Age of Cosmic Exploration

Chapter 401: Time (1)
Chapter 401: Time (1)

Translator: EndlessFantasy TranslationEditor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Yao Yuan felt a lot more confident about this plan. Other than the Immortal, who couldn’t be affected by any illusion or hallucination, the party now had a Deceiver in their midst as well. According to various data and hypotheses, Jay’s Homo Evolutis power was on the same level as his own.

Even though Ji Jie was in general weaker than either one of them, she was one of the best Black Star Troopers. Her contribution couldn’t be underestimated.

ZERO, on the other hand, was more of a burden than anything else. However, Yao Yuan had to bring her along for two reasons. One, her knowledge. She was the person who was the most knowledgeable about god-tier space civilizations. Two, as a precaution. Yao Yuan was afraid she might do something harmful to the Hope during its most vulnerable moment, like… causing the mass extinction of humanity or something along those lines.

”…By the way, ZERO, what is that globe of light you’ve been playing with? Is it some kind weapon for god-tier space civilizations?”

Yao Yuan used the time while they waited for the hangar to open to ask ZERO.

ZERO smiled innocently and replied without hesitation, ”Nah, it’s nothing like that. God-tier space civilizations have no need for weapons anyway… This here is the brain of the Hope. In other words, the AI you humans have created. Only those with life can enter this light dimension and restructure itself. If the thing exists as a pure spiritual form in normal space, then it too will manifest itself as a spiritual form in this dimension. For example, this AI.”

Jay, who had been asleep for years, didn’t know how far human technology had come. He had no idea that the scientific advancements in the past twenty years were almost equal to or had even surpassed the total scientific history of humankind on Earth. When Jay got into the coma, the Hope had just left Earth. When he woke up again, even the Hope itself had undergone many upgrades. If not for the interior, which had remained for the most part unchanged, even the designer himself wouldn’t be able to recognize this ship.

Therefore, when he heard the term ”AI,” he asked in shock, ”AI? What’s that? Don’t tell me this is one of those computer programs that have their own intelligence and minds like those depicted in our science fiction? Yao Yuan, you’re telling me our human technology has reached such an advanced level?”

Yao Yuan laughed. ”If not for the fact I was there personally to witness and lead all of this, even I would find this hard to believe. Indeed, we human beings have improved a lot in these past twenty years. It is as you said, the AI is similar to the one we see in sci-fi movies, with just one minor difference. This AI is created by human hands and thus is heavily limited. We don’t need to worry about a mechanical uprising. Furthermore… whether to create a large, robotic army is another topic altogether. Personally, I still feel it will be best if we can avoid that.”

This was the recent discussion among the human government before they got sucked into the whole ruin dilemma. He didn’t go into details as he didnt want to he bore Jay, but Yao Yuan had worried too much, because the young man wasn’t paying him much attention. He had wandered off in his thoughts, thinking about the gaming possibilities that could be brought upon with the AI. With his eyes shining, Jay breathed, ”So, it is a real AI. I’ve heard that AI can create a realistic gaming world, one that is organic and vibrant, one that can evolve according to the player’s decisions. So you mean that these kinds of games are a reality now? Wow, if that’s true…”

Yao Yuan wisely chose to ignore Jay and instead turned to look at ZERO and the orb of light she was toying with. He grabbed it from her and squeezed it slightly. It felt like a ball of cotton to his touch, lighter than a feather. Furthermore, the ball of light seemed to possess its own consciousness, because it floated off his palm, as if trying to escape his grasp.

ZERO immediately grabbed it back from Yao Yuan, berating him, ”What are you doing? Don’t you know he’s a fragile child? And you call yourself his parent? He’s still technically a baby now, so you have to treat him with love and care. Furthermore, you cosmic adapters better stay as far away from him as you can, it’s not good for him…”

Yao Yuan started to think. He asked several seconds later, ”Then how can you have a physical body? Shouldn’t you exist in spiritual form as well?”

ZERO replied smugly, ”How can you be sure I exist only in spiritual state in real life? Listen to me, even though the maker of this dimension can change it to however they see fit, the basics cannot be changed. If the foundation of the world is changed, the dimension itself will be changed. Therefore, unless it was for the purpose of some weird experiments, the basic rules are the same across all the illusory physicality dimensions. Since I had a physical body in the illusory physicality of my creator, why wouldn’t I have a physical body here? The only reason I wouldn’t be able to have one would be if the technological level of this ruin is greater than the technological level of my creator.”

Yao Yuan memorized all this information in his heart. This was valuable information about god-tier space civilization. it might seem irrelevant now, but it would definitely be useful in the future.

(There are two hidden messages in this information. One, there is probably another dimension inside the UFO, and ZERO resides within it. Two, there is also a difference in technological level among god-tier space civilizations, but are they separated into levels? Could it be that they are also delineated into level 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on like us? That sounds improbable.)

In any case, the hangar door opened soon enough. The small group of four took a transport shuttle out of the Hope. After taking a trip around the Hope to ensure there was nothing wrong, the shuttle travelled deeper into the ruin.

The area they were in looked like the interior of the giant tree. The floor was a writhing mass of tree roots and above them was a slate of darkness. The transport shuttle fired a light beam above them, and instead of a dark sky, they saw a wooden-patterned ceiling.

It really did feel like they were inside the giant tree, except the interior felt much bigger than what it seemed when looking from the outside. Caught within their sight were several hundred thousand spaceships of varying sizes and types. The bigger among them were space civilizations’ motherships. The darkness stretched beyond the horizon, and it was impossible to tell how big the space was.

So, which direction should they head down?

Weirdly enough, when they were deciding where to go, other than ZERO, the remaining three reacted in the same way.

”There seems to be something there…”

”I feel like we should go there…”

”Something is calling me down that way.”

The three of them uttered at the same time and their fingers were all pointing down the same direction!