The next day, Tilan woke from her sleep to find it already half-past nine.
She glanced at the ti, curled up in her blankets, moving slightly, still quite missing the warmth and comfort of her bed, not really wanting to get up.
But it felt late already, and it would soon be 10 a.m. If soone else asked, this new Songstress still lazing in bed at this hour would seem embarrassing. After thinking it over, she still reluctantly got up and sat on the bed, first checking her personal terminal and saw that Acacia had sent her a ssage at 7 a.m.
[This is the breakfast location, you can go there to eat.]
An accompanying map point followed, about three hundred ters from where she was staying.
Now, replying might give the impression that she had just gotten up, but oh well, it was already like this—just being a little lazy, probably not a major issue.
The girl sent a reply [Okay, got it, I'll go in a while, thanks.]
She stood up from the bed, and then the young girl lightly jumped down, slipping her feet into her slippers, and walked to the washroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.
10 minutes later, after changing clothes, Tilan looked at herself in the mirror and then opened the door and walked out.
Today, she was dressed in a school-uniform-style dress, with a checkered collar on the shirt and a grey checkered pleated skirt on the bottom. Although it was slightly formal, compared to the professionals in this area, she still stood out.
After all, to work in the Floral Crown Star Domain, one had to be a formal employee, and there were no minors. Tilan walking among them was naturally conspicuous.
"What would Tilan like to have?" As she arrived at the restaurant, the staff greeted her cordially.
"Let see, I'll have a piece of green-ice fruit bread, a cup of milk, and then a small box of strawberries," she chose from the nu on the big screen.
"Alright." The staff quickly placed the prepared items onto a tray and served them to her.
"If that's not enough, you can always co back for more."
"I actually don't eat that much," the girl replied as she took the tray, then rembered sothing.
"By the way, do you know my na?" She didn't recall having seen this big sister who worked in the restaurant before.
"Of course, the new Songstress, Hexia Tilan. Now people in the surrounding area probably all know your na. Plus, you see, there's only one child here, quite easy to recognize," the waitress said.
Child, huh? The girl glanced around and realized this was indeed the case. Everyone else was a grown professional, and only she looked younger, no wonder she was so easily identified.
This... felt a bit like being under the watchful gaze of the public. The girl thought and then, holding her tray, took a seat to the side. Recalling her etiquette teacher's instructions, she chewed her breakfast carefully and slowly before saying goodbye to the enthusiastic waitress waving to her.
When she t Acacia again, the senior Priest was walking down the road holding a clipboard.
"Found you, Tilan." She stopped, bending slightly to carefully evaluate the girl's outfit for the day, making Tilan a bit embarrassed before she stood back up.
"Co with ; we have so tasks to complete today," she said, leading Tilan to a docking bay, where she entered her ID. After an inspection, the bay door opened, and a small shuttle capable of seating four floated out.
This small shuttle had a sowhat square yet rounded shell, giving it a rather cute appearance. Once seated inside, it lifted off and then connected to the regional transport cables, swiftly shuttling like riding a roller coaster, though the inside was exceptionally stable.
Before long, the two arrived at a less crowded area.
"This one of the Great Library's sub-ports, from where you can access various film archives, historical records, and so forth stored in the Great Library," Acacia led the way and explained.
Walking through the quiet corridor, the two entered the building's arch-shaped hall, which housed several imrsion pods, into which one could lie down to enter the viewing state.
"Let's start with the historical section about the Songstress, one of the subjects Tilan must learn," She took out the recorder from her chest and turned it to Tilan to introduce.
The schedule for roughly three days was marked on it, including various knowledge a Songstress must learn, recorded films one had to watch and rember, and the final lingering audio-visual records and so on.
"It has been simplified already. If this had been 400 years ago, each Songstress would have to study for half a year before they could leave," Acacia explained.
"So much?" The girl blinked in surprise, grateful she had been born a few hundred years later.
"Of course, because back then Songstresses were rare, so the Federation valued them especially. Later, well, I'll tell Tilan about that later." She led Tilan to an imrsion pod where they lay down; soon after a chanical tone sounded, and following confirmation, the Illusory Crystal Mist gradually filled the air, and scenes from a distant ti began to appear before Tilan's eyes.
——————
The cold and pitch-black starry sky, the indicator panel inside the spaceship beeped drip by drip, just like always, without any changes.
This was a dium-sized interstellar spaceship, about 600 ters long, with 387.5 crew mbers. The reason for such a description was because one of the crew mbers was unlikely to live past the next Stellar Year.
His organs were already failing; these were the sequelae of prolonged hibernation, not everyone could safely wake up from it.
The date was November 12 of the Fifth Epoch year 4524, 18:43, with 41 days remaining until the next shift change. Because suitable settlent sites were never encountered, this spaceship had been traveling through the cold starry void for nearly 300 years.
What does 300 years represent? That ant the sandy-colored hamster brought on board at that ti had bred to its 893rd generation already, and the earliest batch of crew mbers had now turned into ashes at the bottom of the ship's cabins.
"You kids have never seen the vast, verdant earth in your lifetis," an elderly man sighed in regret, stroking his great-grandchild's head before passing away.
Due to the conflicts among the 'Black Suns,' many of the habitable planets within the Milky Way were destroyed in warfare, and so were even ruined by the hands of their own inhabitants.
Amid the endless strife and chaos, populations were massively extinguished, with a small fraction managing to struggle and escape; the ancestors who first piloted this spaceship were among that number.
"We must find a new ho for ourselves," that was the promise made by the first captain who led everyone away from the war-torn world.
"At first there were 21 ships, but many were damaged and fell out of formation along the way. Gradually, only six remained, and then afterwards, now there's just this one. Its superspace engine isn't original either; it was salvaged from another bigger ship," the old man reminisced, and after him, no child knew of the original circumstances anymore.
Although humanity had developed faster-than-light travel, compared to the vastness of space, this power and speed were still too insignificant.
Each hyperspace jump could take years, or even a decade, before passing through to the next Stellar System, searching and exploring for a habitable star that t expectations.
"Why don't we land on a roughly viable planet and then settle down?" a young child asked the adults.
Despite the lack of atmosphere and the barrenness of a cold and silent planet, with current technology, temporary survival was surely feasible.
"That's not an option, child," was the response from an elder on the ship.
"So birds, once they land, can never take flight again."
This sentence left the child puzzled; however, years later, when facing their own child's questions, after hesitating for a while, they still gave the sa reply.
"So birds, once they land, can never take flight again."
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