Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Chapter 295, Branch 1

On the fourth day after the Pioneer turned back, Zuo Cheng did something. He clicked on the budding progress bar of the eleventh branch on the system panel. Seventy-nine percent. This number had been stagnant for two months. The active acceleration function had been unlocked in the Kuiper Belt, advancing one percent for every ten points. He hadn't pressed it. Not out of hesitation. He was waiting for the right moment.

The moment Pioneer confirmed the resonant cavity at the edge of the solar system, the heartbeat signal from Centaurus transformed from a faint pulse into a continuously strengthening carrier wave. The Pioneer was waiting for an echo large enough. The echo was loud enough. The door should open.

Zuo Cheng typed a number into the points input field: 210. "Consuming 210 points, advancing the budding stage to 100%." ​​A confirmation box popped up. Zuo Cheng clicked "Confirm."

The system remained silent for a second.

Then the entire panel turned gold.

The eleventh branch, interstellar communication, is officially activated. This is the first capability in humanity's technology tree specifically designed for interstellar scales. System notifications popped up line by line. Activation reward: 300 points. Current balance: 1357 points. Branch 11 is now activated compared to branch 12. Technology boost: 1.8 to 2.0. Civilization level: 9 to 10. Level 10 is a watershed in the civilization level system. Level 9 is an interplanetary civilization, level 10 is an interstellar civilization. From this moment on, humanity is no longer a species on a single planet. Unlocking new civilization capabilities: real-time interstellar communication, weaving a network of full-link access.

Six blades illuminate simultaneously. The first blade represents quantum entanglement communication, enabling zero-latency data transmission between network nodes, with an effective range of any two nodes within the network's coverage area. The second blade represents gravitational wave modulation, using gravitational waves as carriers for ultra-long-distance communication, covering 500 light-years in a single hop. The third blade represents full-link network access, bypassing the local node for direct access to remote nodes. The fourth blade represents interstellar latency compensation, where the quantum prediction network reduces the effective latency of interstellar communication to near zero. The fifth blade represents the consciousness network's ultra-long-distance extension, expanding coverage from the solar system to all network nodes, allowing network crew members to maintain consciousness connection even outside the solar system. The sixth blade represents the interstellar civilization communication protocol, a standard protocol designed by the founders for multi-civilization communication, supporting real-time translation of multi-civilization, multi-language, and multimedia content.

The six blades, from the physical layer to the data link layer to the transport layer to the application layer, constitute a complete technological system. It's not just a better phone; it's a civilization-level nervous system spanning the Milky Way.

Zuo Cheng didn't wait. Three minutes after the blades were activated, he issued the first interstellar communication command through the web control panel: Send a handshake signal to the web node in Proxima Centauri. The signal was transmitted through the deep-space broadcast array of the seventh node. Target: Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light-years away. Carrier type: dual-mode of quantum entanglement and gravitational wave modulation.

The signal was sent. The time on the panel ticked away second by second. According to traditional physics calculations, the signal would take 4.2 years to arrive. But the latency of a quantum entangled channel is theoretically zero.

The control center was so quiet you could hear the server fans. Yu Ying stood behind Zuo Cheng, her hand resting on the back of her chair. Chen Hao stared at the 177-node star map against the wall. Han Lu sat in the corner, unsure what to do. Liu Wei leaned against the doorframe, clutching his phone, the screen lit but he wasn't looking at it.

Seventeen seconds. No change on the panel. Thirty seconds. Still nothing. Yu Ying's fingers tightened on the back of the chair. Chen Hao's breathing became heavy. Han Lu whispered, "Should we send it again?" Zuo Cheng didn't answer.

Forty-two seconds. A gray dot began to flash.

Forty-seven seconds. The gray dot turned gold.

The 106th node in the Proxima Centauri network was awakened. It sent back a structured data packet. The first line of the packet contained a single word encoded by the creator. The system automatically translated it, and two characters were displayed on the screen.

Hello there.

4.2 light-years. 47 seconds. Humans spent four billion years learning to speak, and then spent forty-seven seconds waiting for an answer.

Zuo Cheng stared at the screen. Yu Ying took a soft breath behind him. Chen Hao turned around, glanced at the screen, then looked again; the coffee cup in his hand fell to the ground and shattered. Han Lu stood up, her mouth agape, but no sound came out. Liu Wei's phone slipped from his hand, but he didn't bend down to pick it up.

Zuo Cheng wrote the date on the whiteboard. Then he turned to look at everyone in the room. Every face wore the same expression: a mixture of disbelief and nonchalance.

Yu Ying was the first to speak. "You just spoke to a machine 4.2 light-years away. It replied to you."

Zuo Cheng said: It's not a machine. It's a web node. Web nodes don't respond. The machine's other side responds.

Yu Ying asked: What's on the other side?

Zuo Cheng pointed to the signal source label on the panel. "Network Node 106, status awakened, connected creature unknown, creature status awaiting dialogue."

Access to an unknown biological entity. Awaiting dialogue. On that planet 4.2 light-years away, what awaits humanity's voice?

A new interstellar communication console has been added to the system panel, managing the interstellar communication links of all Web nodes. A system note appears: This is the first active communication sent by a Web node in the solar system in four billion years. It's also the first time in four billion years that another node has received proof that a node is alive. Well done. Not as a system, but as an observer who has waited for you for four billion years.

When Zuo Cheng read the last sentence, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly. "Bystander." The word was used aptly. The system never said anything superfluous. But this time, it uttered something superfluous. That superfluous sentence, ironically, carried more weight than all the data combined.

Zuo Cheng didn't immediately make the news public. Late at night, he sat alone in the control center, most of the lights off, only the faint glow of the control panel illuminating his face. Before him was the complete data packet sent back by the Centaur node. The packet contained over five thousand characters after "hello." It wasn't the Creator's code; it was a completely new symbol system. The system couldn't translate it automatically because it had never seen such a language before. These five thousand characters weren't written by the Creator. They were written by something on that planet. Four and a half light-years away. It was there long before human ancestors could walk upright. It waited four million years. Waiting for someone to say hello to it.

Zuo Cheng added a note at the end of the data packet: This is the first letter from outer space that humanity has received. The translation will begin tomorrow. Today, let him experience it first. A person. A lamp. A letter from the universe.