Over these years, although Tom hadn't focused much on technological development, he still made some technological progress.

During his years in the Altair System, he integrated these technological advancements into spaceship construction, improving the performance of existing spacecraft compared to the original solar system migration fleet.

This was also why Tom could increase the fleet's acceleration by 50 %, from 0.04 meters to 0.06 meters per second squared.

As the fleet continuously accelerated, the distance from Altair grew greater and greater. Thus, Tom saw that the density of matter around him was rapidly decreasing; the almost ubiquitous asteroid belt gradually became sparse, then slowly disappeared, no longer visible without actively searching for them.

However, Tom did discover some special asteroids.

These asteroids possessed extremely flat orbits, meaning their aphelion—where "helion" here refers to Altair—could be extremely far, while their **perihelion could be extremely close.

By observing their orbits, Tom gradually understood.

These were clearly small celestial bodies flung out by the gravity of large planets, Altair, and other massive celestial bodies.

In the long evolution of the future, their orbits would grow larger and larger, moving farther and farther from Altair, eventually converging into an asteroid belt about 10 billion kilometers from Altair, much like the **solar system's Kuiper Belt.

There were also some asteroids with even more peculiar orbits. Through simulations of the celestial bodies within Altair, Tom believed that in the even longer future, they would have much more distant orbits, even reaching beyond one light-year, orbiting Altair from over one light-year away.

Furthermore, with the evolution of the Altair System, more internal celestial bodies would be ejected, integrating into these two types of asteroid orbits, making them more numerous and larger in scale.

By then, Altair's Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud would form, and its interior would stabilize, with fewer asteroid impact events occurring.

The solar system's today is Altair's tomorrow.

However, there were also some differences between the two.

Altair had a greater mass, a faster fusion burning rate, and thus a shorter lifespan. Approximately three billion years later, it would enter its end-of-life stage.

Perhaps it wouldn't even have time to form a mature Oort Cloud before it evolved into a white dwarf; who could say for sure?

There were simply too many variables, even Tom couldn't be 100 % certain.

While meticulously observing everything within the Altair System, seizing every opportunity to enhance his knowledge and understanding of galaxy evolution, he simultaneously operated the massive fleet at full power for acceleration.

Time slowly passed, and in the blink of an eye, over 6 years had gone by.

By this time, Tom's fleet speed had increased to 4 % of the speed of light, approximately 12,000 kilometers per second, and its distance from Altair had expanded to over a trillion kilometers.

From this distance, Altair still had an apparent magnitude as high as −10, still bright enough to cast shadows.

If it were the Sun, at this distance, although still bright, it would no longer be able to cast shadows.

A speed of 4 % of the speed of light was already on par with the maximum speed achieved when leaving the solar system previously.

But at this moment, Tom's fleet still hadn't stopped accelerating, still maintaining a full-power acceleration of 0.06 meters per second squared.

This continued for approximately another 3.2 years, bringing the fleet's speed to 6 % of the speed of light, or about 18,000 kilometers per second.

This was already on par with the speed Tom had initially set. But at this moment, Tom still hadn't stopped accelerating!

The massive fleet continued to increase its speed for approximately another 3.2 years.

It wasn't until the fleet's speed reached 8 % of the speed of light, or approximately 24,000 kilometers per second, that the thrusters, which had been continuously operating for over a decade, simultaneously shut down.

Acceleration stopped, and inertial navigation began.

For an Electroweak Civilization, a speed of 8 % of the speed of light was almost unimaginable. Not to mention the particle collision problem, fuel alone would be insufficient.

However, merely within the Altair System, with such a short period of technological development, and even then, only a small portion of Tom's mental effort was dedicated during industrial production and quantum supercomputer research and development, the integration of the conjectures and breakthroughs accumulated during the previous solar system migration process improved the fleet's overall performance by more than 5 %, laying the foundation for accelerating to such a high speed.

Afterward, the fleet's scale, 20 times that of the solar system migration fleet, and five times the amount of extra materials carried previously after removing fuel, provided the material foundation for the fleet.

As for the particle collision problem?

It wasn't a major issue.

Upon entering inertial navigation mode, Tom immediately dispatched a large number of robots and clones, riding in specially designed spacecraft, to retrieve rolls of 'plastic sheeting' from the warehouse and apply them to the exterior of each spaceship, much like applying a screen protector to** a phone.

These plastic sheets were specially developed by Tom, possessing extremely high technological content and excellent radiation resistance.

But ultimately, they were still just hydrocarbons, so calling them plastic sheeting was not inaccurate.

Thus, interstellar dust particles could only collide with these plastic sheets, damaging the structure of the plastic sheets rather than the spaceship's armor.

Once these plastic sheets were damaged to a certain extent, they would be removed, melted down, and reshaped, then replaced with new plastic sheets on the spaceship's exterior.

Consequently, the particle collision problem was transformed by Tom from a technological problem into a material problem—as long as I bring enough plastic sheets, I'm not afraid of particle collisions; problem solved.

A speed of 8 % of the speed of light was a first for Tom. This type of plastic sheeting was also being used on a large scale for the first time.

During the voyage, Tom closely monitored the changes in these plastic sheets. He observed that, compared to their initial black, tough, and smooth appearance, as time passed, these plastic sheets gradually turned into a mixture of gray, black, red, green, and various other colors.

Their texture also began to become sparse, porous, and brittle.

This process only took five years.

"Can a batch of plastic sheets last five years? Yes, that meets expectations."

New plastic sheets were installed, and the old ones were thrown into the furnace by Tom, beginning to melt and then reshape.

Thus, the plastic sheets, originally composed only of carbon and hydrogen elements, upon melting, actually yielded dozens of elements such as gold, silver, copper, iron, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, and so on, like a large stew.

After the first batch of hundreds of thousands of tons of plastic sheets was purified and reshaped, looking at the approximately 150 grams of gold bar in front of him—gold was also one of the impurities, now simply purified out—Tom felt a mix of amusement and exasperation.

"I didn't expect this stuff could be used for alchemy, tsk tsk."

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