Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Chapter 276 Simultaneous Progress

In the first month after the interstellar travel branch was activated, Zuo Cheng reconvened the people in the aerospace division.

On the whiteboard in the conference room, the circle Chen Hao drew of Titan two months ago still remained. The circle had been covered with layers of notes, its edges repeatedly obscured by markers until its original curve was no longer visible. But the circle was still there.

"The situation is different now." Zuo Cheng stood in front of the whiteboard, holding only a pen; there were no notes, no data. "With the technological reserves of the Star Engine, the Titan probe can be upgraded. We won't just knock on doors; we'll conduct at least a week of close-range reconnaissance on the surface of the Titan node."

He turned to Fang Ze. "Plasma propulsion."

Fang Ze remained silent. He stood up, walked to the whiteboard, drew an arrow next to Chen Hao's circle, and wrote a set of numbers. The original nuclear thermal propulsion specific impulse figure was crossed out and replaced with a new one. The original plan yielded four times the thrust, and the specific impulse was fifty times that of a chemical rocket. The propulsion module size remained unchanged, but its mass was halved, and fuel efficiency was increased sevenfold.

"The original plan was four years one way," Fang Ze said. His voice was flat, like he was stating a temperature reading. "Now it's one year."

Someone in the conference room shifted their posture. Not out of surprise. They were recalculating the timeline. Everyone simultaneously divided in half in their minds: one year to Titan, then another year back, a round trip of two years. They could arrive before the Sentinels' one-year and four-month grace period expired. Not just barely, but ahead of schedule.

Chen Hao took the pen and drew a line next to the numbers Fang Ze had written. Not a large arc, but a series of short, winding arcs. The path from Jupiter to Saturn was divided into four consecutive gravitational jumps. Each jump utilized the gravitational field of a planet or large moon for deflection and acceleration. Not a Hohmann orbit, but gravitational navigation.

"Titan's Touch," Zuo Cheng said. "The quest name."

Shen Yiming glanced at him. "You're getting faster and faster at coming up with names."

"At this point, there's no need to slow down."

Yu Ying opened another image on her laptop: a Kuiper Belt star map. The edge of the solar system, more than four billion kilometers away. Three dim asteroids each had a dormant Web node. Even with the newly upgraded plasma propulsion, it would take more than two years to reach them. Moreover, the three nodes were scattered across three completely different orbital planes, making individual flights impossible. However, if these three nodes still had a faint standby signal, the Web of Consciousness could directly reach them.

"A consciousness probe," Yu Ying said.

The entire conference room fell silent. This term had never appeared before in human spaceflight terminology, but everyone simultaneously understood what it meant.

The Kuiper Belt's three nodes don't use probes. Instead, they send direct consciousness commands via the Web of Consciousness. Zuo Cheng broadcasts an activation signal through a consciousness bridge, covering all areas within the solar system that the Web of Consciousness has reached. If even the faintest trace of energy remains in those nodes from four billion years ago—less than one-thousandth the amount in an incandescent light bulb—a single consciousness signal would be enough to awaken them from their dormancy.

"There is no physical flight time," Yu Ying said. She tapped the four billion kilometer mark with her finger. Her fingernail touched the screen with a very soft sound. "This distance is no longer a distance. It's only a question of whether consciousness can reach it."

Chen Hao stared at the Kuiper Belt star map for a long time. He wasn't usually a believer in metaphysics, but in his consciousness network, he had personally witnessed Yu Ying go in and come out, remaining silent for half an hour without uttering a complete sentence. "If we stand here, close our eyes, and then a machine on an asteroid four billion kilometers away opens its eyes, this isn't an illusion."

"That means we've proven that the mind travels faster than light," Yu Ying said.

Zuo Cheng opened the system panel and projected it onto the large screen. The status page of the Web nodes was displayed synchronously. The Titan node's current residual energy was estimated at 87%. The Kuiper Belt's three nodes had between 12% and 34%. The success rate of the consciousness probe depended on whether this residual energy could be activated by a remote consciousness command. It wasn't a physical technology problem. It was whether the Web's design itself left sufficient slack for waking these dormant nodes. Did the founders consider the distance at which they could be awakened when they designed it?

A new line of text appeared at the bottom of the system panel: Dual-track mission tracking has been generated. "Titan's Touch" and "Kuiper Probe" are now on time. The former's one-year countdown starts today, while the latter has no timeline, only displaying "Waiting for the first consciousness broadcast." System notification: Consciousness Probe is a brand new mission type, and this is the first time a non-physical mission option has appeared. The panel's background color changed from light gold to light blue, and a thin dotted line extended from the five activated nodes in the inner solar system, across Mars' orbit, across Jupiter's orbit, and pointed to Saturn's sixth moon and three faint points of light scattered at the edge of the solar system.

Liu Wei was the last to speak. He laid out the coffee cups on the conference table one by one, placing three crumpled pieces of paper between them. Then he pointed to a crumpled piece of paper near a coffee cup.

"This one is next to Titan. If both Titan and this one are activated in a year, the Web nodes will increase from five to six, then to nine. Not eight, not seven, just maxed out."

"From 6/9 to 9/9," Fang Ze said. His voice remained calm. "The condition is that Titan activates first, and once the Titan's relay data is brought back, the Kuiper three nodes can ensure wake-up."

"What if Titan doesn't activate first?" Liu Wei asked.

"Then Kuiper has no choice but to try. The success rate has dropped from an estimated 80% to uncertain. The Web has placed its relay capabilities on the Titan nodes; Kuiper is the endpoint, and Titan is the hub."

Yu Ying closed her laptop. "Dual lines running in parallel. Titan launches now, arriving in a year. Kuiper begins attempting a connection now; if it wakes up on its own, great. If not, it will wait for Titan to activate and then travel via the relay path. Regardless of which line succeeds first, the destination is the same."

Zuo Cheng made a final check in the mission log. Titan's Touch: Plasma propulsion module installed. Gravity navigation trajectory calculated on all scales by Tianyan-2. Webweaver AI equipped with the latest Webweaving protocol processor. Launch window: This week.

Kuiper Consciousness Probe, first broadcast time: after the launch of Titan's Touch, during the full-power output period of the consciousness network in the post-launch monitoring and control window.

He added a line at the end of the confirmation document: "If the dual-line operation succeeds, the web-weaving nodes will change from 5/9 to 9/9. The Web-Weaving Master's quest is complete. The conditions for the eleventh branch to sprout will then be unlocked. The prerequisite for the eleventh branch is that all nine nodes must be activated. This is also the last thing the creator implied but didn't explicitly state in option C: to know the full picture of the web, first activate all the nodes."

He saved the file, closed the panel, and stood up to face everyone.

"Titan. Kuiper. Both lines proceed simultaneously."

Chen Hao stood up. "Launch window, next week."

Liu Wei placed the last crumpled piece of paper back on the table. "Logistics are ready."

Zuo Cheng glanced at Yu Ying. She was typing the last line on her laptop, her fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard, as if she were writing down next week's answers in advance. The new entry in her experiment log was titled: First Attempt at Remote Consciousness Activation.

The title is followed by only one line: Whether the mind travels faster than light, we'll find out next week.