Li Qingsong had had enough of this life of constant running and escaping, never being able to develop his technology in peace.
And the only way to solve this problem was to break through to the strong nuclear level and possess the true strength to fight against that mechanical scourge.
Only strength could win him peace.
But there were no shortcuts on the road of technological development.
Even if he didn't have the technological data plundered from the Blueprint Creek civilization to learn from, as he did in the beginning, his own research and development would still be indispensable.
Again, reverse engineering was useful, but not that useful. Technological data seized from the outside world was useful, but to truly learn and master it, he still had to rely on his own experiments, his own attempts, and his own research.
This path was destined to be crossed only by step-by-step, bit-by-bit research and accumulation.
The key data of a certain particle collision experiment, the particle behavior that did not conform to the model prediction, the energy levels of some new particles, the special phenomena in ultra-high temperature environments, the actual manufacturing in the engineering industry, and so on, all had to rely on countless accumulations in these many fields to truly complete the technological breakthrough.
Leaving this star system, Li Qingsong once again entered into a full-scale technological research and development effort.
Compared with the previous stage, Li Qingsong invested even more scientific research power this time. The reason was simple: this time, he collected more materials, enough to support him to awaken all 3 billion clones and put them all into scientific research.
Time passed slowly under such circumstances, and in a blink of an eye, another 250 years passed, and Li Qingsong sailed another approximately 20 light-years.
At this moment, the distance from the solar system truly exceeded one hundred light-years. And in this long voyage of one hundred light-years, Li Qingsong did not find any traces of life.
Not to mention intelligent life, he had not even discovered the lowest level of life forms.
Even the birthplace of the original Blueprint Creek civilization was not the Gliese 625 star system that Li Qingsong initially thought.
They also migrated from the depths of extremely distant stars. As for where their true home star system was, history was too long, the civilization encountered too many disasters, and even they themselves could not be sure.
This didn't seem like a good sign.
Taking the solar system as the core and one hundred light-years as the radius, the number of stars in this star field, including the difficult-to-observe red dwarfs and brown dwarfs, was approximately 20,000.
Although Li Qingsong only sailed in one direction and did not observe and search all the stars in this star field, Li Qingsong's course was roughly random, and this sample selection could be called objective and representative to a certain extent.
This was already enough to highlight the scarcity of life in the universe.
Obviously, the fewer lives in the universe, especially intelligent life, the more it meant the preciousness of intelligent life, and the more it meant the mechanical scourge's strong desire to capture him.
There was so little intelligent life in this universe, and you were finally discovered. How could they let you run away?
Wouldn't they have to search high and low, chasing you to the ends of the earth to catch you?
With worries in his heart, Li Qingsong was still engaged in seemingly non-stop scientific research.
At this time, the consciousness of some clones from the previous parked star system once again connected to Li Qingsong's mind.
Sure enough, as Li Qingsong expected, the figure of the mechanical scourge appeared once again.
What made Li Qingsong even more solemn was that this time, from the time he left that star system to the appearance of the mechanical scourge, only 230 years had passed!
The interval was about 400 years in the solar system. It was 267 years in the Altair star system, and now it was 230 years!
The time was getting shorter and shorter!
Especially, in the Altair star system, because his hydrogen bomb trap took effect, the mechanical scourge fleet was additionally delayed for at least 30 years!
So what about next time?
When he parked in a star system next time, would the time be shortened to within 200 years, or even 150 years, or even shorter?
The acceleration of his fleet would take about 13 years. In 150 years, he could travel at most less than 13 light-years.
A distance of 13 light-years, for that mechanical scourge fleet, would only take about 18 years to cross.
With such a short distance, even if he made multiple random course changes during the voyage, relying on the vastness of the starry sky to cover his tracks, the probability of being discovered by that mechanical scourge fleet would greatly increase.
"It's really like a maggot on the tarsus, biting and not letting go..."
A cold smile appeared on Li Qingsong's face, and the killing intent in his heart became even stronger.
This time, when entering that star system, the hydrogen bomb trap set up by Li Qingsong was not triggered. The clones saw that the mechanical scourge fleet first carefully inspected and searched all the larger planets, and carried out a large-scale screening of asteroids before the main fleet entered the star system.
Li Qingsong was not disappointed about this.
This was originally expected.
The huge mechanical scourge fleet then launched a new round of huge construction on the ruins of Li Qingsong's factory, and it only took about 30 years to complete the resource collection work, and then set sail again and disappeared into the vast starry sky, obviously starting to track him again.
Li Qingsong retracted his gaze and once again invested his energy into scientific research.
In this day-after-day, never-ending research, time quietly passed for more than 500 years.
Li Qingsong gradually realized that his technological development seemed to have encountered a bottleneck.
At the applied physics level, the theory had not been updated for a long time. And based on the current theoretical system, the performance of various technological creations had also reached its limit.
Technological development follows this principle: first, basic physics, then applied physics, and then various technological creations.
Basic physics determines the upper limit of technology.
Just like in the Earth era, only after the theory of relativity, a basic physics theory, was developed, was it possible to create atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs.
Now, Li Qingsong's applied physics and technological creations had developed to the upper limit of the existing basic physics theory.
And the development of basic physics theory... had encountered a bottleneck.
For this situation, Li Qingsong was not at all沮丧 in his heart, but full of excitement.
This was not a bad thing, this was a great thing, it was a good thing!
Because this meant that he had fully mastered the electroweak stage of technological theory, and he had truly touched the strong nuclear civilization, touched the threshold of unified strong nuclear force.
At this stage, he could truly be called the peak electroweak civilization. As long as he broke through this bottleneck, he could be promoted to a strong nuclear civilization!
