Chapter 139 Statue

"Take this statue and find the other two as soon as possible," Morning Star said.

Han Xiao examined the new statue. It was shaped like a faceless humanoid figure, its face tilted upward, with a huge eye growing on its chest. It was also strange and bizarre. After getting it in his hand, the item description on the panel was also [Mysterious Statue], but with an additional note.

[You have discovered that these statues seem to be a set of items. Gathering all the statues may lead to some unusual events.]

Putting away the two statues, Han Xiao asked, "For the sake of 100,000 Enas, I accept this employment. Where should I look for you after it's done?"

"My schedule is very full. Anyway, you won't be able to collect them all in a short period. Later, I will give you my assistant's contact number. Just notify him when you have completed it," Morning Star smiled, full of charm.

Although he knew the location of the statues, Han Xiao did not choose to obtain all three before coming over, as that would appear very suspicious. At least for now, Morning Star thought that encountering Han Xiao was just luck.

Morning Star himself was also looking for the statues but had not found any leads. Having two statues allowed for a wider range of sensing the location of other statues. If it weren't for his sensitivity to the psionic frequency of the statues, Morning Star wouldn't have been able to discover Han Xiao in the crowd.

He didn't expect to encounter another statue during this performance trip.

Don't let Morning Star's light smile fool you; Han Xiao knew that this guy was very excited inside.

Morning Star's explanation that he was a collector was, of course, nonsense. Han Xiao knew his background very well.

This singer was a esper, using his singing to exert psionic power. Although he looked gentle and weak, if Morning Star was willing, he could unleash several Banshee Screams and Soul High Notes at any time. His combat power was at least B-grade. It was precisely because it contained psionic power that his singing sounded so shocking. And these four statues had a special effect on Morning Star, they could enhance his psionic power.

The four statues were originally a set of sacrificial totems, receiving the daily prayers of believers, from the Void Spirit Order.

Unlike the pragmaticism of the Red Empire and the liberalism of the Shining Federation, the Void Spirit Order, this cosmic civilization, had a strong atmosphere of religious worship and was very mysterious.

In the perception of most planetary and galactic civilizations, religious belief was only a spiritual comfort, an ideological insight, at most guiding biological individuals to choose another set of values to face life. Some civilizations even regarded religion as a social cancer.

However, the path of evolution was diverse. The gods worshiped by most religions were fictional, but some truly existed. The Void Spirit Order was lucky and happened to be the latter. In the beginning, they were also barbarians, but unlike the historical processes of technological side slash-and-burn agriculture or the initial awakening of the magical side, the ancestors discovered a way to communicate with real gods. When the worshiped gods could truly "repay" believers, when religious worship could promote technological and social progress, the civilization's structure and atmosphere naturally differed from most technological or magical civilizations.

What were gods? Using magic to understand, they should be magical entities with vast power, just like some magicians who could make contracts to obtain power. Using technology to explain, deities were high-dimensional life forms that conventional species could not detect with their physical senses. The images projected by high dimensions into the real world were mostly bizarre—so those who didn't look unique enough were basically fake gods.

And in both of these explanations, the relationship between believers and gods was usually mutually beneficial. However, the more developed the civilization, the more cautious they were about the study of gods, never making rash conclusions.

The Void Spirit Order had its own explanation for the existence of gods and possessed an incredible technology that could make the object of faith a reality! For example, if a religious god was fictional, the Void Spirit Order had a way to make it real—of course, according to them, "all gods already exist, waiting to be worshiped, we are just building a bridge for lost seekers." In short, it was all mystical nonsense that Han, the great technician, didn't care about.

Therefore, in addition to the Supreme Spirit they themselves worshiped, the Void Spirit Order also gathered countless followers of other religions, making it a common holy land for all faiths in the star sea—and these four statues were a religious totem of a certain materialized god, condensing the thoughts of long-term worship.

Most of this was information Han Xiao had seen in various documents. The three cosmic civilizations all had incredible abilities. Of course, he didn't care about such a huge issue at this time. His current goal was only to complete this task.

…

After the celebration, Han Xiao bid farewell to Morning Star and returned to his rented spaceship.

"Did you gain anything?"

Melos looked curious.

"Heh, I received a 100,000 Ena employment."

"Yo, that's quite a lot!" Melos was pleasantly surprised. "With a bit more savings, we can configure a pretty good spaceship."

"Not necessary for the time being. Fuel consumption, shipyard maintenance, parts replacement, and equipment upgrades all cost money."

Han Xiao waved his hand. He would at least have to wait until his technology could repair spaceships before he could significantly reduce costs. After all, maintaining a car cost more than buying one. In his previous life, players didn't have spaceships until much later in the game. Before that, only large guilds could afford to maintain spaceships.

Intercepting the spaceships of the gray forces and reselling them to shipyards at cost price was a good way to make money. He might have a chance to cooperate with those large mercenary groups, but he would probably only get a small share. In space battles, those with spaceships were the main force… unless he could pilot the ship himself.

After setting the destination, the spaceship rumbled and took off.

Since he was familiar with the key points of the mission, Han Xiao didn't need to waste time. One statue was located on a barren planet, buried underground. He just needed to go and get it. The normal approach was to inquire about intelligence + carpet search, but he bypassed all the most difficult steps.

There were no twists and turns on this trip. He landed on the planet, went straight to the location, and dug out the third mysterious statue. Apart from the time he had to spend on the road, he didn't waste an extra second. According to the players' experiences, he saved at least twenty days.

However, the last statue was owned by someone.

For this mission, they had already traveled through many regions. This time, they returned to the Terrarium Star Cluster and entered the fourth star region of the East River Star System.

"Secret Blue Star, this planet has civilization. At the time, the interstellar civilization that detected this planet, for unknown reasons, did not communicate with the local civilization, nor did it expose its whereabouts, which means that the Secret Blue Star civilization does not know that guests have visited and is not clear about the exact appearance of the cosmic forces. It is a native in the usual sense, even more native than Aquamarine Star.

However, this planet's geographical... uh, astronomical location is special. It is located on the route of objects ejected by a wormhole cluster, so many space junks often fall on their planet."

Han Xiao opened the star map and introduced it to everyone.

"Extraterrestrial objects have allowed them to extrapolate some technologies that exceed their own level, but due to the technological gap, their gains are limited.

At the same time, these junks have made them know for sure that there are other civilizations in the universe, but their understanding is limited to this.

It is worth mentioning that these space junks from different civilizations have shown Secret Blue Star different technological systems. Therefore, in the early stages of civilization development, they simultaneously studied different technological systems, such as magic, technology, runes, crystals, etc. Being miscellaneous and not refined may not be a good thing for a prototype civilization. In short, their technological level has not yet reached the level of aerospace."

Knocking on the screen, Han Xiao said in a deep voice.

"And the last statue is the 'space junk' that fell on this planet and is tightly controlled by a local force as another new type of technology product."

"Boss, what are you going to do?" One of the Volga brothers asked.

"Land directly, make a request. If they don't give it, we'll fight until they submit."

Han Xiao's tone was decisive.

Melos was stunned. "That's not good, is it? Why not negotiate and give them some information about the cosmic environment in exchange for the statue."

Han Xiao shook his head.

In his previous life, the players who did this task also thought so.

Due to technological differences, Secret Blue Star was divided into different forces that fought each other. After choosing to negotiate, the force that owned the statue regarded it as a rare commodity and made exorbitant demands. First, they asked for a lot of cosmic intelligence, and the players did it. Then, they asked for a lot of advanced knowledge and technology, and the players did it. Finally, the other party even made the excessive request to let the "interstellar visitors" conquer other forces for him, taking an inch after being given a mile.

The players finally couldn't bear it and fought a fierce battle before the other party obediently handed over the statue, proving that the previous negotiations were meaningless. It was better to have a full set of door-kicking services from the beginning.

When dealing with this kind of target, if you don't show your fist, people will think that you are always responsive to requests.

Of course, if you can patiently meet the other party's requirements, you can also get the statue and trigger other tasks, but for Han Xiao, violence was obviously the most convenient.

Since this was the case, Han Xiao didn't want to waste time and chose to directly drop in and kick the door.

…

Northwest of Secret Blue Star, Rune City.

This was a city built with rune technology, located in the center of a forest. The houses and buildings were engraved with winding runes, flashing blue and white light. The architectural style was mainly slender, light, and triangular. Every certain distance, there was a towering obelisk, engraved with energy-gathering runes. The ubiquitous obelisks were the energy core of the city. The city's edges had no walls. The buildings gradually became shorter, becoming villages that extended into the forest.

Many years ago, some space junks fell here, containing the secrets of rune technology. The pioneers extrapolated some technology and slowly built this city. Today, it was one of the major forces of Secret Blue Star.

It was night.

In the forest forty kilometers away from Rune City, dozens of people built a temporary camp here. The bonfire runes were lit with a stable red light, spreading warmth. The crowd sat around, wearing leather jackets and leather armor, engraved with runes. The edge of the camp was lined with animal repellent runes, glowing green, allowing the fierce beasts and insects active in the darkness to retreat.

"Captain, how much can this batch of goods we have sell on the black market in Rune City?" A young man rubbed his hands, his tone expectant.

The captain was a thin man, resembling a rat. He chuckled and said, "Someone is secretly buying space junks in Rune City. This batch of goods we have stocked up can earn at least 8,000 Feiss."

This was a smuggler group, selling space junks. Every period of time, wormhole-ejected junks would fall in different locations on the planet. These junks had research value, and various forces were vigorously collecting them, but there were always some that slipped through the net. Thus, the space junk black market was born, buying these extraterrestrial objects, and the smugglers were the groups that went around looking for space junks to sell to the black market.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh—

At this moment, the crowd suddenly heard a whistling sound, the volume getting louder and louder, like a knife, cutting through the silence of the night. They quickly got up and looked, only to see a fireball appearing in the night sky, flying in this direction.

The smugglers were too familiar with this sound, and joy suddenly appeared on their faces.

"Space junk!"

The fireball quickly approached, quickly passing over the crowd's heads, stirring up a gale, the forest swaying, the leaves rustling. Immediately afterward, the meteor fell not far away, cutting off a small piece of trees, making a loud bang.

Boom!!

The earth shook, and the crowd staggered, almost falling.

Not far away, flames and smoke rose. The captain took a look, his face ecstatic.

"We're in luck! The location where this space junk fell is very close to us. Before the Rune City collection troops arrive, we will have time to take the junk away!"

A group of smugglers acted quickly and hurried to the scene. Before them was a smoking impact crater, with an egg-shaped metal object in the center of the crater, about two and a half meters high.

"What is this thing?" The smugglers curiously looked around.

"Stop standing there, hurry up and move it away," the captain urged.

Just as the crowd was about to step forward, a trembling bang sounded in the forest, and the ground in front of the smuggler captain exploded with a small pit.

"Everyone, do not approach!"

A deep voice sounded from the other side of the forest. As soon as the voice fell, another group of people appeared from the trees, wearing metal armor battle suits, equipped with grenades and rifles. One of them wore infrared sniper glasses, and the muzzle of the sniper rifle in his hand was emitting gunpowder smoke. The sound just now was the sniper rifle.

"The Steelfire Fortress troops!" The faces of this group of smugglers changed.

Steelfire Fortress was also one of the major forces of Secret Blue Star, mastering metal, gunpowder, and mechanical technology. Their mechanical chariots were the biggest headache on the battlefield for various forces.

Not only these people, but the forest was also rustling, and more teams were rapidly approaching. This new "space junk" was like a vortex, attracting other teams in the forest.

These teams had different styles, and their faces were wary, glaring at each other.

In the territory of one force, other forces would install action troops, the purpose of which was to grab the space junk falling near the enemy's territory and prevent the enemy from obtaining new opportunities.

But if they can't grab it…

Then…

Destroy it!