Epoch of Twilight

On the next morning, Luo Yuan went to check on the body of the gigantic beast. It was still struggling. As the beast was releasing energy when it struggled, the snow around it had melted and there was a massive lake beside it. The lake water was boiling and the steam rose up into the air. The environment as well as the weather a few kilometers surrounding the lake had changed drastically from the effects of the steam from the lake. Luo Yuan noticed that the plants that were frozen not far away had returned to their usual self. The branches were even budding.

Luo Yuan looked for a while and left with disappointment. Fortunately, he had sufficient time to wait for this gigantic beast to die completely. Almost a month went by and the gigantic beast was still not dead but there was good news about the spaceship in space. The first building had been completed and the migration could now start.

The emergency spacecraft that was docked by the mothership started to get busy. Materials were moved into the spaceship. The migration did not only involve the people but the preparations they had to make to survive for long periods of time on the spaceship. It was crucial to make sure that the people’s daily necessities were taken care of. The agricultural area was one of the most important parts of the spaceship, even a portion of factories were included in the list. Not because they were not satisfied with Glassian technology but most of them were not usable by humans. Some of the production machines required humans to operate them so people who migrated had something to keep busy with when they were on board.

That made the entire migration process huge and slow. The number of workers increased day by day to speed up the building of the spaceship’s residential area. After a couple days rest since the first group migrated, the group began work immediately. Within the few months, the entire Hope City was busy with the migration. The crowded Hope City was now empty as the industrial area had been completely moved and the warehouses were empty too. Once the last batch of people migrated onto the spaceship, Hope City would be sealed.

Tens of thousands of people in the queue kept turning around to look at Hope City. Their footsteps were heavy and they had mixed feelings. Nobody knew if any of them would be able to come back to earth one day to restart Hope City. Since the beginning of the apocalypse where people struggled to live until the present day when they were forced to leave the earth to the vast, unknown space, the insecurities that these people, who had never left the earth felt, was intense. Human knew far too little about space - it was filled with many unknown factors and was a mystery. Human asides, compared to the mysteries of the endless universe, the earth was like a speck of dust.

...

The residential area in the spaceship was different from what it was. The 12 massive buildings looked like the support pillars of the place and every inch of the residential area was used up in an efficient manner. These buildings did not have any decorations, they were a metallic silverish-white with checkered patterns that were made of prefabricated parts and gave off a cold, sci-fi vibe. Every inch of the space was used and the eyes could see were complicated streets and buildings. To cater to more people as well as prepare for the future, the interior of the buildings were quite space efficient as well.

At this moment, there were 700,000 people living in each building. There were 300 elevators for the convenience of the people who were going in and out of the buildings. The parks, streets, business districts and other public amenities, each floor of the residential area was packed together. Most people only owned a space that was nine square meters on average. Those with families were better off as they at least had a bathroom in their living space but for those who were single, they would have to settle for public bathrooms.

As compared to earth, the rooms in the spaceship had beds and furniture made of metal which looked the same and they were bolted on the floor. It was hard to not feel suppressed when one was in it. Besides that, there was at least one safety device fixed in every room. It was to prevent people from falling down when the spaceship was accelerating or slowing down.

The migration of the entire population crowded the residential area. The streets were filled with people and it made it hard to hard to walk on the streets. Luo Yuan got the officers to arrange the final batch of people for migration and walked to the central control cabin with his secretary Cheng Guanghui.

"Mayor!"

"Mayor!"

"Please proceed with your work!" Luo Yuan said and nodded. The central control cabin was not empty as it once was. The cabin crews that were re-assigned were on their seats. With the help of the computers, they were familiarizing themselves the flying of Glassian spaceship. As compared to regular soldiers, everyone here was well educated. Most of them were researchers or engineers without military experience and Luo Yuan did not mind that. To operate a technologically superior spaceship, their cognitive abilities were more important than good soldiers. The latter could be trained but the former was not easy to be cultivated.

"How’s the training going?" Luo Yuan asked Bi Jianping who was next to him,"When can we commence the interstellar flight?"

"We still need some time. It’s fine to do short distance flights but not for long distance ones."

Ever since he was criticized by Luo Yuan, he put most of his focus here, "We are still beginners when it comes to operating the spaceship. If there’re any issues with the spaceship, it’ll hard for us to operate it."

Luo Yuan nodded. Since he destroyed the quantum communication device in the ship, the spaceship’s computer lost contact with the factory area. It was not only the automated factory that had to stop operation but even the engineering and repair robots were disconnected. If the ship’s parts or hull was damaged, there was no way humans would be able to repair them as they lacked the expertise. There was nothing they could do - it would be dangerous.

"Familiarize yourselves with the spaceship as soon as you can. We need to hire more technicians, some of the graduate students can join as well so we can master everything there is to know about this spaceship" Luo Yuan said after some thoughts.

It was time, humans could not stay here any longer, they should leave here as soon as they could.

"Yes, mayor!" Bi Jianping said immediately.

"How are the civilians’ emotions lately?" Luo Yuan asked after taking a look in the cockpit.

"They seem stable but there are still some concerns. I have sent out more police to prevent any untoward situations!"

"Great job, we cannot slack off on safety!"

It was understandable that people felt frustrated since they were stepping into outer space from earth. In the past, they had different forms of entertainment to distract themselves or psychologists to calm their frustration. However, now that manpower was in high demand, they lacked resources for something so luxurious. Their priority was to master everything there was to know about this spaceship and focus on decoding the Glassian technology. Everything else had to wait.

Luo Yuan left the control cabin after a while and went into the genetics lab. There were thousands of Wisdom Tree clone bulbs in them, making it seem like a mini botanical garden. However, all of the saplings seemed to be lifeless as the leaves were droopy. There was no sign of life. "Mayor, these Wisdom Tree saplings are growing at an unusually slow rate. They basically stopped growing when they were half a meter tall. We have tried everything including adjusting the amount of light and ratio of nutrients in the ground but they were ineffective..." Noticing Luo Yuan’s gloomy expression as he observed the pods, the institute director explained carefully.

Luo Yuan was not surprised at all. If the Wisdom Tree could grow like usual trees, there would not be so many bones around it when he saw it in the past. "At the same time, we have also done some research on the contents of Wisdom Tree as well as some experiments. It doesn’t seem to have any unique effects but we have discovered a unique molecule in the sample that you gave us. We have extracted it and conducted an experiment."

"What’s the result?" Luo Yuan asked curiously.

"It’s stunning!" The institute director exclaimed, "After a mutated rat was injected with the molecule, its intelligence grew at a stunning pace. The rat knew that it was in a harsh environment and was scared. It even started to please the researcher."

Luo Yuan did not care much about the poor mutated rat, he asked what he wanted to know, "Can this molecule be synthesized into the Wisdom Tree?" The institute director shook his head with regret, "This molecule is extremely unstable, and the existence of such an element would be impossible under regular conditions. It exists under force within extremely energy-rich environments. Even then, it requires the decomposition and synthesis of certain elements. For the active energy, we used to extract it from the bodily fluid of advanced mutated creatures and it is impossible to synthesize. Now that we’ve lost the source of mutated beasts, our experiment is stagnant.

"So you need active energy, I’ll figure that out and get someone to send it here." Luo Yuan thought and said to the director. Dissolving the energy core in water will create a concentrate of active energy and he had plenty of those. Although precious, if it could be used to produce medicine from the wisdom tree, it would be worth it.

"Our priority now would be to accelerate production of the wisdom medicine as soon as possible. I’m planning to combine your lab with the genetics lab temporarily. We have figured out how some of the Glassian lab equipment work and we believe that it could accelerate the progress of your research."

"We’ll give our full cooperation!" The institute director then asked, "Who would be responsible for this project?" Luo Yuan looked at him, it seemed like the researchers were not excluded in the power struggle. Luo Yuan then replied, "Since you were the one who has the result, you’ll be taking care of this project. I hope that you’ll all work with each other. I hope to hear good news soon!"

...

Luo Yuan then inspected the factory area. He left the lab with an indifferent mood. Compared to the previous inspection, there were 13 additional Glassian factories that were up and running. Apart from the nine original factories that produced parts for the ship, there were nanochip factories, nanomaterial factories, polymer synthesis factories, centrifugal extraction factories and more. Those were the core factories in the ship. From these factories, humans could improve and upgrade their skills. Take the nanochips for example, these Glassian nanochips were different from the LightScribe technology used by humans. Rather, it was created through a controlled atomic process which arranged these chips at an atomic level. The Glassian chips which had the same capacity as human chips were a fraction of the size.

Through these core factories, the humans had resumed production of electrical products. Although the latest computers were not quantum computer technology, it functioned a hundred times better than before. At the same time, it was only the size of a thumb. Within half a year, humans had achieved what they would have taken them 20 to 50 years prior to the apocalypse. However, they had only figured out 10% of the factories that the Glassian’s had. Far from it, they still had plenty to master in the operations of the spaceship. Aside from being short of time, they lacked the talents to do it. That was one of the reason why Luo Yuan was so eager to produce the wisdom medicine.