Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 299: Shock!

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The AI Observer Robots, which used the alien plant’s special alloy, were also fitted with a creator’s particle generator and isolator so that the alien civilization couldn’t detect them other than by shining lights on them.

Similarly, to avoid detection and leaking of technological information, the normal fuel propeller and more high tech particle acceleration were unusable. Instead, the anti-gravity system was used for mobility… Using the Hope as a gravitational anchor, with its pull and push force, the robots could be moved to anywhere in space. Of course, this meant that the Hope had to move as well. However, compared to the robots’ size and mass, the movement was barely discernible. Furthermore, the Hope was already in a floating state, so a small movement was to be expected. It would be fine if the robots were noticed as well, because it would make the alien civilization more cautious.

First, they would be confused by the metallurgy (as long as the alien civilization’s level wasn’t too high). Secondly, they wouldn’t understand the propulsion system, since they wouldn’t have understood the anti-gravitational system. From the information taken from the alien merchants, a level 3 space civilization's technological catalyst was plasma energy. Plasma weapons, plasma condensation, and the like, so they had not reached the level of anti-gravity. Third would be the series of space vessel explosions. All of these things pointed towards the presence of a lost ruin, one from a high level space civilization, so the alien civilization would have no choice but to be careful.

Two hours after Yao Yuan made his decision, i.e. the time the alien was supposed to enter the Hope and one minute after the first space vessel exploded, two AI observer bots left the Hope… passed the creator’s particle zone and went into space.

The rest would be waiting. The Hope had blocked off all external signals, so those on the inside had no clue what was happening on the outside and vice versa. No one knew what would happen to the two robots after they left the Hope. Even though they were all fitted with self-destruction mechanisms, no one could tell for sure what kind of technology a level 3 space civilization would have. If they could capture the robots before the robots could initiate the self-destruction sequence, then a lot of information on the Hope would be leaked, and that would not be a favourable condition…

However, the ruin deception strategy couldn’t move into the next step without sending out the robots, so they could only pray that nothing happened to those two AI Observer Bots.

The atmosphere in the meeting room was incredibly heavy and nervous while they waited. Even the scientists who had quit smoking for decades couldn’t help returning to their old habits. Thankfully, Eva didn’t see any new visions, so that could be counted as a good development.

However, no one dared to let their guard down, especially those who knew of Eva’s latest information. The more often she used her power, the lower her visions’ sensitivity. It was a hard to describe limitation. Perhaps the Sage power depended on an internal energy pool, and the greater the amount of energy used from the pool, the clearer the vision. If the Sage used her power too often, then the pool wouldn’t have time to recharge, thus providing only some weak visions.

This was a recently discovered Sage’s power limitation. After all, they didn’t even realize the Sage was a thing until recently, and the recent continuous use of her power had revealed this weakness. Then again, this was, in a way, to be expected; if the power could be used endlessly, wouldn’t that be too unbelievable?

In any case, this discovery brought new inroads to the research on Homo Evolutis. However, there were only a select few who knew of this limitation. Their hearts were palpitating at an incredible speed, afraid that the alien would rush into the Hope at any second. That was the most torturous wait ever.

Thankfully, nothing happened. 10 minutes after the robots were deployed, they appeared once more in the Hope’s tunnels. They had small, metallic parts in their hands, but those were not what Yao Yuan’s group cared about. They only cared about the CD attached to the robots’ chests, as those recorded everything the robots saw.

Very soon, the two CDs arrived at the secret meeting room. Everyone turned to look at the screen with bated breath.

The video was taken from the robots’ viewpoint. The video began by showing the robots leaving the Hope through the specialized airways. After a few turns, the robots left the Hope’s metallic walls and ventured into deep, dark space. In front of their eyes was…

A fleet of silver-colored spaceships. They were glittering in space like a swath of impressive-looking stars. From the robots’ angle, the spaceships stretched more than ten thousand kilometers.

Yes, somewhere far away from the Hope, near a terrestrial planet, was a large, sprawling fleet of spaceships or warships. Observed with the naked eye, there was more than 10,000 warships, and at the center of them all was a flattened, oval-shaped mothership. It was as large as a planet. Even from the Hope’s distance, it was still as clear as day. In fact, 80 percent of the light was coming from this mothership. In comparison, the warships surrounding it were like ants beside the titan’s feet.

This was an alien fleet. From the endless stretch of warships, this could very well be the whole level 3 space civilization's population, military, and habitat…. That large mothership, everything humanity could see, made up a level 3 space civilization.

Shocking!

Incredibly shocking!

As the video was posted on screen, the Hope’s central mainframe had already started its dissection. First was the distance between the Hope and the alien fleet. Next would be number of alien warships, size of the warships and mothership, and the technological level from observable cues. All of these were being analyzed by the central mainframe. Slowly, the data appeared beside the screenshots.

"There are 36,000 observable warships. The smaller warships log in a length of about 600 meters, and there are 28,000 such warships. Medium-sized warships are about 4,700 meters long and there are 6,000 of them. Larger warships are about 32,000 meters long and there are 2,000 of them. The mothership… is a circular plate shape. It's height about 81,000 meters and its diameter is about 1,270,000 meters. It is in the middle of centrifugal self-rotation…"

When the data appeared on screen, the few scientists gasped audibly. One of them whizzed, "This is impossible! Such a large, metallic object self-rotating using centrifugal force? How is that possible? What about its internal force, metallic weight, and many different balances? That spaceship should have imploded already!"

The scientist beside him laughed. "Why isn’t it possible? After we ventured into space, how many impossibilities have we seen? Even scientifically impossible things, like anti-gravity and space warp, exist, so what is so startling about this? The presence of a plasma shield alone could resolve all the issues you’ve brought up. If this is a level 3 space civilization… which is an undeniable fact, they have already entered the 5th revolution and thus have the technology to easily resolve the problems you’ve pointed out, or else how do you think we’ll proceed with Kun Lun plan? That plan will start after we enter 5th revolution, will it not?"

Yao Yuan and the rest focused on something completely different from the scientists… This civilization was too powerful, so powerful in fact the Hope was defenseless against it. Humanity wouldn’t be able to put up any sort of fight. If the Hope was discovered, there were only the choices of being captured or self-destruction; there was no third option.

"This is the strength of the 5th revolution, or level 3 space civilizations? It is…" Yao Yuan narrowed his eyes to study the video. The things before him had given him a new understanding of the cosmos.

In actuality, after entering space, even though the Hope had faced many challenges and had courted extinction many times, the Hope was incredibly lucky. At least they hadn’t run into forces as powerful as this level 3 space civilization before. The strongest adversary they met was the half-baked space merchants, a space civilization that was on its decline.

However, this level 3 space civilization was at its prime. This was observable from the alien fleet before them, and its population was probably more than one billion. It had tens of thousands of warships, fifth revolution technology, and impossibly strong plasma weapons. A small warship from such a powerful civilization probably could ruin the Hope easily; that was how powerful this civilization before them was…

This was the strongest enemy mankind had faced ever since they left Earth! So powerful in fact that humanity would lose without even a fight!

This…

This was a level 3 space civilization!

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