Chapter 1 Fiyari People

The Fiyari people's spaceship launched immediately after receiving the order. The first thing these experienced mining foremen, who had mined across the entire universe, did was tear open the thick, white cloud cover. The massive industrial starship deployed its gravity field, rushing towards the clouds like a star-devouring monster descending from space. The gelatinous outer skin of the clouds bulged slightly under the pull of the gravity field, then tore open in huge rifts, as alarming plumes of white gas and fibrous material erupted from the cloud cover, completely enveloping the industrial behemoth.

More than a dozen violently erupting gas vents appeared on the cloud cover, making it look like a leaking balloon from space. Previously, this cloud cover had been pressurized to protect the ecological environment of the Purgatory planet. The current gas leak was normal, but once the atmospheric pressure and normal planetary gravity reached equilibrium, the gas leak would naturally subside.

The sight of the industrial behemoth plunging into the atmosphere amidst the cloud storm was breathtaking and magnificent. But watching the heavy ships tear open the cloud cover, Lily still felt a little regret: "It's a pity—that cloud was so pretty, like cotton candy."

"But these clouds block sunlight. With them here, the planetary system can't have a normal energy cycle with the star," Hao Ren said, patting Lily's head. "The old era is over, and this protective layer must be removed. Nolan, let the Fiyari people get to work. Let's go down."

Nolan hummed in agreement, and the Land Cruiser disengaged from its hover, plunging towards the planet's surface along an open rift in the cloud cover. As they passed through the clouds, the external monitors showed a breathtaking sight: the atmosphere was violently turbulent due to the disturbance of the industrial behemoths' gravity fields. Huge lightning fields were constantly generated within the clouds, and the Land Cruiser seemed to be traveling through a world of lightning, surrounded by bright light clusters and walls of electricity. Deep within the layers of clouds, vague black shadows like mountains could be seen slowly descending – the Fiyari mining ships that had already entered the upper atmosphere.

These mining ships would not land completely on the ground. They would hover in the upper atmosphere, and then a large number of mining ships and material transporters would separate from the mothership and head to the surface to carry out more efficient mining operations. As Hao Ren's ship passed through the upper atmosphere, it received greetings from the nearest mining ships, as well as a message from Vancek: "In accordance with the contract, please sign this appraisal document."

Hao Ren opened the attached file and found that it was a set of documents created with a special encryption algorithm. The encryption algorithm was recognized by the Xiling Empire and had probative effect throughout the macro-world and even in the territories of other god systems. These documents were intended to prove that the ore collected by the mining fleet at the xx coordinates of the Rift Nebula had multiple scientific and cultural values. Its origin was the remains of ancient super-creatures from another world, possessing the characteristics of limited quantity, ancient age, and irreproducible properties.

The witness to this document was Hao Ren, Inspector of the Space-Time Administration, with a witness level of Multiverse-class.

Hao Ren browsed the document and asked the data terminal to confirm that it did not violate the laws of the Empire and that there were no obvious, long-term logical loopholes or hidden dangers. Then, he added his inspector identification key to the end of the document.

Now, the fossils on the surface of the Purgatory planet were among the most valuable minerals in the universe.

The Land Cruiser broke through the cloud cover, and the barren, scorching, distorted, and toxic hellscape, teeming with violent monsters, appeared on the monitor screen. Accompanying the Land Cruiser's descent were hundreds of dazzling beams of light from the sky to the ground – the Fiyari's material disintegration rays.

The earth was cut open like melting butter. Tens of thousands of tons of ore were wasted due to disintegration, but more large pieces of minerals rose into the sky under the traction of the anti-gravity field. The Land Cruiser went down instead of up in this spectacular scene, rushing into the world below along a newly appeared rift.

The Fiyari's promise was remarkably effective – although the upper crust of Purgatory was disintegrating, the world below was as quiet as ever. Except for the sunlight shining into this world, Hao Ren didn't see anything falling from above.

Nolan drove the Land Cruiser towards Dorasil, and before they got to the city, Hao Ren could already see the new control facility. It was even more spectacular than he had imagined.

The original Dorasil was basically gone, and the new control facility was built on the site of the ancient city. Hundreds of silver-gray needle towers, each thousands of meters high, stood there, with bright lightning and sparks jumping between them. A large number of maintenance robots flew between the needle towers, forming a strange spectacle like a swarm of insects. The scale of this needle tower complex was larger than the original city, and the remnants of stone bricks and walls of the ancient city could still be seen in the gaps between the towers—but these original buildings were now foils and rare sights of the new facility.

Hao Ren had originally wanted to preserve Dorasil intact, because the city had a long history and had special commemorative and cultural significance for the lost Solar Dynasty, but after analyzing the structure of the Firstborn, he found that the new control facility could only be built on the original site of Dorasil. Several key nerve lines of the Firstborn were directly below Dorasil and had completely solidified there. If these lines were forcibly moved or the control device was built elsewhere with extension cords, the final control effect could not be guaranteed. So in the end, Dorasil was replaced by those hard alloy towers, and the ancient stone city became an advanced metropolis full of mysterious technology.

However, Hao Ren also preserved the cultural treasures of this city as much as possible: In the past half month, he had Gezer and his people move out the stone paintings, relief groups, totem poles, and other things that could be transferred from the city of Dorasil. In the end, only the empty shell of the city remained, which was somewhat of an explanation to the deceased Solar Dynasty.

Lily craned her neck to look at the alloy needle towers that were constantly bursting with electricity. The structure of these needle towers was obviously based on the facilities under Dorasil, but they were more precise, more stable, and more reliable. Lily couldn't help but exclaimed, "It's so beautiful!"

Vivian thought of those ancient heroic spirits: "Is Glagorn still in this city?"

"They're still here," Hao Ren nodded. "We'll see them when we go down."

The Land Cruiser lowered its altitude and came to the foot of the alloy tower complex quietly and silently. There was a newly built spaceship parking port here, which was controlled by AI.

In fact, the entire facility was uniformly scheduled by a huge AI. This was a metal city ruled by artificial intelligence, and it was an unparalleled technical marvel on this planet.

Hao Ren led Vivian and Lily off the spaceship, then turned around and pressed the data terminal twice towards the spaceship. The Land Cruiser immediately made two "beep beep" sounds. Nolan's figure then popped out of the air under the spaceship: "I've wanted to say this for a long time! When can you change this 'lock the car' sound effect?"

Hao Ren scratched his hair: "I didn't think anything was wrong with this sound effect before."

Nolan glared: "Bullshit, it's not you who's being locked!"

Hao Ren was speechless.

The group of three walked off the parking platform, and before they had gone far, they saw someone waiting for them ahead. Hao Ren took a closer look and found that it was Gezer and Bernia, and the semi-transparent figure behind them was Glagorn.

With the new control facility online, these ancient spirits could finally be freed from the "lullaby" ritual.

"My lord!" Gezer immediately prostrated himself on the ground when he saw Vivian, and Bernia next to him was no exception. "According to your will, this divinely bestowed miracle city appeared out of thin air within a dozen days."

The natives of this world could not understand self-replicating building module robots and material transformation technology. In their eyes, the way the alloy needle towers were built was almost "created out of nothing."

Gezer and Bernia were pulled up by Vivian. They were still wearing rough, primitive clothing, forming a strange contrast with the surrounding highly advanced mechanical city. Hao Ren took out snacks from Earth from his pocket and stuffed them to Bernia: "Here, something delicious. Oh, right, I'll tell you how to open the package."

Vivian came to Glagorn: "Are the other ancient spirits still there?"

"We are all waiting for your next order." Glagorn bowed his head reverently.

"Gather all their main leaders."

(It's the 25th, asking for monthly tickets! While I haven't forgotten, let's quickly ask for a ticket to calm my nerves.)