Chapter 1 An Easier Life

To be honest, Hao Ren was capable of making life easier for the Zoan on this planet. Although he couldn't really solve the life needs of sixteen billion people, he could at least urgently build more material factories and send more autonomous machines, but that wasn't a smart thing to do.

Any civilization needs to be self-reliant, especially the Zoan who had just awakened from the virtual paradise and were about to face a long period of recovery. They had to learn to face natural challenges from the beginning. Besides, they weren't unable to survive now. The factory system on this planet had already provided the Zoan with enough initial materials. All they had left was to create better living conditions with their own hands. In this case, Hao Ren didn't need to interfere with anything. This was the judgment standard that an inspector should have: appropriate help, not complete captivity. For a race, as long as they weren't facing extinction, challenging difficulties wasn't a terrible thing; complacency was terrible.

Hao Ren turned around almost the entire new town, and many things here made him feel novel and interesting.

After waking up, the Zoan discovered that those social reconstruction plans they had set before had failed. Their planet was completely destroyed, the global communication system and political order were paralyzed. They originally set up a lot of material warehouses on their home planet for when they woke up, but now they had to seek resources from nature. They had also imagined how to form a temporary management council after waking up, but now this council was useless in the face of the current situation, so they formed a new social order after a short discussion. They were now temporarily implementing a loose city-state system, with each settlement being an autonomous region, relying on the spiritual channel of the eldest Zoan to maintain the minimum connection with each other. They regarded social reconstruction as the first priority. At least at this stage where they had nothing, these Zoan had no hidden dangers of power struggles and wealth disputes. Signs of unity and cooperation and resource sharing could be seen everywhere in this new town: whether it was industrial mass-produced houses or manually built huts, they were all allocated by the city committee and distributed equally to every citizen in need; everyone was immediately registered for their occupation and skills after being born from the blood pool, and regardless of their former status, they were all assigned to work positions; food and clothing were now basically obtained from distribution points, so there was no distribution problem, but their management committee had also begun to discuss how to ensure fair distribution after the town could produce these materials on its own, at least to ensure distribution according to needs. This was a wonderful communist state—a fair society maintained for a specific time under specific conditions.

Hao Ren didn't know how long this state could last, but at least it was necessary at this stage.

However, the group couldn't stay here for too long, because soon they received a notice from the Crystal Nucleus Research Station: the information recorded by Muru had been analyzed, and the Crystal Nucleus Research Station and the detection drone swarm jointly determined a coordinate in the universe. The signal of another guardian should have been sent from that place. Now the navigation star map had been sent to the data terminal, and Hao Ren felt that he should set off as soon as possible.

"We should go," Hao Ren said goodbye to Ulanov, "This time I came here was just a detour. I'm relieved to see that you're developing well. I've left emergency communication channels with both Zoan and Muru, and I'll come to deal with problems if they arise."

"I hope this channel will never be used," Ulanov said sincerely, then his eyes fell on the holographic projection in the semi-air beside him, strictly speaking, on Nolan's figure, "Are you leaving too?"

"Of course," Nolan nodded as a matter of course, "Otherwise?"

Ulanov bent his finger and touched his nose, finally couldn't help but ask the question he had been wanting to ask: "So you're acting with Hao Ren now? I remember my last dream was with you, I thought you would 'born' near here too… By the way, where are you now?"

He had no idea about Nolan's real situation, and thought that the latter had returned to the real world through the blood pool like other humans.

The expression on Nolan's face was a little embarrassed for a moment, but soon turned into relief. She smiled and waved to Ulanov: "I changed a job, and I might have a chance to meet you in the future—you'll be surprised by my real body."

Ulanov didn't think much, nodded happily and left. He still had many things to do: to complete the "learning" task of the social adaptation department in a few days, and then learn from several "masters" who had woken up for a long time how to use the resources and tools of this world, and then he planned to build a hydraulic machine for the town, or become a construction worker… In this place where everything was waiting to be rebuilt, no one was idle.

The others returned to the Crystal Nucleus Research Station, while Muru returned earlier and had been waiting in the central control hall for a long time.

As soon as Hao Ren showed up, he asked the space station host about the situation: "Have the coordinates been analyzed? How far is it from here? Is there any response to calling the other party?"

The space station host replied in an emotionless voice: "The signal source is 12.6 billion light-years away from here, and there are unknown spatial phenomena. The target has no response."

Hao Ren patted the data terminal: "Go and prepare the spaceship, let's set off now and see what's going on."

At this time, Muru suddenly said: "I'll go with you."

Hao Ren nodded without thinking, but Izaks next to him reminded: "It's okay for you to go, but your size… Our spaceship is a standard version."

As the tallest macho man among Hao Ren's tenants, Izaks was quite sensitive about height. His head had basically hit every door frame in the house—of course, he was the first to think of Muru's size.

Hao Ren thought that this was also a problem. Although the interior of the Giant Tortoise Rock Table was very spacious due to the installation of the space expansion module, it wasn't prepared for a giant with a height of ten meters. After Muru went in, he basically couldn't go anywhere except the hangar.

Muru was very open-minded: "It's okay, I can squat."

Hao Ren: "…"

Since people had said that, he really didn't know what else he could persuade, so he had to nod: "Then I'll wrong you a bit, you can stay in the hangar. When I have time, I'll repair your spaceship so it'll be easier for you to work."

Lili poked Hao Ren's arm: "You blew his spaceship to pieces, leaving only the cockpit. How are you going to fix it?"

Hao Ren thought about it too. It was okay to say that a tire was broken when someone else repaired a car, but the situation on his side was that there was only a tire left… Then he could only change the car.

"We'll talk about it later, we'll talk about it later." Hao Ren smiled awkwardly and dismissed the topic, turned around and led everyone to prepare to board the ship.

Soon, the Giant Tortoise Rock Table left the Crystal Nucleus Research Station and flew towards the vast space where the signal came from.

A distance of more than 10 billion light-years wasn't a problem for this ship, and it would only take an hour or two in hyperspace. During the voyage, Hao Ren pulled up the navigation map to compare the information of the destination, and then he found that the ship's course coincided with the expansion direction of the detection drone swarm.

On the star map, the activity range of the detection drone swarm was marked as a conspicuous blue, and his destination was on the border of this blue range.

"Huh?" Hao Ren gave a strange hum, "Is this place within the cruise range of the drones? Didn't you find it before?"

"This is the strange thing," the data terminal also noticed this, "The drone swarm expanded the detection range to that location a week ago, but they didn't find anything at that time, there wasn't even any celestial body there. But now, the most recent drone has gone to confirm, and there is indeed a celestial system there."

"Suddenly popped up?" Hao Ren blinked, "Can't you determine when it popped up?"

"The drone swarm doesn't monitor the border area 24 hours a day, because there are not enough drones in the border area, so they patrol there once every three days. After the drone mothership in the rear produces enough drones, they will be built into 'permanent patrol areas' and continue to expand outwards, promoting in this staged manner," the data terminal first explained the way the drone swarm advanced in the edge area, "Therefore, they can't find celestial bodies that suddenly appear on the border in time—besides, it's usually impossible for an entire celestial system to pop out of thin air!"

Hao Ren touched his chin thoughtfully: "Well, that is to say, it can't be determined when that 'Gate of Sulun' popped up, but it can be determined that it appeared out of thin air within the last three days."