The "star nucleus" can be understood as the heart of a planet, a nuclear reactor, the source of life...
The "star nucleus" can be large or small, as large as the Earth's core, which is nearly 7,000 kilometers in diameter, or as small as the "star nucleus" of Mars, which is only the size of a basketball.
However, volume is not the determining factor for the energy it contains. In fact, there is no logical relationship between volume and mass and the energy of a "star nucleus".
In the universe, something with enormous energy can actually be very small in size, such as the "core" of Adelaide.
"Can I interpret this as meaning that what I'm looking for has actually been right under my feet all along?" Zhang Fan tapped the ground a few times with his toes.
Adelaide Star is about the same size as Earth, with a diameter of over 12,000 kilometers. This means that the "core" of the star should be more than 6,000 kilometers away from it at this moment.
“Yes.” Grand Duke Ryan answered calmly, his eyes sweeping over the surrounding garden. “We replaced the aging ‘core’ of Adelaide, which is why you see everything you see now.”
Zhang Fan fell silent.
No wonder he felt so familiar with everything after arriving in Ryan; everything here was so similar to Earth.
"Charles Hussein became Lane's savior, which is also the origin of the Charles family's power." The Grand Duke of Lane sighed with deep thought, "Even the Lane royal family at that time had the idea of abdicating the throne to the Charles family."
"So generous?" Zhang Fan looked at Grand Duke Ryan with a half-smile.
"Hahaha." Grand Duke Ryan made no attempt to hide his embarrassment. "There's nothing we can do. It's not a matter of whether the Ryan royal family is willing or not, but rather that given Hussein's popularity among the people at the time, he already had the necessary conditions."
"More importantly, he possessed the 'Star Core,' which was his greatest asset at the time, and Ryan's only hope."
"Then why didn't he become king later?" Zhang Fan was somewhat puzzled. Based on his impression of Marquis Charles, this family, obsessed with power conquest, did not have the traditional quality of humility; otherwise, the Senate would not have become what it was.
“Then something went wrong,” Grand Duke Ryan replied. “At the height of Hussein’s prestige, he suddenly contracted a strange illness. The cause of the illness could not be found, but his organs were rapidly failing.”
“We now know that it was an extremely rare genetic mutation that caused organ failure, but with the medical technology at the time, it was a terminal illness, and we have only recently made a breakthrough in the treatment of this rare disease.”
"So that's why Hussein never became king?"
“Of course, no matter how prestigious a patient with a terminal illness is, he cannot ascend the throne,” said Grand Duke Ryan. “But we have given them enough in return.”
“The Charlie family got almost everything except the throne. From an unknown, declining noble family, the Charlie family suddenly became one of the top families in Ryan.”
“The patriarch of the Charles family even possessed a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card.’ No matter what crime he committed, the royal family could at most strip him of his title, but could not execute him.”
"The Senate built by the Charlie family also became a transcendent entity that was above Lane's laws."
“To you, Hussein is a hero,” Zhang Fan said, looking directly into Grand Duke Ryan’s eyes. “But to me, do you know what he is?”
“I know.” Grand Duke Ryan nodded frankly. “Some people say that rare disease is God’s punishment for thieves.”
"Then this God is incompetent, and the punishment is too lenient," Zhang Fan said unhappily. "He stole the very foundation upon which another civilization depends for survival, and all he can do is compensate with a serious illness?"
"Where are your cosmic laws? Where is your principle of non-interference? Does a superior civilization think it can treat the fate of a inferior civilization as worthless?"
"The fault actually lies with me, with our royal family of Ryan," Grand Duke Ryan said apologetically. "We readily believed what Hussein said, and with just one unmanned spaceship scanning the planet's surface, we concluded that it was a lifeless planet."
"A planet with such a rare 'star core' has no life?" Zhang Fan frowned. "Don't you think that's just self-deception?"
“It is indeed self-deception.” Grand Duke Ryan nodded sadly. “But there is no other way. We are out of time. In order to maintain this conclusion, we will also designate a 100-light-year area around that planet as a no-fly zone, prohibiting any spacecraft from going in that direction, not even unmanned research aircraft.”
Okay, so you can pretend it doesn't exist just because you can't see it yourself. That's just burying your head in the sand.
“But we really didn’t expect it. In that desolate cosmic desert, under such extreme conditions, that civilization was reborn, and the humans there once again rose to the top of the food chain.” Grand Duke Ryan looked at Zhang Fan with emotion. “And their descendants even came to us and questioned us to our faces about the mistakes we made.”
“Isn’t it only natural to take responsibility for the mistakes you’ve made?” Zhang Fan looked at Grand Duke Ryan. “Besides, I don’t see that you’ve paid any price for it.”
“Yes,” Marshal Zhu Yifu suddenly interjected, “Laine paid a heavy price for it.”
"You've been to Benghazi, so you should have already seen the ancient battlefield of the 'Chaos Lands,' right?"
“I’ve visited,” Zhang Fan nodded and said. “Marshal, whether as your subordinate or as a fellow ‘outsider,’ I have great respect for you, but…”
Zhang Fan frowned: "I still want to ask, was my trip to Benghazi also something you deliberately arranged?"
Zhu Yifu smiled, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and continued the previous topic.
"'The Chaotic Lands' wasn't always like this; it used to be the most fertile land between Llane and Phos. It became what it is now because of a war that once took place there."
"A war between our carbon-based civilization and the hostile silicon-based civilization?" Zhang Fan asked.
He once drove the Azure Winged White Tiger into that ancient battlefield and observed up close the traces left by that war.
Even after millions of years, the epic war can still be observed from many relics.
That was a decisive battle between two Type III interstellar civilizations belonging to different factions.
The warships of both sides would even perform jump maneuvers within a few thousand meters, turning the airspace there into a jumbled mess. If it weren't for the agile Azure Winged White Tiger, other warships entering this area would easily be sucked into the chaotic spacetime turbulence.
A warship could be stretched in an instant by spatial turbulence into a metal wire millions of kilometers long but only the width of a human hair, or compressed into a thin film with an area of hundreds of millions of square kilometers but a thickness of only one atom.
Here, a person might age instantly, revert to an embryonic state, or more likely become a pile of bones or a speck of dust in the universe...
“That level of warfare is beyond our comprehension,” Zhu Yifu continued. “We can’t even get onto the battlefield. But we still do everything we can to help our side.”
“It was about 1.5 billion people, half of Ryan’s total population at the time, who died in that war,” Grand Duke Ryan murmured to himself. “But we had no choice but to fight. If we were captured by the silicon-based civilization, carbon-based life forms would have no chance of survival.”
“I don’t understand.” Zhang Fan frowned. “According to you, a Level 3 silicon-based civilization could crush you as easily as crushing an ant. I can’t think of anything about an ant that would make them wage war for it.”
“That’s the question you should be asking,” said Grand Duke Ryan.
"Me?" Zhang Fan was stunned for a moment. "How would I know?"
"After the war, the envoy from the Type III carbon-based civilization told us that the enemy's target was the 'star core'," Zhu Yifu asked with great interest. "In other words, their original target was you."
"What exactly did you do that led the silicon-based civilization to send an entire interstellar fleet to deal with you?"
"Ah, this..." Zhang Fan didn't know how to answer for a moment.
"Forget it, there's no point in discussing this now," Grand Duke Ryan said with a helpless wave of his hand. "It's because of the price we paid for this war that the Carbon-Based Faction was able to avoid the punishment we should have received for interfering with a lower-level civilization."
Zhang Fan fell silent.
The silicon-based fleet was originally headed for Mars or Earth, and he couldn't say whether encountering the silicon-based civilization's fleet would have been a better outcome than losing the "star core".
“A mistake is a mistake.” Grand Duke Ryan stood up, hands behind his back, looking at the sky outside the pavilion. “I will return the ‘Star Core’ to you.”
“Don’t think of this as atonement. Losing a planet isn’t a big deal for Ryan right now.” Grand Duke Ryan pointed to the chessboard in front of him. “Losing a chess piece might actually be a good thing for Ryan right now.”
Grand Duke Ryan's words were not an exaggeration. The Principality of Ryan currently possesses dozens of habitable planets, and if resource planets are included, the number exceeds one hundred.
Adelaide is a planet in the Principality of Ryan, and its status is similar to that of a city in the past. Adelaide does not have 3 billion people as it did at the beginning.
Although the total population of the Principality of Ryan has long exceeded 3 billion, it is scattered across various planets.
As the capital planet, Adelaide is not the largest city in the Principality of Laine. The total population of Adelaide, including the surrounding satellite cities, is less than ten million, and it mainly serves political functions.
Evacuating a planet with a population of ten million would not be difficult for the Principality of Ryan.
“But before that, in exchange,” Grand Duke Ryan sat down again, “I want you to do something for us.”
"What is it?" Zhang Fan couldn't think of anything that these three old men in front of him couldn't do.
"I haven't attended court for over a month, and the Marshal is under my 'house arrest'," Grand Duke Ryan said with a smile, glancing at Zhu Yifu opposite him. "The situation outside must be in complete chaos by now, right?"
“It’s more than just chaos.” Erwin, who had been sitting quietly to the side, also glanced at Zhu Yifu. “The Ryan National Army is even at risk of mutiny. General Andrei of the General Staff has left the military headquarters to go to Milan Star to express his protest and command the front-line operations there.”
“There is no doubt about Andrei’s loyalty. He could never be a traitor.” Zhu Yifu took a sip of tea and looked at Zhang Fan. “On the battlefield, Andrei lacks the vigor and offensive power, but as a general to defend the city, no one is more suitable than him. With Andrei around, at least we don’t need to worry about the direction of Fas.”
“I see your concerns lie internally,” Zhang Fan glanced at the three elders. “You want Reinhardt and Ferlinan to fight, don’t you?”
"They are not fit to be heirs to the throne. In terms of the most basic character, they are unqualified." Grand Duke Ryan set the tone for the matter in one sentence. "In a couple of days, a medical report from the Central Hospital will be accidentally leaked."
"To convince them that the medical report is genuine, I only changed a few dates, slightly advancing the date of my death," Grand Duke Ryan said with a smile, as if he were talking about something unrelated to himself.
“And you will receive a new appointment,” Marshal Zhu Yifu continued. “You will be promoted to lieutenant general and will be in charge of all the troops of the Duchy of Ryan in the Chaotic Lands.”
"The support fleets stationed at Muli, Haige, and Anlin are drawn from various fleets, so you won't have any problems with commanding them."
"As for the White Tiger Brigade and the newly formed 358th Regiment, I need not say more about them."
"Are you sure there won't be any problems letting a young man in his twenties command a space fleet?" Zhang Fan wasn't being self-deprecating, but rather somewhat surprised by the skill and daring of these elderly men.
“What are you afraid of? Don’t think you’re the first person like this.” Erwin glared at Zhang Fan, then pointed at Zhu Yifu across from him. “Right in front of you is a precedent of someone in their twenties commanding a space fleet.”
"Given your contributions to the Duchy of Ryan in expanding its territory in the chaotic lands, a promotion to lieutenant general is not an exaggeration," Zhu Yifu added.
Well, Zhang Fan also knew that the Ryan National Army was currently leaderless, and his independently commanded fleet would undoubtedly become a hot commodity sought after by all parties.
“You want me to do these things?” After listening to the three old men recount the details, Zhang Fan looked at them with suspicion. “Don’t tell me your goal is just to deal with Reinhardt and Ferlinan?”
“You’re very clever. There’s no need for us to spell things out for you.” Grand Duke Ryan smiled. “When you encounter difficult problems outside, you can do whatever you want without asking us for instructions. What we need least right now is to follow the rules and proceed step by step.”
"Go."
"Use your recklessness to turn the world upside down."
"You'd better not regret this." Zhang Fan stood up and took the things handed to him by Grand Duke Ryan.
"I'm not responsible for anything that happens."
The three elderly people watched Zhang Fan leave with smiles on their faces.
"What do you think he's capable of?" Grand Duke Ryan asked, taking a sip of tea.
"At least luring out that old fox from Charlie's family shouldn't be a problem, right?" Zhu Yifu also took a sip of tea.
“Don’t look at me,” Erwin said, glaring at them. “Knowing him as I do, I wouldn’t be surprised if he cheated on Charlie’s family, let alone lured them out.”
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