The interrogation would continue for some time, and Ou Zhanpeng had no interest in paying further attention. However, he unintentionally overheard Gong Yiding mentioning that the higher-ups had developed translation software for the Prophet's language and had already translated a batch of documents.
He immediately grabbed Gong Yiding's arm, as anxious as a love-struck monkey. "Where is it? Where's the software?"
"I have it right here," Gong Yiding replied.
Ou Zhanpeng immediately flashed his terminal. "Quick, send me a copy!"
Gong Yiding activated the communication system and sent a data packet to Ou Zhanpeng. "What do you want this thing for? To steal the translators' jobs?"
"No, it's just a hobby," Ou Zhanpeng said.
He had been anticipating this for a long time. After receiving the software, he immediately returned to the main control room and eagerly opened a document.
It was a file he had found in the control system, which he had always suspected was the Starship's flight log. Because the content was too sensitive and important, he had never dared to submit it to the translation team.
Such important literature might record some secrets that had never been heard of, and it was best not to let too many people know.
With a mix of anticipation and excitement, Ou Zhanpeng scanned the title, and the terminal screen immediately displayed the corresponding translation.
As expected, the first word represented time, and the second word represented records. A direct translation would be "time record."
However, the translation software was very user-friendly and specifically provided several lines of annotations.
The general idea was that it was speculated that the Prophets had always lived in space, so the materials left by the Prophets did not have the concept of days or suns. In Ou Zhanpeng's personal understanding, the meaning of this title was basically equivalent to a flight log.
Perfect, no issues!
Continuing to scan, the content below was somewhat unexpected: Year 52034.36 of the Tianhe Calendar, Sector x7!
Beside it, an annotation was still marked: One year of the Tianhe Calendar is approximately equal to 2760 Earth years!
Ou Zhanpeng was slightly surprised. What was this Tianhe Calendar? It was really long!
However, upon careful consideration, the so-called Tianhe Calendar, with the word "year," was most likely translated according to human customs. In reality, it probably referred to a cycle lasting 2760 Earth years, and "year" was used only for easier understanding.
X was an untranslatable character, marked as a specific name for a region, similar to "Zhao."
The subsequent text, like the title, had many untranslatable or not entirely accurate parts. Ou Zhanpeng was disappointed and helpless, and could only proceed based on his intuition.
Here is the subsequent text: In the name of the Star God, we finally gained control of the Phantom Nebula, escaped from the damned xx, but Mu is dead, and we almost died at the hands of xx!
Ou Zhanpeng believed that xx should be a civilization hostile to the Prophets, also named with untranslatable specific characters.
Yun said that he no longer believed anyone and just wanted to find a remote corner far from Sector x7, a place that xx could never find, to start anew.
We all agreed.
There was some miscellaneous content afterward, roughly describing the mental journey of a group of Prophets. There were no star charts, no mention of where Sector x7 was, nor what kind of civilization xx was.
Judging from the subtle records between the lines, the Starship did not originally belong to the Prophets but was snatched from the xx civilization. However, the Starship was very important, attracting the persistent pursuit of this civilization.
The Prophets did not record the reason for snatching the Starship or its importance, only describing in a few sentences how brutal xx was, destroying star systems at will.
To summarize, it was one sentence: we are just, we are right; they are evil, they are brutal!
This was quite frustrating.
Also, the untranslatable characters xx made him very uncomfortable, so he simply gave them a name: the Black Universe beings!
Meaning a dark cosmic civilization.
Whether it sounded good or not was not within Ou Zhanpeng's consideration. The key was that it was simple, direct, and easy to understand.
Alas, this is what someone bad at naming is like.
Ou Zhanpeng soon came across another line: Year 52035.11, Sector C9.
He couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.
Sector C9 was added by Ou Zhanpeng himself, to distinguish it from x7, mainly due to the significant jump in time. The interval between the two lines of text was 0.75 Tianhe years, which, when simply converted, was a full 2070 Earth years!
Ou Zhanpeng was completely taken aback. Human civilization only had a history of five to six thousand years, but the span in the documents was too vast.
How far was the distance that required the Phantom Nebula... well, the Starship, to fly for two thousand years?
The following passage stated that the Prophets found a very hidden habitable planet. Some people intended to settle there, while others strongly objected, believing it was not far enough and might be found by the Black Universe beings, thus rendering all efforts futile.
Upon reading this, Ou Zhanpeng suddenly realized that this was actually the diary of a Prophet, not a flight log!
But the diary also contained much important information, so he patiently continued to read.
Much of the subsequent content was unremarkable, mostly describing how, at intervals, they found a habitable planet, and then due to various problems and reasons, had to abandon it.
The tone was gloomy, irritable, filled with anger, unwillingness, and helplessness.
Besides habitable planets, they also encountered many native civilizations, most of which were in the planetary stage or even just showing the rudiments of civilization. Only a few had entered the interstellar stage. Some of these civilizations discovered the Starship, and a few interstellar civilizations even attempted to capture it.
The results were naturally fruitless, and in the end, they were severely humiliated by the Prophets, making them understand the immensity of the universe.
Basically, the first third of this... well, this diary, was similar content, making Ou Zhanpeng's eyes blurry.
Until a passage reignited his interest: In year 52051.44, we found a very special star system in Sector k47, designated 60480. Scans revealed that its third planet was a rare, high-grade habitable planet, and there were no native intelligent species on this planet. In terms of location, distance, and environmental conditions, it was very, very, very suitable.
Everyone unanimously decided, this was the place.
Well, no need to ask, 60480 was undoubtedly the Solar System.
The subsequent content was very detailed. In essence, over three million years ago, the Prophets enveloped the Solar System with a temporal bubble and sowed the seeds of civilization on Earth. However, it took over ten thousand years for civilization to slowly begin to sprout.
When the nascent Earth civilization developed to a certain level, the Prophets descended to Earth and personally taught the new civilization, allowing them to quickly enter the interstellar age and leave Earth for the vast universe.
Everything was developing in the direction the Prophets hoped for, but an accident soon occurred. The nascent civilization chose betrayal and intended to imprison the Prophets and seize the Starship.
The Prophets were both disappointed and angry, but they could not bear to destroy the civilization they had created with their own hands, so they simply left, out of sight, out of mind.
According to the records, this civilization was very similar to the Prophets, with an average height of over 4 meters!
Ou Zhanpeng was shocked on the spot. Wasn't this the giants from Project 858? And the 4-meter-tall humans, their height was also very similar to the records. Could it be a continuation of the giant civilization in other star systems?
After all, the Prophets were formidable beings capable of controlling time, and the three million years of the Solar System was not a long period outside the temporal bubble.
A full million years later, the Prophets returned to the Solar System. The giant civilization had disappeared, and the Prophets once again sowed the seeds of civilization.
This time, the Prophets learned their lesson and reduced artificial interference, allowing the nascent second-generation civilization to develop naturally.
In the Prophets' view, the reason the first generation chose betrayal was that they were too close, thus losing reverence. Therefore, the Prophets no longer appeared as mentors but disguised themselves as high and mighty gods.
Ou Zhanpeng could easily imagine a scene where a few Prophets stood in the clouds, while a group of ignorant men and women knelt in fear and worship.
He seemed to feel the Prophets' helplessness and awkwardness across the two million years of time and space.
However, when the second-generation civilization developed and entered the interstellar age, they still chose betrayal.
This outcome deeply hurt the Prophets, who couldn't understand where the problem lay.
The height of the second-generation civilization regressed to over three meters. Ou Zhanpeng referred to them as proto-giant civilizations.
The Prophets retreated again, until over a million years ago, they returned, and the third generation of human civilization appeared on Earth.
The Prophets believed that the reason for betrayal might have been excessive interference. This time, they completely abandoned interference and adopted a laissez-faire approach, but the result was still destruction.
Learning from their lessons again, the Prophets thought that a single civilization format led to betrayal. By the time they developed the fourth generation, they adopted a multi-point approach, no longer pursuing a single civilization. Instead, they ensured that all civilizations existed in a competitive environment from the start. The Prophets only influenced the development of civilizations from the shadows, hoping to cultivate civilizations that met their expectations.
However, this time was even more tragic. Before the new civilization could blossom, space pirates found the Solar System.
The Prophets could have destroyed the pirates and continued to protect the Solar System and humanity, as they had done before.
But the Prophets were not immortal. After 1205.32 Tianhe years, which was a full 3.3267 million years, the once ambitious Prophets were already frail and no longer in their prime.
Their initial ambitions had long been worn away by the long passage of time, leaving only a lingering obsession.
The Prophets could no longer bear another betrayal, so they collectively decided: to interfere with the development of the new civilization and see if they could catalyze a unique civilization!
They were tired and did not intend to continue fleeing, placing their hope on humanity. They had done their best; success or failure would be left to fate.
Thus, Earth's technology ushered in unprecedented development. In just a few centuries, it underwent earth-shattering changes, evolving from a low-level civilization that could only gaze at the stars from the ground to a low-level civilization that had just ventured into space.
Well, although in the Prophets' eyes they were all low-level civilizations, there were still distinctions between low-level ones.
Thus, when the space pirates' warships stormed into the Solar System and attacked humanity, the Prophets lent humanity a final helping hand.
It was at that time that the Prophets sent a seed into Ou Zhanpeng's body.
It wasn't a deliberate selection; he just happened to be the closest to the wormhole.
Upon reading this, Ou Zhanpeng was very displeased. Although the Prophets' records were certainly factual, he had always considered himself special. Now, being ruthlessly exposed by this record, no one would feel good about it.
Following that, they deliberately revealed some information to Ou Zhanpeng, attracting him to the Starship base, if only for a meeting and some form of inheritance.
The result was that by the time Ou Zhanpeng arrived at the base, the last Prophet had been dead for a long time, leaving eternal regret.
It was also somewhat comical. Earth had successively nurtured four generations of civilizations. The first three generations were eager to seize the Starship but failed, while the current generation obtained it directly without much effort.
The diary was finished. Many long-standing questions were answered, but the number of new questions was no less.
Where did the Prophets come from, and what was their ultimate purpose in nurturing new civilizations?
In which star sector were the Black Universe beings located? Were they still pursuing them to this day? What would be the consequence if the Black Universe beings discovered that humanity possessed the Starship?
Since the Starship was so important, besides the Black Universe beings, were there other civilizations that knew about it?
Judging from the content of the diary, all the warships and spacecraft revolving around the Starship base belonged to prehistoric civilizations. Did the Prophets engage in direct conflict with prehistoric civilizations?
The prehistoric civilizations mentioned in the records all perished naturally, but who knew if they were truly natural? Could it be that the Prophets deemed the civilizations they nurtured to be defective products and personally destroyed the earlier generations?
The Prophets always left for a million years at a time with no records in between. Did they find a place to quietly hide for a million years, or did they resentfully start anew, only returning to the Solar System because the results were unsatisfactory?
Since there were so many civilizations in the universe, did interstellar civilizations have a fixed method of communication? If humanity encountered another interstellar civilization, should they be tough, weak, or show neither subservience nor arrogance, but reason and restraint?
If the Starship was seized by another race, what awaited humanity? Massacre or enslavement?
Ou Zhanpeng felt a headache coming on, with countless questions echoing in his mind, yet he couldn't find any answers.
What's more, he felt that these records were incomplete, as if some parts had been selected from a complete story and deliberately shown to him.
This feeling made him extremely agitated.
It had been quite some time since they obtained the Starship, yet their understanding of it was far less than imagined. To this day, there were still some areas in the base that had not been discovered by humans.
Take, for instance, the peculiar door leading to the main control room. It wasn't a door in the conventional sense but a portal. Outside the door was the base's corridor, while inside was the battleship's bridge—there was also a normal cabin door on the other side of the main control room leading into the battleship's interior. It was just well concealed, and they hadn't discovered it until the Starship separated from the base, when they realized there was another door.
All of this, all the various circumstances, indicated that the Prophets' purpose was not that simple, and humanity's fate had long been subtly manipulated by an invisible hand.