Chapter 10

Leaving the Jovian system, Xiao Yu felt incredibly elated. Although he had been frightened earlier, he believed that the shock was entirely worth it. The value of these peculiar radiation sources was not just about enhancing material properties.

The most important value lay in the mechanism by which they transformed materials. In other words, why did metals exhibit such significant performance improvements after being influenced by these radiation sources? If he could figure this out, Xiao Yu could use this knowledge to develop even more advanced materials.

This was the greatest value of these radiation sources. Undoubtedly, researching this issue would require massive computational power, but Xiao Yu had an abundance of it.

The enhancement in capabilities after the fusion of human consciousness with a computer was not a simple addition. A true electronic life form had research capabilities that were on par with the entire human society. This was supported by nearly infinite learning, computational, and innovative abilities, as well as precision that humans could not match. By combining the strengths of humans and computers, Xiao Yu's power was undeniable.

As Jupiter gradually receded and shrank in the distance, Xiao Yu focused his gaze on a bright star in the distance—Saturn.

After observing the positions and other data of several neutron stars in the universe, Xiao Yu confirmed his location. He was currently 700 million kilometers away from Saturn.

Determining one's position in the vast universe is a challenging task. However, humans had made significant progress in this area, essentially solving the problem by using pulsars for navigation.

When a massive star reaches the end of its life and undergoes a supernova explosion, if the remaining core mass is below the Oppenheimer limit, it will form a neutron star, which maintains stability through the balance of its own gravity and neutron degeneracy pressure. Pulsars are a type of neutron star that rotates extremely fast and emits powerful radiation from their poles, which is highly stable. They act like bright lighthouses in the universe. By observing the parameters of several pulsars relative to oneself, one can deduce one's position.

Of course, this requires that the positions of these neutron stars have already been determined. Before escaping Earth, Xiao Yu had copied all the astronomical data that humans had observed onto his hard drive, including the data on these neutron stars.

The journey through space was long, and another six months passed. As Saturn gradually grew larger in front of him, Xiao Yu's spirits were lifted.

If not for the need to decelerate as he approached Saturn, the journey could have been shortened by about a month.

During these six months, Xiao Yu processed the new data from Jupiter, refining his previous theories. Now, he had a better grasp of controlled nuclear fusion technology.

Moreover, during these five months, Xiao Yu conducted detailed research on the peculiar radiation source in the box. For convenience, he named it "Unit One."

Of course, Xiao Yu did not dare to release Unit One. Doing so would instantly melt the interior of the spacecraft. Studying it through a thick metal box was like scratching an itch through a boot—better than nothing, but far from ideal.

Even so, Xiao Yu obtained a significant amount of data. He had initially determined that this was indeed a living organism, albeit a strange one. It possessed all the characteristics of life except for physical mass.

For example, when Xiao Yu emitted a high-frequency electromagnetic wave, Unit One exhibited signs of agitation, and its radiation intensity decreased slightly. However, no matter what Xiao Yu did, he could not increase its radiation intensity.

After extensive experiments, Xiao Yu determined that Unit One's intelligence was roughly equivalent to that of a trilobite from ancient times, meaning it was in the early stages of evolution.

During this time, the metal materials of the box were further strengthened, with their performance indicators nearly tripling. However, after reaching this level, there was no further improvement, suggesting that Unit One had a limit to how much it could enhance metal properties.

Correspondingly, Unit One's radiation intensity decreased by 0.03 percent.

Xiao Yu estimated that to double the performance of one ton of metal, Unit One's total radiation intensity would decrease by 0.01 percent.

In other words, Unit One's radiation intensity was sufficient to enhance the performance of 10,000 tons of metal—enough to build the framework of a medium-sized spacecraft.

Before Earth's destruction, the heaviest spacecraft humans had built, the International Space Station, weighed less than 500 tons. Even Xiao Yu's spacecraft, fully fueled, weighed only a few thousand tons, using no more than 2,000 tons of metal.

Xiao Yu was filled with anticipation for Unit One's potential.

Research on controlled nuclear fusion and Unit One occupied less than 10 percent of Xiao Yu's computational capacity. During these five months, most of his efforts were devoted to discovering new stars and updating data on existing stars.

Xiao Yu was compiling a vast star catalog that would include all stars. Of course, this project was just beginning.

This task would have been almost impossible for humans in the past due to the sheer number of stars in the universe. The Milky Way alone contains 100 to 400 billion stars.

To make it easier, humans had created many star catalogs that classified different types of stars, such as HD, SAO, and BD. However, Xiao Yu planned to include all types of stars, nebulae, star clusters, white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, and galaxies in a single catalog.

With his nearly incomprehensible storage and retrieval capabilities, the vast number of stars was not a hindrance.

In the past few months, using the advanced detection system on his spacecraft, which was comparable to the Hubble Space Telescope, and combining it with existing human data, Xiao Yu had initially cataloged over 5 million stars, including their mass, volume, age, absolute magnitude, spectrum, metallicity, angular diameter, rotation speed, orbital speed, and position.

This star catalog was dynamic. Since celestial bodies in the universe are in constant motion, the data in Xiao Yu's catalog would gradually change over time.

"Such a grand star catalog should have a striking name. Hmm... I'll call it the 'Celestial Chronicles of the Universe.' 'Celestial' means the universe, and 'Chronicles' refers to the various stars in the universe!"

"Celestial Chronicles of the Universe!" Xiao Yu felt secretly pleased as he repeated the name.

In the Celestial Chronicles of the Universe, the star numbered one was undoubtedly the Sun, which held special significance for Xiao Yu.

Saturn was getting closer, and in Xiao Yu's view, the magnificent rings of Saturn made it look like a graceful beauty dancing.

The rings of Saturn have remarkable physical properties. They are vast but extremely thin, with a radius of about 110,000 kilometers and a thickness of only about 20 meters, primarily composed of meteoroids and ice particles.

Saturn has a structure similar to Jupiter, meaning that resources available at Jupiter can also be found at Saturn.

Moreover, the richness of resources on Titan, one of Saturn's moons, was not inferior to that of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, for Xiao Yu.

Reducing his speed relative to Saturn to 30 kilometers per second, Xiao Yu entered an orbit around Saturn. He then gradually adjusted his speed to reduce it to 2 kilometers per second relative to Titan, successfully entering an orbit around Titan.

At this point, there was much to do. With the current technology, Xiao Yu could not directly take off from a celestial body without a rocket. Even on a small body like Titan, with an escape velocity of only 2.6 kilometers per second, this was not possible.

This meant that once Xiao Yu landed, he would not be able to move for a considerable time. Therefore, he had to choose the most suitable landing area. This area had to be land, but it also needed to be near a methane lake for energy, and close to a region with a relatively high concentration of iron for building materials.

Xiao Yu began a long journey orbiting Titan. Over thousands of orbits, he gradually created a three-dimensional map of Titan. On this map, he marked different terrains, such as mountains, volcanoes, iron-rich regions, silicon-rich regions, lakes, and land.

After careful analysis, Xiao Yu finally chose a location.

Shangdu, also known as Shangri-La, is a high-brightness reflective region on Titan's leading hemisphere, about the size of Australia.

Traditional theories suggested that this was a large methane lake, but after on-site observations, Xiao Yu disproved this theory.

Through the dense atmosphere, the surface of Shangdu came into view. It was a wondrous world.

There was a solid surface with lakes, though not very large. There were also rivers of liquid methane flowing slowly, much like on Earth.

Geological surveys showed that there was a region in Shangdu with an extremely rich iron deposit. After careful consideration, Xiao Yu decided to land here.

After detailed orbital calculations, Xiao Yu slowly lowered his altitude and speed, gradually approaching the smooth surface of Titan.