Six months later.

A massive fleet from the black hole region silently swept through deep space, propelled by antimatter engines.

Several asteroids that had come from afar were heading towards the fleet.

The next second.

Before they could even touch the starship's armor, they were blocked by an invisible barrier.

Their own inertia, combined with several distorted gravitational fields, directly tore their fragile bodies apart.

The asteroid, reduced to countless fragments, traced a graceful arc as it glided toward the rear of the fleet.

"Professor, the gravitational influence of the black hole has been reduced to below the standard value."

A synthesized electronic voice rang out in the command center of the Earth.

Lü Yongchang nodded and checked the spacetime curvature values ​​returned by the probe once again.

After confirming that all the values ​​had returned to normal, he took a deep breath and said in a deep voice.

"Attention all units!"

"Fleet, prepare to enter warp drive mode!!"

...

The moment the words were spoken, the once quiet command center suddenly became lively.

"The antimatter engine's output power is starting to increase, 20%, 35%..."

"Curvature bubble generation begins. Current spacetime curvature: 0.167."

This is a spacetime distortion caused by the fleet's own mass and gravity shields.

As the curvature bubble intensity gradually increases, the spacetime curvature value begins to drop rapidly.

"Correction: Current spacetime curvature is 0, curvature bubble is functioning normally!"

"Preparing to activate the warp drive."

After finishing his report, He Bilin solemnly pressed the virtual button on the holographic projection.

"Positive and negative gravitational fields are being generated..."

As the electronic synthesized sound of Zero rang out, a slight tremor came from the deck beneath our feet.

A light, faint feeling of weightlessness followed.

This is normal.

Due to the starship's "long history" and the relatively outdated nature of some of its devices, there were some flaws in the antimatter engine's power supply.

"This ship is about to enter warp drive mode. Passengers, please prepare."

"Warp Drive Countdown: 30, 29, 28..."

A series of bright red countdowns, carrying a warning message, appeared before everyone, accompanied by an electronically synthesized voice.

Lu Yongchang carefully took steps, half-floating and half-walking, until he reached the porthole of the command center.

Unlike conventional propulsion methods, during warp drive, crew members do not need to lie in the deep-sea compartment and can even move around freely.

During warp drive, the starship is carried along by the surrounding spacetime.

The starship itself remains relatively stationary with respect to spacetime.

Therefore, a starship that enters a warp state will not experience any acceleration.

Similarly, encased in a curvature bubble, a starship can also evade the time dilation and length contraction effects caused by special relativity.

Lü Yongchang turned his gaze to the front of the starship.

The slightly distorted starlight indicates that an extremely powerful gravitational field is being generated in front of the starship!

"...3,2,1!"

"Warp drive officially launched!"

"Current speed of this ship: 1.1c."

"Quantum long-distance communication device is undergoing self-test... Information transmission status is normal."

Current speed: 2c.

The moment the countdown ended, the slight feeling of weightlessness disappeared, and Lü Yongchang felt his body sink down, and his feet were firmly planted on the deck again.

He didn't pay attention to these small details.

At that moment, all his attention was drawn to the scene outside the porthole.

Under curvature, the universe outside the porthole presents an incredibly strange phenomenon!

As the starship's speed increased, the starlight ahead gradually became stronger!

At the same time, these lights gradually turned a faint blue.

The wavelength of light shortens and shifts into the blue portion of the spectrum; this is the blue shift in the Doppler effect.

This means that these light sources are rapidly approaching them!

Or rather, they are approaching these infinitely distant stars at an extremely fast speed!

Lü Yongchang turned his head to look at the rear of the starship.

Unlike the brilliant light screen in front of the starship, there was only dense darkness there!

The starlight could no longer catch up with this runaway horse!

"Zero, how's the Black Hole Tractor?"

Lu Yongchang withdrew his amazed gaze and turned to ask.

The Black Hole Tractor, as its name suggests, is designed to tug on the miniature black hole that humanity created with tremendous effort.

As for why we should take it on an interstellar voyage...

Over time, the "antigraviton" will gradually lose its properties and transform back into a graviton.

Therefore, a stable source of antigravitons is needed to ensure the normal operation of the warp drive.

And micro black holes have naturally become this mineral resource.

The method of taking it on a long voyage... is actually not complicated.

First, this miniature black hole needs to be "starved" a bit.

When its mass and gravitational influence range shrink to a certain extent, it is pulled into the black hole tractor by the gravitational field.

Similarly, the internal gravitational field keeps the black hole, the tractor, and the surrounding spacetime relatively still.

The final step is to activate the warp drive, allowing this miniature black hole to also enter warp travel mode!

It sounds simple, but in practice it brought a lot of trouble and difficulties to the human fleet.

Lu Yongchang's work in the past period has mostly focused on solving difficulties in this area.

Although after various rigorous calculations and numerous tests, it has been almost certain that no accidents will occur.

But it is, after all, a black hole.

Even a miniature black hole is still, in essence, one of the most powerful celestial bodies in the universe.

"The black hole tractor has successfully entered warp drive mode."

"The miniature black hole is currently in good condition, and its traction field is functioning well!"

Hearing Zero's response, Lü Yongchang breathed a long sigh of relief, then turned his head again to look at the porthole beside him.

His eyes sparkled with a look of infatuation and fascination.

Similar to Lü Yongchang, after confirming that all starships had successfully entered warp drive, each academician stood up from his seat and quickly walked to the porthole of the command center.

"Hey, Lao Cao, tell me how long you've been watching this?"

"Make way for me, let me see too."

Fang Xu's shouting came from not far behind.

"Go away, there's nothing to see. The live camera footage is just being shown in the holographic projection, it's the same as watching that."

"How can that be the same! Besides, if there's nothing to see, why are you occupying this seat?!"

Fang Xu naturally didn't believe Cao Liangcai's deceptive words. His eyebrows shot up, and his voice suddenly became louder: "Look, there are still so many of us waiting to see!"

"..."

Current speed: 10c.

Listening to the bustling sounds inside the command center, Lü Yongchang smiled faintly.

It seems that the development of human civilization has begun to go smoothly?