Time is always the most mysterious thing in the universe, more mysterious than space.
Space is a definite existence that can be seen, touched, and its existence can be perceived.
But time is something that everyone knows, but it is always limited to the scope of knowing.
It is a concept.
Since ancient times, human beings have speculated on what time is from countless angles.
Some people say that time rises and sets.
Some people say that time is when flowers bloom and fade.
Others say that time is a long river and the universe is a small boat in this long river.
Einstein spent his whole life trying to reinterpret time with his own theories, and even tried to describe the changes in time like Newton's changes in analytical power. Einstein established a set of methods that could not be falsified under the circumstances of the time.
Theoretical system, and thus formed a series of serious social cognition of time.
But in the elliptical galaxy named Gupan, time is an absolute value that cannot be distorted and has no change.
Whether you are in a ship traveling at one-fifth the speed of light, or in the high-speed orbit of a black hole, every second counts.
This is the truth of the Gupan Galaxy...
But now this truth has been broken, leaving Ren Zhong and Sun Ai puzzled, and the more they think about it, the more confused they become.
"Wait a minute, Sun Ai, have you synchronized the time for everyone?"
Ren Zhong suddenly realized a serious problem and asked quickly.
Sun Ai shook his head, "No."
"Well, that's good." Ren Zhong breathed a sigh of relief.
If Sun Aizhen leaks the news, I'm afraid he will have to blow himself up on the spot and start again.
Since it is still hidden, with Sun Ai's control over the fleet and Source Star civilization's information, there is no possibility of the secret being leaked.
In the past, when the "net" was the enemy, Ren Zhong hated this kind of absolute information control.
Now, the dragon slayer has finally become an evil dragon, and Ren Zhong has finally realized the benefits of this absolute information hegemony.
After pondering for a moment, Ren Zhong said: "If you want to correct the time, speed up the jump time of each second by 0.0001 seconds. It will take two years to slowly correct it and make things invisible. By the way, atomic clock
You can also control the electronic display, right?"
Sun Ai: "As long as there is an Internet connection, you can control it."
Ren Zhong: "That's good. Since there is a problem with time, then we will tamper with the time ourselves."
Sun Ai: "But what about mechanical watches? I can't control this. Although there are very few people in Yuanxing and the fleet who use mechanical watches, there are still some. Timing tools with purely mechanical structures are bound to have errors, but it takes a little more than two years.
An error of more than 7,000 seconds is too exaggerated. Others always adjust their watches manually, which makes them confused."
"That's the truth." Ren Zhong pinched his chin, "So...collect all mechanical timing devices, watches, wall clocks, alarm clocks...whether they are pendulum structures, clockwork structures, or battery timing devices.
.As long as the device does not automatically connect to the Internet and automatically correct the time, it will be confiscated."
Sun Ai hummed and joked with a smile: "To use a saying from ancient literary and artistic works, uncle, you have become a time lord."
Ren Zhong shrugged, "No way."
Sun Ai asked again: "This is how it works in the fleet, but what about Yuanxing?"
Ren Zhong: "Of course the same."
As he said that, he immediately remembered something, "Wait a minute."
Sun Ai: "What's wrong?"
"There is a person I have to think about how to deal with." Ren Zhong paced on the spot, "Let him keep it, but I have to have a brief chat with him. I just ask him not to ask too much or think too much. With his character,
Will listen to me."
Sun Ai controlled the pseudo-network clone located in Spark Town and checked at a very fast speed, "Is it Wen Lei? He has a pocket watch to commemorate his first love."
Ren Zhong: "It's not my first love, it's the love of my life. It's just right, I can check out Wen Lei's time."
After blinking, Sun Ai had already peeked at the time on Wen Lei's watch through the camera, and exclaimed, "It's strange, the time error of Wen Lei's watch is even larger. After conversion, it is 31 seconds slower than my previous one."
In other words, if we follow the time on Wen Lei's watch, it would be 7658 seconds slower than Imperial Standard Time."
Ren Zhong: "Connect the communication between me and Wen Lei, and I'll have a chat with him."
Wen Lei, who is still on the Source Star, is already a "dead person" in the eyes of Zheng Tian and others. This kind of communication can only be completed by Ren Zhong and Sun Ai.
"Brother Ren, how are you doing now? Is everything going well?"
In the communication system, Wen Lei asked.
Ren Zhong smiled and replied: "Everything goes well."
Wen Lei asked again: "I just tried to send a message to Zheng Tian and Ou Youning, but I didn't receive a reply. Is there something wrong with the communication system?"
Ren Zhong shook his head in the screen and said: "There is no fault. Due to the need for confidentiality, I can only contact Yuanxing through a single line for the time being."
"That's it. Brother Ren, what's the matter with you?" Wen Lei knew that Ren Zhong seldom talked nonsense, let alone chatted with others, so there must be something wrong when he called on the communication.
Ren Zhong got straight to the point: "I remember Wen Lei, your pocket watch is an ancient clockwork mechanical structure, right?"
"Yes, Brother Ren." Wen Lei responded, picking up his watch and shaking it at the camera with emotion. He didn't expect that after so many years, Ren Zhong would still remember this piece of equipment that contained him and Ai Jiashan.
Pocket watch from childhood photos.
Ren Zhong: "Do you usually forget to wind up the clockwork?"
Wen Lei immediately patted his chest, "No, how could I forget this? Even when I was in cryo-sleep, I asked my colleagues to help me twist it once a week, and it has never stopped moving in the past twenty years."
At this time, Sun Ai gave an analysis report, "Uncle, I just measured the accuracy of Wen Lei's pocket watch through the comparison in the video camera. The average is one second slower per year. For a clockwork mechanical watch,
This accuracy is pretty good.”
Ren Zhong nodded slightly and asked again: "In the past twenty years, Wen Lei, have you had time to adjust it?"
Wen Lei shook his head in surprise, "When I first met you, I happened to set the time once, and it was inexplicably off by more than two minutes. Later, I adjusted the second hand to get it right, and it hasn't been changed since.
,What's wrong?"
Ren Zhong hummed, "It's okay, I'll think about it first."
Twenty years have passed, and Wen Lei's pocket watch has a total error of 31 seconds.
In these 31 seconds, the mechanical error value of 20 seconds must be subtracted.
So, in fact, Wen Lei's pocket watch is only 11 seconds slower than the standard time of Yuanxing, and 7638 seconds slower than the imperial standard time.
In the sleeping space, Ren Zhong controlled the external machinery, grabbed the notebook from the desk drawer, and turned to the ninth page. In the virtual projection, Ren Zhong saw a whole page of numbers on the ninth page of the notebook.
, starting from 6781, then 6782, 6783 and continuing until 7638.
He has an unknown habit of always carrying a paper notebook with him and writing numbers on it from time to time.
Unknowingly, after so many years, he has written the number from 1 to 7638.
Only he knows what this number represents.
It is exactly the number of deaths and resets he has experienced so far since he was resurrected in the ancient cryo chamber.
The error time calculated by Sun Ai just now was 7627. The difference between the two numbers was 11 digits, so that he had all speculations in his mind, but he was not sure.
Now through Wen Lei's pocket watch, Ren Zhong got the answer.
Looking back on those days, since he started training and embarked on the path of a warrior, he only needed 11 resurrections in total to successfully destroy the previous generation's "net" with the help of Sun Ai.
The last time Wen Lei adjusted the timetable, it should have been caused by his continuous death after walking out of the dense forest, avoiding hunters and killing crystal wing flies. In fact, there was already something wrong with the timeline at that time. It kept slowing down by one second, so that it appeared
The error of more than two points was simply corrected by the previous generation of "nets". This number was not excessive, so it did not cause alarm.
After the previous generation's "net" went out of control and disconnected, the communication between Source Star and the Machine Empire was interrupted, and time could no longer be corrected.
The standard timekeeping device on the Source Star was replaced by the Pathfinder Brain and some standard atomic clocks, and began to gradually deviate from Imperial Standard Time.
Now that Sun Ai has become the new "net", he naturally made the first time correction along the source star standard time. The error between this number and the imperial standard time is 7627 seconds.
"Wen Lei, I have nothing else to do. You can go and do your own business."
"Oh well."
"etc."
"Wen Lei, you are quite talented in the field of mechanical structures. Your genes should not be wasted. Life must go on, and you should not stand still. It's time for you to step out and find someone you like to marry. Just like
As I said to others before, I am on the empire’s side, and I also look forward to getting help from Source Star one day in the future.”
Wen Lei thought for a long time and nodded heavily, "Okay, Brother Ren."
As soon as Ren Zhong hung up the communication, Sun Ai asked hurriedly: "How is it? Do you have any new ideas?"
Ren Zhong shook his head, "There are some speculations, but they have no practical significance. I won't say them now, so as not to mislead you. Forget it, don't continue to pursue this matter, just use the method I mentioned before to slowly correct the time.
."
Seeing that he didn't want to say more, Sun Ai didn't ask any more questions and just went about correcting the time and strengthening the disguise.
In fact, Sun Ai is now considered to be half an artificial intelligence, and can run in multiple threads. He can communicate with Ren Zhong and do other things at the same time. The two have nothing to do with each other.
But now the heavy responsibilities probably require a person to be quiet.
After Sun Ai disappeared, Ren Zhong rubbed his face and thought to himself, it was not all fruitless, at least he knew that the slowing down of time was indeed related to his resurrection.
Each time you die and reset, one second will be consumed in a specific area.
There is no doubt that this area definitely does not extend to the Southern Nine Stars.
As for the principle of death, resurrection and reset?
Haha, what is that?
Farewell.
After calming down a little, Ren Zhong shouted into the air again: "Xiao Ai."
"exist."
"Help me contact the consul of Southern Nine Stars, Mr. Augustus. We should ask the empire for help."
"okay."
…
Nanjiuxing is a standard yellow dwarf star with a mass of 1.4 times that of the sun. It has a total of twelve planets and is located on the edge of the Nanxiang star cluster.
The Nanxiang Star Cluster is a small open star cluster, consisting of 3,452 stars and a total of more than 16,000 planets. The radius of the central area is 5.7 light-years, with more than 2,800 stars evenly distributed among them with relative mass, and the remaining 600 or so
Stars are scattered in the outer area, and Nanjiu Star is one of them. The entire star cluster has a radius of 22.5 light-years.
There are approximately more than 500 stars and their planets in the Nanxiang star cluster, which are the fiefdoms of contemporary Nanxiang Bo Liu An. The Liu family can enjoy part of the tax revenue provided by these foodie planets, and has control over the number of stars in the entire Nanxiang star cluster.
A company that occupies a monopoly position.
Liu An, as the hereditary earl of Nanxiang, did not rest on his laurels. Instead, he worked hard to govern. He stood out from many nobles in the Nanxiang Star Territory and ascended to the position of military and political officer of the Nanxiang Star Cluster. He also built the Nanxiang Army into a force capable of taking charge.
The powerful army on the border of the empire has accumulated countless military exploits.
Regardless of title or position, Liu An is second to none in the Nanxiang Star Cluster. Even if we look at the tens of millions of earls in the Mechanical Empire, he can be regarded as one of the strongest earls. He is even known as the most promising earl in thousands of years to be promoted to a marquis based on military merit.
one.
For the past three thousand years, unless there was a war, Liu An spent most of his time in cryogenic slumber, only waking up regularly for seven days every ten years to use the Imperial Supernet to briefly inspect the development of the territory and ruling areas, and to handle some important military and political affairs.
Even though he cherishes his life so much, he has slowly passed the biological age of sixty.
The average age of the people in the empire is only sixty-two years old. Even if the earl has better living conditions, better medical conditions, better health, and more medicines, he will still have a physiological life span of twenty to thirty years at most, or even longer.
short.
Time is running out.
But there was still a gap between him and the position of Marquis, which made him feel more urgent, but he had no choice.
But this time, Liu An was awakened by an unexpected incident less than three years after entering a deep sleep.
There is a seeker colony 10.5 light years away from the main star of Nanxiang and 4 light years away from the Nanjiu star where he is located. The mission has been declared a failure.
This was originally just a trivial matter.
Although the colony is located on the ancestral planet of mankind, the Origin Star, everyone knows that the place is already a semi-abandoned existence. Trace seekers will not make any major discoveries there, and it is just the lowest-level breeding farm.
What's more, as early as 80 years ago, the commercial transport ships traveling between the two sides stopped operating.
Nearly twenty years ago, the Origin Star Colony lost contact with the Empire.
You don’t need to delve into it to know that there must be a malfunction in the nodes of the “network” established by the nine wastes going to the Source Star. It may be that they were attacked by enemy rangers, or the administrator of the Source Star was too stupid and ruined it.
All in all, it's rare, but not important.
This incident didn't even wake him up at the time. He simply checked the files after waking up and ordered the viscount families of the nine losers to be punished and increase the tax rate for the next fifty years.
.
As for how the people from the Source Star Colony came back and whether they could return home smoothly, Nanxiang Bo Liu An didn't care.
What was carried on the Origin Star Great Migration Fleet was not his wealth, it belonged to the empire, and it wasn't much. It was just some low-level battleships, some human brains, and thousands of starship larvae.
But this time the situation was different. The "last wave" from the tracers announced the complete failure of this colonization mission, and a suspected god-level psychic demon appeared.
Even as a star cluster-level legion leader, Liu An did not dare to underestimate the potential harm of god-level psychic demons.
What's more, the Imperial Colonial Secretary and senior officials in the Intelligence Agency noticed this incident at the same time and issued a first-level alert to him.
He must select the elite as quickly as possible, form a special attack fleet, and equip it with brand-new equipment sent from the Nanxiang Star Gate by the Intelligence Agency, and immediately set off four light years away to try to intercept and hunt.
This god-level psychic demon.
After five days of intensive preparations, Liu An formed a special attack fleet consisting of one hundred spiral-class fast shuttle ships.
If all goes well, even if the entire Origin Star Great Migration Fleet is firmly controlled by the Psychic Demons, this army with a cruising speed of one-fifth the speed of light and all of its members equipped with brand-new psychic interference shielding combat uniforms can still
Destroy the Psychic Demon's main ship with overwhelming force.
Even if you encounter elite rangers from three other countries, you can still win.
Just now, Liu An completed the swearing-in mobilization meeting before the deployment of the army, and the special attack team had just left the space station and headed towards the source star.
Liu An, who returned to the office, still had a smile on his face.
He believed that he would get good results in a hundred years at the latest.
Kill a god-level psychic demon who usually only appears in super large battles and is never alone, and then kill a few rangers who also received the "last radio wave" and tried to fight against the autumn wind.
By replenishing the number, you should be able to replenish the military merit for promotion to Marquis.
"I'm lucky."
However, his good mood only lasted five minutes.
The Nanxiang node of the Imperial Supernet just informed him that the Source Star Network has completed self-repair.
The two sides are re-establishing contact.
Moreover, Nanxiang Super Network also told him a piece of "good news". The god-level psychic demon had been blown into the basic particles of the universe due to a ridiculous accidental failure. The colonists on the Source Star had successfully controlled the situation.
The migration fleet is moving according to the original plan, heading for the Southern Nine Stars, preparing to return to the empire.
The smile on Liu An's face froze on the spot.
His thinking speed is very fast.
He immediately realized what this meant.
The battle achievements that Bai picked up were gone.
The nine viscounts who had just eaten twenty years of excessive taxes had to be vomited out, and as a military and political officer of Nanxiang, they were able to commend those lowly colonists who had lost their luck and relied on luck to kill the god-level psychic demons.
More importantly, it has been five days since this unexpected awakening.
He wasted another five days of his life.
"Sir, will our fleet continue to move forward?"
Liu An's secretary, who also received the message, asked cautiously from the side.
Liu An looked at the 288th secretary uncertainly, and it took him a full five seconds to control his emotions, "I'll think about it first, please step back first."
After the secretary went out, Liu Ancai punched the desk hard.
"Oh shit."
Liu An stood up and repeatedly checked the intelligence from Source Star, especially the video footage and related data reports of the explosion of the 0001 armed battleship, trying to see some clues and find some doubts.
He was thinking about whether he could turn the so-called accidental explosion into a conspiracy by the psychic demon.
Then, on the grounds that the extremely cunning and cunning god-level psychic demon was not only still alive, but was trying to sneak into the empire in disguise, he simply destroyed the entire Source Star Great Migration Fleet and fabricated military exploits out of thin air.
But after a while, he looked at the seamless data report, then looked at the video and image data, and thought about the difficulty of lying about military information, as well as the terrible consequences that he might have to face if he was found out. After all, he did not have the courage.
.
"It's crazy to even have such a thing as a compressed three-phase thermonuclear bomb. Such a terrible unlimited bomb, but you don't know how to make the safety device better, and it can accidentally detonate due to parameter errors. Damn it, what are you doing?
Such a good fate. Alas."
Liu An thought indifferently.
His resentment is really deep.
At this time, his subordinate Southgate Augustus, the consul of the Southern Nine Stars, sent a message, "Sir, the Source Star Colonial Fleet requests escort support."
"What a piece of support! Nanxiang Star Territory is a forward war zone, and there is no extra force to serve as a nanny and escort for a mere C-level seeker colonial fleet. There has never been a precedent for a C-level seeker colonial fleet to be escorted and escorted by the Star Cluster Corps.
.You tell them to let them fend for themselves. All their ships are lowly colonists! There is not a single imperial citizen, they are not worthy!"
Liu An cursed and finally felt a little more comfortable. Then he hurried back and got into the freezer.