Xiao Yu informed the Luka scientists to temporarily keep the recent news confidential, not allowing it to spread and stir unrest among the Luka society. He himself also forced down his chaotic thoughts, focusing all his attention back on the study of the Grand Unified Theory.
“This is a domain I cannot touch through normal means, and seeking refuge with the Guardian Alliance is out of the question. All I can do now is leave it to fate. Hopefully, over the next thirty years, before this so-called information storm arrives, a little luck will shine on me…” Xiao Yu thought quietly.
Right now, Xiao Yu had a strange feeling—like an ant standing before a collapsing riverbank. Helpless, powerless, with nowhere to run, all he could do was accept his fate.
Xiao Yu waited for the next spatial broadcast from the Guardian Alliance. He hoped that the next message might contain something useful—something that would at least give him a direction to strive toward.
The installation of the large particle collider had been completed. Since there was no way to lay it near any stars in this quintuple star system, Xiao Yu simply deployed the collider in orbit around the planet. Although gravitational perturbations from other celestial bodies remained an issue, the collider’s onboard propulsion allowed it to maintain a relatively stable orbit. S~eaʀᴄh the nôvelFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
In this star system, Xiao Yu was surprised to discover that even the collider’s collision experiments showed strange anomalies.
This result made Xiao Yu even more certain: he was in a miraculous place. All signs pointed to some unknown processes, rooted in the Grand Unified Theory, actively taking effect here.
During this period, Xiao Yu was also fortunate enough to observe more than a dozen newly emerged strong gravitational sources at close range, collecting a vast amount of first-hand data. However, the observations revealed that in the places where strong gravitational sources appeared, there was absolutely nothing—no matter existed there.
This result left Xiao Yu deeply puzzled.
“Is it possible that, in this gravity-chaotic region, due to some unknown reaction, energy from stars is being converted into gravity at these specific points? After all, in the Grand Unified Theory, gravity and the other three fundamental forces are unified. Energy can transform into electromagnetic force, manifesting as photons; it can also transform into weak force via W and Z bosons, and strong force via gluons. So why not gravity—via gravitons?”
Gravitons were hypothetical particles, theorized to mediate the force of gravity. Quantum mechanics had long sought to use the graviton to explain gravitational interactions.
“Right. If energy-to-graviton conversion is occurring within this quintuple star system, then logically, there should also be occurrences of other transformations, like energy converting into electromagnetic force, thereby emitting photons…”
“This is worth investigating,” Xiao Yu concluded, continuing to contemplate.
“Gravity is closely tied to mass, and the discovery of the Higgs boson essentially confirmed the existence of the Higgs field. This means mass arises from the interaction between particles and the Higgs field. So, if gravitons exist, they must be closely related to the Higgs boson…” Xiao Yu concluded again, turning his attention back to the large particle collider.
To study microscopic physics, a large collider was an indispensable tool.
To verify his hypothesis, Xiao Yu conducted a massive number of experiments, attempting to uncover evidence of gravitons in the countless high-energy collisions of subatomic particles. At the same time, he did not neglect macroscopic anomalies, which he continued to study closely.
Time slipped by in the midst of these intense research efforts.
Finally, after several thousand collider experiments, Xiao Yu observed a new kind of particle. This particle shared characteristics with photons—it had no rest mass, no electric charge, and was a type of boson.
The discovery of this new particle greatly boosted Xiao Yu’s confidence. He immediately shared the findings with the Luka scientists, and together they launched a joint investigation into its properties.
As the research deepened, Xiao Yu gradually uncovered many unusual traits of this particle. For example, it always appeared alongside the birth of a Higgs boson. Every time a Higgs boson was generated, one of these strange particles was also produced. Further study revealed that this peculiar particle was actually composed of two even smaller sub-particles—one with positive mass, the other with negative mass. Entangled together, they exhibited a combined mass of zero from an external perspective.
It traveled at the speed of light. The two constituent particles did not interact with each other, but they easily interacted with other particles of the same type. When a positive-mass particle encountered a negative-mass one, the two would attract, annihilate, and vanish—within this very process, gravity was produced.
Upon discovering that it interacted with other particles, Xiao Yu officially declared the discovery of the graviton. From that moment on, he could finally explain what gravity actually was.
The discovery of the graviton represented a monumental leap forward in the pursuit of the Grand Unified Theory. If he could uncover the mechanism behind graviton generation and its relationship to the other fundamental particles, then the Grand Unified Theory would finally be within Xiao Yu’s grasp.
As for why this particle had never been observed in earlier collision experiments and why it had now appeared within the Aquila IV system, Xiao Yu could only attribute it to the influence of this strange environment.
Following this breakthrough, all Luka scientists were granted a one-day holiday, during which they held a grand celebration. For the time-precise, millisecond-counting Luka scientists, this was virtually unthinkable—showing just how significant the graviton discovery truly was.
Xiao Yu also joined the celebration through a 3D projection terminal, manifesting an avatar to celebrate alongside the Luka scientists. However, amidst the festive and spirited atmosphere, a shadow still lingered over their hearts.
“Information storm… only twenty-five years left,” Xiao Yu thought silently.
Confirming the existence of gravitons and studying their various properties took Xiao Yu five years. The pace of progress made Xiao Yu question whether he would achieve a breakthrough in the Grand Unified Theory before the information storm arrived.
In truth, Xiao Yu often felt that his obsession with the Grand Unified Theory was less about scientific advancement and more about escaping the overwhelming pressure of the looming storm. Only by immersing himself in ceaseless work could he temporarily forget that terrible cloud pressing down on his heart.
During this time, the next Guardian Alliance spatial broadcast that Xiao Yu had been hoping for never came. Instead, he received bad news.
According to current orbital analysis, this planet would undergo a host transition in one month. In other words, after one month, it would stop orbiting Star C and instead be captured by Star B during a close approach, becoming one of its planets.
Due to the chaos of a multi-body system, long-term predictions were impossible. Xiao Yu only discovered this development one month in advance.
By then, the planet would pass within just under two million kilometers of Star B—a distance well within the Roche limit. Thus, the planet would be torn apart by Star B’s gravity.
Given the unpredictable orbits, precise forecasting was difficult, but Xiao Yu estimated an eighty percent likelihood that the planet would be destroyed.
If the planet were destroyed, all of Xiao Yu’s underground bases would be obliterated. He could no longer remain in its vicinity, and the large particle collider would need to be dismantled. In the future, lacking a stable host body, he would not be able to deploy another collider—and therefore, further research would become impossible.
Left with no choice, Xiao Yu launched emergency construction efforts, recovering all salvageable materials and disassembling the large collider, storing everything aboard the Hebei. Then he piloted the ship far from the planet, retreating to a position roughly thirty million kilometers away, from which to observe the situation.
The recovery of materials and preparations took more than twenty days. According to Xiao Yu’s calculations, the host transition event would occur in five days.
During those five days, Xiao Yu observed another phenomenon—one that led him to revise the likelihood of the planet’s destruction to ninety-nine percent.
He observed that Star A, which had always remained stable in its orbit, was now showing signs of shifting closer. It was projected to pass by at a distance of thirty million kilometers from Star C, and twenty million kilometers from Star B. At that time, Stars A, B, and C would align along a straight line—and the unfortunate planet would be caught between Stars A and B.
At that moment, Stars C and B would pull on the planet in one direction, while Star A would pull in the other. It would be like a cosmic tug-of-war, with the planet as the pitiful rope.
Xiao Yu looked sympathetically at the doomed planet, still quietly rotating in ignorance. He silently increased the distance between himself and the planet once more.
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