Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones

Tom had had enough of this life of constant flight and never being able to develop technology in peace.

The only way to solve this problem was to break through to the Strong Nuclear level and gain the true strength to contend with the Mechanical Disaster.

Only strength could secure peace for himself.

However, there were no shortcuts on the path of technological development.

Not to mention that he did not have access to the technological data captured from the Bluetoth Civilization as he did before, even if he did, his own research and development were still indispensable.

It was the same old saying: reverse engineering was useful, but not that useful. Technological data acquired from external sources was useful, but to truly learn and master it, one still had to rely on one's own repeated experiments, attempts, and research.

This path was destined to be crossed only by proceeding step by step and accumulating research little by little.

Key data from a particle collision experiment, particle behavior that did not conform to model predictions, energy levels of certain new particles, special phenomena in ultra-high temperature environments, practical manufacturing in the engineering industry, and so on—it required countless accumulations in these many fields to truly achieve a technological breakthrough.

Leaving this star system, Tom once again entered into full-throttle technological research and development.

Compared to the previous stage, Tom was now investing an even greater amount of scientific research power. The reason was simple: this time, more materials were collected, enough to support him in waking up all 3 billion clones and dedicating them entirely to scientific research.

Time slowly flowed by under these circumstances, and in the blink of an eye, another 250 years had passed, and Tom had again traveled approximately 20 light-years.

The distance from the solar system now truly exceeded one hundred light-years. And during this long journey of one hundred light-years, Tom did not find any traces of life.

Not to mention intelligent life, he had not even discovered the lowest forms of life.

Even the original Bluetoth Civilization's birthplace was not the Gliese 625 star system, as Tom had initially thought.

They also migrated from the depths of extremely distant space. As for where their true home star system was, history was too ancient, and the civilization had suffered too many disasters, so even they themselves could not be certain.

This did not seem like a good sign.

Centered on the solar system, with a radius of one hundred light-years, including the hard-to-observe red dwarfs and brown dwarfs, the number of stars in this starfield reached approximately twenty thousand.

Although Tom only traveled in one direction and did not conduct observations and searches for all stars in this starfield, Tom's course was roughly random, and this sample selection could be considered objective and representative to a certain extent.

This was already entirely sufficient to highlight the scarcity of life in the universe.

Clearly, the scarcer life, especially intelligent life, was in the universe, the more it implied the preciousness of intelligent life, and the stronger the Mechanical Disaster's desire to capture him.

There's so little intelligent life in this universe, and they finally found one in you. How could they let you escape?

They would surely pursue you to the ends of the earth, to the highest heavens and the deepest hell, until they captured you!

Under his worries, Tom continued his seemingly ceaseless scientific research work.

It was at this moment that the consciousnesses of some clones from the previously docked star system reconnected to Tom's mind.

As Tom expected, the Mechanical Disaster's presence appeared once again.

What made Tom even more solemn was that this time, from when he left that star system until the Mechanical Disaster appeared, only 230 years had passed!

At the solar system, the interval was about 400 years. At the Altair System, it was 267 years, and now it was 230 years!

The time was getting shorter and shorter!

Especially, in the Altair System, because his hydrogen bomb trap was effective, the Mechanical Disaster Fleet was delayed by at least an additional 30 years!

So, what about next time?

When he next docked in a star system, would the time shorten to within 200 years, or even 150 years, or less?

His fleet's acceleration alone would take about 13 years.

In 150 years, he could at most travel less than 13 light-years.

This distance of 13 light-years would only take the Mechanical Disaster Fleet about 18 years to cross.

With such a short distance, even if he performed multiple random trajectory changes during his journey, relying on the vastness of space to conceal his traces, the probability of being discovered by the Mechanical Disaster Fleet would greatly increase.

"They really are like maggots on a bone, clinging on tightly…"

A cold smile appeared on Tom's face, and the murderous intent in his heart grew stronger.

This time, when he entered that star system, the hydrogen bomb trap Tom set was not triggered. The clones observed that the Mechanical Disaster Fleet first meticulously inspected and searched all larger planets and conducted a large-scale screening of asteroids before the main fleet entered the star system.

Tom was not particularly disappointed by this.

This was originally expected.

The massive Mechanical Disaster Fleet then began a new round of large-scale construction on the remnants of Tom's factory, completing resource collection in only about 30 years, and then once again set sail and disappeared into the vast starry sky, clearly resuming their pursuit of him.

Tom withdrew his gaze and once again focused his efforts on scientific research.

Amidst this ceaseless research, day after day, another 500 years quietly slipped away.

Tom gradually realized that his technological development seemed to have hit a bottleneck.

At the applied physics level, the theory had not been updated for a long time. And based on the current theoretical system, the performance of various technological creations had reached their limits.

Technological development follows this principle: first, basic physics, then applied physics, and only then various technological creations.

Basic physics determines the upper limit of technology.

Just like in the Earth era, only with the development of the theory of relativity, a basic physics theory, could the atomic bomb and hydrogen bomb possibly be created.

Now, Tom's applied physics and technological creations had reached the upper limit of the existing basic physics theory.

And the development of basic physics theory… had encountered a bottleneck.

Despite this situation, Tom felt no frustration at all; instead, he was filled with excitement.

This was not a bad thing; it was a great thing, a good thing!

Because this meant that he had mastered all the technological theories of the electroweak stage, and he had truly touched upon the Strong Nuclear Civilization, touching the threshold of the Unified Strong Nuclear Force.

At this stage, he could truly be called a peak Electroweak Civilization. As long as he broke through this bottleneck, he would be able to advance to a Strong Nuclear Civilization!