Chapter 121: The Beginning of a Great Era

The lack of recovered data on controllable nuclear fusion meant humanity had to figure it out entirely on their own. It was a reality Jason found deeply regrettable.

Naturally, some scientists pinned their hopes on the small metal sphere Jason had retrieved from the alien core. Its exact nature remained a mystery, and efforts to decrypt it had so far been completely unsuccessful.

The cryptographers aboard the Noah were like 19th-century craftsmen staring at a modern solid-state harddrive, feeling utterly lost. They lacked the foundational theories, didn’t know the hardware model, and had zero technical parameters to work with. They could only grope in the dark.

However, Jason wasn’t worried about their energy grid in the short term. Based on their current consumption of 20 to 30 megawatts, the Noah’s uranium-235 reserves were enough to last two hundred years. Furthermore, the recent discovery of several small Martian uranium deposits would only bolster those reserves.

The two sat across from each other, ordered two more synthetic drinks for dessert, and shifted the conversation to other technological breakthroughs.

Jason realized that, setting aside his endless administrative headaches, the Federation’s technology was advancing across the board.

In terms of weaponry, alongside their human-made nuclear arsenal, the engineering teams had mounted several systems salvaged from the alien wreck onto the Ark’s hull, including heavy lasers and particle beam emitters. Even though their power output was bottlenecked to a tenth of their original design specs, these weapons still provided them with crucial ultra-long-range strike capabilities.

They had recently test-fired an Ion Cannon. It required so much power that, lacking super-capacity batteries, they had to simultaneously redline every nuclear reactor on the Noah just to get it to fire.

However, that immense power consumption translated into devastating kinetic force. The Ion Cannon’s yield was at least equivalent to a standard medium-sized atomic warhead. More importantly, the beam traveled at near-light speeds, making it a genuine space-combat weapon.

If they ever faced a true interstellar civilization now, humanity would at least be a grasshopper that could bite back, finally escaping the realm of absolute defenselessness.

After all, while conventional nuclear missiles packed a punch, their propulsion was simply too slow. In the vastness of space warfare, they would take weeks or even months to reach a target. They were practically useless outside of point-blank range.

Jason personally favored these military R&D projects. Deep down, he was still a soldier at heart, harboring a deep-seated passion for big guns and heavy warships.

Lily ignored his eager expression and smoothly moved on. “Alright, that’s enough about weapons. You can’t expect miracles in just six months anyway. But over in the biology division, there’s been a massive breakthrough regarding the longevity virus.”

Jason looked up, fully attentive. He had read the executive summaries a few days ago, but he preferred hearing Lily’s breakdown of the situation.

“It’s almost certain now that the longevity virus originated from the alien vessel. Its DNA structure is fundamentally different from any native Martian microbes we’ve found. The leading theory among our biologists is that the virus evolved from cells shed by the biological flesh mass.”

“After detaching from the host, these cells gradually mutated and degraded to survive in the harsh Martian environment, eventually becoming the viral strain we discovered.”

If that were true, the longevity virus was a direct byproduct of alien biotechnology! It made perfect sense; if the biological mass had survived in stasis for millions of years, its cellular structure inherently possessed extreme life-extending properties.

Jason remained highly suspicious of anything related to the aliens. “How is the clinical research on it progressing?”

“If those original cells hadn’t degraded, the longevity enzymes they secreted would have been exponentially more potent, though likely far too aggressive for a human host to survive. The degraded viral strain we found is highly inactive, making it much safer to handle. You could say humanity got incredibly lucky.”

“The geneticists managed to prune away a large number of volatile, redundant sequences. The resulting refined serum boosts the human lifespan by roughly 30% to 40%.”

“Is it safe?” That was Jason’s immediate concern. The idea of injecting a derivative of that mind-controlling flesh mass into his crew made his skin crawl.

“Theoretically, yes. They excised every genetic sequence we didn’t fully understand, leaving only the beneficial components. The final serum is primarily composed of catalytic protein enzymes and specific RNA templates. It contains no active, replicating genetic material.”

Jason nodded thoughtfully. This meant that with the serum, the average human lifespan aboard the Noah could easily reach 110 years.

More importantly, successfully reverse-engineering the serum provided invaluable insights into cellular biology, paving the way for an even deeper understanding of the human genome. Perhaps even more advanced treatments would emerge in the future.

Everything had risks. He couldn’t halt a scientific endeavor that massively benefited humanity just because of his personal paranoia. Backed by the science division’s unwavering safety guarantees, Phase One human trials for the longevity serum had already begun.

Still, he worried that the alien compounds might subtly mutate the subjects. Human bioscience was still in its infancy; “theoretical safety” wasn’t an absolute guarantee. Given the original flesh mass’s telepathic abilities, who knew what hidden triggers remained?

“Relax, there are no hidden side effects,” Lily reassured him, reading his expression. “I understand your concerns, so I checked on the trial subjects myself. Even after receiving the stem cell therapies, they still exhibited entirely normal, baseline human thought patterns.”

“Furthermore, their core genetic code hasn’t been altered.” Lily suddenly looked a bit awkward. “I didn’t actively probe their minds, I just… passively sensed their emotional states. Don’t misunderstand.”

“Oh, I see!” Jason smiled, a wave of relief washing over him. “That’s excellent, thank you.” Having Lily act as a passive telepathic lie-detector was incredibly useful. At the very least, it meant alien infiltrators couldn’t easily subvert the crew.

But beyond weaponry and bioscience, the Federation’s greatest leaps were in materials engineering!

Inspired by the alien metallurgical samples, new synthetic materials were being rapidly developed, bridging massive gaps in their tech tree. Graphene, aerogels, carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, amorphous alloys, and metallic foams, all of these had transitioned from theoretical laboratory concepts to active mass-production lines!

Jason was overjoyed. Seeing the sheer velocity of the Federation’s progress made every near-death experience on that expedition completely worth it.

“Every new generation of materials unlocks a new tier of hardware, and that hardware unlocks new applied technologies,” Jason said excitedly. “Back on Earth, materials science progressed at a speed of a snail; most breakthroughs never made it past academic papers. But now, we’re finally seeing a true industrial leap!”

Lily took the last sip of her drink and replied calmly, “Thanks to these new compounds, which are dozens of times stronger and lighter than our old alloys, we finally have the structural integrity required to build proper, large-scale starships.”

“Exactly,” Jason nodded in agreement. “Though we don’t urgently need a new capital ship just yet. The Noah is more than sufficient for our current needs, but R&D on next-generation sub-orbital shuttles has already been bumped up the schedule!”

Jason felt a profound sense of anticipation. This was just the dawn of it all.

The absolute beginning of a great new era for humanity.

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