Chapter 1 A Premise for Interstellar Society

Some scholars who study cosmic sociology believe that building an ordered interstellar society from scratch requires several prerequisites: First, an exchange in the form of a cosmic war, with a significant number of civilizations surviving, gaining a certain understanding of each other; Second, one or more powerful rulers capable of suppressing all dissent, possessing the strength to enforce universal rules for other civilizations, thus forming order; Third, a significant reduction in the scale of cosmic distances from both real and virtual levels, namely, warp technology, stargate technology, and universal quantum communication technology.

In the eyes of some civilization development historians, these three technologies are the greatest inventions of the cosmic era, giving civilizations separated by countless light-years the ability to communicate rapidly, thus forming a stable interstellar social system throughout the explored universe.

After four months of pioneering in the Shattered Star Ring, the Black Star Army, including Han Xiao, increasingly agreed with this view.

It took the Hadaway Task Force four months to travel from the southern to the eastern part of the Goul Star Cluster's planar star map, while Han Xiao's main fleet only spent less than two days, using the stargate channels left along the way to complete the journey that took the task force four months.

On the eastern border star system of the Goul Star Cluster, the two fleets converged in a patch of space. The task force's ships, like swallows returning to their nests, docked into the main ship's pier compartments, completing the connection.

Han Xiao waited for a while in the bridge command room and soon saw Hadaway leading his subordinates hurriedly walking over from the pier passage.

"Commander!" Hadaway said excitedly, arms wide open, as he threw himself over.

Han Xiao's mouth twitched. After hesitating for a second, he still didn't back away. He bit the bullet and hugged Hadaway. The two men's strong pectoral muscles collided with a thud.

"It's been a full four months!" Hadaway said with emotion.

"Is there any need to be so excited..." Han Xiao felt Hadaway's arms tightly clasping his back and waist. Looking helpless, he casually patted his shoulder and pulled him off with one hand.

What he didn't know was that these four months had been extremely tormenting for Hadaway. His body hardening ability needed strong external stimulation to improve. As a Super-A seed, he was willing to become Han Xiao's subordinate for the opportunity to spar with a Super-A. After following Han Xiao, he felt his long-stagnant ability grow again, which made him ecstatic.

However, being sent out for these four months, the strength that had finally shown signs of improvement fell into silence once again. Moreover, the task force didn't even have a Calamity Grade cadre. He couldn't even find a sparring partner. For a battle maniac like him, it was simply unbearable. After four months, he was completely suffocated!

Seeing Han Xiao at this moment, Hadaway felt like he was seeing a relative. In his eyes, Han Xiao seemed to have a halo of sacred light behind his head, surrounded by holy hymns. He realized that he actually missed Han Xiao so much... Han Xiao's fists.

In a great mood, Hadaway looked at Hela next to him, grinned, and opened his arms, wanting to hug her as well.

"Try touching me," Hela said with cold eyes, death energy emerging in her eyes.

Hadaway's face stiffened, and he awkwardly retracted his arms, muttering to himself, If it weren't for the commander, I, a Super-A seed, wouldn't be looking at your face.

"Hadaway is a Super-A seed, after all. Don't be so impulsive when you speak," Han Xiao said, feeling that Hela's attitude toward the members of the Royal Guards was not very good. He reached out and patted her shoulder, casually squeezing her shoulder blade.

Hmm, the feeling seems pretty good.

Hela's face immediately tightened. She glanced at Han Xiao's palm and put away the overflowing red energy in her eyes, saying in a muffled voice:

"Oh."

Hadaway greeted Fording and the other Royal Guards before looking at Han Xiao again and saying, "According to your instructions, the task force has set up long-distance stargates. What are we doing next?"

Han Xiao didn't answer directly but snapped his fingers and summoned a three-dimensional star map in front of everyone. He carefully searched the star map and confirmed the location of the planet containing the unowned universal treasure in the barren universe belt area outside the Goul Star Cluster.

In his previous life, this planet was called Amber Star. At this time, it was still an unnamed numbered planet.

"We're going to this planet?" Aurora asked curiously. "Is there anything special about it?"

Han Xiao nodded and casually made up a reason, "Some time ago, some members of the legion discovered some information left by aliens while exploring barren planets. It seemed to be the travel records of some explorers. There was information about this planet in it. It is said that there is a civilization on it. Since we're here, we might as well explore it."

This reason was fine. Since it was Han Xiao who said it, even if everyone was a little surprised, they didn't have much doubt. After all, with the incident of the Great Universe mercenary, everyone was not surprised by the existence of the natives of the Shattered Star Ring.

Han Xiao wasn't talking nonsense either. Amber Star itself was the ruins of a perished native civilization, and the universal treasure was stored in this ruin.

【Temporal Amber】 was the name of this universal treasure. It was not created by the native civilization but was an object from beyond the heavens that accidentally landed on this planet and was once regarded as a sacred object by this civilization.

In his previous life, as the empire's allies steadily developed it, Temporal Amber eventually fell into the hands of an imperial ally who participated in the exploration. That ally was Ravenlaude, one of the Super-As that Han Xiao had met on the Red Empire's mother planet, an old member with a bad relationship with Isora.

Later, Ravenlaude was defeated by another Super-A in the Super-Power Calamity version, and Temporal Amber was snatched away by someone else. After countless storms, Temporal Amber changed owners several times. One of the owners was a powerhouse of the World Tree civilization, and finally, it fell into the hands of the Federation of Light.

The origin of Temporal Amber was quite mysterious. Players in his previous life only learned about the origin of this thing from special intelligence channels in the later versions. It was not a secret, but the reason for its formation involved the legendary First Born and had a story behind it.

As for the effect of Temporal Amber, it could only be described as "special."

It basically did not bring any increase in combat power, but its effect... even Super-As would fear it!

According to Han Xiao's memory of the previous life's plot, the number of Super-As who had "fallen" for this thing after Temporal Amber was born had exceeded the number that could be counted on one hand!

Now that this thing was an unowned object, and no other competitor knew of the existence of Temporal Amber besides himself, he could get it effortlessly. Naturally, Han Xiao was determined to get it.

...

A few days later, the fleet arrived at Amber Star and entered the atmosphere.

The distance between the star and this planet was relatively close. The blazing sun shone down. From a high altitude, almost the entire surface of Amber Star was desert. Waves of scorching hot wind blew, stirring up the endless dust and sand. Black-brown sandstorms wandered aimlessly across the land, showing no trace of civilization.

Han Xiao was preparing to send out a detection ship when Aurora closed her eyes and sensed for a moment before shaking her head.

"There are no life signals on this planet."

"Your life detection range can already cover an entire planet?" Hela's eyes flickered with a hint of surprise.

Seeing everyone looking over, Aurora smiled shyly, but her tone was somewhat proud, "I've improved too."

"Not bad, not bad," Han Xiao said with a gratified smile.

He would be very happy every time Aurora's strength improved.

After all, this meant that Aurora's milk supply was more abundant...

The effect of Aurora's character card was to restore to full status, but that was a product of the panel. Aurora's own milk power was limited. She needed to consume her own vitality to activate her ability. His Super-A cells contained terrifying energy. With Aurora's current ability strength, it was very energy-consuming to replenish him to full, and perhaps after one or two times, Aurora would be paralyzed.

When Aurora was promoted to Calamity Grade, her endurance would greatly increase, and her milk supply would be more abundant, allowing him to eat his fill.

Hearing this, Fording said, "If there are no life signals, then the civilization you mentioned may have perished, leaving only ruins."

Han Xiao nodded, looking at the vast yellow sand and sending out a detection ship to sense the environment beneath the planet's surface.

In the empire's records, the civilization ruins where Temporal Amber was located were buried under the yellow sand. As for the specific process of discovering Temporal Amber, it was not recorded in detail, so he did not know the exact location. However, with interstellar-level detection equipment here, finding the civilization ruins was only a matter of time.

As expected, before Han Xiao finished watching Hadaway and another member of the Royal Guards finish a round of Vien card, the detection ship sent back a message, discovering many ruins that resembled cities beneath the desert.

However, the detection ship did not discover any special energy sources. The energy radar was silent.

"No abnormal energy signals were detected? Hmm, Temporal Amber should be on this planet. Maybe it hasn't been charged for so long, so there are no energy fluctuations."

Han Xiao looked at the ruins marked on the planet map and shook his head helplessly.

"It seems like we have to search all of them... Tsk, why didn't the empire record the specific process of discovering Temporal Amber? I have to find it slowly myself."

After thinking for a while, Han Xiao let the fleet wait in outer space for the time being and brought a group of Royal Guards to the planet's sky.

Looking down at the earth beneath his feet, Han Xiao waved his hand, and vast mechanical force surged out, stirring up ripples of energy. Behind him, a huge light gate suddenly opened, filled with dense mechanical soldiers, which were his portable secondary dimension barracks.

Crackle...

Countless mechanical soldiers swarmed out. You Zu and thousands of other mechanical lifeforms were at the forefront of the mechanical troops, all looking at Han Xiao.

After releasing millions of mechanical troops, Han Xiao closed the secondary dimension barracks. The mechanical legions were neatly arranged in front, covering the sky and the sun, like a military parade.

"You search the ruins. If you find anything special, report to me. Also, look for this thing." Han Xiao outlined the shape of Temporal Amber in the quantum network vision and transmitted the order to all mechanical troops through Phillip.

Whoosh—

The next moment, the mechanical legions in front of him scattered like birds and beasts, acting separately, drilling into the yellow sand and exploring the ruins.

With so many useful mechanical helpers, Han Xiao didn't want to waste his energy searching so many ruins himself.

"Master, we have discovered a special phenomenon."

Not long after, You Zu sent back good news and brought pictures.

Han Xiao glanced at it. In the picture was a huge room, like some kind of hall. The walls and pillars were covered with incomplete and mottled murals. In the center of the room was a large horizontal black disc, but the disc had integrated circuit matrix-like patterns on it, which may be a mixture of magic and technology.

And on the ground around the disc, there were many translucent circular crystal bodies, each about 1.5 meters high, wrapped with creatures of the same species, their bodies without any traces of corruption, but their expressions and movements were all frozen, without any life signals, like creatures solidified by amber.

"This phenomenon is the effect of Temporal Amber..."

Han Xiao was stunned. He had also been to Amber Star in his previous life, but at that time, there were only ruins here, and there were no creatures turned into amber specimens... These creatures should be the race of this perished civilization.

Perhaps when Ravenlaude discovered Temporal Amber, he took these specimens away as well.

But this was also good news, representing that he was not far from Temporal Amber.

Han Xiao summoned the fleet to descend. Ship after ship worked together to suck up a desert with traction beams, revealing the ruins where You Zu was located.

The group quickly descended and landed in the ruins, following You Zu's signals all the way into the center of the ruins, observing the scenery of the city as they walked.

Although the ruins had been severely eroded by the years, they could still barely restore the original appearance of this civilization when it existed.

The buildings were undulating, and the mottled patterns could still vaguely show the beauty of the past. This civilization seemed to have made great achievements in art.

"It should have been a pretty civilization when it was alive," Fording said.

"Perhaps."

Han Xiao was noncommittal and quickly arrived at the center of the ruins, which was an extremely large fortress, like a super-large safe house and shelter pieced together from countless hard materials.

You Zu's troops were in this fortress. Han Xiao and the others quickly entered the hall shown in the picture. After a rough sweep, they found that there were probably no less than 20,000 amber bodies here.

"What are these things? They look a bit like amber?" Hadaway curiously touched an amber next to him. The touch was very peculiar. He couldn't feel the temperature of the amber, but his palm couldn't penetrate it at all.

Han Xiao casually walked to an amber, gazing at the creatures inside the amber. These creatures should be carbon-based mammals, looking fluffy, their facial features a bit like sloths, about one meter tall, maintaining the expression before being frozen, their eyes wide open, their eyes full of trepidation and uneasiness.

Turning his head to look at Hela, Han Xiao pursed his lips, "Try attacking it."

Swish!

Without saying a word, Hela spewed out a death energy from her eyes, bombarding an amber.

The next moment, a strange scene occurred. Although the amber was knocked away, it was unscathed. The energy released by Hela spread out on the smooth surface of the amber, all deviating away, without any destructive power acting on the amber, as if the energy was like water droplets and the amber was like a lotus leaf, completely non-absorbent.

"Hmm?" Hela frowned, not believing it. The death energy was highly condensed, preparing to launch another fierce attack.

Seeing this, Han Xiao stopped her, "Alright, no need to try again, or this room will be destroyed by you later."

Hela had no choice but to put away her energy, wondering, "This thing can actually be immune to my attacks, including my mental damage, which failed to penetrate it."

"It's not just mental damage."

Han Xiao reached out and pressed an amber. The surging mechanical force surged out, and lightning only flowed on the surface of the amber, without any tendency for the amber to be charred.

"To be precise, this thing should be immune to all kinds of energy. It won't be destroyed. Even with brute force, it can only be knocked away and can't cause any damage to it."

Han Xiao lifted an amber with one hand, weighed it twice, found that it was not heavy, put it down, and shook his head, "Even a Super-A, or even the strongest star-destroying weapon of a cosmic civilization, can't cause damage to amber."

Hearing this, everyone was moved.

"How can there be such a strong material in the world?"

"Even a Super-A can't break it? Impossible!"

"Could it be..." Hela had a flash of inspiration, "This is another cosmic wonder."

Han Xiao touched his chin, pretending to guess, "Hmm, I guess so. It feels like the Evolutionary Cube. This is also a man-made product."

He wasn't very clear about the formation principle of this amber, but cosmic wonders, like the Evolutionary Cube, were always difficult to explain. According to the information from his previous life, this amber seemed to have changed the nature of time and space, materializing a small piece of time and space, forming an amber-like effect, wrapping the object in it.

The object wrapped by Temporal Amber was isolated from reality, as if it existed in a different space where the time scale would not move forward or backward, and the performance effect was like freezing time.

However, according to common sense, the bodies of creatures wrapped in amber in this form should not change, just like in a sleep cabin, with a long or even unlimited lifespan, and their thoughts should also be frozen... But according to the descriptions of the npCs who had fought in the previous life, they could not control their bodies when they were wrapped in Temporal Amber, and energy could not penetrate the amber from the inside, but in reality, their consciousness was active. They could even observe the changes in the outside world through vision and hearing, and could also perceive the passage of time outside, but it was like being trapped in the body. This became a paradox in common sense, which was also one of the important factors that it was regarded as a cosmic wonder.

Only individuals who were imprisoned in Temporal Amber for too long would eventually have their thinking stagnate, and finally self-erase, fall into silence, and give up thinking. The stronger the person, the longer they could persist.

So this thing could create a cage to imprison any creature, and there was no need to worry that the prisoner would escape. At the same time, it was also a torturous torture.

Even if the target was a Super-A!

The only problem was that the activation process of Temporal Amber was relatively long, and it was extremely difficult to trick a Super-A.

"If this thing falls into the hands of the enemy, it will be a great threat to me. If it falls into my hands, I can reduce a power that needs to be feared."

Various thoughts flashed through his mind. Han Xiao turned to look at the black disc in the center of the room, which was about ten meters in diameter. After observing the matrix patterns on the disc for a while, he roughly confirmed that this was an energy conduction and activation circuit.

"It seems that this thing needs energy to be activated."

Han Xiao beckoned, and You Zu obediently turned into many floating guards, shooting out beams of light and outputting energy to the disc.

Buzz—

The disc shook violently, as if some device had been turned on. The circuit lit up in the blink of an eye, and the dust on it fell.

The next moment, this disc lit up, showing its true function... it was actually a screen.

A video began to play on the screen, and a creature of this civilization appeared on the screen, slowly opening its mouth.

At this time, the translator had not yet recorded this language, and everyone could not understand what it was saying, but it did not prevent them from understanding the pictures on the video. The video flashed through scenes of this civilization before its demise, as if telling the story from the earliest history of the civilization, from primitive creatures developing, learning to use tools, gradually developing aircraft and hovercraft, and trying to build interstellar spaceships. The cities were beautiful and the people lived and worked in peace.

Unfortunately, due to the abnormal activities of stellar bodies, the living environment of the planet changed drastically. A disaster that could extinguish the planet's creatures swept the globe. In order to preserve the civilization, they used the "sacred object" to seal their people and a large number of lives, and stored all the data of the civilization in the database, and each ruin was equipped with a database to ensure that every latecomer could discover them.

The appearance of that "sacred object" was exactly the Temporal Amber in his memory. He didn't find the wrong place. Han Xiao secretly breathed a sigh of relief and continued to watch.

It took a lot of energy to use Temporal Amber, which was very difficult for a surface civilization. This civilization used the power of the entire race to charge it, almost exhausting their energy, before using Temporal Amber many times. Not only this city ruins, but each ruin also preserved many amber bodies... During the time when everyone was watching the video, the troops exploring other ruins also successively discovered more amber.

At the end of the video, the whereabouts of Temporal Amber was finally mentioned. It seemed to be stored in a large city, but this was the city scene before the civilization was destroyed. He didn't know which ruin it was now.

"Let Phillip copy their database information first. As long as we decipher the language, we will know what this video is saying in detail, and we can directly locate the ruins where Temporal Amber is located according to the map."

Han Xiao was about to act when the panel suddenly popped up with a prompt to trigger the mission:

[You have triggered the hidden mission [Traces of Existence]!]

[Mission introduction: Due to abnormal changes in the star, a world-destroying catastrophe swept the Asir civilization. Before their demise, the Asir people chose two paths at the same time. They wanted to use the sacred object to preserve a small number of their people, let them survive the disaster, and rebuild the civilization in the future, so they kept waiting for latecomers to unlock the effect of the sacred object for them. But if no one came, the Asir people were also willing to become eternal specimens, preserving all the data of the civilization to this day, leaving traces of their existence in the vast and boundless starry sky... And you are the visitor they have been waiting for for many years, but unfortunately, endless years have already chosen the final fate for them]

[Mission requirements: Use the Asir civilization's "sacred object" to remove the "sacred object" effect from all Asir people]

[Reward: 15e experience, Legend Points x1, Random Reward x1, Exploration Points +780, [Bold Explorer] Skill Fragment x1]