Hila looked at the Xyrin Ancestor with an intrigued expression on her face, prompting my curiosity: "What’s up?"
"It feels... like there’s sothing strange about him, sothing not quite right," Hila said, witnessing the Xyrin Ancestor for the first ti. I wasn’t sure how much she knew about him, but from her deanor, she seed completely unfamiliar, "I’ve only heard that you revived your ancestors, and I didn’t expect to see them so soon... Are these them? Why does the information entanglent on them appear so peculiar? It’s as if so parts have paused, with so information frozen, yet not completely in stasis."
Indeed, she lived up to her reputation as one of the most knowledgeable in the Void; Hila imdiately saw through the strange "Immortal State" on the Xyrin Ancestor.
"We haven’t figured it out either," I shrugged. "The ancestors were discovered in a bizarre immortal state, as if ti had ceased to affect them, their bodies maintained in a state from long, long ago. It’s thanks to this state that we could revive them. Actually, what you see now is already different from the initial state. After revival, the ancestors’ bodies have reawakened, so the initial immortal state has loosened up; the original sense of ’stasis’ was even more apparent than now."
"Oh," Hila frowned, seemingly having heard quite a lot from Xingchen about the Xyrin Ancestor, now appearing very invested, "a strange immortal state, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Whether it’s mundane material or extraordinary matter, even the gods who have reached immortality do not enter such a passive stasis-like immortal state. According to my observation, rather than being immortal, it seems they no longer respond to ’change.’ Ti is a subjective and abstract thing, sotis even losing its aning; only the ’change’ it brings is crucial, and this change seems to have ’partially malfunctioned’ on the Xyrin Ancestor."
Alright, another inexplicably aweso theoretical lesson, but fortunately, the lecture wasn’t long this ti. Hila didn’t seem inclined to spend ti on this topic, and after a deep look at the ancestor, she realized her staring was a bit disrespectful, so she quickly stuck out her tongue, "Oh, sorry, I get like this when I’m interested in sothing, no offense intended."
Anses didn’t mind being scrutinized like that; he was instead surprised at how forthright the Huron God King was in apologizing, the old man graciously waved his hand, "No problem, no problem, we know we belong to ’special phenona,’ often cooperating in research, we’ve almost beco living specins."
Hila gave a slightly reproachful look, "You guys aren’t very courteous to your ancestors."
I rolled my eyes to the heavens helplessly: though this complaint wasn’t baseless, being a "Xyrin Apostle" midway into my journey still felt odd, and Anses couldn’t exactly be called my ancestor, right? Do Void Creatures even have the concept of "elders"?
"By the way, why are you interested in coming to the temple?" I suddenly rembered my initial curiosity, so I looked curiously at the ancestors: they didn’t have religious pamphlets in hand or peculiar illuminated crosses and Buddha beads around their necks, obviously not lured here by the unscrupulous vendors and scamrs surrounding the Temple District. They themselves didn’t usually roam around idly either, considering the Deep Dive Project was in full swing, and they were crucial crew mbers of the deep-diving ship, they usually had little free ti. When they had breaks and returned to Shadow City, they mostly sorted materials and cooperated in research, rarely showing any interest in sightseeing.
"We’re on a long holiday," said a middle-aged man behind Anses, I rembered he was one of the internal equipnt operators on the spaceship, "We’ve heard a new generation of spaceships is being built recently, and the current deep-diving ships are being retired. Before the old ships are scrapped, technicians are checking through all the equipnt, collecting data, and such. Before the new spaceships are put into use, we have two or three more deep dive missions, and a long holiday takes place between each deep dive to disassemble and check through the entire ship... Oh, I don’t understand this deep stuff well. This temple visit was Anna’s suggestion: she thought the atmosphere around the temple was good for maintaining skin, so she dragged all of us along."
Anna was also one of the ancestors, and she was a lively woman who was very sensitive about her appearance and "amazing age issues," so I could understand her idea. However, Dingdang’s halo really has no costic effect—every now and then Little Thing would plaster her entire self onto my face, and look at , I’m still in such a shabby state, right?
Hearing the ancestors’ explanation, I understood; Taville had already started preparing for the next stage of the large-scale deep dive plan early. Regardless of the technical support from Abyss Xyrin and resources the Divine Realm could offer, before the final version deep-diving ship is finalized, several transitional ship models would certainly be needed, so preparing early for building new ships is absolutely necessary. Besides the first deep-diving ship that never returned, any ship that managed a complete return was valuable experintal material that the passionate about science Imperial Technicians would definitely not overlook.
By this ti, Hila and Xingchen had started whispering to each other, and I knew this was the curious King Huron looking to learn more about the Xyrin Ancestor; one couldn’t bla him for being too nosy, because beings as unique as the ancestors were unheard of even among Void Creatures, not to ntion these ancestors had experienced those bizarre happenings and were the creators of today’s Xyrin Divine System: although they were mortals, the mark they left in the Void was no less than that of any god.
Taking this chance, I started chatting with Anses, mainly to understand the recent life status of the ancestors and the situation of the deep dive experints. These things were also available in various reports, but chatting with those involved certainly felt different than reading report books—besides, I can’t understand most of the reports...
Dingdang, anwhile, was sowhat bored jumping around on my head, not fond of listening to complex stuff. Her life consisted of cuteness and candy, so after hopping a bit on my head, Little One began demanding to fill her life’s void: "Ah Jun, Dingdang wants candy... open the buttons, Dingdang is hungry..."
To prevent the Little One from binge-eating, sotis I’d button up my pockets, so Dingdang’s three greatest enemies in life beco exams, studying, and the buttons on my shirt pockets...
Once Hila and Xingchen finished their whispering, and Dingdang settled temporarily in my pocket, I turned to Xingchen to ask about the matter most concerning the ancestors: "By the way, how’s the ’Hotown World’ going? That database should have been sent to the Divine Realm so ti ago, right?"
Upon hearing this topic, the ancestors indeed imdiately gathered around, everyone wearing eager expressions.
"There’s been significant progress. After employing various decryption and data recovery techniques, the content in that storage device has mostly been extracted, and we’ve started to pinpoint the coordinates of the Xyrin ’Hotown World.’
The ancestors imdiately showed joyful expressions, exchanging looks full of expectation, while I cautiously inquired, "Having a lead ans we still haven’t located it definitively, right? What else is the issue?"
"It’s not a major problem, mainly due to the passage of ti, even systematic world drift can have discrepancies. Furthermore, the Xyrin People’s ’Hotown World’ had suffered a great catastrophe, so its drift pattern likely changed, aning it is not in the ’initial position’ recorded by the original coordinates. But it’s alright, world drift can be calculated and corrected for. The information leaks from the Doomsday event are also errors that can be rectified, and the team has already calculated over a hundred possible drift scenarios, so the Xyrin People’s ’Hotown World’ must be in one of those coordinates. However, these coordinates are quite distant, and most are in relatively dangerous and unknown areas, so checking even a dozen at a ti will take so days."
Finally, Xingchen added a comforting note to the Xyrin Ancestors: "In any case, don’t worry, once there’s news, I’ll inform you imdiately. Although the Divine Race doesn’t have a great sense of ti, any already-initiated action won’t be delayed."
Alright, so even the big guy knows the Divine Race’s sense of ti is an issue.
"By the way, can the Empire help out?" I asked sowhat awkwardly. This whole issue was supposed to be handled by the Empire itself, yet it had troubled the Divine Race so much for so long; now even sending people to investigate fell under the Divine Race’s expenses—having the Empire just watch seed quite inappropriate, "We have high-speed Void Shuttles, not slower than yours."
"Of course, if you have extra manpower, that would be better," Xingchen laughed cheerfully, not one to shy away from such assistance, "but I wouldn’t recomnd overly risky actions. Those presud coordinates are in exceptionally dangerous places; so areas have been identified as heavily Abyss-corrupted zones, risky as the Abyss Zone itself, hence just deploying fast shuttles isn’t sufficient, you’ll also need a substantially sized escort team, or they may not return. If you genuinely wish to help, perhaps discuss it with Sandora."
The other party tried to make everything sound relaxed, but I saw a hint of seriousness in his gentle gaze. Even Father God showed such an expression, so we could imagine the peril of those "suspected coordinates" he ntioned. I thought for a while and showed a cautious expression: "Hmm, then first give us a report on the situation of the area where those coordinates are located, and I’ll discuss with Sandora how many people to send over."
After saying this, I looked up and took a deep breath as I gazed at the high and mighty Mother Star Gaia: another major event seed about to settle, finding the Hotown World, perhaps ant that half of the Xyrin Apostle’s long-cherished wish would co true.
Xingchen and Hila stayed in the Imperial Capital for three days before departing to the Star Domain. They needed to start from there, passing through several very ancient jump points before embarking on the long journey to the Huron Divine Realm. Hila ntioned that there were too many things needing transport, so assistance from other Void Creatures was essential — though we all knew this was a crucial part of her ’childbirth plan’, but who would want to break the news? Certainly not , as I can’t win against her...
During these three days, other matters related to bridge building were not postponed, first up was the Starport renovation plan: Taville had already led her expert team and a vast engineering workforce to renovate the Deep Dive Port, having just established three orbital bases. It was the largest port in the Empire, and also the ’newest’ one. Due to the unique nature of the Abyss Gate, it becos unstable after enduring a certain amount of information overflow, so the lifespan of any Deep Dive Port is short. At present, the port selected as the first phase joint testing base has only been operational for a few months, and under the control of a brand new suppression tower system, theoretically, it should last another half to a year. Hmm, the last sentence was added by Taville.
We have several similar ports, even if one collapses, we can imdiately transfer the deep-diving ships to another port to continue trials to avoid delays: the footsteps of the Void Cataclysm are closing in, and ti is not on our side.
Harlan and I then arrived at the Imperial Border a few days later: the personnel and supplies promised by the Abyss Xyrin were about to arrive.
Sandora was still presiding over affairs in Shadow City, while Harlan attended this handover event due to his status as "forr Fallen Apostle Emperor"; his expression remained awkward from morning until now, with a poker face while standing alongside in the starport hall.
"Relax, no need to feel this awkward even when eting acquaintances," I nudged the uncle beside , Harlan is usually a stern and rigid person, seeing him unexpectedly in a dilemma is truly amusing, "You didn’t act so solemn when eting the Abyss Xyrin."
Harlan adjusted his attire, still with a poker face: "That’s different, even as a Fallen Apostle, I never saw the true face of the Abyss Xyrin; she always remained like a transmitter to , but others are different... If the ones sent for the exchange are familiar faces from before, I truly don’t know how to start the conversation."
I shrugged, these are considerations others can’t share or easily empathize with, better to focus on waiting for the ’good stuff’ promised by the Abyss Xyrin.
This world is the fortress universe that the Empire conquered during its major offensive in the Abyss Zone so ti ago. Now, after renovation and refurbishing the sovereignty hub to make it almost impregnable, it has beco part of the ’New Frontier’. It has two sets of World Gates, though both are under the sa sovereignty hub, they lead to entirely different directions: one towards the Empire District inland, the other towards the Abyss Zone.
This is out of prudence, although Sandora decided to let the Empire District and Abyss Zone connect directly, we must consider the pollution from the other side, thus retaining a buffer structure between the Empire transmission network and the Abyss Zone transmission network is necessary. Moreover, caution towards the Abyss Xyrin remains: we cannot allow her to control the right to transfer items to the Empire District; the port access rights must be controlled by the Empire.
We are currently at a newly established sovereignty hub, located twenty astronomical units away from the old sovereignty hub. Sandora let the Celestial System Fleet leave a Planet Battleship here as the Fortress Star, and built a series of functional stations including an orbital observation station and a World Gate Generator in the fortress star’s orbit (there’s another larger World Gate set several light years away but not needed this ti). Now Harlan and I stand on the upper platform of the orbital station, gazing into the deep dark outer space: there, a massive dim vortex has already ford, with a diater about the size of the moon, surrounded by a ring of already deployed World Gate Generators. The generator radiates a mystic pale blue halo, indicating that the gate is connected.
The Abyss Xyrin stands quietly behind Harlan and , her eyes serene, seemingly lost in thought.
Our wait did not last long, when the agreed ti ca, all the generators around the World Gate flashed intensely at once, illuminating the deep darkness of outer space like a halo, the chaotic vortex at the center then transford from illusion to reality, and we saw so black shadows slowly erging from that gate: they were transport ships.
Since the Abyss Xyrin had already shown such sincerity, the Empire naturally needed to demonstrate enough trust, so these ’special supplies’ from the Abyss Zone ca into the Empire-controlled universe for the first ti without facing a forest of guns.
Three black and red starships, each tens of kiloters long and resembling a three-layer stacked sheet in appearance, slowly erged from the World Gate, their surrounding light flickered for a mont, then the vessels imdiately stabilized from their final phantom state to entity status. Behind them followed a large number of small vessels, the detection equipnt returned scans of those small ships, and I found they were so starships with body sizes ranging from a few hundred ters to a maximum of only a few kiloters, considered miniatures in the Xyrin design that values ’big is beautiful’.
Moreover, those small ships had rather peculiar designs: they didn’t resemble any type of main battle ship. I couldn’t find any similar design in the Empire’s arsenal, and each had different shapes, with so long and narrow ’Tobey Ye designs’, so heavy and rough but having a rugged aesthetic ’classic Mo style’, and of course, the familiar coffin-board ships. Each small vessel varied in form, with its external facilities looking bizarrely diverse, but generally lacking characteristics of a battle ship.
Seeing those strange things, I involuntarily glanced at the Abyss Xyrin: "You said there were so extra ’gifts’, these are the things?"
The Abyss Xyrin’s face bore a faint smile: "These are what we use to probe the Abyss Gate. They aren’t deep-diving ships but survey models for cruising in the Abyss’s shallow layer. You might find these familiar too, back then I almost converted them into military vessels... Unfortunately, they’ve never completed the combat modification until today: fighting in the Abyss environnt is second only to firing in the Void environnt."
I was taken aback, mouth agape: so it’s these things! No wonder they looked strange yet sowhat familiar!
The Abyss Xyrin looked at my expression with a smile, her tone seed slightly joyful: "Perhaps the Void will always favor kin, eventually these things beca beneficial for you."
I was slightly choked by the word ’kin’, but couldn’t help asking: "Is it really okay to give such confidential things to the New Empire?"
"Confidential?" The Abyss Xyrin seed indifferent, "It’s just that they can still be considered confidential now, once four-way collaboration unfolds, such junior ships will soon be producible by you; might as well give a favor now. Honestly, my cooperation sincerity is genuine too, thinking of scheming and hiding technology facing the Void Cataclysm is purely seeking death."
I nodded and then smiled, heading towards the transporter: "Then let’s greet your subordinates." (To be continued. If you like this work, welco to vote for recomnded tickets and monthly tickets at Qidian, your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian to read.)
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