Chapter 604 (1/2)

In deep space, starlight was the only companion to the boundless darkness. A bright silver arc suddenly swept across the darkness as the Petrachelys jumped in and out of the sparial rift as part of its star chart calibration sequence.

The Petrachelys followed a general direction while it headed towards Io, using warp jumps and regular flight alternately. Soon after the voyage neared its end. The spacecraft’s navigation system had recalibrated the star lens two days ago and entered the star chart from Nasaton into its navigation program. After some comparisons, the ship’s host found a star region where the siren’s home planet was probably located. The spacecraft was now heading in that direction.

Since the siren’s star chart was not accurate, and the drift of celestial bodies over 10,000 years had seriously affected the reliability of teleportation, the spacecraft would not be able to reach the coordinates directly. For safety reasons and in order to collect as much information as possible of the universe, the Navigation Assistant recommended that the spacecraft performed a series of warp jumps and subluminal flight alternately. Although it would probably take a slightly longer time, the delay caused no harm.

The spacecraft was now flying in a monotonous and boring region of the universe. It was cold, and empty with some extremely thin but radioactive clouds. Apart from the far-away starlight and a bright, star-forming nebula, there was nothing else. Hao Ren sat in his captain’s seat, staring at some documents in boredom, while enduring Lily’s occasional crazy howls.

He was not the rookie who first came into contact with the sea of stars a year ago; the scenery of starlight no longer attracted his interest. Of course, the sight of the universe was still as spectacular as ever, but he had something more important to do.

He was studying the data extracted from the computer in Nasaton.

“Io… the planet of water. Ocean covers one hundred-percent of your home planet, where huge ice floes and storm clouds formed in an annually cycle. The ecosystems started out in the deep sea. Only until your ancestors built an outpost on the first ice floe that you all knew the concept of ‘atmosphere’,” Hao Ren said while holding the MDT and looking at the siren queen. “Such is the fun of exploration—the universe is so big place that you will always find some strange places out there.”

The siren queen looked at the star chart on the navigation computer screen, feeling very incredible. “I can’t believe it. I’m here at this moment. I lived with my people in the deep sea for ten thousand years. We thought that living in the deep sea is the nature of the sirens, but our ancestors had studied the secrets of the stars. Do you often do this kind of travel?”

“Almost. We are experts,” Lily said, leaning on the seat back and wagging her tail. “Have you ever heard of space dog? Let me tell ya…”

Hao Ren knew that the husky was going to spew nonsense. He tucked the MDT back into his pocket and headed to the door. “I’m going to the lab.”

Nangong Wuyue had curled up in a ball with Shaqira and Sorma resting on the flight deck. She suddenly opened his eyes and pulled herself out. “Wait, I’m going with you. It’s boring here.”

Hao Ren looked stupefyingly at the snake-maiden who crawled and rollied up before him. He then glanced at Shaqira and Sorma, who were curling into new ball. “It’s really hard to understand the culture of the sirens…”

“It’s the symbol of friendship!” Nangong Wuyue shook the tip of her tail in the air like a rattlesnake. “I just learned from them!”

After Hao Ren and Nangong Wuyue left the flight deck, Shaqira and Sorma looked at each other and said, “She still needs to familiarize with this way of resting.””Yeah, she’s too loose and will fall out after asleep.””No, I mean she had just tied me up with her.” “Oh, that was me. I was having a nightmare.”

Nangong Sanba was holding a magazine pretending to be reading. He suddenly put the book on his face and said, “The world is just too amazing…”

Hao Ren brought Wuyue leaving the flight deck and went to the laboratory through the central isle. Various equipment and platforms used in the First Born research used to occupy the laboratory, but now the research project had been transferred to the CARS, the laboratory became empty now. There were only two remaining projects running here: one was the Vengeful-Spirit Scanner’ that had yet completed the decoding process, and the other was a large restraint instrument, which was brand new, in the center of the laboratory.

“Looks like it’s still trying to study the memory code of the vengeful spirit,” said Hao Ren as he and Wuyue walked past a set of scanner. He saw the instrument flashing with a regular glimmer. The glow in the groove in the center of the instrument had not changed compared with last time. “I hope this gadget could quickly come out with result.”