Chapter 1: We Shall See, Old Fart (1/2)

Chapter 1: We Shall See, Old Fart

Translator: OneshotwonderEditor: Tehrn

”The best and the worst made history, the ones in between made babies.”

Although it sounds like nonsense uttered by a drunk, no one could deny humankind's ability to reproduce. Entering the age of the interstellar travel, the human population had finally surpassed the bottleneck figure of three hundred billion; outpacing even the Zergs, the so-called expansionist race.

Not all of the three hundred billion were direct descendants of Earthlings. There were the Ivantians, Kaedeians, and many other mixed races that fell in-between.

The Pan solar system had continued their agenda of expanding and exploring the solar system; transforming the entire solar system into a heaven for the whole human race at large. Thanks to its unique location and a long history of continuous development, Planet Earth had always been the political center of the Pan solar system union. That being said, Earth didn’t have any advantage when it came to living conditions.

Earth's moon had been the homeland of the Ivantians. It had been baptized by bloodshed and fire, yet withstood the test of time. It eventually became a paradise, a center of culture and technology in the solar system.

Mars had also become one the most populated human inhabited worlds; human development had even reached one of Mars's moons, Ceres.

If humans were to settle on any other planet in the solar system, it would be Venus. Other planets in the solar system were not suitable for human inhabitants; it would be more efficient to build more space cities nearby rather than directly colonize those planets. Human colonization seemed to have come to a halt at this point.

However, ever since the invention of hyper-jump, humans have started to explore planets outside of the solar system. Eventually, they found what they were looking for: three inhabitable planets in the Andromeda Galaxy. They named them the Morningstar, the Hope, and the Alfa. The planetary environment on these three planets was very similar to Earth. Faced with the ever-mounting pressure of overpopulation, humans had quickly turned the three newly discovered planets into their homeland, with the help of advanced technologies.

Within the last hundred years, humans have made yet another breakthrough in space exploration. An inhabitable planet was stumbled upon by a search fleet called Norton when they approached the Centaurus Cluster. The team named the planet after their fleet, and they quickly became filthy rich, just like the ancient sailors who had discovered the “new world” on the other side of Earth. This discovery was truly miraculous.

”The flight to Norton of the Centaurus Cluster is about to take off. All passengers, please board the spaceship immediately.” The feminine voice of the space stewardess was always quick to attract young men's attention.

By the boarding gate, a crowd waved strenuously towards the spaceship. Meanwhile, on the spaceship, some people were yelling in excitement while other were quiet, but everyone's face held the same reluctant expression.

This would be the fifth group of humans to be dispatched to planet Norton.

The three planets discovered three hundred years ago at the Andromeda Galaxy had abundant materials and had undergone three hundred years of development, which helped to improve the standard of living significantly. Over the course of three hundred years, they had established systems of social welfare, free education, and impenetrable planetary defenses that were all on par with those of the planets in the solar system.

Norton, on the other hand, was yet to be tamed. The biggest hurdle in doing so was the many conflicts with the Zergs. The Zergs were extremely tough and adaptive creatures like the cockroaches living on Earth ever since the Big Bang; just like cockroaches, they were everywhere.

This group of dispatched settlers would focus its efforts on the second phase of the Norton development plan. Most people being sent there were in their thirties and forties; some were even older. Most of them had struggled to make a living on Earth, and all hoped their lives would improve after their return. In exchange, they had to endure two years of hardship on Norton.

To the people's surprise, a young boy who looked to be barely fifteen could be seen among the older crowd aboard the spaceship. The boy was looking at an old man at the departure gate, whose nose and eyes were red from crying, while the people were wondering why that old man would send his young son to a treacherous planet like Norton?

When the ship's landing apparatus rescinded, the noise from the crowd on the ground boiled over. The old man hopped up and down and tried to see his son one last time as tears poured from his reddened eyes.

Wang Tong stared at the “excited” old man; he smiled at him and slowly raised his right hand next to his face then curled his fingers into a fist, leaving only the middle finger standing. He yelled with anger, ”I'll be back for your old ass!”

The old man waved his fist in the air; he had also left his middle finger erect. His face turned into an ugly grin while the tear streaks were still visible.

The year was 2565 AD. It was the first time in Wang Tong's life that he had left home for somewhere outside of his hometown of Shangjin, yet the destination had to be the sh*tty planet of Norton. Foreseeing his shining youth to be wasted on a bleak and desolate planet, the fifteen-year-old Wang Tong felt a devastating blow.

There was an expression about traveling that people used to say: ”Travelling is a way of discovering oneself.”

”But why the f*ck does it have to be Norton? I’m only going to get lost over there.”

To make sense of what happened to Wang Tong, we have to start from the beginning.

Wang Tong was an orphan and was told that his parents were martyrs of the Confederation. He had been adopted by an old gentleman, whom Wang Tong called “Old Fart”, who said that he took him in because he was nice. But as Wang Tong grew up, he realized Old Fart simply used him to collect government cheques. Thanks to the Confederation's well-developed welfare system, Wang Tong was never abused by Old Fart, and over the years, had gained an upbeat personality and a great sense of responsibility. As he learned more about life and the history of the Confederation, he was eager to take on more in his life, and he wished to become a soldier.

Three hundred years ago, a gifted human with extraordinary abilities on the battlefield was born. His name was General Li Feng, decorated with seven stars, he was considered to be the most influential person throughout the entire history of mankind. He was the only general in history to bear seven stars on his shoulder, a sign of respect and utmost reverence between the three primary races of human: the Earthlings, the Ivantians, and the Kaedeians. He rose to power during the Earth-Kaede war, which started when the Kaedeians felt that they were being threatened in technology advancement, so they invaded Earth quickly after the latter invented the Hyper Drive. The Kaedeians were eventually defeated, and their homeland was annexed by the humans from Earth. Shortly after General Li Feng defeated the Kaedeians, he immediately led the troops into a thirty-year great war with the Zergs, a hideous alien race known for its destructive nature and quick expansions. Under the command of General Li Feng, the Confederation troops had the Zergs tasting defeat for their first time. One of the most memorable details of this war was the Blade Warrior deployed by General Li Feng. Many people in the present day thought that General Li Feng himself was the Blade Warrior, but proof has yet to be found.

As the war progressed, the Zergs started evolving on a large scale. They had begun to adapt to human's offensive and defensive capabilities. Towards the end of the war, some Zergs had developed exterior skeletons that were practically immune to energy weapons. This development had, for a time, tipped the scale for the Zergs on the battlefield, and nearly cost the human's victory when it was already at their fingertips. The situation had finally turned around when the FFC Corporation invented their newest weapon, the “METAL” suit which stood for “Mental field Enabled Tactical Assault of Liberty” suit. To put it simply, it was a wearable armor that activated and harnessed the power within the nucleus in the human genome. It was the decisive blow to the Zergs that helped the humanity to gain the final victory.

However, the Zergs had not been completely wiped out after the war, thanks to their extraordinary ability to reproduce; they had thrived again very swiftly. The four centuries of history from the great war to present day were dominated by an arms race between the humans and the Zergs; the Humans continued to improve their military technology, while the Zergs continued to mutate to their next generation.

The METAL suits had quickly replaced the power armor and became the weapon of choice against the Zergs; as they needed humans to operate, it led the Confederation to praise fertility and encourage couples to have more children.

Three building blocks made up a soldier's combat ability: The Eighth Mental Field (a.k.a. “EMF” or the “Sea of Consciousness”), the Genome Nuclear (or “GN”) force, and the METAL suit.

The Genome Nuclear force was the incredible energy stored in the strands of human DNA (the Genome), which when released, instilled the human body with superhuman strength and combat ability that surpassed the Zergs. It made an ordinary human soldier only fitted to be a Zerg's lunch into its most dreaded opponent.

The METAL suit could further maximize the GN force output while providing a decent protection against the Zergs or the environment. The current generation of METAL suit looked much different than it was a few centuries ago because of the constant updates from the FFC Corporation over the course of four centuries.

The Eighth Mantle Field was the key to activate the Genome Nuclear force. It was the deepest layer of human consciousness, and only when this layer has been fully released by an individual would he or she be able to wield the GN force. The process through which the EMF was fully released in one's current consciousness was called the ”Mind Opening Operation”. This involved a relatively straightforward procedure and the chances to successfully ”open” one's mind were also high. Only after the ”Mind Opening Operation” and with the GN force at their disposal could one stand face to face with the Zergs and win.

In a way, the GN force was a soldier's personal arsenal, and its strength was determined by the inherent traits of one's specific genes.

Some groups of people like the Ivantians modified their genes. Unfortunately, it did not affect the strength of their GN power because no modification could change the fundamental attributes of any gene; all alterations to the genes were merely superficial. In other words, birth was the only determining factor of a soldier's ultimate combat ability.

Since being born in the family of the right bloodline was evidently crucial, the status of houses with “superior” genes had been elevated to the utmost level in society.