Chapter 168: To the New World!
After 18 hours of flight, the armed transport ship, carrying the special squad members, arrived at a brand new star system on the other side of the wormhole.
Lu Yuan looked at the jungle-covered surface through the telescope and hastily named the new habitable planet “Emerald Star.”
At this moment, the system sent a notification.
The “Phoenix Nirvana” main quest was finally marked as complete, rewarding 350 system exchange coupons at once.
This raised Lu Yuan’s total “cash” to 528 points.
He opened the store page.
He picked out the items he hadn’t purchased before.
【1 MW Portable Cold Fusion Battery, volume 3.5 liters, usable for three months at maximum discharge power, price: 100 exchange coupons】
【golden age Civilization Ruin Coordinates, price: 120 exchange coupons】
【Outer Space Resource Point Coordinates, price: 120 exchange coupons】
【Blind Box (Medium), price: 80 exchange coupons】
【Blind Box (Large), price: 160 exchange coupons】
In addition, a new item had appeared.
【Universal Industrial Mech Blueprint, price: 100 exchange coupons】
This industrial mech, should it be the legendary SCV?
He had been playing the game for more than three months, and finally, the official Star Alliance civilization’s worker unit had appeared. What a joyous occasion!
Without hesitation.
Lu Yuan directly purchased the SCV and had the system transmit the blueprint to the industrial ship’s main computer, placing it in the most prominent desktop position to ensure that the Engineers there would discover it immediately.
As for the explanation for the sudden appearance of awesome blueprints, whenever he spent exchange coupons, “strange things” would always happen in the camp. It wasn’t the first time, so it wasn’t always necessary to explain. This was already an unspoken understanding between the Executive Officer and his good employees.
Never mind, let’s just go with it!
Afterward, he purchased the golden age Civilization Ruin Coordinates. The coordinate data was immediately transmitted to Lu Yuan’s personal pad. He compared it to the star map previously confiscated from Omar and found that these coordinates were located on the edge of the Star Alliance territory and were not on the known star map.
The description of the resource point was even more thought-provoking.
【Ruined Star: Once, this was the great UEG Sector Capital, home to countless humans. Now, only hundreds of millions of square kilometers of city ruins remain.】
Not bad, at least it’s not Black Smoke!
The word “ruins,” while initially disheartening, actually implies that the damage is not extensive, at least there are still recognizable artificial objects, which is much better than Li Star, whose surface was scorched into glass.
Beneath the vast city ruins, there should be many good things buried. The only problem was the lack of navigation data to get there.
From the star map, the “Ruined Star” was not far from the Star Alliance territory frontier, possibly only four to five typical wormhole jumps away.
And that place was once a major human stronghold, meaning there must have been wormhole routes connecting to the outside, and likely more than one.
There must be a way; he just hadn’t found it yet.
A hunch told Lu Yuan that the route to the Ruined Star had already been discovered by some force, but they, like Cangyuan, were unwilling to share this discovery with other Star Alliance forces and were instead attempting to monopolize the planet and excavate its technology.
Of course, this was currently just a guess. The specific situation would need to be investigated by gathering intelligence from New Hope or Paradise Island.
Alright, let’s continue shopping!
Lu Yuan purchased the 【Outer Space Resource Point Coordinates】, already having a good idea of what he would get.
Sure enough, he guessed correctly this time. The resource point was still Cangyuan’s “legacy,” and it was precisely that giant colonial ship that set sail in the late 21st century—cangyuan one!
The system note said that this was the main part of the colonial ship. For some reason, the coordinates were not unique; there were 32 of them, averaging 550 light-years from Li Star, and they overlapped with the “ghost ship” sighting area Lao Yu had previously mentioned.
That’s strange...
Lu Yuan frowned.
When he transmigrated, the colonial ship had already disintegrated for unknown reasons. His original body should have emerged from hibernation from a section of the broken ship and then taken off in an aerospace plane to explore the Li Star System.
This broken section of the ship should still be drifting in the Li Star System, awaiting discovery and recovery.
But how did the remaining main part get 350 light-years away?
It doesn’t make sense.
cangyuan one was a nuclear-powered generation ship without a Zero Element Furnace or a warp drive. Even at its maximum cruising speed, it would take tens of thousands of years to travel 550 light-years.
This indicated that cangyuan one still held some unknown secrets or had been interfered with by some transcendental external force.
Or, perhaps, both.
In any case, to unravel the mystery, he had to find the ship first; and to find the ship, these 32 coordinates alone were far from enough.
Searching for them one by one would be too time-consuming.
He also needed to obtain Star Alliance reports on “ghost ship” sightings, then compare these reports with the coordinate points, preferably finding a clear pattern to plan the salvage route based on that pattern.
The easiest places to collect sighting reports were naturally busy ports like New Hope or Paradise Island.
Alright.
At least he knew where to go next.
The Cangyuan colonial ship was still very valuable. Besides the “secrets” it might hide, it also carried a large amount of raw materials for planetary surface construction, as well as tens of millions of tons of gaseous xenon nuclear fuel.
Furthermore, although the colonial ship’s technology level was not high, its kilometer-scale size meant that when docked, it would be a huge space station, enough to provide Cangyuan with a foothold in space and meet future space habitation and industrial needs for a period of time.
He had to recover this treasure as soon as possible. Lu Yuan felt lucky today and decided to spend all his savings on another medium blind box, hoping it might help with the upcoming landing exploration.
Come on, open it!
【Congratulations! You have obtained an epic technology sample: Large Mining Scanner Model 2889; this is a large-scale, specialized version of the handheld scanner for mineral exploration, capable of determining material composition over ultra-long distances; specific detection range and sensitivity depend on the working environment.】
This...
It’s hard to say.
Determining material composition can be done by “old technologies” like spectral analysis and remote sensing. As for whether it’s useful, it depends on the detection range and sensitivity, and then you add “depends on the working environment”—
Forget it, the money’s spent, so I’ll take it.
It’s good to have, even if you don’t use it; more skills are never a burden.
Lu Yuan had the system transmit the large scanner to the transport ship’s cargo hold.
The last item to buy, naturally, was the long-awaited 【1 MW Portable Cold Fusion Battery】, a key item for nuclearizing the power armor.
Since he had already predicted that he would complete the main quest during his journey, Lu Yuan had previously told people to put three 3D printers into the transport ship’s cargo hold, and then brought enough raw materials, including high-purity hydrogen-3!
Now, having obtained the nuclear battery sample, he immediately scanned it and then reverse-engineered it based on the blueprint.
The ground team carrying out this exploration mission had at least 5 people, which meant he would need to duplicate 9 additional nuclear batteries.
A single battery had a discharge power of 1 MW, which was equivalent to the engine power of a main battle tank in reality. It was certainly enough to power the power armor itself, but if he also considered powering weapons, it seemed a bit insufficient.
A single-soldier electromagnetic cannon fired 1.6 megajoules per shot, and with the power consumption of other power armor subsystems, one nuclear battery could only support continuous firing at a rate of one shot every two seconds, which was a bit slow.
Two nuclear batteries per power armor would be a more ideal configuration.
Lu Yuan quickly calculated that with three 3D printers and 10 batteries, it could be done within 12 hours, still in time!
While his good employees were still playing landlord and Texas Hold’em in the living quarters, he, the big boss, secretly started working, putting in raw materials and pressing the printer’s start button.
Over the next 12 hours, the players went offline for work and then returned, and the transport ship finally docked in Emerald Star’s orbit.
Lu Yuan called everyone to the cargo hold, where they saw the unidentified equipment on the floor and the already upgraded power armor.
Lu Yuan took a deep breath.
“Uh, I suddenly had an inspiration! I replaced the power armor for our mission with small hydrogen-3 nuclear batteries, and I also invented this large mining scanner.”
The players looked at each other.
Clearly, the planner was once again temporarily strengthening the players; it seemed this mission was a bit dangerous!
Black Smoke was stunned for a moment, then gave a thumbs-up.
“Executive Officer, you are truly a man of all talents!”
Alright, alright, you’re being a bit fake. Lu Yuan cleared his throat, looking slightly embarrassed.
“...Anyway, we’ll be landing on Emerald Star’s surface in 15 minutes. Have you picked a landing spot?”
“It’s already been found!”
Jubian led everyone to the cockpit, where the Navigator’s screen displayed the landing spot he had chosen: the bank of a large lake.
“Most of the planet’s land is covered by giant trees 500 meters tall, making it difficult for the transport ship to land. This area is one of the few open spaces, the ground is very flat, and it’s rocky, hard enough.”
“Also, the weather in this area is very clear right now.”
“Hmm.”
Lu Yuan nodded.
“It certainly looks like a suitable place to establish an outpost, so let’s land as soon as possible.”
The reason he came along on this trip, besides his own interest, was the consideration that some tasks might require his presence to trigger.
Therefore, it was necessary for him to land personally.