ability to replicate itself; third, it can automatically complete a series of complex processes from collecting and smelting to manufacturing. As long as these three points are achieved, we'd have guaranteed half the success of the Dyson cloud's construction.

  "Moreover, there's no atmosphere on Mercury, so the escape velocity isn't very high. We only need to use electromagnetic technology to directly launch the Dyson cloud created on Mercury into the solar orbit. All that's left is to use a type of satellite robot to receive the dispersed Dyson cloud and assemble it."

  "Then what about when enough energy is collected?"

  Little X continued to ask, "Do we use laser or antimatter transmission?

  "Do we have the technology to make a large amount of antimatter now?"

  Chen Chen shook his head, pondering. "Of course, it'll be a laser. Converting the energy collected on the Dyson cloud into a laser and transmitting the energy to the space station, the space city, and all human-colonized planets in the solar system over a long distance — that's the most suitable and simplest way at present."