Chapter 1 The Beginning

The vast and endless grayish-white mist filled the entire space. A magnificent Western-style house floated in this seemingly boundless misty realm, like a fairyland, exquisitely beautiful. In the small garden in front of the house's side wing, Hao Ren and Raven 12345 sat opposite each other at a delicate tea table. Anyone else in this scene could have exuded an air of seven parts mystery and three parts elegance, perfectly capturing a literary vibe. But who asked the owner of this house to be a goofy goddess?

Hao Ren felt like this sister in front of him was screwing him over.

"The new tenant was sent by an outsourcing company. I didn't expect private companies to be so unreliable. Due to a unit conversion problem, the transport ship unloaded its cargo eight hundred and ninety-five light-years away from the target point," Raven 12345 said, holding her red tea, seemingly elegant. "The space ejection cargo pod has a monitoring system that can confirm the contents are in good condition, but you need to go and retrieve that unlucky kid."

Hao Ren had been practically petrified since she started talking. If Raven 12345 hadn't zapped a small electric ball at his head, he might have turned into a human statue today. Seeing that the "Goddess" wasn't joking at all, Hao Ren finally snapped out of it, dumbfounded: "You mean... let me go to an alien planet... on a business trip?!"

"What's so surprising about that?" Raven 12345 put down her teacup and began adding spoonful after spoonful of sugar from a small sugar bowl next to her, saying casually, "I told you a long time ago, you're my assistant, and I'm the God of this universe—what would I need an assistant for if I was just managing a tiny plot of land like Earth? Your performance in handling situations on Earth has been pretty good these past few times, so I figured you should be able to handle more complex tasks. But before that, you need to familiarize yourself with how big this universe is, so it's quite suitable for you to go on a pressure-free, publicly funded trip to an alien planet. No danger, no conspiracy, relaxed and happy, and especially eye-opening. Every inspector has to go through this before becoming fully qualified."

Hao Ren opened his mouth, knowing that Raven 12345 made a lot of sense, but he still had a lingering sense of unreality that he couldn't shake off. After thinking for a long time, he finally figured out what it was: "...Isn't this leap a bit too big? I was fighting to the death with a bunch of demon hunters on Earth yesterday, and now I'm suddenly going to outer space... You need to transition!"

Raven 12345 picked up her teacup and slurped down a couple of mouthfuls, chewing as she answered, "There's no leap. Once you're out of the gravitational pull, a synchronous orbit and an extrasolar celestial body are no different to you, since you've never seen either. Besides, you still have to keep an eye on things on Earth. As long as the mission requires it, you may have to show up on any planet. It's just that Earth is your home base, so you're more used to working there."

After Raven 12345 finished speaking, she fell silent for a moment as if she had thought of something, and then spoke softly, "And you'll know in the future that the significance of the events happening on Earth goes far beyond just this planet. My arrangements for you all have profound meaning. Everything you experience will have countless connections behind it. For certain reasons, I can't tell you directly now, but when you're mature enough, you'll understand my good intentions."

Hao Ren looked at Raven 12345's serious expression in surprise. He had never heard her say such things: "...You're suddenly so serious, I'm not used to it."

"I'm not used to it either," Raven 12345 shrugged and put aside the cup of "red tea" that was almost a paste. "But I was discussing it with someone yesterday, and they said that talking to employees like this can increase your authority and create a mysterious and reliable atmosphere."

Hao Ren: "..."

"Um, if I'm going to an alien planet... you'll definitely arrange it, right?" Hao Ren scratched his chin awkwardly, trying to suppress the faint excitement and anxiety in his heart, and make himself look like a mature and steady person who could accomplish great things. "And the spaceship you mentioned last time..."

"Your personal spaceship? It's coming soon, but you can't use it this time, since you don't know how to fly it," Raven 12345 pointed at Hao Ren's data terminal (which was currently floating in the air, dozing off). "Your data terminal now has a directional space teleportation function. There are two teleportation points. One is for teleporting directly to my place from anywhere, which will save you from taking the bus every time you come here. The other is for teleporting to Kuiper Station, which is the starting station for interstellar routes from the solar system. If you have a spaceship in the future, it will also dock there."

No matter how well Hao Ren controlled himself, his heart couldn't help but beat faster. He turned his head to look at his data terminal, his voice a little excited: "Space teleportation?! I can use this high-end stuff now?!"

"What's so high-end about it? It's standard equipment for inspectors. Every inspector has two basic teleportation permissions. One leads to the nearest gathering point, which for you is my big house, and the other leads to a designated starport, which by default is the space station closest to your duty station. However, unless the situation requires it, I don't recommend you frequently use space teleportation when performing short-term or non-time-limited missions. Firstly, it puts a lot of pressure on your body, and secondly, it will make you miss many opportunities to accumulate experience—for a newbie, running around is better than anything else."

Hao Ren nodded repeatedly, but he was already planning how to use the data terminal's new function: the first teleportation point sounded like it was to make it easier for him to report to his superior, but in reality, if used properly, it was a god-tier escape tool. Like yesterday, when he was fighting with the demon hunters, if he had this thing, he could have instantly Hearthstoned back to bring reinforcements—of course, what Raven 12345 would say about it afterwards was hard to say. And he didn't know what the situation was with the second teleportation point yet, since Hao Ren's impression of space stations was still limited to Hollywood blockbusters. But teleportation points weren't important, what was important was space teleportation itself!

He had been lucky enough to experience space teleportation several times and knew how convenient it was, and now he finally had the opportunity to control it himself!

"You seem pretty excited... Aha, most people are like this," Raven 12345 smiled as she looked at Hao Ren, then gently tapped her temple. "Oh right, let me tell you how to add more teleportation memory points. What I told you just now were the two default teleportation points when the permission was first opened, but you can also record a few extra coordinates for emergencies. Just tell the data terminal and it's done. The requirement is that the data terminal must record it at the coordinate location; you can't record places you haven't been to."

Hao Ren almost trembled as he pulled the data terminal out of the air and stuffed it into his pocket, finding the same mentality he had when he first got this treasure two months ago, afraid of bumping or scratching it. He even felt a sense of unreality when he heard Raven's words: to be honest, compared to the previous times when his "salary" was paid late and with many omissions, the speed and quality of the benefits Raven 12345 gave him this time were like a dream. She had opened up such a powerful thing all at once, and it sounded like it had a high degree of freedom. Hao Ren instantly had the feeling of being on welfare all his life and suddenly finding out that he had a long-lost Saudi uncle—and that uncle had died.

"Can I ask, why are the employee benefits so generous this time?" Hao Ren couldn't help but ask.

"...Actually, I should have given it to you last week, but I forgot."

Hao Ren now felt like that uncle had donated all his inheritance before he died.

"Can this space teleportation take people with it?" Hao Ren quickly asked about the details of the new benefits. He knew that if he didn't ask, Raven 12345 would definitely not remember to introduce it on her own initiative. He was very clear about this unreliable older sister's personality.

"Of course," Raven nodded. "A radius of five hundred meters, with you specifying the target, and the data terminal intelligently locking on. There are no restrictions on quantity, mass, or volume, as long as the target is within this five-hundred-meter radius. But let me remind you: although the Empire's space teleportation technology is quite mature, things like the data terminal were originally used by us, the Xi Ling Apostles, so many of its functions are downgraded from 'military-grade' equipment. Therefore, even after many optimizations, its teleportation function still has some harm to mortals. It's okay for healthy adults, but it has an impact on the old, weak, women, and children, so..."

"So, try not to use it on the elderly and children, right? I know."

"No, I mean you'd better stay away after you teleport people, to prevent being puked on."

Hao Ren: "..."

Can this goddess have a proper conversation or not!

(The backend crashed again... I fiddled with it for a long time.)