Ren Zhong shook his head, "I have some guesses, but they're not actually meaningful. I won't say more to avoid misleading you. Just forget it, and use the method I mentioned before to slowly calibrate the time."

Seeing that he didn't want to elaborate, Sun Ai didn't press further and just focused on calibrating time and enhancing camouflage.

Actually, Sun Ai now is half artificial intelligence, able to operate in multiple threads, conversing with Ren Zhong while simultaneously performing other tasks without issue.

But now it seems Ren Zhong needs some quiet time alone.

After Sun Ai disappeared, Ren Zhong rubbed his face, thinking silently to himself, it wasn't entirely fruitless, at least he confirmed that the slowing of time is indeed related to his resurrection and rebirth.

Each time he dies and resets, it consumes one second of time within a specific area.

Undoubtedly, this area does not extend to the South Nine Star.

As for the principle behind death, resurrection reset?

Haha, what is that?

Farewell.

After calming down a bit, Ren Zhong called out to the air, "Xiao Ai."

"Here."

"Help me contact the Governor of South Nine Star, Mr. Augustus. We should seek assistance from the Empire."

"Alright."

...

South Nine Star is a standard yellow dwarf star, with a mass 1.4 times that of the sun, and twelve planets, located at the edge of the Nanxiang Star Cluster.

The Nanxiang Star Cluster is a small, sparse star cluster consisting of 3,452 stars and a total of over sixteen thousand planets. The center region has a radius of 5.7 light years, with over 2,800 stars evenly distributed in terms of relative mass, while the remaining over six hundred stars are scattered around the outer regions, of which South Nine Star is one. The entire star cluster has a radius of 22.5 light years.

Within the Nanxiang Star Cluster, approximately over five hundred stars and their planets are the feudal fief of the current Nanxiang Marquis Liu An. The Liu Family enjoys a portion of the tax revenue provided by these feudal stars and controls several monopoly enterprises within the Nanxiang Star Cluster.

Liu An, as the hereditary Earl Nanxiang Marquis, has not been complacent but rather has maneuvered and governed diligently, rising from among many nobles within the Nanxiang Star Domain to become the Military and Political Officer of the Nanxiang Star Cluster and transforming the Nanxiang Corps into a strong army capable of holding the frontier of the Empire, accumulating countless military achievements.

In terms of both title and office, Liu An is paramount within the Nanxiang Star Cluster, even considering the millions of Earls within the Mechanical Empire, he is regarded as one of the strongest Earls, even praised as one of the Earls most likely to be elevated to Marquis status through military achievements in thousands of years.

For nearly three thousand years, unless there are wars, Liu An has mostly been in cryogenic sleep, waking for only seven days every decade to use the Empire Super Network for a brief survey of the development of his territorial and governing areas, and to handle some military and political affairs.

Though he cherished his life in such a manner, he has gradually surpassed sixty years of biological age.

The average age within the Empire is only sixty-two years, even though Earls have better living conditions, better medical conditions, and more health-preserving drugs, he likely only has another twenty to thirty years of biological life, possibly even shorter.

Time is pressing.

Yet the Marquis position remains out of reach, filling him with urgency while he is also helpless.

But this time, Liu An was awakened by an accidental incident less than three years after entering sleep.

A Tracer colony located 10.5 light years from his Nanxiang Main Star, and 4 light years from South Nine Star, declared mission failure.

This would have been considered a trivial matter.

Although the colony is located on humanity's ancestral Source Star, everyone knows that place is already somewhat abandoned, Tracers wouldn't make any significant discoveries there as it's only the lowest-level farm.

Not to mention, commercial transport ships between the two sides stopped operating as early as eighty years ago.

Nearly twenty years ago, the Source Star Colony lost contact with the Empire.

Without exploration, it is evident that issues arose with the "network" nodes established by the nine failures sent to the Source Star. Perhaps enemy cruisers attacked, or Source Star's administrators were too foolish, leading to mishaps. Regardless, it's a rare occurrence, but not of significance.

This event didn't even wake him at that time; he just briefly reviewed the records upon waking and ordered penalization of the Viscount family of those nine failures by increasing the tax ratio for the next fifty years.

As for how people at the Source Star Colony could return and whether they could successfully sail back, Nanxiang Marquis Liu An didn't care.