Chapter 1 The Beginning

The hovercar slowly ascended, driving out of the light blue sensor shield covering the Superpower Academy, and sped across the vast forest sea.

Inside the car, all the windows turned dark, obscuring the scenery rushing past outside.

Zhou Jing and the other students sat in their respective seats. They had all handed in their personal terminals and were listening to Shen Xinqin explain the rules.

"The Exploration Bureau is a classified department, and its location is not public knowledge, so the use of personal communication devices is not allowed on this trip. Once you arrive at the Bureau, you must follow my lead and not run around. Violators will be warned, have merit points deducted, lose their pre-recruitment qualifications, or, in serious cases, be detained for investigation..."

Everyone nodded repeatedly. Even Lin Kun, who had a face full of horizontal scars, looked well-behaved.

Zhou Jing listened silently, recalling the content of previous courses in his mind.

The explorers of the various Star Alliance member states have a certain competitive relationship with each other. Therefore, the explorers on the payroll are similar to secret agents and spies. The Exploration Bureau also guards against intelligence leaks, infiltration by outsiders, and so on.

Students who generally receive explorer popularization training belong to the category of "part-time." During their time at the academy, they will not be arranged to visit the Exploration Bureau. Only after graduation, when they are conscripted and need to serve, will they be able to go to the Exploration Bureau for the first time.

Only students like them, who have received employment reservations, are formal members designated by the Exploration Bureau. Only they are qualified to visit the Exploration Bureau, the place where they will work in the future.

The reason why they are allowed to visit so soon is also to examine whether the reserve members abide by the code of conduct. If they seriously violate the rules during the visit, they will no longer be offered employment reservations, lest they enter the Exploration Bureau after graduation and have access to more classified intelligence, only to leak it.

After a while, the hovercar slowed down and began to descend slowly, eventually coming to a stop.

The pressure valve made a hissing sound, and the cabin door opened.

Zhou Jing and the others followed Shen Xinqin off the ship. What came into view was a medium-sized ship port, with many aircraft and hovercars parked there.

This ship port was located in a closed space, with no visible entrances or exits. The dome and the surrounding walls were all metal, with no windows to see the outside scenery. It was lit by a row of white light tubes embedded in the walls, giving the feeling that the location was either underground or in the mountains.

At this time, a man in a black uniform was standing on the hovercar's landing pad. Seeing everyone leave the cabin, he stepped forward to greet them and nodded to Shen Xinqin:

"Captain Shen, hello, please follow me for a routine inspection."

"I know the rules."

Shen Xinqin smiled indifferently and led the students to a room on the edge of the ship port.

There were many staff members in the room, all unsmiling, scanning the group with various detection instruments to ensure that they were not carrying any prohibited items according to the control regulations.

Everyone cooperated one by one.

Speaking was not prohibited during the inspection. Some students were a little nervous from being surrounded by a group of serious staff members and couldn't help but start a conversation, asking Shen Xinqin:

"Teacher Shen, you're a Level 5 superpower user, so why is your military rank only Captain..."

Everyone looked over, also curious.

Level 5 superpower users are already in the high-level category. In any organization, they can be considered senior management, but Shen Xinqin's military rank in the Exploration Bureau doesn't seem high, creating a large discrepancy.

Shen Xinqin smiled and said, "The military rank system of the Exploration Bureau has its own set of promotion rules. Strength is not the main factor. Instead, it is based on the positive results of each service to calculate merits. The more services you perform, and the better the results, the higher your military rank can be."

Since she had started talking, she simply continued to explain:

"This is what you will learn later, so it doesn't matter if I tell you now. The military rank system of explorers represents both service achievements and job responsibilities, and is divided into two stages. The first stage is the execution level, which is divided into Recruit, Private, Private First Class, and Sergeant. The second stage is the decision-making level, which is divided into Warrant Officer, Field Officer, and General.

All officially hired newcomers are Recruit rank. Only after completing service and meeting certain indicators can they be promoted to Private, and then Private First Class, but these all belong to grassroots executive personnel and can only be selected as team members. Only when they are promoted to Sergeant rank are they qualified to form long-term independent teams, serve as captains, and serve as a team unit to perform exploration missions.

As for the decision-making level, they can provide plans for exploration projects in different Star Realms. After the plans are approved, they have the right to mobilize explorers to carry out the plans they are responsible for. I belong to the Warrant Officer rank, and I am already a member of the decision-making level of our country's Exploration Bureau on this planet, so I am considered high-level."

Everyone listened and suddenly understood.

Zhou Jing nodded secretly.

It seemed that no matter how powerful a newcomer was, after joining the… after being employed, they would have to start as a grunt and be selected by others.

He wondered what kind of team he would be picked by in the future.

Everyone quickly finished the inspection, put on temporary identity cards, and then followed Shen Xinqin along the passage.

Soon, everyone reached the end of the passage, took an elevator, and arrived at a floor.

This floor was like the office of some financial company, with a large number of workstations. Each workstation had several electronic screens, displaying various data and materials. Exploration Bureau personnel in uniform were writing and drawing on the screens. No one was talking, only the sound of characters being entered.

"This is the Intelligence Analysis Department. Civilian staff and explorers who are not yet serving usually analyze the intelligence data of various Star Realms here, and predict the evolution of the world. The research categories include, but are not limited to, the geography, astronomy, biology, history, and culture of this plane. The resulting intelligence will be handed over to the Strategic Decision-Making Department as material for formulating exploration plans."

Shen Xinqin explained from the side.

The students nodded quickly.

Hearing the movement, many Exploration Bureau personnel turned their heads to look, and then turned back to continue working.

Some staff members who were familiar with Shen Xinqin casually greeted her.

"Sister Shen, bringing in newbies? I happen to not have anything classified here, come here." A man with glasses smiled.

Shen Xinqin nodded, led everyone to the bespectacled man, pointed to the other party's screen, and said:

"Because the d19 plane is about to converge, the work focus of the Intelligence Analysis Department now revolves around this Star Realm..."

Hearing this, Zhou Jing's eyes moved, and he looked carefully at the page on the screen.

The content above was the detailed historical data of the d19 plane. It came to an abrupt end a few years after the founding of the Great Xia Dynasty, which was the time point when the last convergence period ended. The content that followed was in a different font, and seemed to be the bespectacled man's analysis report.

"...According to the information from the Surveying and Mapping Department, the time interval between the two convergence periods of the d19 plane is 140 to 260 years. The mainstream country is the Great Xia Dynasty. According to the development process of the feudal era and the composition of the ruling class, the probability of the civilization's natural evolution deviating from the normal historical trajectory is less than 10%. The current state should belong to one of the era models such as the end of the dynasty, the change of dynasty, the division of the country, the invasion of foreign races, etc...."

"According to the civilization enlightenment level, technological development trend, and superpower development trend observed last time, it can be predicted that this Star Realm will continue to be at a low martial arts level, and the development and exploration value is low."

"Brief intervention record: Our country's explorers assisted the founding of the Great Xia Dynasty, and left behind some ancient handicrafts and agricultural knowledge in the Great Xia Dynasty, and impersonated the natives to create several sect-type organizations as a disguise to facilitate actions. The degree of intervention is medium."

"Special Precautions: According to the intelligence personnel's report, explorers from other countries are suspected of leaving incomplete superpower knowledge on the Third Continent, which is a high degree of intervention. The impact is unknown and cannot be included in the prediction model for the time being."

Zhou Jing narrowed his eyes.

The intervention of the main world explorers really existed, but he didn't expect that they had done more than just intervene in the Great Xia Dynasty... That's right, the landing points of the explorers might not be in the same place, and they might fall into various corners of this world.

He had seen the map a long time ago. This Star Realm had four continents, and Great Xia was the mainstream regime in this world. The continent where it was located was marked as Number One by the main world.

In addition, there were some scattered regimes that were not very powerful, while the Third Continent mentioned in the report had some small regimes belonging to other cultural systems.

At this time, Shen Xinqin patted the bespectacled man on the shoulder and complained to everyone:

"Although their job is called analysis, I'm used to treating it as nonsense. These intelligence personnel's predictions always deviate greatly from the real situation. I haven't seen them be accurate a few times."

The bespectacled man said helplessly: "We have task quotas. If we don't submit a report before the deadline, we'll be fined, so of course we'll just hand in something to get it over with. Besides, so many years have passed since a Star Realm converged, and we don't know exactly what happened, so how can the analysis be accurate?"

"Yes, yes, yes."

Shen Xinqin noncommittally.

She led everyone on a tour of the Intelligence Analysis Department, and then called everyone to leave.

Zhou Jing wanted to see other people's reports, but he wasn't allowed to act freely now, so he had to follow everyone.

Everyone took the elevator and went to another floor.

This floor was even wider, with rows of silver-white special devices. Many researchers were here debugging them.

"These silver-white devices are the shuttle devices. The explorers on duty use them to go to other worlds. We usually call this place the 'Departure Platform'..."

Everyone immediately became interested and carefully examined the shuttle device.

The base of this device was a metal round platform, about five meters in diameter, covered with dense and complex patterns. It looked like a sophisticated piece of equipment. Next to it was a right-angled mechanical pillar, extending upwards. The end of the pillar had three silver-white square columns, looking like a huge claw, hanging down over the round platform.

"When the device is activated, these three square columns will start to rotate. When they reach a certain speed, the person standing on the round platform will be able to shuttle." Shen Xinqin gave a brief introduction.

"Teacher, what does it feel like to shuttle?"

A student couldn't help but ask.

At this time, a rough voice suddenly rang out in the distance, interjecting in the answer:

"You will see countless illusions flash in your vision, but you won't remember any of them. When you come back to your senses, you will already be in an unfamiliar world, your mind will be spinning, your stomach will be churning, as if you've drunk several barrels of wine and been hung up and spun tens of thousands of times, so dizzy that you want to throw up everything you ate last night."

Everyone was stunned and looked around.

They saw more than a dozen people walking over, some tall, some short, some male, some female. Unlike ordinary staff members who uniformly wore Exploration Bureau uniforms, they each had their own attire.

Seeing this, Shen Xinqin introduced to everyone:

"They are the explorer captains who came to assess you this time. They have already seen your files. After graduation, you will most likely serve in one of their teams. One of them may be your future boss."

Hearing this, everyone immediately became nervous and couldn't help but stand up straight.

Soon, a group of captains approached, looking at the students.

One of the tall and burly men stroked his chin, pursed his lips, and spoke in a rough voice with dissatisfaction:

"This batch of newbies, their quality is very average."