Chapter 42

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Chapter 42: Simulator Practice

"What’s going on?" Ying Zhao came over and sat down beside her.

Zhu Huai pointed at the report she brought back from the simulator on the table. "From the perspective of time-space positioning, it indeed doesn’t seem far from where we are. But considering the time span, the time channel to the space station’s communication boundary has a very complex gravitational field environment."

She tapped on the data in the report. "At the beginning of this route, there’s no navigation. Finding the coordinate point is no less than searching for a needle in a haystack. Doing it without a co-pilot makes it easy to get lost. Some unexpected situations can’t be managed by the monitor, so taking three hours to travel, arriving in ten hours would still be pretty good. With this approach, we definitely won’t have enough fuel."

"Missing a co-pilot… So do you still want to return with her?" Ying Zhao asked after reading the report.

"Am I crazy? Why would I leave my good life to go back with her?" Zhu Huai leaned back against the soft cushions. "What I mean is we should persuade her not to go through all this trouble. Isn’t living here just fine?"

"How do we persuade her?" Ying Zhao placed the report on the table. "Should we say, ‘Forget about your life, stay with us and enjoy your wonderful life’? Is that how we should approach it?"

Zhu Huai frowned. "We can phrase it more delicately, or think about other alternatives…"

"I say we shouldn’t try to persuade her," Ying Zhao looked at Zhu Huai. "We want her to stay, and she hasn’t stopped us from doing that. If she wants to return, we need to give her sufficient support. It’s meaningless to persuade others from our own perspective; everyone deserves to respect each other’s choices."

After hearing this, Zhu Huai stared at her for a while. The two of them sat in the lounge, silent for a moment. Zhu Huai waved her hand, "Okay, fine. Let’s wait and see how she does after trying a few more times. By the way, do you have some new work to do with Professor Ti Ran today?"

Ying Zhao nodded and recounted her day.

This morning, she first went to Ti Ran’s treehouse in the redwood forest, and then together they went to the time travel center located in the western highlands of the Ponsuo Tribe.

When Ying Zhao and Ti Ran arrived, Mo Chuan was already waiting for them. In the assembly hall where they met, there were several biologists and sociologists from Mo Chuan’s time investigation team, as well as a team of cosmologists organized by Ti Ran and a few space pilots.

Including Ying Zhao, there were twelve people in total. After greeting each other in the hall, they all entered the adjacent exhibition hall, where Ti Ran introduced the reasons and plans for restarting historical time exploration.

The last time the Ponsuo Tribe ventured into other historical time periods was a decade ago. About half of the people in the exhibition hall participated in that previous cross-time research, which aimed to confirm the evolutionary traces of several marine and land species branches.

However, during the exploration, they found that the impact of external time-space visitors on the ecological environment of that time-space was more significant than expected. Therefore, after this exploration was completed, they temporarily halted historical time travel missions to protect the independence of each time-space.

The restart of time travel was collectively decided upon after three meetings by the elders of the global assembly. However, adjustments were made to the exploration methods. This time, they planned to expand the travel range to thirty thousand years from the present, but only to conduct remote observations, without any close contact.

This expanded scope was initiated because the era Luo Yu and her friends came from spanned a longer time than previously explored, so they wanted to examine further back to see if they could uncover some patterns in human evolution to explain the causes of the world thirty thousand years later.

"That’s a good idea," Zhu Huai nodded after listening. "If human civilization did indeed experience a reboot at some point, then the situations in our two time periods shouldn’t be exceptions. Since we currently don’t know what historical time periods beyond our exploratory range experienced, and they cannot venture into the future, it might truly lead to new discoveries if they look further back."

Ying Zhao also agreed. "Many small-scale mysteries can be seen from entirely new perspectives once we broaden our vision. They will send out an exploration team the day after tomorrow, and I will keep following up on it. I’ll let you know about any new findings."

The two of them chatted in the lounge for quite a while, had some snacks, and around three o’clock in the afternoon, Luo Yu opened her door and stepped out. "Oh, Ying Zhao, you’re back!"

Ying Zhao laughed and patted the soft cushions beside her, "Yep! Did you wake up? Would you like a drink? Are you going to the hangar later?"

Luo Yu walked over to the cushions, had the in-house housekeeping system bring her a familiar drink, and then sat down between the two of them. "I still want to go later." Then she turned to Zhu Huai, "Do you know how to use the equipment in the control room now?"

Zhu Huai glanced at Ying Zhao and remembered her earlier advice not to persuade Luo Yu. She only replied, "I know how to use it. If you’re going later, I can help set up the environment for you."

Ying Zhao’s eyes brightened. "Great! Let’s all go together later. I’d like to see how it works."

So the three of them sat in the lounge for a while. After Luo Yu’s drink was served, she ordered some snacks from the housekeeping system and listened as Ying Zhao recounted her day at the time travel center once again.

After Luo Yu finished eating, the three of them changed into wing suits and headed to the helipad on the nearby mountaintop.

The hangars here had been cleared out to repair the time capsule and build the simulator. The engineering robots that were constructing the simulator had all left after completing their work, making the helipad even quieter than usual.

The hangar robot was still on duty, and upon seeing the three of them land on the helipad, it promptly came out of the hangar to greet them while reporting the environmental data inside the hangar.

Luo Yu led the way into the channel simulator. This spacious hall was still in an inactive state, filled with white gravity and spectral devices. The Shan Hai Jing was positioned on the navigation platform in the center, surrounded by a ring of air cushions.

Ying Zhao hadn’t seen how the Shan Hai Jing was arranged after her previous hasty visit, so Luo Yu and Zhu Huai took her around the Shan Hai Jing, introducing her to the devices above and below. Then the three of them went to check out the control room.

Zhu Huai explained the various functional modules on the console. She had fully learned how to use them after watching Lei Ming operate before.

After they finished observing, Luo Yu left the control room and went to the navigation platform, where she opened the Shan Hai Jing’s hatch and stepped into the cockpit.

Zhu Huai and Ying Zhao stayed in the control room and watched as Luo Yu appeared on the screen. They saw her fastening her safety harness and putting on her helmet and visor, then giving them a thumbs-up.

Seeing this, Zhu Huai spoke into the intercom, "I am ready to start the simulation mode."

Luo Yu gave another thumbs-up on the screen to indicate she understood.

Zhu Huai first pressed the button for the airtight device to check it. After confirming everything was fine, she pushed the lever on the control panel upwards to activate the simulation mode. Instantly, the simulator outside the control room darkened and began to vent air.

Since it was Ying Zhao’s first time watching the Shan Hai Jing undergo simulation training, she moved back and forth between the monitoring screens showing Luo Yu and the windows looking at the Shan Hai Jing. About three minutes after Zhu Huai activated the simulation, Ying Zhao saw the Shan Hai Jing beginning to float slowly.

Zhu Huai sent the coordinates for Luo Yu’s test to the control panel in the cockpit, then set the gravitational field to values resembling the return phase. She said over the intercom, "This path is shorter than last time, with an expected travel time of five minutes. You can try now."

Soon, they heard Luo Yu’s voice from the speaker: "Okay."

The non-navigation mode means no real-time navigation. The coordinate point that Luo Yu needed to reach would be displayed on the cockpit control panel with the predicted path in advance. She had to navigate towards this static map to reach her target.

During the journey, she also had to estimate her position using the displacement indicator, making adjustments for deviations while observing sudden shifts in the external gravitational field. If she wasn’t careful, she could be pulled off course by the gravitational or magnetic fields.

Different from the earlier test with prompts, this time, as per their prior agreement, Zhu Huai decided not to give any hints to Luo Yu. Luo Yu had to explore the route to the target location based solely on the static path. She held the joystick, watching the changes on the displacement indicator while keeping an eye on the external gravitational field.

Inside the control room, Zhu Huai and Ying Zhao focused on the screens showing the cockpit and the nearby navigation map. They could see the Shan Hai Jing narrowly passing two gravitational field turns, but it failed to avoid a third one and began spinning inside.

Luo Yu noticed the path on the displacement indicator was starting to look a bit off, but she felt nothing unusual, like she was stuck in a loop.

Taking a deep breath, Luo Yu began adjusting the anti-gravity device on her left, slowly pulling the Shan Hai Jing out from the gravitational vortex.

After a while, a notification pinged on the control panel that they had successfully reached the coordinates. Zhu Huai glanced at the time—forty-five minutes.

What should have taken five minutes now took nine times longer. Zhu Huai opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but worried about discouraging Luo Yu. Before she could decide, she heard Luo Yu’s cheerful voice over the intercom: "I made it to the target point without any hints. That’s pretty good; it’s better than getting completely lost."

Zhu Huai swallowed what she wanted to say, "I really admire your attitude. Please keep it up."

Next, they tested the same coordinates again, but this time, Zhu Huai provided guidance and gravitational shift prompts through the intercom. The second time, Luo Yu reached the target point in twenty minutes.

During the third test, they still gave hints, but the number was cut in half compared to the second time. Luo Yu arrived at the target point in twenty minutes again.

For the fourth test, they halved the hints once more, and Luo Yu reached the destination in fifteen minutes.

During the fifth test, there were no hints again, with Luo Yu blind navigating to the same coordinates. This time, she took twenty-five minutes to get there.

While this improvement, from nine times to five times the expected time, might not be great, it was still acceptable—a satisfactory result.

As Zhu Huai was about to ask Luo Yu if she wanted to try a new coordinate point, a rest notification popped up on the control panel, stating that continuous high-intensity training for the time capsule pilot would lead to fatigue, affecting judgment. It recommended a minimum rest of one hour.

Therefore, Zhu Huai opened the intercom and said to Luo Yu, "Why don’t you come down and take a break?"

Luo Yu had been thinking about trying a new coordinate, but upon seeing the cockpit’s notification, she had to reply, "Okay, you can shut down the simulation."

Zhu Huai pulled the lever down on the control panel, and the simulator outside immediately became transparent as air began to slowly refill. The Shan Hai Jing descended gradually as gravity returned, settling back onto the navigation platform, secured by the surrounding air cushions.

Once the air in the simulator was fully replenished, Luo Yu stood up and exited the cockpit. She opened the hatch and saw Zhu Huai and Ying Zhao standing by the navigation platform waiting for her.

“Let’s go sit outside for a while,” Ying Zhao said, reaching out to guide Luo Yu down from the platform.

The three of them exited the simulator and stepped onto the helipad, where a bright white crescent moon hung quietly in the sky.

“I shouldn’t have any problems flying back on my own. Just need to practice a few more times,” Luo Yu said as she accepted a drink from the hangar robot, her tone light and carefree.

Zhu Huai also held a cup in her hand, frowning as she looked at Luo Yu. She found it hard to understand where Luo Yu’s optimism came from, considering this was just a simple simulation. The real cosmic gravitational field environment was far more unforgiving than what they experienced in the simulator.