Stellar Communication Technology was developing at an incredible pace.

At the same time, as Tom's understanding of quantum entanglement deepened, he also realized a problem.

Stellar Communication Technology, based on quantum entanglement, actually had limitations.

These limitations were related to distance.

Of course, it wasn't that quantum entanglement itself was affected by distance—even if located on opposite sides of the universe, quantum entanglement remained real-time, consuming zero time.

But Tom observed that once the distance was too great, the "interference" that quantum entanglement itself would experience became greater.

Tom was currently unsure where this interference came from, but he temporarily suspected it might be related to dark matter and dark energy.

This interference led to immense difficulty in data interpretation. That is, although the information was transmitted, if the distance was too far, the data could not be interpreted.

And improving interpretation capabilities was related to another extremely important discipline.

Mathematics.

"Perhaps, with the birth of Stellar Communication Technology, I will have to open up a new branch of mathematics. Hmm… maybe it can be called quantum mathematics?"

Tom found that the development level of quantum mathematics was closely related to the overall level of his scientific system, and also closely related to the data interpretation capability of quantum communication.

With Tom's current mathematical level, the maximum communication distance he could handle was approximately 1 billion kilometers.

Any longer, and the error rate and data loss rate would be too high, making it essentially impossible to interpret complete information.

Of course, Tom could also extend the communication distance by using relays, that is, by setting up a Stellar Communication relay station every 1 billion kilometers.

But even with the relay mode, the error rate and loss rate would accumulate. After a maximum of nine relays, the information would become completely uninterpretable.

Thus, with Tom's current mathematical level, the limit for Stellar Communication he could handle was approximately 10 billion kilometers.

"10 billion kilometers? That's enough for now. After all, over 99.9999% of a solar system's mass is concentrated within a radius of 10 billion kilometers."

Tom secretly thought: "No wonder I saw that the Mechanical Disaster fleet couldn't communicate between solar systems back then.

Their mathematical level is probably much higher than mine, but at most, they can probably only handle a communication distance of two or three hundred billion kilometers, while the distance between solar systems is often tens of trillions of kilometers.

It's just that developing mathematics, and even a specially opened quantum mathematics… it's really f*cking hard."

Facing the daunting mountain of mathematics, Tom couldn't help but feel intimidated and let out a curse.

Mathematics is an abstract science.

The simplest way to describe nature with numbers, such as two apples, three oranges, etc., is the first level of abstraction. At this level, people use numbers to replace real objects.

The second level of abstraction is the abstraction of symbolic algebra. At this level, mathematicians use characters to replace numbers, entering the equation stage.

The third level of abstraction is the abstraction of operational rules. Mathematicians realized that symbols were not essential, but operational rules were the most important, and abstracted them into universal axioms, laying the foundation for further mathematics such as groups, rings, and fields.

Then there is the fourth level of abstraction, where mathematicians further generalize operational rules into mathematical structures with common attributes, satisfying closure, associativity, identity element, inverse element, linear structure, continuity abstraction, etc., no longer focusing on specific objects, but defining systems that satisfy specific axioms.

And then, building on the fourth level of abstraction, the fifth level of abstraction began to study the interaction and mapping relationships between different mathematical structures, developing concepts such as category theory and number theory that make ordinary people's heads spin just by hearing them.

And the quantum mathematics that Tom was developing at this moment, according to this set of rules, was probably at the seventh level of abstraction.

At this level, Tom couldn't even describe what he was studying in relatively common language.

It was like a problem; regardless of the answer to this problem for the time being, Tom could no longer simply describe the problem itself.

It was an extremely abstract and complex collection of concepts. Although those Bluetoth had undergone several rounds of genetic modification and their brain capabilities had made significant progress compared to before, at this moment, among approximately 700 million Bluetoth, fewer than 100 Bluetoth mathematicians could even understand this problem.

Even fewer, only 20 Bluetoth mathematicians, remained who could research the answer while understanding the problem.

"Sigh…"

Tom sighed deeply.

"Fortunately, my computer technology has also made great progress in recent years, and the performance of quantum supercomputers has been greatly improved again, so I have a suitable tool for quantum mathematics research.

Otherwise, even if I could control 10 billion clones simultaneously and make their brains explode from thinking, I wouldn't be able to make any progress."

Because of the importance of Stellar Communication Technology, Tom mobilized the brainpower of 100 million clones, having them either operate supercomputers or simply do nothing but think all day, dedicating themselves to the research of quantum mathematics.

The remaining 1.4 billion consciousness link shares were continuously invested by Tom into several other extremely important research areas, always maintaining the rapid advancement and development of the overall technology.

Time continued to pass quietly. As the Flying Star, this large bag of "dry rations," continued to shrink, Tom finally made another significant technological breakthrough on this day.

On Test Stand One, Tom deployed several Mercury-class battleships and used their electromagnetic cannons to bombard it with full force.

Originally, Test Stand One would have been torn to shreds immediately. But at this moment, before the high-speed projectiles arrived, a translucent yellow light shield appeared out of thin air around the test stand, completely enveloping it without any blind spots.

It was gluon plasma, controlled by a magnetic field and connected by the Strong Nuclear Force!

They were extremely thin, only a few micrometers thick, but incredibly tough. Even though the electromagnetic cannon projectiles Tom was firing at this moment each had a speed of hundreds of kilometers per second, and each was enough to split mountains and rocks.

But they could only create ripples in this gluon plasma shield, which was only a few micrometers thick, completely unable to penetrate it!

Energy shield technology was finally mastered by Tom at this moment. Although its performance was still far inferior to that of the Mechanical Disaster fleet, it didn't matter; he would continue to iterate and optimize it!

At this moment, the fleet's main energy source, deuterium, was running low.

The current consumption was not even enough to support the fleet in decelerating to enter a solar system for resupply.

But this was not an oversight or mistake Tom made during the material collection phase.

This was intentionally arranged by Tom. Because Tom allocated more shares to the reserve of ordinary hydrogen, also known as protium.

And now, after the breakthrough in energy shield technology, protium fusion reactor technology also experienced a breakthrough!

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