A new week has begun.

As usual, Chen Ming read the situation of Yu Hui's individual investigation that Huihuang was still arranging during the break last night.

Although his main focus in the first two weeks was on the mechanical race he discovered during the exploration and the subsequent research and technological improvements on the mechanical race and Zerg.

But the development of the star systems around the temporary base has never been neglected.

After all, this has always been Chen Ming's goal.

Everything else he did along the way was paving the way for this goal.

The daily report sent by Huihuang showed that last night was calm and nothing happened.

It’s a pity that Yuhui and his team didn’t get much out of their investigation of the star systems near the previously discovered skeletons of the Skyfish, and still found no traces of the Skyfish school.

However, the corpse had been bombarded by a large amount of space radiation and various particles and had lost its original properties. Except for the skeleton, it could be seen that it was an empty fish and had no value in feeding the queen worm.

However, most of the afterglow individuals that were still investigating outside last night have returned safely. Only a few were damaged, let alone lost.

So it doesn’t matter if you can’t find the empty fish, you will have a chance to find it later.

And this morning, the list of material consumption for the previous week as of last night was also brilliantly listed.

All I can say is that the amount of material consumption is still as shocking as last week, or even much more than last week.

Currently, there are more than 50,000 Afterglow individuals in the temporary base.

There are about 20,000 people actually active outside, and there are more than 2,000 individuals doing logistical work in temporary bases.

All the rest are dormant.

As a backup when necessary.

And, during the second jump, the main force to develop the second temporary base.

Therefore, when the temporary base's star port was constructed, the goal was not to carry all the more than 50,000 afterglows.

Then this star port will not be built in a few weeks.

But even so, the amount of fuel consumed by these more than 20,000 afterglow individuals that drove out in destroyers at most is not a small number.

If the quantity of materials is converted into money according to market price, it will be even larger.

Adding the cost of the fight between Chen Ming and the mechanical race...

It really made Chen Ming feel heartbroken every time he saw it.

Fortunately, Chen Ming has the support of his boss, so he can purchase large quantities of supplies in bulk at very low prices.

Otherwise, he would have already started reducing the number of Afterglow individuals active outside.

The lofty words spoken before leaving the empire ultimately had to succumb to the reality of spending money and materials.

But continuing like this in the long run is definitely not a solution. Chen Ming feels a little uncomfortable looking at a colony that only sees input but no output.

Although the boss didn't seem to have any objections, he had been quietly preparing new supplies for Chen Ming based on the material consumption list that Chen Ming sent back every week.

But Chen Ming couldn't take it for granted.

That's why he would improve the promising technology he had previously researched and publish it to make money.

Only then would we try to improve antimatter technology and let Chaofan study the antimatter engine.

Although this investment is equally huge, in a short period of time it is greater than the material consumption of more than 20,000 Yuhui per week.

But Chen Ming believes that his current investment will definitely be earned back in the end, and even more.

After all, this is an antimatter engine with specially matched antimatter fuel.

In the same distance, the output power is higher, the speed is faster, and the fuel mass consumption is less.

The improved antimatter engine will only be more cost-effective.

And the antimatter engine itself can also use ordinary fuel, but the conversion efficiency of ordinary fuel is lower.

But even if it is lower, it is not much lower. At least it is more efficient than ordinary engines converting ordinary fuel.

While researching the antimatter engine, Chen Ming was also researching the expansion of the Zerg hive and mechanical city, a decision he made for the sake of increasing his own mental power and thinking speed.

After all, he is now the core of the entire Afterglow, the entire mechanical race, the entire Zerg and the entire development process.

Besides training, he can also become stronger through other means - receiving feedback from the hive network of the Mechanical Race and the Zerg.

Therefore, it is a normal choice to develop Zerg and Mechanical races in order to develop themselves during the development process.

And there is another benefit to developing the Zerg.

That is, after swallowing the energy crystal crab, the Zerg can produce Zerg energy crystals.

A product with better yield, output stability and output difficulty than the energy crystal crab.

Moreover, energy crystals are basically pure energy aggregates, except that the part condensed into crystals may be mixed with some substances representing the species of the producer.

But as long as Chen Ming lets the Queen make some simple modifications to the bugs that specifically produce Zerg energy crystals, he will be able to erase all traces of the Zerg from the produced energy crystals.

The forged Zerg energy crystal is the result of the energy crystal crab's production.

And as long as people knew the existence of these Zerg energy crystals that were normally produced by the energy crystal crabs, which crushed the Zerg in all aspects in terms of output, they could be used in conjunction with the antimatter engines that can greatly improve the performance of spacecraft.

It will definitely be welcomed by the empire and spread very widely.

Soon, Chen Ming will have a new sum of funds deposited into his account.

And as long as the output of energy crystals is still controlled by Chen Ming, the funds flowing into him will definitely continue for a long time.

Even if the Empire has energy crystal crab samples, it will take at least several years before it can start mass breeding of energy crystal crabs.

But by that time, not to mention the issue of production, the insects that produce energy crystals on Chen Ming's side may have been replaced by several generations.

It would be impossible to keep up with his progress if we continued to develop slowly starting from the energy crystal crab.

Chen Ming sorted out his current thoughts a bit, and after confirming that there were no mistakes or omissions, he put down the daily report sent by Huihuang.

Then I continued to confirm other situations that happened last night.

Before Chen Ming went to bed yesterday, he promised Chaofan something.

He had previously deliberately and randomly found a gamma afterglow to conduct a test.

Although Chen Ming fell into a coma during the process, the deep maintenance work was not stopped.

And when Chen Ming looked over now, the changes that had taken place in Gamma Afterglow were indeed very pleasing.

According to Chen Ming's observation and comparison, the structure on this optimized gamma afterglow core has basically been optimized.

The running logic circuit has been significantly simplified, and its running speed has also been greatly improved, with an increase of about 50%.

Moreover, the changes in the entire core did not have any impact on the afterglow individuals inside the core, and even made the gamma core produce an emotion called comfort.

I can only say that the effect is very good.

Although Chen Ming was not sure whether the Alpha-class afterglow core would have such excellent optimization effects during deep maintenance, he was not sure whether there would be any new changes.

But even if it is only 1% optimized, Chen Ming will definitely have to perform deep maintenance on the several Alpha-level afterglows he has on hand one by one, so that their capabilities can be further enhanced.

Chen Mingke has not forgotten that he has not chosen the appropriate Alpha-level core bonus for the few Alpha-level afterglows he has except HR.

If Chen Ming could optimize the ability of the Alpha-level afterglow so that it could be superimposed with the enhancement of the core bonus, even if they were not multiplied, the overall improvement of each afterglow core would be extremely obvious.

Chen Ming is the core of the entire development plan. The several Alpha Afterglows in his hands are the trump cards in the core's hands. It is always okay to strengthen them if there is a chance to do so.

What's more, the consumption is only the remaining mental energy before resting every day.

And with Chen Ming's successful strengthening of the Yuhui core last night, another thing happened smoothly.

It was just that the smoothness was a little different from what Chen Ming had imagined.

Because to this day he still has not waited for his paper to be published in that journal, nor has he received a reply from the reviewer.

Instead, I waited for Baiquan's contact.

Before the daily command teaching time started, Bai Quan took the initiative to call.

Chen Ming answered the phone immediately and said, "Bai Quan?"

There seemed to be some noise from Bai Quan's side, but it soon quieted down. Bai Quan was heard saying, "Chen Ming, I want to discuss with you the technology you told me about before."

Chen Ming immediately perked up and asked knowingly, "What's wrong?"

"Your technology... our Fourteenth Legion is very interested in it."

Chen Ming smiled slightly and said jokingly, "You didn't say that a few days ago."

Bai Quan said without blushing: "The situation will always change with time."

To be honest, when Chen Ming said before that he had a technology that he thought had potential and was researching, Bai Quan didn't think much about it at first. After all, Chen Ming's technology was just so-so, and he just thought that Chen Ming had some strange invention.

A few days later, Chen Ming confidently mentioned in class that his research had been completed and he wanted to publish it. He also mentioned that someone he knew could help speed up the review.

Who made him know that one of the reviewers of the journal that Chen Ming was going to publish was from their Fourteenth Legion?

Then after Baiquan explained it to others, he basically forgot about it.

But then something unexpected happened.

He was the reviewer that Bai Quan had found. He was not at work all the time. His main job was still the director of a research institute affiliated with the 14th Corps. He just had his name on the journal and would occasionally review a couple of articles.

At the same time, he does have some power to give some papers sent to journals for review to those who are actually reviewing them, so that they can review them early.

When Bai Quan came over and mentioned Chen Ming's thesis to him, he remembered it, but did not help immediately.

After all, someone wanted to publish a paper in that top scientific journal through Bai Quan's relationship. If the content is a mess, not only will it fail, it may also affect Bai Quan's reputation.

Although he was not responsible for the review of Chen Ming's paper, it was better for an internal person to check it in advance than to let it out and cause embarrassment.

But after actually reading the content of the paper, he found that the situation was not what he thought.

This paper was not published by relying on connections to get published in a journal. The technology in this paper has truly been tested in practice and is of considerable value.

The purpose of asking Baiquan for help is to speed up the review, that's all.

So the researchers from the 14th Legion went directly to Baiquan and explained the situation.

Then Bai Quan discovered that although he had been increasing his attention to Chen Ming and raising the upper limit of Chen Ming's spiritual power in his perception, he was also increasing his understanding of Chen Ming's own abilities.

But his understanding of Chen Ming was still incomplete, and even a little underestimated.

Bai Quan's understanding of Chen Ming is mainly psychic power, not Chen Ming's own ability. Of course, he does not look down on Chen Ming. After all, the psychic power of a psychic is of course the ability of a psychic, and Chen Ming is very outstanding.

Moreover, the terrifying learning ability that Chen Ming has demonstrated in recent times is indeed exaggerated.

But Chen Ming's learning ability is more in the learning of command techniques, and other aspects of learning...

Although Bai Quan also knew that Chen Ming was really learning, no matter what, before becoming a psychic, Chen Ming was just the leader of a logistics and maintenance team inside a space station in the fringe star field of a branch of Sinda Corporation.

The technical capabilities are okay, but when you look at it from a bigger perspective, it's just so-so.

Chen Ming had never demonstrated any research ability before, and only made up for it later. To be honest, it's really hard to believe.

But now, the director of the research institute directly under their 14th Corps came in person for Chen Ming's paper, which forced Bai Quan to raise his evaluation of Chen Ming again.

Not only in terms of psychic powers, but also in other abilities as an ordinary person.

Bai Quan had already made plans to talk to Chen Ming about this matter again.

So when facing Chen Ming's seemingly teasing words, Bai Quan could only shamelessly pretend nothing had happened.

After all, since Chen Ming had taken the initiative to bring up this matter with him before his thesis was completed, it meant that he was thinking of making a deal with the 14th Legion.

No matter what, he could not reject this paper and the technology contained in it, which had attracted the director of the institute personally.

Just like what Bai Quan thought, Chen Ming didn't say much nonsense. He adjusted his mentality a little and said to Bai Quan formally: "So what do you think?"

Baiquan cleared his throat again and said, "First of all, let's confirm one thing. Did you develop this technology yourself?"

"Of course that's for sure, and you should have checked it out, right?"

“Indeed, we didn’t find any similar studies.”

This is bullshit.

Chen Ming had checked before conducting in-depth research on this technology, and found that no one in the empire had ever conducted similar research.

What's more, the inspiration for this entire technical research plan came from the samples of Yu Hui's abandoned research plans when Chen Ming was still with Yu Hui.

If these abandoned plans were mastered by humans, the Yuhui in this star field would have been wiped out long ago.

It will be Chen Ming's turn to study it.

However, although it was a plan that Yu Hui gave up, after Chen Ming's development and in-depth repairs, the effect was amazing enough.

Chen Ming's technology, called the Stable Hyperspace Channel Jump Engine, is actually not so much an engine as it is an additional device mounted on the engine, similar to a hyperspace channel system.

The effect after stabilization is also very simple and crude.

With just one coordinate and a fuel consumption much higher than normal space travel, a spacecraft equipped with this device can make a jump in hyperspace.

There is nothing much to say about the effect of the jump. It is a cruiser equipped with a jump engine.

What is truly unique and powerful about this hyperspace channel jump engine is that it can be installed on a frigate.

Allow frigates to perform jumps.

All I can say is that Chen Ming has found a lot of relevant information.

I found that many people have tried to conduct research on lightweighting and miniaturization of jump engines.

But no one has done it so far, no one has successfully researched it, and no one has thought of using hyperspace to achieve an effect similar to that of a jump.

Yu Hui thought of a similar method, but Yu Hui's research also failed, and perhaps due to problems with their thinking, they did not continue, leaving the inspiration and failure process of the research to Chen Ming.

Chen Ming actually failed at the beginning. Using the unstable hyperspace channel jump engine indiscriminately is actually tantamount to suicide.

It was not until this technology was deeply optimized by psychic energy that he accomplished this goal that no one had been able to accomplish so far.

Although Chen Ming's technology is not suitable for any frigate that is not equipped with an antimatter engine, as long as it makes a hyperspace jump, the fuel will basically be exhausted.

But that's the limit of the laws of physics.

Furthermore, the hyperspace channel jump engine does not directly use the jump engine that can be used in the normal universe, but uses the gravity well of hyperspace to achieve a pseudo jump. It is normal that it consumes more energy.

But whether there is any fuel left after the jump is one question, and whether the jump can be made is another.

A leap means an opportunity, maybe a chance to escape, maybe a chance to win.

So this issue also has value for frigates.

There is no need to mention the destroyers above that.

Its equivalent is enough to support the consumption of the hyperspace channel jump engine technology, unlike the frigate which requires consideration.

More advanced ships can be more casual.

Because the technology of the hyperspace channel jump engine is not the same system as the jump engine used by normal cruisers.

There is no conflict between them.

This means that any ship of cruiser size and above can choose to install both systems.

Use the hyperspace jump drive first, then the normal jump drive.

This is the value of Chen Ming’s research.

Of course, this thing also has disadvantages.

For example, like a normal jump engine, it takes time to cool down.

At the same time, since Chen Ming's equipment is designed based on the gravity well of hyperspace, it is limited by system design.

Therefore, even if the jump is carried out in a hyperspace that is smaller than the normal universe environment, the actual jump efficiency cannot be compared with the genuine jump engine.

The limit of hyperspace jump is about half of the maximum jump distance in a normal universe environment.

In addition, the coordinates of the hyperspace jump engine are also limited.

Although hyperspace is similar to the normal universe environment, it is basically a geometric enlargement and reduction relationship.

However, due to the influence of the cosmic environment such as various strange curvatures caused by the gravity of various planets, the actual coordinates in the hyperspace are not completely consistent with the coordinates of the normal universe. Instead, it can be said that there must be deviations.

This means that the hyperspace channel jump engine must have very precise coordinates in order to make a jump.

Otherwise, if there is a deviation, the end point of the jump may appear in a high-density hyperspace channel cloud, and be struck half to death by hyperspace lightning.

It may even be directly sucked into the gravity well of a star in a galaxy and torn into pieces.

But in general, as long as you have accurate coordinates, there will be no problems.

Therefore, this system can be used in any galaxy where humans have set foot and recorded hyperspace information, and there will be no problems.

And there is another drawback to this system.

It is carried on the hyperspace channel system, and like the hyperspace channel system, it is easily interfered with.

Any blocking device of a hyperspace channel system can directly stop its jump process.

It is extremely fragile compared to the jump caused by requiring a blockade of the entire galaxy to make it unusable.

However, even though this system has various shortcomings, they cannot be added up to overshadow its advantages.

The coordinates of hyperspace can be obtained, fuel can be solved through logistics, and the military definitely has ways to deal with interference problems.

As for the problem of only being able to make one jump, that is not a problem at all.

Because so far, almost all spacecraft can only perform one jump under normal circumstances.

How could this extra time be considered a disadvantage? On the contrary, it has obvious strategic significance for military operations at any time.

Since not everyone can use the jump device almost unlimitedly like Chen Ming, the opportunity of multiple jumps is definitely very important.

So it is reasonable for Baiquan to come here personally to deal with it now.

After confirming with Chen Ming, Bai Quan also told Chen Ming his ideas, or those of the 14th Legion.

"Our current decision is to cooperate with you to develop this technology, and then block this technology from the outside world. It will only be used within our military."

Chen Ming had just opened his mouth to speak when Bai Quan spoke up again: "We can see that the potential of your technology is definitely not limited to military use."

"It is a top technology that can make the low-level spacecraft of the entire empire take a big step forward in mobility."

“But because of that, we have to put limits on it.”

"You may not understand it, but the Empire has always intentionally restricted the development of civilian hyperspace technology."

Before Chen Ming could ask the question, Bai Quan explained, "Because the empire's civilian hyperspace channel technology has developed to a sufficient level."

Chen Ming interrupted this time and asked, "Enough?"

"That's right."

"Military ships can use jump drives and stargates to move far beyond the speed of hyperspace, while civilian ships can only move after a long approval process or slowly travel in hyperspace. That's enough."

"As for why? What is the reason behind this? I think you should understand."

(End of this chapter)