Chapter 1 I Shouldn't Have Expected This

Hao Ren felt that he shouldn't have expected Raven 12345 to arrange a reliable interstellar trip for him from the start, but Nangong Wuyue and Izhaks obviously didn't care about these details. The great demon and the siren girl quickly chose their rooms, threw their luggage inside, and came to Hao Ren to inquire about the next arrangements. Izhaks suggested playing Fight the Landlord, which he had just learned…

Hao Ren really didn't want his first interstellar trip to be spent playing Fight the Landlord, and neither did Nangong Wuyue, so the two of them stared at the data terminal: "What's there to do now?"

The data terminal connected itself to the cabin's data interface and projected a set of holographic images: "Before entering hyperspace, you can take a look at the scenery outside the ship. We haven't left the asteroid belt yet. After passing through this area, the ship will turn towards empty space, and then you'll only be able to see blackness."

Hao Ren found that the holographic projection showed the scenery outside the ship. The observation point should be a monitor set somewhere on the ship's hull. He could see a large expanse of alloy armor plate, like a steel earth, spreading out in his field of vision. The Fourth Connecting Port and the space station facilities outside were rapidly receding from the edge of that steel earth. Two huge columns of light were emitted from the spire-shaped facility at the top of the Fourth Connecting Port, extending parallel to each other on both sides of the ship. The data terminal told him that those were navigation beams used to guide the ship.

"...I thought the asteroid belt would be very dense," Hao Ren said, looking at the empty dark area at the edge of the screen. "Why can't I see even a single meteoroid field outside the space station?"

"The universe is empty. The so-called dense asteroid belt is only dense relative to the emptiness of the entire universe," the data terminal explained. "Under normal circumstances, the distance between two asteroids will be tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Unless you are flying in a debris field formed after a large celestial body shattered, the scene you see in science fiction movies where space fighters pose in a rain of asteroids will not appear. Kuiper Station was built in a debris field after a large celestial body shattered, so you saw many meteoroids gathered together as building foundations in the space station, but outside the space station, it must be empty. Moreover, even if there are asteroids floating over, they must be cleared away—the ships come and go so frequently, what if a ship with thin skin and a big filling crashes and gets a hole?"

Hao Ren knew that this was all knowledge, even common sense, that he would need in the future, so he listened and nodded. Nangong Wuyue, on the other hand, curiously watched the scenery for a while and asked a question: "Why don't I feel any acceleration?"

"Inner-space stabilization," the data terminal said, showing unusual patience this time. "Every ship that can enter hyperspace in a short time must have corresponding space stabilization technology to stabilize the space inside the ship as a system independent of external coordinates, or use other methods to counteract inertia. Simply put, it keeps your position relatively static with the ship and isolates it from the relative movement of everything in the universe, so that you won't be smashed into a pile of mosaics on the hull when accelerating. Think about it, this thing has to accelerate to the speed of light..."

Nangong Wuyue nodded happily: "Oh, I didn't understand."

What are you happy about!

Just then, Hao Ren suddenly saw another bright light appear at the edge of the ship's exterior view. The entire monitoring screen immediately turned to it. He saw another wedge-shaped ship drifting out of another nearby connecting port. The heat dissipation grids around the ship were slowly turning red, indicating that it was about to enter acceleration.

Before Hao Ren could marvel at the frequent traffic of this space station, he heard the hearty voice of Captain 883 in the cabin: "Young men and women on board, and passengers in the VIP cabin, please switch to the C-15 external observation line. What you are seeing is the high-speed freighter kn-03 from the Fia Li Void Consortium. It has been a strong competitor of this ship on this route for the past seven years. Now kn-03 has opened its heat dissipation grid and entered engine charging, obviously wanting to make a beautiful short-range acceleration and then use its hyperspace engine to leave this ship in the dust—please hold on to your fast-acting medicine and hug your children after hearing the broadcast. Yes, this ship is going to get serious!"

Hao Ren: "...Holy crap!"

As soon as he said "holy crap," he felt the entire cabin shake violently. It wasn't the inertial shaking of acceleration, but a tremor like an earthquake. Obviously, the main structure of the entire ship was trembling. Hao Ren didn't even dare to think about what the burly Captain 883, who looked like the governor of California, had activated. He only saw several flashes of intense light burst out on the holographic projection in front of him. The modified heat dissipation grids hidden under the ship's hull all emitted blazing flames that were almost white. The high-speed freighter kn-03 in the distance was rapidly receding in the picture. The vibration of the cabin became more and more intense, and the blazing flames bursting out everywhere on the screen gradually blurred in the strong vibration of the ship's hull. Soon, the distant starlight was stretched into strange long strips. The starlight at the top of the external observation screen began to show a clear blue shift, while the lower end of the screen shifted towards red light at the same rate—the ship was rapidly approaching the speed of light, so that the observed starlight already showed obvious red and blue shift.

Finally, with a "boom" from the entire ship, this illegal acceleration ended. The external observation screen went completely black. The ship's warp engine took over the work of the acceleration engine, and the entire ship entered a closed space bubble to begin faster-than-light travel. It should reach its destination the next time it leaves the space bubble.

Captain 883's voice sounded again: "Young men and women and passengers in the VIP cabin, this acceleration has been successfully completed. We have proven the excellent performance of Ship 883 with facts. Now the command of this ship is temporarily transferred to the shipboard mainframe. I wish you all a smooth journey. Now this captain is going to spend twenty-four hours in the brig as required and apply to the Imperial Navigation Management Group for a penalty assessment. Goodbye, everyone."

Hao Ren, Izhaks, and Nangong Wuyue looked at each other, chuckled dryly after a ten-second silence. The data terminal quietly said, "Why haven't I met a normal person since I met you?"

Hao Ren was speechless and had to follow Nangong Wuyue to study the strange equipment in the cabin.

But after studying for a while, he found it very boring: the advancement of technology inevitably tends to simplify operations. Just like his amazing data terminal, it was so simple that even Lily could use thought control to easily operate it. Everything in this cabin was also designed with extreme intelligence and extreme simplicity as its purpose. Most of the equipment supported thought induction, and a few things that he couldn't figure out how to use could be understood with the data terminal's introduction. This greatly reduced the fun of exploration.

"This is, after all, a civilian passenger cabin," Izhaks said with the air of someone who had been there and done that. "I heard that there are countless intelligent races in every universe, and the void is endless. Every intelligent race has a different way of understanding and a different level of civilization. Therefore, those experts who study living equipment are trying to make their things simpler and easier to use. Some equipment even teaches its users how to turn it on, not by listing a manual, but by teaching you step by step. Some civilian equipment even comes with an advanced AI that directly asks you what you want to do and then operates itself."

The data terminal immediately jumped out to show its presence: "Yes, yes, that's how this unit is. But this is limited to the civilian field and downgraded military products. More advanced things are not so simple."

The group was bored in the cabin. Nangong Wuyue suggested going out for a walk to see what an alien spaceship looked like, but she was politely sent back less than thirty minutes after going out—not because passengers were prohibited from leaving the cabin, but because this girl got lost as soon as she went out. The corridor structure of the spaceship was intricate, and the signs at various corners were also strange. If there weren't people on guard at key locations, the siren girl would have almost walked into the heat dissipation pipes and turned into dried fish in minutes.

Is this what you call a traveler's innate skill?

So Hao Ren's first interstellar trip really unfolded in a way that everyone loved to see: at Izhaks's second suggestion, the three of them started playing Fight the Landlord…

Until the spaceship stopped in the sky above an Earth-like planet.