Chapter 1 An Opportunity and a Beginning

In the quiet corridors of the Three Kings Star's government palace, two figures walked side by side.

One was a high-level intelligence operative named Maddie, and the other was a highly influential official of the Modo Civilization, Maddie's superior in rank.

They chatted idly as they walked.

"You're in charge of the project to exploit the natives, reporting directly to the Three Kings. This is a rare opportunity." The high official walked with his hands clasped behind his back, speaking slowly, "Maddie, I've always believed in your abilities. But can you truly guarantee that the empire won't discover the truth? If anything goes wrong, the Three Kings will remember you, and your future will end there."

"Heh, I've said it many times. The empire can't possibly discover it was us."

Maddie shook her head and sneered:

"I cleared away all traces years ago. The production number of the spacecraft we launched has been completely erased, and it's been refined with magic multiple times to interfere with precognitive abilities. The empire can't find even a shred of information on that spacecraft. What other clues could they possibly have?"

"To take ten thousand steps back, even if the empire really did discover the origin of the spacecraft, I made sure my intelligence operatives cleared all production and transaction records from the manufacturer long ago. The empire won't find anything. And that operative disguised himself, his resume has no suspicious points. Outsiders will only think he's dead. I've temporarily deleted his personal confidential files from the database, and I've transferred him away. No one will find him."

"Moreover, we weren't the ones who bought the spacecraft. It was a civilian consortium, passed through several hands, and was even seized by space pirates before crashing accidentally, with no survivors. It became a missing vessel, and we only secretly seized it more than ten years ago, leaving no records whatsoever. So even if the empire traces the transaction, it won't lead back to us."

"I had years to prepare, and I've arranged some additional measures. If the empire traces it step by step, they will only be led to suspect another Super Star Cluster civilization. In any case, the empire won't be able to produce evidence that we were involved."

Maddie's tone was confident and assured.

After all, the launch of the spacecraft towards the Kunde Race happened years ago, and she started clearing the traces several years ago. She was very confident that she wouldn't let the empire find any clues.

Upon hearing this, the high official slowly nodded:

"If that's the case, I'm relieved."

...

The silvery-blue planet rotated slowly in the space before him, like a jewel rolling on black velvet. The starlight reflected on the smooth silver armor of the Avatar of the Lord, and an army of pitch-black mechanical soldiers silently followed behind, blending into the darkness as if invisible.

This was a comprehensive industrial planet in the Shattered Star Ring, with numerous consortiums building factories here.

According to the [Bold Explorer], a sub-factory belonging to a shipbuilding company was located on this planet and was the origin of the crashed spacecraft.

This shipbuilding company was a run-of-the-mill shipyard, only mass-producing various basic models of low-level spacecraft without engaging in any research or improvement. They only earned a production fee.

Such shipyards still had a certain market in the universe, mainly accepting civilian orders. After all, basic spacecraft were cheap and in high demand, and other high-level shipyards wouldn't invest massive resources in producing this kind of basic spacecraft without any core competitiveness.

Before sending out the mechanical troops, Han Xiao had already checked the background of this shipyard in the database. It was just a small civilian enterprise with no backing.

"The mastermind chose such a shipyard. If I'm not mistaken, they've already cleared the traces."

Han Xiao mused.

Although he had a hunch, he still needed to investigate and confirm it to verify the result.

Entering the quantum network vision, the scene before him transformed once again into a virtual network world. The outline of the planet blurred, leaving only countless glowing quantum network nodes connected into a mottled and brilliant sea of light.

Locking onto the shipyard's quantum network node, Han Xiao directly pierced through it. The data firewall of a small civilian enterprise was like air, unable to stop him at all. He moved smoothly, directly into the deepest recesses, releasing a massive data stream.

In just an instant, the shipyard's database was completely breached, and all the information was leaked into Han Xiao's hands.

He opened the production logs and transaction records and scanned them, discovering that the earliest records only went back three years, while the shipyard's history was far longer than that.

"As expected, the mastermind tampered with things." Han Xiao thought to himself.

He checked other records and learned that the shipyard had suffered an accidental explosion three years ago.

During the production of a spacecraft, the energy suddenly malfunctioned, blowing up the entire shipyard. The mainframe was destroyed, all previous data was lost, and even the paper archives were gone, nearly affecting the surrounding businesses.

Afterward, the inspection concluded it was an extremely rare natural failure, which Han Xiao certainly didn't believe. This was definitely a man-made disaster to destroy the evidence.

If he were the mastermind, he would not only clear the records of the place of origin but also pass the spacecraft through several hands, turning it into a long-term unrecorded ghost ship, thus cleaning the clues more thoroughly.

"Without any records, and without knowing the spacecraft's production number, this lead is mostly broken..."

The pupils of Han Xiao's Avatar of the Lord flickered with electric light.

"But it's not without gains."

At least, this clue revealed that the origin was in the Shattered Star Ring.

Then, the most suspicious civilizations in the Shattered Star Ring were the four ruling Super Star Cluster civilizations. The scope was immediately narrowed from the entire universe to a single starfield.

Of course, it was also possible that civilizations from other starfields deliberately bought spacecraft produced elsewhere with the intention of shifting the blame. However, he would now prioritize the more likely scenario.

Although there were no clues at the moment, in his previous life, the empire encountered similar incidents with the Kunde Race in later explorations, where the natives were strengthened and sent up to deliver experience. After the Kunde Race incident, the empire made more thorough preparations and discovered some suspects in these incidents.

Among the suspects in the Shattered Star Ring, the one mentioned most often was the Modo Civilization, one of the four Super Star Clusters!

They often caused trouble. As the saying goes, those who walk by the river often get their feet wet. The empire wasn't to be trifled with either.

The mastermind could erase past clues, but he couldn't change the "future" clues in Han Xiao's memory!

It was equivalent to, you haven't committed a crime yet, but I see that you will commit a crime in the future.

He didn't know if the Kunde Race incident was the work of the Modo Civilization, but since the other party had a "previous conviction," they were the most suspicious.

Since the clues had run out, Han Xiao had two ideas for the time being.

Since the shipyard accident was man-made, he could try to find the immigration records and surveillance footage of this planet from three years ago to see if he could find out who caused the accident and follow the clues.

It was easy for the mastermind to tamper with the data of a small civilian enterprise, but it was many times more difficult to tamper with the global surveillance of a planet. If the other party had tampered with this aspect, Han Xiao would accept it and assume that this path was impassable.

The second was a more foolish method, using the process of elimination. The civilizations in the Shattered Star Ring that could cause trouble were just a few. He would investigate them one by one, looking for clues. If he did this, the first civilization Han Xiao would investigate was the most suspicious, the Modo Civilization.

He always liked to do things in parallel. He immediately filtered the immigration records from three years ago and matched them with the satellite surveillance footage from the day of the accident.

The powerful computing power worked at high speed and quickly produced results—no suspicious individuals approached the shipyard that day.

"It wasn't an outsider? Hmm, two possibilities. One is that the mastermind tampered with the entire planet's surveillance, concealing the traces of outsiders. The second is that it was an inside job."

If it was the former, there was nothing he could do, and he could just give up. Han Xiao could only consider the possibility of an inside job.

If it wasn't done by an outsider, it could only be someone from within.

"Assuming I'm the perpetrator, acting covertly under the orders of my superior, then after causing the disaster and completing the mission, there's no need to stay at the shipyard. So I'd need an excuse to get out of there. In that case..."

Han Xiao's mind stirred. He opened the obituary of the employees who died in the accident, published by the shipyard three years ago.

After the accident three years ago, all the surviving shipbuilders underwent strict investigations, and many people left their jobs. But according to Han Xiao's understanding of intelligence personnel, it was more likely that the other party faked their death and disappeared from the world, because it was "cleaner" that way—excellent intelligence personnel would definitely prepare multiple identities for themselves. Death was equal to destroying an identity, clearing away connections, and greatly reducing future worries.

Therefore, the perpetrator might be on the list of the deceased.

The life history of interstellar citizens could be queried through other channels. It wasn't difficult for Han Xiao to find these people's resumes, including their work experience and immigration records, which were all clear and free of flaws.

What he needed to confirm now was whether anyone's resume had any suspicion of being faked.

It was easy to tamper with data, but it wasn't difficult to verify it either, just more cumbersome. That was to conduct on-site visits to the past businesses and relatives displayed in the resume to ask if there was such a person.

If someone was found to have faked their resume, they could be listed as a suspect. The next step would be the process of elimination he had just thought of...comparing the suspect's information with the confidential personnel files of the Modo Civilization and other Super Star Cluster civilizations to determine whether the other party was the perpetrator and which faction they belonged to.

If the perpetrator was lurking in the shipyard, they definitely used a fake identity, and their appearance might have been disguised as well. But it wasn't impossible to solve.

The shipyard's data was gone, but the planet's satellite surveillance was still there, storing satellite footage of their daily activities. With Han Xiao's virtual technology, he could set up a model parameter, import these videos and the confidential personnel files of those forces into it, conduct a large-scale comprehensive analysis, and judge the degree of similarity. To a certain extent, he could see through the disguise.

In this way, a comparison with the confidential personnel files of the civilizations could be completed.

Then the question was...how could he obtain the confidential personnel files of these Super Star Cluster civilizations?

The Black Star Army didn't have any influence in the Shattered Star Ring.

Han Xiao patted his metallic head.

He didn't know about others, but someone as controlling as Mannison must have a large amount of confidential information about these Super Star Cluster civilizations in his hands.

Even the Guanghui Federation had to guard against the Mechanical Nation's virtual intrusion, so he probably had a previous record. How could these Super Star Cluster civilizations have been spared? The number one virtual technology in the entire universe; what a waste if he didn’t do some spying.

"Okay, it seems I really have to go look for the Mechanical Nation."