Chapter 90: 10 Million Clones
Looking at the Lantu Ke who had proactively sought him out, Tom controlled the Clone to calmly respond, "Oh?"
The Lantu Ke’s face was filled with awe, but only genius knew what he was truly thinking.
However, Tom didn’t care whether they were truly obedient in their hearts. All he wanted was for them to contribute to his technological advancement. As for what they thought internally, he couldn’t care less.
Anyway, rewards for contributions, punishments for mistakes, it was that simple.
The Lantu Ke nervously said, "Specifically, the material properties and processing precision must be improved to a certain extent.
These are the main reasons why it cannot be further miniaturized and its power cannot be further increased.
But these two reasons, it is clear, both involve the progress of the entire technological system.
Only when the entire technological system progresses can material properties and processing precision be improved, and the miniaturization of nuclear fission power stations be realized. Otherwise, it is impossible to achieve.
Truly, with the current technological level, it’s impossible. Respected Sir from Bluetook, I am truly not deceiving you, this is real..."
Tom’s millions of brains simultaneously pondered for a moment.
He sighed softly in his heart, having to admit that what the Lantu Ke said was true.
He had been too impatient before.
Since that was the case, he would take it slowly.
Gently patting the Lantu Ke’s shoulder, the Clone coldly said, "You get four extra days of rest each month."
The Lantu Ke stood frozen in place, falling into uncontrollable ecstasy.
Since he had decided to take his time and gradually develop various basic technologies, waiting for the miniaturization technology of nuclear fission power stations to naturally emerge, Tom withdrew all additional Clones from here, leaving only the original ones for conventional optimization research.
Time slowly passed. Seeing that the mines on God-Enemy Star were starting to show signs of depletion, and the number of containers transported to Loshen Star also began to decline, Tom grew more anxious, but he still had to be patient, continue to calm down, and push the development of technology bit by bit.
Under these circumstances, Tom finally received good news.
Research in the biological laboratory had made another breakthrough, and a new gene optimization plan had been finalized. He could now create higher-quality Clones!
Tom did not hesitate and immediately put it into practical application. Thus, six months later, the first batch of higher-quality Clones were born.
After comparing them, Tom ultimately chose the Clone with the highest consciousness connection count.
His maximum consciousness connection count was 10.025 million!
Compared to the previous 5.1 million, it had almost doubled again!
Tom was filled with excitement.
"With the maximum consciousness connection count doubled, the research power I can invest in various disciplines will also double!
Material science research and processing precision research indeed involve the progress of the basic technology system, and there is indeed no shortcut to the progress of the basic technology system; it can only be improved little by little through painstaking effort.
Since that’s the case, I’ll just increase the number of painstaking efforts! Before, it was one painstaking effort, now it’s two! Two painstaking efforts should definitely increase the speed!"
Under Tom’s control, approximately 5 million of the reserve Clones were immediately connected by Tom and added to the basic research forces of various disciplines.
At this moment, Tom had a total of approximately 15 million Clones under his command.
Calculated with his current maximum consciousness connection count of approximately 10 million, and considering the rest time required by the Clones, utilizing 15 million Clones was still quite demanding.
However, at this stage, with resources on God-Enemy Star and Loshen Star nearing depletion, Tom did not plan to increase the number of Clones.
Even more Clones would, firstly, consume a large amount of resources for their cultivation and sustenance, and secondly, they would currently be of no use.
At this stage, Tom had halted all non-urgent scientific research projects, such as preliminary research on controllable nuclear fusion, research on ion thrusters for which foundations had already been laid, preliminary research on quantum chips, and even the training and practical exercises of Goku AI had been temporarily stopped. All scientific research power and resource consumption were invested in research tasks aimed at improving the basic scientific system.
Everything was focused on achieving miniaturization of nuclear fission reactors and mastering secondary pressurized propulsion technology as soon as possible.
Under these circumstances, all scientific research facilities were already at full capacity, and Tom did not intend to build new scientific research facilities, so any additional Clones would naturally be temporarily useless.
Thus, on Loshen Star and God-Enemy Star, after a long period of rest—averaging about 16 hours of rest per day—the Clones once again returned to their current routine of only being able to rest for about 9 hours per day, spending the remaining 15 hours entirely on work or contemplation.
With the addition of the physical and mental power of these Clones, the progress of the basic scientific system received a rapid, almost palpable, boost.
Thus, five years later, the two key disciplines that Tom had always yearned for and anticipated, materials science and mechanical processing, finally achieved breakthroughs.
He could finally manufacture materials with higher performance that could meet requirements with smaller volume and mass!
And he could finally increase processing precision to create parts that met construction demands!
Thus, in just three months, the latest modular nuclear fission reactor was finally presented to Tom.
This modular reactor now had a length and width of only 28 meters and a height of 9 meters. Its external appearance was roughly similar to the first modular reactor, resembling an engine.
Its total volume was only a little over 6,000 cubic meters, and its total mass was only about 1,600 tons!
Both its volume and mass had been reduced to less than half!
But its power had increased to 25,000 kilowatts, 1.5 times higher than the previous generation!
It was now fully qualified to be a ship-borne engine.
Of course, only limited to large cargo ships.
A Venus-class Battleship had a total mass of only a few hundred tons, smaller and lighter than it.
Compared to the ship-borne reactor in the Deep Space Spaceship, its performance was undoubtedly extremely backward.
But this was something he had built with his own hands! He understood all its technical details and possessed complete technical reserves!
In the future, he could continue to iterate and optimize it, making it smaller and smaller, yet more and more powerful, until it was small enough to be installed in a battleship. His combat power would undoubtedly achieve another huge leap.
But that was for later.
Now, having mastered the manufacturing technology of ship-borne reactors, the next most crucial step was to research and master secondary pressurized propulsion technology, and then, escape the increasingly barren Loshen Star and God-Enemy Star, and migrate to the Inner Solar System, where resources were extremely abundant and virtually infinite!