Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones

Tom knew that abandoning everything he had now and transferring his consciousness to the backup clones he had previously hidden would result in losses far beyond just the many starships in his massive fleet and the intelligent AIs running in countless supercomputers, which were the culmination of immense training data and his own hard work, and not just the large scientific facilities, among other things.

The true loss would be much greater than that.

Tom knew that as the primary consciousness, his ability to retain so much scientific knowledge, experience, and skills was actually achieved through numerous clones.

That is, these memories did not exist independently. Instead, in this mode, the clones' brains became the "hard drives" for Tom's primary consciousness to store knowledge and memories.

That knowledge and those memories were stored in the clones' brains.

How much can one brain remember? The various knowledge, data, experiences, and skills Tom had developed at this moment were so vast that describing them as 'like a sea of smoke' would be an understatement; even if a brain were to explode, it couldn't hold it all.

Abandoning these clones meant that he would also lose this portion of his knowledge.

His primary consciousness could at most only remember some key information and memories.

If he were to restart, not only would the fleet need to be rebuilt, but technology would also need to be re-developed from scratch.

Therefore, as long as there was even a glimmer of possibility, Tom was absolutely unwilling to give up everything he currently possessed.

But Tom still decided to take a risk and go for a big one.

Tom intended to confront a third-level Strong Nuclear Civilization with a second-level Electroweak Civilization!

All the knowledge and experience Tom possessed told him this was almost impossible to achieve, but Tom still made this decision.

The first reason, of course, was that there was simply no other way.

The second reason was that...

Tom also had a temper!

From leaving the solar system, to leaving the Altair System, and now to embarking on interstellar escape again, it had been over two thousand years in a flash.

I have been fleeing for over two thousand years!

I've had enough!

This time, either I break through to become a Strong Nuclear Civilization, or we all perish together!

At worst, I'll restart again. I want to see if you, the Mechanical Disaster, have any hope of recover again!

Tom had made up his mind and formulated a plan that could only be described as insane and daring.

"To execute this plan, some prerequisites are needed. First, a relatively young star system is required. Because only if it is young enough will the internal chaos of the star system be sufficient.

Secondly, a relatively active main star is needed. Only if the main star is active enough will I have opportunities to exploit."

Tom quickly searched his existing stellar database and immediately identified a suitable target.

Pegasus V342! Or another designation, HR8799!

This star's mass is about 1.5 times that of the Sun, and its age is only 60 million years, still in the stellar infancy stage.

Due to its young age, this star is very active, and its luminosity is rapidly changing, dimming and brightening, with a cycle of only two days.

This means it has extremely strong and rapid stellar activity.

Because the boundary between this star's convection zone and radiation zone is unstable, its stellar surface can even exhibit wave-like structures, similar to ocean waves. And it is this violent stellar "ocean wave" that causes its luminosity to undergo periodic changes.

At the same time, the interior of this star system is also very chaotic.

It is especially noteworthy that it has seven large planets within it, three of which are rocky planets, with the smallest having a mass 1.3 times that of Earth.

The number of gas giants is four, with the largest gas planet having a mass 12 times that of Jupiter—this is likely already at the mass boundary between a planet and a star; if it were slightly larger, it could ignite core helium-3 fusion or deuterium-tritium fusion, becoming a brown dwarf.

The smallest one is still 6 times the mass of Jupiter.

The behemoths in the solar system are just inconspicuous midgets in the Pegasus V342 system.

It not only has numerous large planets but, due to its extreme youth, also possesses a multitude of small celestial bodies comparable in number to those in the Altair System, including a dust disk rich in matter, an asteroid belt, and so on.

To sum it up in one sentence: this is like a plus version of the solar system, where not only is the main star larger, brighter, and more active than the Sun, the rocky planets are larger than Earth, the gas planets are larger than Jupiter, and even the asteroids are more numerous than in the solar system.

"This is the place!"

Tom made up his mind: "Either I achieve nirvana here, or here… we perish together!"

Adjusting the fleet's course once more, Tom flew toward this star system, which was still 4.6 light-years away.

In a flash, several decades passed, and Tom's massive fleet finally anchored about 50 million kilometers from this star.

There was also a large planet here.

It was the smallest in mass among all the large planets in Pegasus V342.

Although it was the smallest, theoretically, a mass 1.3 times that of Earth would still be enough for it to possess sufficient gravity to attract gases and form an atmosphere.

At the same time, sufficient mass could also generate enough internal pressure to keep the interior hot and flowing, thereby creating a magnetic field, which would protect its atmosphere from being stripped away by the immense radiation pressure of the main star.

But unfortunately.

Although it had sufficient mass and a sufficiently strong magnetic field, it was too close to the main star, and the main star's radiation was too intense.

As a result, its atmosphere was mercilessly stripped away, leaving it as a bare, spherical body with no gases on its surface.

In the solar system, Mercury is about 40 million kilometers from the Sun, and the Sun's surface temperature is over 2000 degrees Celsius lower than Pegasus V342, with its brightness only about one-fifth of it.

Even so, Mercury is scorched by the Sun to a surface temperature of several hundred degrees Celsius.

This large planet's situation was even worse than Mercury's.

Its surface temperature reached over 700 degrees Celsius, enough to melt metals like zinc, aluminum, lead, tin, and magnesium.

Thus, a curious sight appeared on this planet: although it had no atmosphere, its surface had numerous "lakes" that, under the illumination of the yellowish-white starlight, shimmered with different colors, dazzling like precious gems, extraordinarily brilliant.

These lakes, though beautiful, were extremely dangerous.

Because these lakes were not water, but rather liquid metals, or alloys!