Chapter 1
Harrison Moore, a renowned interstellar free explorer, dedicated his life to excavating ruins and pursuing the unknown. Though his strength was meager, he always miraculously turned danger into safety. Over the years, he discovered countless historical relics and left behind dozens of works. His spirit of fearlessly embracing difficulties and venturing into the unknown (as long as he didn't court death, he'd push himself to the brink) attracted a large group of followers in the universe, who regarded him as a spiritual leader and a guiding light.

During the World Tree War, Harrison was already old and frail, in a semi-retired state. The three major civilizations were the ones who were discovered, suffering a sudden attack from the World Tree civilization, which caught them off guard and caused heavy losses. Because the origin of the enemy was unknown, all civilizations in the explored universe were initially on the defensive, passively resisting the continuous stream of invaders. Planet after planet was occupied by the World Tree, becoming nourishment.

The three major civilizations exhausted all means to collect clues about the World Tree civilization, the most crucial of which was the location of the World Tree itself.

The World Tree itself was a cosmic treasure. The World Tree civilization had obtained it in the agricultural era, which led to their distorted civilization. All development revolved around the World Tree, and countless people tried to nourish and enhance this cosmic treasure.

Due to the World Tree's unique nature, the problem could only be solved at its root by finding its main body. Otherwise, no matter how many invaders were repelled, the World Tree could use the nutrients from countless planets to transform and nurture more troops.

The World Tree's main body was rooted in a sub-dimensional world, hidden extremely deep, and, like the Netherworld dimension of the past, was concealed and sealed off. In that era, the explored universe was practically under total mobilization, and many volunteer explorers spontaneously organized themselves to search in sub-dimensions. Harrison also returned to action, joining them.

Through a series of coincidences, he was the first to discover the sub-dimension where the World Tree's main body was located. Before sacrificing himself, he recorded the dimensional coordinates and threw them into the spatial storm of the sub-dimensional world.

These coordinates were like a drifting bottle in the vast ocean, floating up and down, and finally, they fortunately fell into the hands of the three major civilizations. Harrison's deeds were thus passed down, and the world learned of his contributions.

——This was Harrison's image in the later versions of the previous life.

In the current era, Harrison was just a young, rookie explorer. His exuberant curiosity and desire for adventure prompted him to abandon the opportunity to inherit billions of family assets, resolutely entering this unpromising industry.

As a newcomer in this exploration and archeological team, Harrison's intuition clearly didn't carry much weight. The teammates present all possessed the spirit of never leaving empty-handed… cough, getting to the bottom of things, and unsurprisingly ignored Harrison's warning.

Harrison had no choice. Besides, his curiosity overwhelmed his vigilance, so he suppressed his vague worries and continued to follow the team.

A scavenger ship passed through the high-altitude dust storm, hovering a hundred meters above, and dropped a multi-functional drilling vehicle. Its outer armor was covered with colorful and unrestrained graffiti, obviously having undergone the artistic processing of these scavengers with limited cultural literacy.

Everyone boarded the drilling vehicle, followed the instructions of the detection radar, broke through the soil, and descended all the way, quickly approaching the underground cavity marked on the map.

Such underground relics were extremely unstable due to the passage of time and crustal changes, generally posing a risk of collapse. Therefore, scavengers would not directly drill into the passage from the side, preferring to enter through the main entrance.

Whoosh!

Soon, the tip of the drilling machine finally penetrated the rock layer and entered a cavity. All the team members got out, turned on their searchlights, and observed the surrounding environment.

This was an underground cave with traces of artificial excavation, about seven or eight meters high. At the end of the cave was a tightly closed metal door, suspected to be the entrance to this underground relic.

The short detector ran over, took out an instrument to scan the metal door, and muttered, "Well preserved, with few signs of rust. It's a high-strength alloy material. According to rough detection results, the synthesis technology of this material starts at least at the galactic level, but there's no matching material record in the database…"

Hearing this, everyone became even more excited. The higher the level of the lost civilization, the more things in the ruins that could be sold on the black market.

However, this also represented more unknown risks.

"Is there any energy reaction inside?" the captain asked.

"Let me see… hmm, none at all. I guess the energy here is exhausted. Even if there are traps or defense measures, they're all paralyzed."

"Then let's go in and take a look." The captain instructed, "Everyone be careful later. No one is allowed to deactivate their shields without my order."

The group used lasers to cut open the door and tiptoed in, groping their way forward. The route inside was intricate, and the environment looked like a large underground military base.

Harrison walked to a sign, wiped off the dust, and had the translator read the text on it, but it was unrecognizable.

"There's no record of this kind of writing in the database. We can confirm that this is a relic of a civilization that hasn't been discovered until now," Harrison said in the channel.

"Today is really a lucky day. No wonder A Xiang finally responded to my daily greetings for the past few months," the short detector said with great interest.

"What did she say?" Harrison asked curiously.

"She said, 'Okay.'"

Harrison: "…Keep it up."

The group chatted while exploring, cautiously all the way, but found no dangers. Only then did they boldly search the rooms one by one. However, they only found living facilities, no special equipment, no written documents, no energy and network hosts, and not even a single defense facility. It seemed that this base had been abandoned long ago, and everything had been emptied.

The flames of excitement in everyone's hearts were like being doused by a bucket of cold water.

"No way, we discovered an unknown relic, but there's nothing valuable to gain. Did we come all this way for nothing?" the short detector wailed.

"It's not a wasted trip. At least we discovered a new language, an unknown civilization that once existed." Harrison waved the translator in his hand. He had recorded all the texts on the signboards he encountered along the way.

"What's the use of this kind of archeological achievement? Do you really think we're historians?" Someone couldn't help complaining, "If it weren't for digging up valuable things, who would want to come to this kind of place?"

The scavengers didn't have much integrity, and their patience quickly ran out. The speed of their search became faster and faster. Before long, only the last room remained, located at the core of the base.

Everyone cut open the door and walked in, their breathing stopping in unison.

A triangular object about three or four meters high was embedded in a groove in the center of the room. It was jet-black and smooth as a mirror, looking a bit like obsidian, but detection showed that it was a metallic material. On one side, there was a raised area with a display screen.

There was only this thing in the room, nothing else, like a dedicated warehouse.

"Haha, finally something to gain."

"What is this thing?"

Everyone surrounded it in surprise, touching here and knocking there. Although they didn't know what it was, judging by its appearance, as long as it was packaged, they wouldn't have to worry about not being able to sell it on the black market.

The short detector came to the display screen of the triangular object and pressed it a few times, but there was no response. He fumbled around for a while and suddenly found a movable panel next to the display screen. After opening it, there was a port, seemingly used for charging.

"Hmm… this shape of interface is the first time I've seen it, but there's no problem." The short detector pondered for a moment, took out an instrument and busied himself, quickly modifying a power transmission line suitable for the port.

He was about to charge the triangular device when Harrison, who had been frowning, subconsciously opened his mouth.

"Wait a minute!"

Everyone turned to look at him.

"What's wrong with you again?"

"I… I think it's better to be cautious. Who knows what this device does? What if it's an energy-depleted weapon?"

Harrison looked hesitant. When he saw the triangular object, he inexplicably felt a palpitation, as if a voice in his heart was warning him that this thing was dangerous. His innate intuition had never been so strong.

"Don't worry, I just detected it. It's actually a precision one-time safe device, destroyed upon opening. Only the innermost layer is made of a material that isolates detection, so I don't know what's stored inside," the short detector said without looking back.

As he spoke, he directly inserted the plug into the port and input a weak energy. The display screen of the triangular device lit up, and a password input interface popped up.

The captain leaned over and glanced at it. "Can the password be cracked?"

The short detector took out another device and fiddled with it for a while, confidently saying, "The password of this safe device changes in real time. It must be connected to the quantum network, and then cracked with virtual technology… The tools I have on hand are not good enough, but as long as I use a cracking device with a higher computing power, I can definitely open it."

"I see…"

The captain hesitated for a while and said, "Then why don't we open it? You also said that this thing is one-time use. If the things stored inside are not valuable, we'll lose money. It's better to put this safe directly into the black market auction and let others open the lottery. Anyway, this kind of form is very common in the black market…"

"Can this kind of thing be discussed later?" Harrison was inexplicably restless. "Let's get out of here quickly. I have a bad feeling…"

"When has your intuition ever been right?"

The captain glared at him, but he didn't refute his suggestion, and called everyone to transport the device to the drilling machine.

This relic only had this valuable thing. The group left without any nostalgia, carrying the triangular device back to the ship.

Suddenly, one of the team members said thoughtfully:

"It's really strange. Logically speaking, since there is a relic left by an unknown civilization on this planet, there should be other traces. But the detection results show that there is only this one. It's not very reasonable. Could it be that that civilization only dug an underground facility on this planet?"

"That's right, I felt something was strange just now." Another person echoed.

At this time, the short detector looked at the radar screen and exclaimed in surprise, "Captain, the relic we were just at has collapsed!"

Everyone hurriedly went over and took a look. The underground cavity in the picture had been filled in and disappeared without a trace. There was no way to go back.

"That's strange…"

The captain muttered, shook his head, and ordered, "Forget it, let's not worry about those things for now. Mark this planet down. We'll go to the nearest black market planet to estimate the price of our harvest today."

Hearing this, everyone didn't think too much and acted one after another, piloting the ship away from this planet.

Only Harrison stood in front of the porthole, looking remotely at the increasingly smaller planet in his sight, suddenly feeling a chill on his back.

All the signs gave him a feeling that the mission of this strange relic was specifically to store this triangular device.

And the relic immediately collapsed after they left, as if it had been silently waiting for outsiders to take it away…

Harrison couldn't help but look back.

In his sight, the triangular device lay quietly in the rear cabin, like a Pandora's box waiting to be opened.

…

The Black Star Cup opening ceremony was perfectly held, and the preliminary rounds began in full swing the next day. The legion became extremely lively, with hundreds of millions of members active on the field, which also drove the enthusiasm of audiences throughout the universe.

Because there were so many events, each media outlet provided live broadcasts and video replays around the clock. Viewers could freely adjust the camera, choose to watch any event, venue, or player. Countless viewers happily watched with their communicators all day long.

The ratings of the Black Star Cup in the entire universe remained at a very high level. Currently, the average ratings in each region are second only to the news broadcasts of the three major civilizations or local civilizations.

The Black Star Cup event organizing department, which was established more than two months ago, compiled some statistics. The events with the highest ratings, in addition to the various combat events in the B-grade, A-grade, and Undying groups, were followed by entertainment events, especially talent shows, singing, dancing, stand-up comedy. Countless interstellar citizens enjoyed watching those superhumans, who were rarely seen on weekdays, display alternative talents on the screen.

Even many talented players attracted a large number of admirers, and viewers online were arguing about the merits and demerits of various players… Facts proved that no matter what era, the talent show model never lacked topicality.

And the events with the lowest ratings, as Han Xiao expected, were indeed the technical competitions, such as the pile of mechanical repair, mechanical modification, and drawing competitions that Leonard applied for…

Indeed, very few people were willing to watch technical nerds operate machinery.

However, Han Xiao didn't care. Those technical projects were just for pure selection, to discover potential stocks in various fields for the legion and replenish fresh blood.

The legion's promotion channels had always been relatively clear, with ranks and positions linked, and meritorious service was also possible, as was seniority. The Black Star Cup provided another shortcut to promotion. Those with abilities at the same level could rise to the top. The legion members were so enthusiastic because this model allowed many people to see more opportunities, injecting new vitality into the legion.

Although the players had their own exclusive groups, most of them were more enthusiastic about participating in the normal rank groups, running over to play happily with the NPCs.

As the Evolutionary Totem shone brightly in the combat events of the low-level groups, more and more players began to purchase this item, and sales soared in a short period of time, with a crazy upward trend.

Using the Evolutionary Totem in events below the B-grade allowed players to gain a huge advantage, but it was not a guaranteed win. The mutated body was powerful in close combat, but its weaknesses were also obvious. Resistance to magic and mind control plummeted, and it had short arms, making it extremely vulnerable to kiting, while also continuously losing health.

Against some psychics and mages, occasionally mutated players were pinned to the ground and repeatedly rubbed.

In the B-grade group, the effect of the Evolutionary Totem was not as strong. B-grade superhumans had the strength to confront the limit mutated body head-on.

While the competitions were blooming and being held in full swing, the camps where other players in the Shattered Star Ring were located were much deserted compared to the liveliness of the legion.

Players from various countries were reddening their eyes, biting their handkerchiefs, and watching with envy, jealousy, and hatred as nearly ten million legion players were having a great time.

Not to mention participating, we don't even have the qualifications to bet!

"Following the crowd" can be broken down into five "people." Most people have this mentality, and this effect is even more obvious in the player group that chases excitement and fun.

Everyone is having so much fun, how can you not add me!

Compared to the camp war incident more than half a year ago, the ordinary players of various countries who were shaken by the Black Star Cup League were even more numerous. With this hoe down, the corners of many camps' walls had a new hole.

Even the Infinite Financial Group was dug up by a large wave of people, but Sorokin was very low-key now, saying that he was fine.

The most painful thing was the foreign clubs of other camps. They didn't do anything this time, but they had to watch ordinary players lose again, and they couldn't even find a reason to stay, feeling like they wanted to cry but had no tears.

What should we do? Don't treat us like this!

Are you forcing us to join the party!

Black Star Legion! You're going too far!

Even a clay figure has three parts anger. If you dare to force me again!

If you force me again, I'll really join you!