400 years is not a long time for technological development, especially for its continued advancement after reaching a certain stage.
After all, the more technology progresses, the more complex and difficult it becomes.
If possible, Tom truly did not want to contend with such a powerful Civilization.
Even if Human Civilization at its peak had come, 400 years might not have been enough to develop much technology.
But... there was no other way.
"Blueprint Civilization, what role did you play in the disappearance of humanity?"
After a moment of silent contemplation, Tom temporarily abandoned his thoughts on the future and focused on the gains from this war.
Although this war had consumed much of his energy and time, seeing the spoils before him, a hint of joy still emerged in Tom’s heart.
The gains this time were truly immense.
Although all the armed scientific research vessels that Momolans mentioned had been annihilated, it didn’t matter; the wreckage remained.
Much technology could still be reverse-engineered from the wreckage.
Most importantly, their Mothership was still intact! Some bases built underground on God-Enemy Star were also still there!
And there were over a thousand captives!
Although most of these captives were not scientists, they all had received some education and possessed much knowledge that was common for Blueprint Civilization.
It was like before the disappearance of humanity, any middle school student could know about molecules and atoms, solve equations, and calculate the area and volume of shapes.
And this common knowledge was also crucial for him!
Although reverse engineering was not omnipotent, most of the knowledge these captives possessed could not be used by him in a short period—just like a modern human going to ancient times and telling the ancients about the mass-energy equation, the ancients would likewise have no use for it—but even so, this knowledge and these gains would certainly greatly accelerate his technological development.
More importantly, these technological creations and knowledge would serve as a "directional guide."
It was like when humanity developed the atomic bomb; the biggest obstacle was not how difficult the atomic bomb’s manufacture was, but rather that people simply did not know if the atomic bomb could even be made.
At this moment, the temporarily unusable knowledge and technological creations were like a physical atomic bomb placed before Tom, making him understand, oh, so an atomic bomb really can be made.
Knowing this, all that was left was to directly invest resources into research.
Maneuvering the fleet, Tom packed all salvageable wreckage and ground bases from God-Enemy Star into the Mothership, then dispatched dozens of cargo ships to slowly tow Blueprint Civilization’s Mothership, beginning the journey back to Loshen Star.
Tom’s main body returned first on a warship.
Afterward, his consciousness reconnected with 1.1 million Clones, and the fervent construction and technological research resumed.
Having been delayed for so long, he had to try his best to catch up.
Blueprint Civilization’s Mothership was finally towed back to Loshen Star, and large-scale reverse engineering of those technological creations began.
For this, Tom mobilized a full 300,000 Clones.
Thus, Tom once again felt the might of Blueprint Civilization.
Sometimes, for a simple connector, Tom just couldn’t figure out how it was manufactured, or why it was so small yet could achieve such a significant connecting function.
Some devices, Tom had disassembled them into tiny pieces, but he still couldn’t figure out why they had that particular structure.
However, by combining the testimonies of the captives, Tom ultimately gained some technologies that could be used at the current stage.
Thus, one laboratory after another, filled with precision equipment, was built on the surface of Loshen Star, and one factory after another underwent a new phase of upgrades and renovations.
In the second year after the war ended, Tom achieved his first success.
Large-aperture, high-resolution complete optical telescope technology!
Looking at the lens before him, with an area of 60 square meters, a thickness of less than one millimeter, and maintaining an extremely smooth, slightly curved angle, Tom’s heart was filled with excitement.
More advanced optical telescopes would not only help him conduct scientific research, allowing him to see violent physical processes occurring deep in the universe, such as large-scale structures of galaxies, galactic evolution, stellar evolution, nebulae, and supernova explosions, more clearly, further enhancing his understanding of the universe and thus improving fundamental physics, but also have a huge role in warfare and detection.
They could be miniaturized and installed on warships, allowing them to search for smaller, dimmer, and more distant targets nearby.
Furthermore, it now had a use that Tom highly valued.
With this telescope, Tom could finally see more details about Earth.
In the vast and deep space, a massive telescope tube had been completed.
Its interior was filled with various extremely precise components, highly complex.
Even the most inconspicuous component, a motor used to adjust a tiny auxiliary lens, was something Tom had only managed to create after hundreds of attempts in the laboratory.
To ensure this telescope remained undisturbed, Tom did not even deploy it near Loshen Star, but rather placed it directly 100,000 kilometers away from Loshen Star.
Only in this way could he minimize the influence of infrared radiation emitted from Loshen Star, from his own spacecraft, and from various factories.
The heat they carried would cause a slight expansion and deformation of the primary mirror, on the order of tens of nanometers.
But even such a tiny change was unacceptable to Tom.
To ensure precision, he had no choice but to place it far from Loshen Star.
When other aspects of technology could not be temporarily improved, to ensure performance, Tom could only be more demanding in terms of environment.
Having completed the manufacture and deployment of this telescope, Tom did not delay, immediately adjusting it to point towards that tiny planet deep within the Solar System.
Through the telescope, Earth still remained a point-like structure; no details could be seen with the naked eye.
But it didn’t matter; in places invisible to the human eye, many faint pieces of information had already been collected by the telescope.
For example, the spectral data of Earth’s atmosphere.
Through this data, Tom could analyze the elemental composition of Earth’s atmosphere with relatively high precision. Discover more novels at noᴠelfire.net
The observation lasted for five hours, ultimately generating over ten gigabytes of data.
After the analysis was complete, a result that somewhat shocked Tom appeared before him.
He found no presence of any industrial markers in Earth’s atmosphere.
It was as if there had never been any industrial activity on Earth, as if humanity had never existed there.
"How is this possible? This...
If humanity had never appeared on Earth, then... where did I come from?"