Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Chapter 1323: Chapter 369: Monster

Black Hole.

The deepest, darkest, and most mysterious entity in the universe.

Of course, in this modern era, the “mystery” of black holes needs to be questioned.

Because the Empire’s research on black holes has long ceased to be limited to theory. It has shifted to practical application.

Relying on the faster-than-light travel technology developed in earlier years, the Empire has made research on black holes feasible, and there have always been people conducting research in this field.

Chen Ming has met quite a few over the past six months.

However, researching black holes is typically the work of specialists, while ordinary civilian ships cannot achieve faster-than-light travel and can only approach the speed of light.

True faster-than-light travel can only be achieved by certain special ships, which is quite complicated to manage.

Therefore, the understanding of black holes among the general public and those not involved in this research is evidently lacking.

Like Chen Ming, who has never encountered any black hole along his journey, hence his understanding of them isn’t detailed.

Moreover, with the discovery of both superspace and faster-than-light travel, the Superspace Channel technology has essentially replaced faster-than-light travel technology.

In terms of practicality, popularity, and safety, the Superspace Channel technology is superior to faster-than-light travel technology.

But this doesn’t mean this technology has been completely phased out, nor does it mean Chen Ming would skip this significant technology in the history of ship development while learning ship technology.

The key to this technology’s continued existence lies in the study of black holes.

In this special circumstance of researching black holes, faster-than-light travel technology is a necessary skill to master.

Otherwise, not to mention investigating black holes, if one accidentally falls into the black hole’s event horizon, the range from which not even light can escape.

It’s almost universally accepted that there are means to escape from it.

Not even superspace can help.

Because in superspace, there are not only superspace clouds but also gravity wells formed by massive celestial bodies.

The Superspace Navigation Engine itself uses gravity wells to enter and exit superspace.

And the concept of a black hole as a whole can be considered the largest celestial entity in the universe, with an especially obvious and immense gravity well in superspace.

Therefore, when the ship falls into the black hole’s event horizon.

In the ship’s corresponding superspace position, it has already entered the region under deep influence by the black hole’s gravity well.

Entering superspace will cause one to be destroyed by gravity even faster than in the normal universe.

If you want to escape alive after entering the black hole’s event horizon.

You must either use faster-than-light travel technology or teleportation technology.

However, the Teleportation Engine is equipped only on ships above the cruiser class, and using the Teleportation Engine damages the fundamental structure, causing minute damage nearly impossible to detect with the naked eye.

Normal repair methods find it very troublesome to fix such damage, with extremely high maintenance costs.

Moreover, when coupled with the high material consumption, the cost is even higher.

Chen Ming uses teleportation recklessly because he has Spiritual Energy, which makes repairing this kind of damage effortless, allowing him to maintain the ship’s Teleportation Engine at an extremely low cost and very quickly.

But in the past, such favorable conditions like Chen Ming’s didn’t exist.

Hence, faster-than-light travel technology, although required under specific conditions, has been preserved.

Although Chen Ming’s ship is not equipped with a faster-than-light travel system, his situation when reaching near the black hole after passing through the wormhole was still fine.

He was merely influenced by the black hole’s gravity, not yet pulled into the black hole’s event horizon.

And the sense of danger he perceived before passing through the wormhole, which could completely envelop him, originated from the black hole.

This indicates that this danger is visible and generally unlikely to pose an effective threat to him.

Only after he indeed passed through the wormhole, the acute sense of danger he felt during the crossing disappeared.

It is unclear whether this danger originated from the process of passing through the wormhole or if he left the potential source of danger after crossing the wormhole.

Nonetheless, the absence of danger now shouldn’t be a bad thing, right?

Chen Ming turned back to glance at the Supreme Point behind, not located within a special star system like the wormhole in the Primordial Star System but existing on the trajectory orbiting around the black hole.

Although it currently seems fine, it’s evident even without calculations that gravity continues to draw the wormhole closer to the black hole.

The wormhole will eventually fall into the black hole someday.

Chen Ming doesn’t know what will happen when the wormhole falls into the black hole, nor does he wish to know.

But he knows the method to extract the singularity from the wormhole.

If irreversible consequences were to occur, he would surely resolve the issue before they arise.

Of course, ensuring the safety of the surrounding area comes first.

A black hole shouldn’t inherently pose active danger as long as one doesn’t act recklessly.

Thus, what Chen Ming must manage is the safety of the surrounding region.

In venturing into an unknown region, safety should undeniably be the primary consideration.

He needs to first search for nearby star systems or celestial bodies where he can land, and confirm whether he is in an observable star realm of the Empire or truly in an unknown star realm.