Age of Cosmic Exploration Chapter 393

It had been five days since the Hope passed the green light and stopped at this part of space. Gradually, more people recovered from four dimensional blindness. The first of them were none other than the Homo Evolutis, followed by those gifted in intelligence and wisdom. Currently, around 60 percent of the Hope had recovered from blindness, so, generally speaking, the Hope could run normally again.

The initial one or two days of these five days were the worst. After all, other than the small number of Seekers, most of the Hope was in a state of blindness. A normal individual was unable to see anything, making everyday chores like eating and using the toilet nigh impossible. The awkwardness caused by the differences in gender aside, the Hope's Seekers weren't numerous enough to be able to take care of the several ten thousand people on the Hope.

The asset that shone the brightest then was the Hope's AI, the one created by humanity, and not ZERO. ZERO seemed to have disappeared as if to avoid suspicion the moment they left the fourth dimension. No matter how hard Yao Yuan called for her, she was nowhere to be seen.

The human AI naturally returned to its post and continued to control the Hope. At this crucial time, Yao Yuan had dropped his reservations regarding the AI and ordered the AI to control all the service robots on the Hope to help its citizens. The robots were allocated to different areas, and even though there might've been a lack of human touch in their care-taking, at least the people's basic needs would be taken care of.

With the AI's help, the Hope survived the most difficult period. As the number of individuals who had recovered gradually increased, they took over the robots' jobs. After all, even though these robots were extremely helpful and obedient, Yao Yuan's heart still chilled every time these robots handled the human citizens of the Hope. From his conversation with Blue 6 about the rise and fall of space civilizations, one of the common reasons for the collapse of space civilizations had to do with the uprising of the machines. Therefore, since humanity had recovered parts of its manpower, Yao Yuan quickly sealed these robots back into inactivity.

The situation had improved greatly since then. Around 60 percent of the Hope had recovered, and to Yao Yuan's surprise, other than almost all of the Homo Evolutis, which were to be expected, the remaining majority of the 60 percent were senior citizens. With a closer look, most of them were scientists and researchers, and in comparison, the percentage of healthy young men and women was curiously low.

According to the analysis of certain people, this had plenty to do with the fact that four dimensional space was most likely a blurring of information, so as long as one could see through the haze that blurred the information, then the confusion could be easily resolved. This was similar to those abstract paintings. Those who couldn't understand it would see squiggles and lines, while those with an artistic eye would appreciate its true meaning. Perhaps that was the theory behind the application of four dimensional blindness.

As interesting as this was, Yao Yuan did not concern himself over this. Perhaps the Academy could make something out of the study of four dimensional blindness, but it had nothing to do with Yao Yuan. When most of the Academy had recovered, Yao Yuan called them for a meeting. The agenda was none other than the giant space tree visible outside of the Hope.

For most who had just recovered from four dimensional blindness, the first thing they did after witnessing the giant tree in space was not question their sanity but rub their eyes continuously, afraid that the blindness from before had created an illusion in their minds. When they realized that they weren't hallucinating, most of them took an involuntary deep breath and stared at the tree with their mouths gaping wide.

With the aid of the surveillance devices, the accurate height of this space tree was 1,460 plus kilometers, almost one-tenth the size of Earth. After all, Earth's diameter was only 12,000 and the moon was even smaller, at around 3,000 kilometers. Therefore, even though 1,460 kilometers might sound small on paper, it would take a domestic plane 2 hours to travel a distance that far, but for something that was supposed to grow on a planet and not exist independently in space, this was a verifiably huge tree.

This tree was almost as big as certain space stations or moons of certain planets. If it had its own gravity, humans could possible walk on the surface of its bark without the worry of being tossed into space.

The first question was not how this tree could survive in space but the size itself. The size of this tree had already violated humanity's understanding of biology. The size of the thing was enough to create its own gravity, so how could this tree not crumble beneath its own gravitational pull? What material was it made of? Rocks or metals? Or was it a real, living tree?

Furthermore, where would its energy to grow come from? How did it survive in a vacuum? There were simply too many questions that Yao Yuan needed the Academy's help to answer.

The first thing that they needed to confirm was whether this thing before them was real or not. Perhaps this was simply a mirage. After all, such a huge thing existing in space was against common knowledge. Therefore, before discussing the physicality of its existence, they had to make sure they were dealing with an actual thing.

However, in space, all surveillance devices went both ways. In other words, when you detected others, others would have detected you as well. Recklessly using surveillance technology in this unknown space? That was a suicidal mission. A space civilization that could produce a fourth dimension shield was definitely a high tier space civilization, and mankind was nothing more than an ant before it. Currently, the other party perhaps had not detected humanity, but if humanity recklessly sent surveillance devices at it, they might attract the ruin's attention, and that could lead to humanity's extinction… Yao Yuan didn't dare to bet on the possibility that the high tier ruin didn't have an AI residing within it.

Therefore, the Academy's request for surveillance had been promptly denied. For now, Yao Yuan merely wished for them to explain the possibility of this tree existing in space.

Naturally, the scientists were disappointed, but they understood Yao Yuan's hesitation. So they followed Yao Yuan's advice and focused on discussing the possibility of such a big tree existing in space. To Yao Yuan's consternation, a large majority of the Academy believed that this was not an illusion, this tree was probably an actual plant in space.

In fact, after experiencing the fourth dimension, these human scientists had not only gained much valuable information about the fourth dimension, their horizons had also been widened. Their worldview had been widened and broken beyond the limitation of human knowledge, and they dared to use perspective beyond the confines of human science to view and understand the various illogical phenomenon in space.

"Based on all the known information, living things, be it animal or plant, have the possibility of existing in space. For example, the alien plant or the zerg race. These species survive in space using their own bodies, and they can even procreate in space just fine…"

In the meeting room, the head scientist of the biology committee, Yuan Pin, was giving his explanation to the top leaders of the Hope. "I believe everyone here knows a thing or two about the relationship between human technology and the natural world. Most of our technological advances are inspired by the things that exist in nature, the obvious example being sonar radar and bats. Even submarines, airplanes, these are all related to the majesty of the natural world. So what I mean to say is fairly simple: the natural world is more wondrous than you can imagine. With enough time or technology to supplement it, life itself can replace the functionality of many machineries. For example, initiating nuclear fission within living cells to support an electromagnetic shield or plasma shield. These things are definitely possible as long as said creature has the necessary organs and biological make-up to mimic the functionality of the machines it was intended to replace."

That was the key!

Most of the people on the Hope were elites. In fact, the current layer of the Hope's top officials, be it Yao Yuan and the Black Star Unit or Homo Evolutis like Ren Tao and Xiao Niao or the elites saved from the Noah One, they were all men among men. In terms of the depth of their knowledge and the flexibility of their thought, they were veritable geniuses. With a nudge in the right direction by Yuan Pin, they understood the key of the situation instantly.

Blue 6 had roughly mentioned this before, that when a space civilization entered the middle tier or going beyond the fourth level, due to the law of conservation of life, all space civilizations had to choose a particular scientific field to focus on. They couldn't research everything like low tier space civilizations did anymore. Therefore, there would be specialized space civilizations, like mechanical space civilizations, genetic space civilizations, and cosmic energy space civilizations. This was one of the natural laws of the cosmos.

If one looked at it from this perspective, then this impossibly large tree could be explained easily…

This was possibly the product of a high tier genetic-based space civilization, and this tree was quite possibly a living mothership!

Chapter end