The situation is truly peculiar. We originally ca to uncover the secrets of the Green Star, which should be the legacy of the Old Empire from tens of thousands of years ago. A high-tech planet battleship, well, at least a planet fortress. I imagined encountering layer upon layer of encrypted databases, crisscrossing starship bridges, or fully ard automated defense robots, and several waves of hibernating ancient guardians. Then I would lead these formidable girls into the fray, fiercely storming in, and extracting so old accounts from the Star Core Database—this would be the normal developnt scenario.
But the final outco was this: We did cross two starship bridges and encountered a complex of high-tech buildings, but ultimately arrived at a low-gravity "satellite" floating within the Earth’s core (I can only label it this way. How to address this small planet locked in the Earth’s core is a problem. Constantly calling it Little Green Ball doesn’t seem right, so Taville suggested calling it the "Earth Core Satellite." Who says a satellite can only orbit a planet? Packing it inside a planet and taking it away works just the sa), lush and verdant, under the protection of an old shield system resisting the thousands-degree environnt of the Earth’s core. There are countless gigantic, fairy-tale-like plants growing wildly, but eighty-nine percent are mass projections that shatter with a touch. The ground is covered with the only tangible thing, which seems to be vines wrapping the entire Earth Core Satellite. Also, we encountered a chaotic little girl, seemingly a bit intellectually challenged. Such a child thrown into the Life Goddess’s temple for three years might not even beco a class officer...
"It’s rude to think that way." Elder Sister earnestly reminded while I kept a spiritual link with her, idly chatting and then ended up griping about this elf-like little girl, and of course, got educated.
"Though she’s indeed not very smart—perhaps too naïve," Elder Sister added quickly.
The little girl trying to fend off invaders with a toy bow injured her knee. This is strange. She is a mass projection, and the plant she stumbled over is also a mass projection. Normally, a proper projection generation device wouldn’t let two mass projections sustain damage upon collision. Yet the fact is, she injured her knee, and it looked pretty painful, which piqued Sandora’s curiosity: The projection facilities here have unnecessary functions added to make the environnt appear real and credible. The Xyrin Apostle’s mass projection technology is just to manufacture so handy tools and work environnts for themselves, whereas the mass projection here seems to simulate a world. I think the natives living here are akin to players trapped in virtual online gas, blending the virtual and the real—could this be the purpose of this place?
A fantastical, flourishing ideal world still standing after doomsday? Then what about the natives here? The little girl in front of us doesn’t seem like soone who has survived a doomsday. She seems more like soone born and raised here.
No matter the truth, I still have to carry the girl who hurt her knee ahead, enduring her endless questions, maintaining high posture of "I am not a Loli Fan" amidst Lin Xue’s amused grin, calming myself so I don’t get angry with the mischievous brat who constantly pokes my ear with an arrowhead—a complicated task, especially when she can’t point out the way. This last requirent is even harder.
"Do you even know where your ho is?"
After she jabbed with an arrowhead in my neck once more, I finally couldn’t help but ask, "And what’s your na, anyway?"
"It’s not okay to casually tell others your na, especially since you all are invaders," the little girl replied firmly. "Further ahead is enough; go left... or maybe right, anyway I’ll tell you. Not far ahead is our village, a really big village, and the Great Clan Leader is visiting the village these days."
"Don’t worry, don’t worry," Lin Xue mischievously glanced at , "This ti, we’re really close. There’s actually a settlent ahead."
"Do you guys notice sothing?" I said without revealing my emotions in the spiritual link, "Here, gravity is barely stronger than the moon’s. When walking normally, you occasionally float, but this little girl doesn’t seem to notice at all. She walked with a sense of firm ground, and even injured her knee on this ground."
"That’s because this is a mass projection-dominated environnt, with over ninety percent of the surroundings and this little girl herself being mass projections," Sandora responded. "No matter the real environnt’s gravity, this little girl appears to be living in an ’environnt’ with gravity akin to Earth’s. Based on her physique and habits, I estimate the gravity she perceives to be sowhat close to Earth’s, nearly the Green Star’s surface gravity. For a mass projection entity, environntal perception can be easily deceived."
This is a bizarre world where reality and illusion coexist. We walk in the real world, while this projection girl deeply believes in the illusion information, yet we both can normally communicate under such a scenario—truly intriguing.
Walking in such a situation is a bit troubleso because Elder Sister doesn’t want the little girl to notice our unusual walking posture, so we must ignore the surrounding gravity environnt, each using our own thods to "walk firmly." The effort isn’t much, yet every step requires cautiousness, which is quite unpleasant.
After walking in this unpleasant condition for about ten minutes, we finally reached the destination: a village surrounded by greenery.
The village is small, with roughly around a dozen households, and the village radius wouldn’t exceed three to four hundred ters, sparsely distributed among the residences. Encircled by a row of towering slender gray "mushrooms" over ten ters high, these mushrooms serve as natural fences for the village. Between each mushroom, heavy barriers woven from plant fibers act as the village’s walls. The ground within the village’s center also grows many smaller "mushrooms," and those houses are constructed on these mushroom stalks, resembling hollowed tree trunks building tree houses. These mushrooms differ from the impression; judging by the shape of doors and windows, they are likely so kind of woody plant—well, nimble about such peculiar places, so let’s not dwell on woody plants.
I have no idea about the residents’ lifestyle habits in this peculiar world comprised of mass projections, but now seems like leisure ti. Scattered villagers leisurely stroll around the village’s clearing or chat while sipping drinks under the shady spots of the giant mushroom houses. There’s a halo layer within the high atmospheric shield of this small planet, providing light over the ground below; it’s currently dayti, the light is sowhat intense.
Just looking from the exterior, it’s a simple and peaceful forest village, brimming with a whimsical feeling intertwined with fairy tales and legendary stories, and anything eye-catching might only be that the residents have elf-like characteristics. However, as one realizes everything here is mass projection without life or entity, the eerie and surreal feeling intensifies.
The arrival of outsiders caught the villagers’ attention. The few passersby who first spotted us glanced nervously at each other, then swiftly dashed back to their houses, erging with various weapons. Won and children not carrying weapons also looked alard towards us. Two people noticed the strange girl I was carrying and instantly let out a surprised cry.
"Mom! Dad! I’m back!"
The strange little girl quickly jumped off my back, stumbled a few steps, and—fell to the ground. She wobbled a bit while running when her leg was fine, let alone with a knee injury.
A young couple not far away exclaid softly, then sprinted over. However, we were closer, and Elder Sister stepped forward to help the strange little girl up first, soothing her expertly. Although twelve years old should have moved beyond childhood years, this girl’s developnt appears unhurried. Comforting her is like coaxing a small child, precisely why Elder Sister’s Naughty Kid Handing Halo achieved a skill level 3 effect on her. By the ti the girl’s parents stooped to check their daughter’s injury, she was already gleefully nded.
"These are my parents. Thank you for bringing ho," the little girl politely nodded to us, then introduced the strangers to her parents, "Mom and Dad, these are the invaders I t outside. Good invaders, though."
This is such a ss!
The little girl’s parents showed an expression of confusion, then unobtrusively shielded their daughter behind them. Nervous villagers around us held assorted weapons: spatulas, spoons, hoes, gathering into a loose encirclent. It seed defensive against outsiders, yet this scale really doesn’t present any pressure. Moreover, I didn’t feel any atmospheric tension from these people. Their reaction is less facing enemies than instinctively picking up items for self-defense under bewildernt and fright, then crowding around to see what it’s all about—I’ve defined them as spectators.
"Who are you, and how did you co here?" The little girl’s father quickly regained his composure, protecting his wife and daughter while loudly asking.
Even though I knew that the ones before were all mass projections, I felt like they themselves hadn’t realized this, so I answered seriously, "We ca from above."
I pointed to the sky. This Earth Core Satellite is enveloped in a layer of atmosphere and shield, with its own independent lighting adjustnts. Therefore, the dark red upside-down land with its dazzling magma rivers isn’t clearly visible here. Through the layers of clouds and the shield layer that provides so cover, only a faint dark red shadow can be seen hovering amidst the clouds. I wondered if the residents here could understand what I ant: do they know there’s another expanse of land high above their world?
"Above?!" The villagers were stirred, and the little girl’s father exclaid, "You ca from the Fiery Sky?"
As he exclaid, he closely examined our appearances, "You do seem different from us. Did you fall from there? Is there still fire burning there?" While speaking, his gaze fell on Lilina. Lilina was still in her transford state, appearing as a Blood Elf, "Huh? This girl also ca from the Fiery Sky?"
"So you call the mantle Fiery Sky, that’s quite fitting," Lilina blinked her eyes, "But we ca from even higher, piercing through a few thousand kiloters — By the way, do you know how long a kiloter is?"
It seed that the units used by them didn’t include kiloters, but he still understood Lilina’s aning, his surprise growing, "Even higher? You pierced through the Fiery Sky?"
Sandora and I exchanged a glance, a voice ca through the spiritual link, "Ah Jun, it seems they don’t know they’re living in the Earth’s Core — and they also don’t know they’re living in a projection world."
This was a bit different from our initial assumption, but I wasn’t in a hurry to find out the answer imdiately. After all, Green Star is now docked at the Imperial Capital, there’s plenty of ti to figure everything out. I felt that the current situation was sowhat darkly humorous: these natives, existing as mass projections, are completely unaware of anything regarding the Earth’s surface. They don’t even know where their ho planet has been dragged to. Their understanding of the world is limited to the seemingly "normal" Earth Core World they live in, and the mantle burning fiercely overheard, seen as the sky. To them, visitors from outside the "Fiery Sky" are incredible since it requires piercing the sky...
Are they truly projections stemming from so original body? Or could it be that they are just evolved programs, virtual beings without any originals? Within the spiritual link, the Big Sister, ticulous in thought, posed this question. If these villagers were conventional mass projections, then they must have their originals sowhere (I thought of the massive burial grounds seen on the mantle before, with countless shells quietly resting in hibernation chambers). This ans they should possess considerable scientific knowledge: primitive humans can’t operate projectors. But the current situation seems off. They seem more like those elves living in jungles from fantasy novels, who haven’t even seen human stone fortresses - I noticed, they still fetch water from wells.
The water is also a phantom, but certainly a virtual item manufactured by a program.
Of course, there’s also the possibility that the high-tech race that modified Green Star is no longer here. Those elves living in a low-tech environnt are actually experintal subjects. They can’t use projection devices themselves but were inserted into hibernation chambers by Green Star’s initial builders, transferring their souls and such to this place: the tiny Earth Core planet is actually a biological laboratory.
The more I pondered, the more I felt it was a sha I didn’t go into screenwriting. These stories, throw in a couple madly loving and ultimately impossible pairs, toss it into Hollywood, and it’s at least seven or eight Little Golden n...
The Big Sister’s affinity and Lilina’s elf appearance finally took effect. After communicating for half a day, the villagers filled with vigilance gradually laid down their weapons. I found these elves to be rather cautious and slightly neurotic. Though we are "invaders," we’ve shown no hostility in coming here, yet they acted as though they were facing a formidable enemy. Could it be that in this society, any creature whose dress and appearance differ from their race’s can be considered an enemy?
The strange little girl was taken away by her parents, and the villagers dispersed. Finally, a male elf, whose appearance resembled a middle-aged human, approached and introduced himself as the Village Chief here.
"Sorry, we’ve grown up with legends from childhood, anything coming from the Fiery Sky is exceptionally dangerous, and any alien appearing in the Big Forest could be an invader," the middle-aged man led us towards the largest tree house in the village, "That’s what the legend says."
"Oh." I casually replied, shrugging it off; this peculiar place indeed left many puzzles behind. I decided to keep a low profile until more secrets were discovered.
The elves’ tree house is built within the mushroom stalk, yet the interior wasn’t as expected, not damp at all, and well-lit. The surrounding curved walls were dry and tidy, with a soft white glow emitted from within the mushroom: apparently, these walls are semi-transparent from the inside looking out.
The Village Chief’s residence didn’t seem to be extravagantly decorated; everything was just basic living essentials—furniture made from wood pieces, hanging chairs and tapestries woven from plant fibers, and a few small ornants of undetermined material. These filled the entire first floor: because the mushroom stalk is quite tall, every house here is several stories high, and such locally sourced buildings are bound not to develop into comrcial buildings or quadrangles.
"Our Great Clan Leader is handling matters, she’ll personally et you guests later."
The middle-aged man let us rest briefly on those slightly smaller hanging chairs and then got up to prepare drinks and food, appearing hospitable and sowhat intent on making up for the previous offense. Lilina wriggled a few tis restlessly in the plant fiber woven hanging chair and finally jumped down into my arms, burying her head without making a sound.
"What’s she being nervous about now."
I looked at the people next to in amused exasperation; Lin Xue showed disdain, Qianqian was deep in thought, and Sandora watched with a hint of a smile. Big Sister poked my forehead, "Ah Jun, behave yourself."
Definitely heavy, the weight of the two together was about to collapse the not-so-sturdy hanging chair by estimation!
"Boss, I don’t like it here," Lilina said sulkily, "A very large lifeform is waking up, I feel my whole self being wrapped within it, and the projection, dead and lifeless here, is uncomfortable—I’m too sensitive."
Did she have to make a normal sentence unusual with such an abnormal latter half? (To be continued. If you like this work, you’re welco to vote for recomndation tickets, monthly tickets on qidian, your support is my biggest motivation.)
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