Chapter 1 A Subtle Mood

Suddenly hearing about his own "great achievements," Zhou Jing's mood was subtle.

On the stage, Shen Xinqin was oblivious, continuing her lecture:

"When explorers make contact with natives, they generally use false identities. We advocate communicating with them rationally and equally. However, there will always be explorers who feel superior, believing they are descending outsiders and the natives are uncultured creatures, so they are dismissive and disdainful… This is a very wrong way of thinking. Many bloody conflicts start from such inconspicuous things. If you have the opportunity to serve in the future, you must remember this."

"Indeed," Zhou Jing nodded solemnly.

At this moment, a student raised his hand and asked curiously, "So, what do we usually do after the natives kill an explorer? Retaliate or ignore it?"

Shen Xinqin gestured for the student to lower his hand and nodded:

"Good question… It depends on the specific situation. First of all, everyone must be clear that the Exploration Bureau's constraints on explorers in other dimensions are limited. This leads to some people's desires expanding and becoming tyrannical, which may not be detected in time. Under this premise, if a conflict occurs between an explorer and a native, even if the explorer is killed, the Exploration Bureau will not interfere and will not organize a counterattack or revenge."

"Even if they can survive, the bureau will still impose penalties, and generally, they will not allow such troublemakers to continue serving."

"However, if an explorer sacrifices for the sake of carrying out a mission, the Exploration Bureau will try its best to collect the remains and carry out limited counterattacks and revenge, without involving irrelevant people, only destroying the murderer physically… Like the example I just gave, that brutal native died together with the explorer, so everything ends there. If the native hadn't died, explorers from other countries would definitely take action to counterattack until the native was eliminated."

Luckily, Jason "died," otherwise, he would have been hunted down for thousands of miles, and it would have been difficult for him to grow steadily… Zhou Jing scratched his head, feeling a little fortunate.

Shen Xinqin switched the slide on the screen and continued:

"In addition, explorers also face a huge problem, which is time. There are differences in the flow of time between different dimensions. Sometimes you spend a few months in another world, but only a few days have passed in the main world. This has caused many explorers to experience cognitive confusion, disorientation of time, and other psychological problems after returning from service. And in a sense, the cost of an explorer's service is their own lifespan."

"Scientists have been trying to find solutions. Although there are now some methods, such as using technology to extend life, injecting absorbable telomerase, or using secret techniques to increase lifespan, or trying to have advanced superhumans with longer natural lifespans serve, these are only temporary solutions. These life-extending methods have limits and cannot fundamentally solve the problem of differences in the flow of time."

"That's why explorers serve in a part-time capacity. Only a very few willing people will stay in another dimension for decades, or even not return during the dimension's separation period, but continue to guard and manage the results of the last exploration in the other dimension, silently waiting for the next convergence period to arrive. They are worthy of respect."

Hearing this, the crowd stirred, and many fell into hesitation.

Zhou Jing's heart moved, and he thought to himself, "As expected." When he signed the confidentiality agreement, he had guessed there would be such a problem.

However, what surprised him was that some explorers did not return and stayed in other dimensions on standby, living for decades or even hundreds of years, probably no different from the natives.

Could this be the legendary deep-sea agent?

'Such fanatical agents must be very valuable. The Beast World is so backward that there shouldn't be such a large investment. It is estimated that only in more important Star Realms will the main world arrange such manpower.'

Zhou Jing muttered to himself.

Shen Xinqin didn't try to persuade everyone to accept it but simply stated the facts as they were, patiently waiting for everyone to calm down before continuing on her own:

"In addition, due to the differences in the natural laws of the Star Realm dimensions, some extraordinary power systems will conflict with certain Star Realms, causing some explorers to be unable to exert their original strength."

"For example, mechanical augmenters are the type of people with the most frequent power conflicts, because there is a wonderful filtering phenomenon when traversing, which causes many technical products and materials to be unable to enter the Star Realm. Therefore, mechanical augmenters rarely serve, and only specific dimensions will consider them."

"In comparison, body enhancers are the type with the least power conflicts. The vast majority of dimensions will not have problems. Even if conflicts occur and some martial arts energies cannot be used, the honed physique will still not disappear. Therefore, the proportion of martial artists among serving explorers is the highest."

Zhou Jing suddenly understood.

No wonder the academy attached great importance to martial arts courses. It turned out that the adaptability of brutes was the highest…

No wonder that in this era where technology and magic were quite developed, Wang Wu still looked proud of martial arts in class. He didn't expect that high-level martial artists had actually stood up!

Shen Xinqin picked up her thermos cup, took a sip, and cleared her throat.

She looked at the eager faces of the crowd and continued with a smile:

"According to scientists' speculations, the older a dimension is, the higher its tolerance for various extraordinary powers, and the filtering rules for technology and materials are probably related to this."

"In scientists' theory, each dimension is wrapped by a layer of space membrane, which only intersects but does not merge with each other. This membrane is also called the 'Star Realm Membrane.'"

"The principle of the traversal device is to pass through the Star Realm Membrane and project things into another universe. The Star Realm Membrane is a bit like a special supermarket barcode, whose function is to filter out everything foreign, filtering out abnormal information that does not belong to its own dimension, so many technologies and items cannot traverse…"

"However, life individuals do not seem to be in the filtering category, but if the superpower systems conflict, although the already possessed abilities will not be stripped away, the related abilities will be suppressed or even unusable."

"Scientists believe that a dimension is a universe, and the universe is expanding endlessly, so the longer a dimension's lifespan, the larger its volume, causing this membrane to be stretched thinner and thinner, so the filtering effect will slowly weaken… Therefore, the filtering strength of older dimensions will decrease."

"To give an easy-to-understand example, another dimension is like the human body, and the Star Realm Membrane is the immune system. The things that traverse into it are foreign viruses. When a person gets older, their immunity decreases, making it easier to be invaded by viruses and easier to get sick."

Hearing this, many people showed strange expressions.

Although the example was straightforward, it felt weird to be compared to a virus…

At this moment, Xu Lingyun suddenly raised his hand to ask a question.

"Teacher, if a dimension is a universe, then according to probability, it would be easy to traverse into the empty depths of space, right? Wouldn't that be the end of us on the spot?"

"Good question."

Shen Xinqin smiled softly:

"This is a problem that scientists have not yet figured out. Traversal seems to have the effect of tracking and locating life signals. When explorers traverse, they always land on planets with life. There seems to be some kind of magnetic attraction-like rule, and the probability of falling into the depths of space is almost zero…"

"Therefore, the activity locations of explorers are generally on the same planet. Because the Star Realm Membrane filters out a lot of technology, we cannot develop the other party's universe – and the Exploration Bureau names other dimensions based on the civilization of this planet."

Hearing this, Zhou Jing couldn't help but pinch his chin, feeling more and more that his previous guess was correct, and he couldn't help but feel awe in his heart.

You don't know this, and you don't know that… So how did you make the traversal device?

It wasn't developed by us, right!

…Of course, it's also possible that this is a secret and they won't tell the freshmen.

Shen Xinqin didn't say much on this issue. Without waiting for everyone to ask further questions, she changed the topic:

"For each explored dimension, countries have a set of evaluation systems – by comprehensively considering the civilization level, technology level, resource abundance, filtering strength, power conflict, risk, potential threat, and other factors of a Star Realm to determine the value of traversing and exploring. The known dimensions are divided into high, medium, and low three value levels."

"According to the different exploration values, the manpower and resources invested by explorers from various countries are different, and the exploration plans are also different… For low-value dimensions, there is no point in interfering too much. Generally, explorers are only allowed to collect intelligence and knowledge for short-term exploration."

"For high-value dimensions, the Exploration Bureau will formulate long-term development plans to gain a foothold and plan for development, deeply infiltrating."

"Like the primitive civilization dimension mentioned earlier, which we call the 'Beast Civilization Dimension,' is a typical low-value Star Realm. Countries only invest very little cost and do not allow people to be stationed there for long. When the time is up, they will all withdraw. In this case, there will naturally be no long-term planning."

That's great… Zhou Jing grinned.

Jason and Bill had finally made a name for themselves and were getting promoted and getting raises and heading towards the peak of their lives. He didn't want too many external disturbances.

"Teacher, when will the next dimension convergence come?"

Suddenly, someone in the crowd asked curiously.

Zhou Jing perked up and immediately pricked up his ears.

Shen Xinqin didn't mind and replied casually:

"According to the Exploration Bureau's mapping of dimensional gravitational tides, there is a previously explored dimension approaching. The gravitational strength will reach the threshold for the traversal device to start in three months, entering a new convergence period."

Everyone immediately showed longing expressions.

Although everyone hadn't graduated yet and it was far from their time to serve, they couldn't help but let their imaginations run wild.

Three months!

Zhou Jing lowered his head slightly, concealing the light in his eyes.

As long as there is a dimension convergence, his traversal panel can connect to that Star Realm.

Although he didn't know whether his traversal panel and the main world's traversal device had higher or lower gravitational strength threshold conditions for starting, he would know the result in three months.

At that time, he would probably be able to reopen the Star Realm traversal!

This piece of information could be said to be the best news he had heard today.

Shen Xinqin looked at the expressions of yearning on everyone's faces and said with a smile:

"Because the Exploration Bureau knows many dimensions, and the information is quite rich, and many of them are confidential, some of which can only be accessed after joining the Exploration Bureau, so this course is mainly for popular science, to increase everyone's understanding of other-world exploration."

"And the learning process of the course is adjusted according to the mapping results… That is to say, the dimensions we study in class will only be the dimensions that have just passed the convergence period, are about to enter the convergence period, and are already in the convergence period. Other temporarily irrelevant dimensions do not need to be involved."

"Everyone is lucky that there will be a dimension convergence period this semester. I will get some real-time action reports from the Exploration Bureau that are not confidential as courseware for everyone to refer to and learn from, so that everyone can understand the actions of explorers in the Star Realm."

"That's roughly the situation. The next content we will learn is the basic information of the Beast Civilization Dimension of the last convergence."

After speaking, Shen Xinqin operated the computer.

The next moment, a series of electronic sounds rang out, and a virtual projection popped up on each student's multi-functional desk, which was the same map.

Zhou Jing took a closer look, and his heart skipped a beat.

This map was actually the map of the Beast World.

The product drawn by the main world was much more detailed than the homemade map of the Beast World natives. He carefully searched for a while and could still find the location of Frostwood Village.

Moreover, the area of this map was larger, and many areas outside the Terra Empire had been explored.

This was an entire continent, and the continent was surrounded by a blue ocean.

Only the Terra Empire was marked as a civilized regime on the continent, and the territory of the Terra Empire was only a small inland area in the north-central part of the continent, far from the coastline.

In the uncultivated areas around the Terra Empire, there were many large settlements of humans and Earth Bones, and even a few wilderness areas with skull marks, which turned out to be the lairs of different Beast Kings, which had also been identified by the main world explorers.

This map was obviously a product specially supplied to explorers and would not be revealed to the natives.

'Good heavens, with the Terra Empire's poor geographical knowledge, this map is like having the whole map revealed…'

Zhou Jing was amazed.

Buzz!

At this moment, the Star Realm Panel, which hadn't moved for a long time, suddenly reacted.

[A physical map has been discovered, which can be matched with the Star Realm – [Beast World] (Number 001). Do you want to collect it?]

Zhou Jing was stunned and then overjoyed. He immediately moved his mind.

'Collect!'

[Collection completed. Known area refreshed]

[Reminder: If you obtain a map of the same area, it will complement the details and improve the area map.]

He quickly controlled the panel with his mind and opened the map mode of the Beast World – although he couldn't traverse after the disconnection, there was no problem in viewing the existing Star Realm information.

The next second, he discovered that the Beast World map in the panel had been switched to the detailed large map drawn by the main world.

'Huge profit!'

Zhou Jing's spirits were lifted.

The dimension information collected in the main world could also be collected to enrich the panel's information… In addition to being able to view it at any time, these areas could probably also serve as landing points during traversal.

The explorer course was the channel for him to continue preparing for the next traversal when he couldn't traverse.

"Before the next convergence period comes, I'll rely on this course to accumulate initial intelligence…" Zhou Jing clenched his fist subconsciously, suppressing the excitement in his heart.

…

In a blink of an eye, ten days had passed since the start of school.

Many new students were almost familiar with the schedule, attending classes on time every day, and exchanging ideas with classmates or senior students in their spare time.

Zhou Jing's life was proceeding in an orderly manner, absorbing knowledge and nutrients from different courses every day, and diligently practicing the Basic Forging Method in private.

Martial arts entry takes time, and it won't be possible to activate the Martial Dao Aura system so quickly.

However, with this period of practice as an excuse, even if the claim of unlocking abilities was amazing, it was still within the scope of ordinary people's understanding. He felt that the time was almost right.

On this day, after finishing the day's courses, Zhou Jing returned to his room and decided to spend Star Realm Points to transfer all four of Jason's Alien Blood Enhancements to his main body.

Opening the panel, Zhou Jing took a deep breath:

"Today is the day, let's do it!"