Chapter 1 Relatives Meet With No Pressure, The Rocket Ascends to Space

Compared to Su Zhou's stress-free family meeting, Bai Jingtao, Gu Yaoluo, and Meng Jin felt as if they were facing their last moments. They even prepared their wills. Su Zhou also met Bai Hongbo, the third of the Bai brothers. These triplets truly looked identical; if not for their different hairstyles, it would be easy to mix them up.

At the launch center, the four put on eighth-generation magical artifact-level spacesuits, creations on par with the latest exoskeleton armor, even half a level higher. According to the designers, they possessed a level of defense that meant, "Even if the rocket explodes, you'll be fine." As long as the wearer had enough spiritual power, they could even break through the atmosphere solo and safely land back on Earth. A single suit cost over ten million yuan.

Such superior performance came at a price – the appearance. The spacesuit looked like a tin can, weighing over two hundred kilograms. While it allowed superhumans to move freely, ordinary people wouldn't be able to budge an inch.

At this moment, including Su Zhou, the four astronauts helped each other check the completeness of their equipment.

[March 10, 2017, 7:45 AM.]

[Good morning, viewers! You are watching the live broadcast of the moon landing rocket launch from Zheng Guo Central Television.]

[We are now at the Northwest Rocket Launch Center. The four astronauts are fully equipped and about to head to the far side of the moon to explore the mysteries of the ancient Moon Palace.]

[As we all know, the moon holds extraordinary significance in our ancient mythology and history. According to ancient texts, many immortals and gods once resided on the moon, leaving behind many palaces, residences, and traces of their lives. This exploration...]

The program had already begun. All astronauts smiled at the camera in turn. Su Zhou was at the forefront—but this wasn't an entertainment program after all, and there were no close-ups or introductions. Soon, they left the launch center directly and boarded a shuttle to the rocket launch platform.

The Yaoguang-class rocket is one of the most advanced carrier rockets on Earth. The only one comparable to it is the American Federation's 'Leap' class. It is over one hundred and thirty meters tall, weighs over five thousand tons, and stands on the earth like a small mountain. In the past, every launch could be described as earth-shattering, like a retrograde meteorite piercing towards the top of the sky.

Su Zhou and the other astronauts all looked up at this behemoth, but unlike the others who looked at this pinnacle of human technology with awe, Su Zhou was thinking about something else.

"Rockets are also long..." he thought to himself, then said to Yala, who was disguised as part of him: "What do you think about building a rocket-shaped true form template in the future? A 'Rocket Dragon', would that work?"

"Your 'Cannon Dragon' works, so why not a Rocket Dragon?" The snake spirit's voice echoed from inside Su Zhou's body—it was now hidden inside Su Zhou's ribs like an alien: "Don't underestimate dragons!"

"Sorry, I underestimated them!"

The command module in the upper part of the rocket was everyone's destination. Meng Jin, who had performed many space missions, led the others into it via a floating elevator. Compared to the old designs from long ago, the design of the new command module was quite spacious, with each person having their own seat. The various lines and instruments in the cabin were sealed off with lightweight materials, marked with instructions to facilitate repair and adjustment.

On the moon, Zheng Guo's intelligent robots had already built a simple forward base. After the command module reached lunar orbit, the landing shuttle, designed according to the ancient 'flying shuttle', would separate from the command module, carrying Su Zhou, Bai Jingtao, and Gu Yaoluo to the lunar surface. Meng Jin would remain in the command module, responsible for mission transfer and preparing to launch nuclear bombs.

If necessary, Meng Jin would also directly launch nuclear bombs under the command of Zheng Guo officials without the consent of the other three, or leave the moon and return—of course, only if necessary.

"How are you feeling? Are you scared?"

As the one-minute countdown began, Su Zhou, who had fastened his seat belt and ensured that all procedures were foolproof, smiled and asked the others. Meng Jin smiled and replied naturally: "It feels about the same as before. I'm used to it."

Bai Jingtao also nodded slightly: "Compared to an airplane, it's just flying higher."

As for Gu Yaoluo, the slightly thinner engineer didn't show any fear either. He was just a little nervous: "To be honest, I also participated in the design of this rocket—theoretically, I have nothing to be afraid of, but you know, it's just theoretical."

At this time, the ten-second countdown outside had already begun, and the rocket engine was igniting.

In that instant, it was as if a huge cloud of fire had risen from the ground, but this cloud of fire was not the red and yellow familiar to the public, but an extremely gorgeous silver-cyan—mixed with a large number of spiritual materials, the thrust generated by the new rocket fuel manufactured according to modern technology far exceeded any fuel created by individual transcendent means or technological means. This was the path chosen by modern Earth civilization.

For a time, the entire rocket launch pad was shrouded in rising spiritual dust, and the dazzling spiritual light and flying silver-cyan light debris covered most of the camera screen—then, the rocket took off, transforming into a sharp arrow, and shot straight towards the cloudless, clear sky.

On the moon, a humanoid figure covered in silver armor sat on the edge of a small crater. He stared at the blue planet in the distant other side, throwing a moon rock in his hand like a child.

"Watched…by all…"

He suddenly muttered in a low voice, then clenched his fingers tightly, holding the rock in his hand. Immediately afterwards, golden-red magma began to drip from the gaps between his fingers, and his tone slowly rose, with a hint of hatred: "Always different. Easily getting what I want."

"Wait…one day, Earth…will look at me."

At the same time, sitting in his seat, Su Zhou did not feel the acceleration that should theoretically be 'very serious'—even though his three teammates had been pressed into their seats by the powerful acceleration.

This was actually not surprising, because his combat had long since reached the realm of supersonic speed. It was not surprising that he exceeded eight times the speed of sound when he erupted. Although the rocket's acceleration was strong, Su Zhou had already tried it, so he didn't feel too uncomfortable.

"Ten thousand meters…twenty thousand meters…thirty thousand…"

Su Zhou even had the energy to sense his current altitude with his spiritual power. He could clearly sense that he was getting further and further away from the 'Earth's surface spiritual power sphere' and had entered the 'atmospheric spiritual power sphere'.

According to relevant expert research, the Earth's spiritual power sphere can be roughly divided into five major areas: the land surface spiritual power sphere, the underground spiritual power sphere, the shallow sea spiritual power sphere, the deep sea spiritual power sphere, and the atmospheric spiritual power sphere. Each spiritual power sphere has different spiritual creatures living and breeding, and they influence each other.

And their collection is the 'Earth's spiritual power sphere'.

The conflict between the Earth's spiritual power sphere and the spiritual environment of space created the 'Gang Wind Layer' high in the atmosphere. That was an area where spiritual energy was extremely chaotic, and ordinary people could not use it at all. Even rockets and ballistic missiles, if they did not have related technologies to deal with it, would even be directly blocked and detonated by this layer of Gang Wind.

However, the chaotic environment where the two major spiritual power spheres conflicted actually produced a considerable aerial spiritual vein layer, from which extremely neat 'Tiangang Qi' could be mined. It is said that the new rocket fuel requires a considerable amount of Tiangang Qi as a raw material.

While thinking, the rocket was still accelerating, separating, and the new rocket engine was starting, accelerating, and separating in this cycle.

Soon, they arrived at the last obstacle at the edge of Earth's orbit, the Gang Wind Layer.

In Su Zhou's spiritual sense, the Gang Wind Layer was the outermost part of the Earth's atmosphere. It was like an invisible wall, enough to block most existences whose strength had not reached the extraordinary level from surpassing this limit—perhaps, the reason why the immortals of the past divided the commander level into the 'Human Immortal' level was because of this.

The commander level can cross the Gang Wind Layer, which can be said to be very different from mortals, but it is extremely difficult for them to reach the 'Heavenly Palace', that is, a large palace that may be located in Earth orbit, or an immortal palace located on the moon, so they still cannot be considered true immortals.

Just as the rocket was about to collide with the Gang Wind Layer, Su Zhou sensed that a series of runes suddenly lit up on the outer shell of the rocket. They combined with each other and released a semi-transparent halo. The nature of that halo was extremely similar to the chaotic spiritual energy essence of the Gang Wind Layer.

The halo 'dissolved' the Gang Wind Layer in less than a second, but at the speed of the rocket, in less than a second, it had already crossed that thin layer of chaotic spiritual energy area and arrived outside the 'Earth's spiritual energy sphere'.

That is, in space.

At this time, Su Zhou looked sideways at the porthole on the outside of the cabin, and could vaguely see the earth, white clouds, black continents, and blue oceans, clearly separated in layers.

Of course, the clearest thing was the dark space outside the planet, and the endless cracks covering the entire space.

Even after leaving the Earth, the cracks in the Great Seal were still clearly visible, and it could be more clearly perceived that it was spreading towards the depths of the endless distant space in a way that was difficult to describe in words...until the end that no one could see.

"Next, we will conduct the final inspection before going to lunar orbit."

Meng Jin's voice made the other astronauts who were watching the Earth and outer space react—the launch process was very smooth, they had arrived in outer space orbit, the engine had been turned off, and they were flying around the Earth, but next, the process of going to the moon was the most important task of this trip.

Su Zhou also knew very well that this was just the beginning, and with his own speed of strength improvement, he could go to outer space in whatever way he wanted in the future, so he turned his head and started to check the condition of the rocket with the others, and started to prepare to control the rocket and unfold its real form, a process that lasted for more than two hours.

However, just as the four were conducting the inspection.

Their destination, the moon, suddenly erupted with an extremely strong electromagnetic wave.

For a time, all the live broadcasts and cameras that were in progress, and even the signals between the rocket and the ground command, were interrupted for a moment, and a lot of noise appeared—although the signal was quickly restored, everyone couldn't help but change their expressions greatly.

"What's going on?"

Although Yu Sheng, who had been paying close attention to this operation, asked, he had already started to mobilize relevant information directly through his mechanized electronic part—but when he really understood what was going on, he couldn't help but look up in astonishment, looking at the high altitude outside the window, as if to look directly at the moon through the atmosphere: "Unidentified high-intensity electromagnetic waves swept through the Earth-Moon system? The signal source…is on the far side of the moon?!"

"Something's wrong with the moon!"

Not only Yu Sheng, but all the forces around the world who had noticed this unidentified electromagnetic wave that had affected the world and even swept the Earth-Moon system were all on high alert, because they noticed that the main target of this signal was not Earth at all—Earth was just incidental, an area swept by the aftermath.

Its real purpose is actually outside the Earth...it is an aftermath of sending an unknown signal to the distant other side! That unidentified electromagnetic wave may not be the real body at all, but some kind of more advanced signal derivative!

"What exactly is going on?"

Even if he was anxious, Yu Sheng still remained calm. He directly connected with the other Sages in the Central Committee on the network: "The situation on the moon is unknown. This strange signal source should be an alien spaceship on the far side of the moon, and may even be greatly related to the Deep Space Callers—the mission target has changed, do we need to recall Su Zhou and the others?"

This is the most stable method. It is best not to act rashly when you don't know what the situation is. After knowing yourself and the enemy, then prepare a plan.

However, soon, a few seconds later, Su Zhou's voice, which was temporarily added, sounded in the cyberspace.

"The plan remains the same."

He said so, his tone with a thought-provoking taste: "I will continue to go to the moon."