Technological advancement begins with devouring.

Chapter 54 Target: Mars! (Bonus chapter, please read on!)

Jarvis's calculations rarely go wrong, especially when there are no external factors interfering.

Just before the Chinese Lunar New Year, Jiang Chen received a report from Jarvis that the first spaceship capable of space travel had been completed and passed preliminary tests.

The spaceship was entirely black, square in shape, about 150 meters long and wide, and 50 meters high, with four thrusters located at the four corners of its bottom.

At the tail of the spacecraft is a large thruster with a diameter of over forty meters, which serves as the spacecraft's main power source.

This is a transport spacecraft. It is not very fast, but its main advantage is its large capacity and low fuel requirement.

"This time I'll only bring a batch of SCVs and trucks," Jiang Chen said to Jarvis, then instructed, "You assign a subroutine to control the spaceship, while the main body stays behind to guard the base. Follow the previous plan and complete the clearing of South America as quickly as possible. Our next plan requires a large amount of monster materials."

"Master, there may be unknown risks in space. It would be best to bring a mechanical escort team," Jarvis suggested.

After more than half a year of 'equipment upgrades', Jiang Chen's mechanical legion is no longer limited to just the 'Boxer' unit.

There are four different models of combat mechs alone, each with different capabilities and functions.

Other vehicles, tanks, drones, and so on are also fully equipped, enough to fight a large-scale war.

"There shouldn't be any life on Mars..." Jiang Chen was about to say something, but hesitated for a moment and suddenly changed his mind, saying, "Then I'll take a [Magic Pattern Mech] squad, and leave the rest of the troops to you."

【Enchanted Mech】is a special mech that has been enchanted and modified using alchemy, giving it combat power that surpasses that of conventional models.

Jiang Chen didn't have a particularly large number of these mechs, only about a hundred.

Not all King-level monsters are suitable as enchanting materials for alchemical runes, and to ensure comprehensiveness, a single [Rune Mech] will not have only one type of enchantment, which greatly limits the number of [Rune Mechs].

Taking away a small squad already represents a proportion of more than one-tenth.

"Yes, Master." Jarvis quickly created a subroutine and entered the ship's onboard AI.

Currently, Jiang Chen has not yet activated 'quantum communication' or other instant communication technologies that can ignore distance. It's fine on Earth, but if he were in space, too far from Earth, the signal transmission delay would be too high, and there would be certain risks in allowing Jarvis to remotely control him.

It's better to use subroutines for control.

In any case, the computing power of the ship's onboard AI is comparable to that of a supercomputer, which is more than enough for Jarvis's subroutines to perform.

After storing the [Magic Pattern Mech] squad in his spatial ring, Jiang Chen boarded the spaceship with an SCV and a transport convoy, and immediately gave the order: "Proceed! Target: Mars!"

"Yes, engine warming up... started!" Jarvis's words had barely faded when a deep roar sounded.

The entire ship trembled slightly, and four flames shot out from the bottom, propelling the spaceship slowly into the air.

During the ascent, the spacecraft's speed continued to increase.

In just a few minutes, it broke through the second cosmic velocity and flew out of the atmosphere.

After a while, once it had completely escaped Earth's gravity, the engines at the bottom of the spaceship shut down, the main engines at the tail started up, and it flew at high speed toward Mars.

Nearly an hour later, Jarvis's voice rang out: "Master, we have accelerated to maximum speed. The current speed is 1.2 million kilometers per hour. We are 160 million kilometers away from Mars and are expected to arrive in 133 hours."

"133 hours, that's really slow..." Jiang Chen sighed.

The Black Dragon Mountain X81 spaceship, which will eventually fall into Luo Feng's hands, takes minutes to travel from Earth to Mars.

Even during longer journeys, it can break the speed of light and enter the dark universe.

Jiang Chen's spaceship has a maximum speed of 1.2 million kilometers per hour.

Although it is fast, it is far inferior to the real interstellar spaceships of cosmic civilizations.

"Over a hundred hours, I'd better find something to kill time. The spaceship is yours now, Jarvis. Wake me up if there's any emergency."

Jiang Chen gave Jarvis an instruction, opened the system, and plunged into the library.

Not to mention that in order to deal with the Golden Horned Beast, it is necessary to master various cutting-edge knowledge and technologies to create powerful weapons of war.

Jiang Chen wouldn't waste his free time just to improve his own level.

Perhaps, this difference in level will give me a better chance of winning when dealing with the Golden Horned Beast, or even other enemies in the future.

Over the course of half a year, Jiang Chen's level had not stagnated; it had already reached Level 5 of the first tier.

Planetary-level powerhouses naturally have a fast thinking speed, and their information processing speed and memory are far superior to those of ordinary people.

With Jiang Chen's current attributes, plus his two specialties of [High Focus] and [Scholar's Mindset], his learning ability is extremely astonishing.

If he erased his memories but retained his attributes and started learning from scratch, Jiang Chen estimated that he could raise a subject from zero to Lv.15 or higher within a day.

Although any subject becomes increasingly difficult and requires more time and effort as you progress, Jiang Chen still managed to master two new techniques in alchemy in just over a hundred hours and five days, and raised the levels of [Alchemy Runes] and [Alchemy Material Synthesis] by one level each.

Unfortunately, as the level increases, the difficulty of raising the overall system level also increases. This slight improvement is not enough for Jiang Chen to advance to Tier 1, Level 6.

According to Jiang Chen's estimate, if he spends most of his time in the system library and relaxes his expansion of influence in the real world, he should be able to reach the second tier, or the Hengxing level, before the Golden Horned Beast is born.

—If the advancement of the Hengxing level is still the same as before, where after the first tier and level nine, the next advancement will reach the second tier.

However, precisely because he was dealing with the Golden Horned Beast, Jiang Chen was even less likely to focus his main energy on improving his own level.

Whether from the perspective of system assistance or from the perspective of Jiang Chen's own strengths, the combat power brought by creating a powerful weapon of war will definitely exceed the improvement of Jiang Chen's own level.

Just as Jiang Chen was about to pick up a new book from the library shelf and start reading, Jarvis's voice suddenly woke him up.

"Master, we are approaching Mars and are expected to enter the atmosphere in five minutes!"

(End of this chapter)