Chapter 1 Your Spaceship

Hao Ren had prepared a stomachful of questions, waiting for the raven to arrive so he could consult her. However, the spaceship before him was too overwhelming. In an instant, he forgot what he was supposed to do, his mind echoing only one sentence: This is your spaceship, this is your spaceship… This sentence played on repeat in his mind for at least half a minute. If Raven 12345 hadn't poked him on the forehead, it would still be looping!

"How is it? Impressive, right?" Raven 12345 patted Hao Ren's shoulder, looking nonchalant. "I spent ages picking it out for you at the spaceport. I finally settled on this model – the most popular private vessel for Inspectors. I don't know how to judge these techy things, but I heard people recommend this one…"

The massive spaceship had already landed smoothly on the beach. During its operation, it made no sound at all, and even during landing, it didn't cause the slightest breeze. This was almost unimaginable for such a huge behemoth. The spaceship's hull reflected a beautiful silver-grey metallic sheen. Brand new armor plates were painted with obscure dividing lines in blue and bright yellow. At the bow, the crystal cross emblem representing the Empire emitted a faint blue light. Beneath the larger armor plates, pulsating blue energy lines, like blood vessels, could be seen – these energy conduits looked exposed, but in reality, they were the ship's most solid components. These crystallized lines were the source of the ship's shields and extensions of the charged armor, almost indestructible.

Hao Ren didn't know much about these technical details. He couldn't even figure out where the spaceship's entrance was. He ignored Raven 12345's words. The surprise was indeed huge, so huge that it made him feel dazed. Hao Ren quickly walked up to the spaceship. The oppressive feeling from the massive hull made his breathing quicken. In fact, this spaceship was even smaller than the transport ship Number 883 he had seen before, but humans have a limit to their perception of "size." Hao Ren felt that the sizes of the two ships were not much different – both were equally shocking anyway.

Most importantly: this ship was his!

How could a small Earth man, whose most valuable means of transportation from childhood was a broken motorcycle, remain calm?

Hao Ren patted the spaceship's armor plate. The cold, hard touch seemed unbelievable to him, so he turned to look at Nangong Wuyue and Izhaks: "One of you guys give me a punch… I want to see if I'm dreaming."

The Great Demon and the siren girl immediately rolled up their sleeves and walked forward, but Hao Ren quickly shrank back: "Forget it, you'd kill me."

"How about it? This goddess did a pretty good job this time, right?" Raven 12345 had been ignored by Hao Ren for a long time, but she didn't seem angry at all. She just watched from behind with a smile and then came forward to grab Hao Ren's ears, forcing him to turn his head. "Stop being so happy, we still have serious business to do."

"Great job, really great!" Hao Ren finally calmed down and felt that Raven 12345 looked much prettier than usual now. "So, this ship is really mine? Can I go in now?"

"Of course, and you have to go in – we're taking it back this time. I also want to see how this thing works."

Hao Ren was stunned: "Wait, you don't know how to drive… then how did this ship get here?"

"Oh, the spaceship's main unit has automatic navigation," Raven 12345 didn't feel embarrassed at all. "I just had the delivery guy set up the spaceship's schedule, and then I didn't have to do anything. Even finding this beach to land on was done by the spaceship itself."

Hao Ren really wanted to ask what was up with that delivery guy. Was this how powerful the gods were on a daily basis?

"So, how do I get in?" Hao Ren searched for the entrance on the spaceship's wide lower armor plate. He found that this ship was completely different from the transport ship Number 883 he had seen before. The design style and outer shell material were obviously different, so he felt confused. Raven 12345 pointed to a certain armor plate at the bottom of the spaceship: "See there? Do you still have the spaceship key I gave you last time?"

"Uh, I have it," Hao Ren quickly reached into his pocket and carefully found the small and exquisite crystal plate from his wallet. Since getting this rare thing, he hadn't let it leave his side. "I carry it with me every day like a treasure."

"Next, watch carefully. This key only needs to be used once. After completing the activation process, it will remain in the main unit's locking slot. In the future, unless you change spaceships, it will always be with the spaceship," Raven led Hao Ren to the spaceship's entrance. "First, use it to open the entrance. Hold the key up to the position indicated by the blue light. I'll step aside to let the main unit verify your identity."

As Raven 12345 spoke, she pushed the curious Nangong Wuyue and Izhaks several meters away. Hao Ren did as he was told and raised the crystal key. Immediately, a blue beam of light shone out from a gap in the entrance. The beam of light first scanned the key and then scanned Hao Ren's entire body. The whole process lasted for a few seconds before the spaceship's entrance finally appeared: an armor plate slid open to both sides, revealing a wide door that was several meters wide. Hao Ren could see a brightly lit corridor inside.

A soft voice echoed in his mind: "Initial launcher detected for the first time. The shipboard main unit is initializing, visitor mode is deactivated, and areas C and above are now open. Please perform subsequent operations."

"That's it. Now the spaceship is initializing for the first formal start-up," Raven 12345 walked up and patted Hao Ren on the back. "Now the main unit has completed your personal registration, switching from visitor-detection mode to formal operation mode. Only then can the spaceship unlock most of the locks. Next, after inserting the key into the shipboard main unit, you can bring the weapon systems and other things online. Take your key and let's go inside and talk."

Hao Ren was about to ask what she meant by weapon systems when Raven 12345 pushed him into the spaceship. Nangong Wuyue and Izhaks also followed in one after the other. After everyone went in, the spaceship's door closed silently, as if there had never been an opening there at all.

Before them was a wide and bright corridor. Silver-white alloy walls stretched straight out in the line of sight. The flowing light on the walls indicated the direction everyone should go. Hao Ren walked cautiously in the spaceship's corridor like a country bumpkin entering the city. After walking a few steps, he found it a little funny: this was clearly his own spaceship, so why was he being so careful?

It seemed that this matter had indeed come too suddenly, making it feel unreal.

"It's so pretty in here," Nangong Wuyue was more natural than Hao Ren. She poked and touched curiously as she walked, studying everything that glowed. "It's all so shiny, it must use a lot of electricity!"

Izhaks was also very interested: "A very beautiful ship. The ship I rode when I came was similar to this one. It should be the same model, probably another Inspector's."

"This is one of the standard personal transport ships for Inspectors, with a supply rate of sixty percent. It's widely used because it's easy to use," the data terminal floated beside Hao Ren's face and said, "By the way, this unit has found the specifications for this model of spaceship. Would you like to take a look?"

Hao Ren nodded quickly: "Let me see, let me see!"

The data terminal immediately released a set of holographic projections. Hao Ren simply stopped and eagerly began to read the introduction of his new treasure:

S-X6, military/civilian special light patrol ship. Divided into two models: the military model, equipped with high-tech probes and cutting-edge weapons, is one of the Empire's basic reconnaissance ships. The civilian model, equipped with a specially adapted ecosystem and special energy core, is the standard personal transport ship for Inspectors. What you see before you is the second model. This spaceship has a long axis of five hundred and sixty-five meters and a maximum width of two hundred meters. It is equipped with complex and easy-to-use special equipment. Its civilian prototype was modified by the Imperial Military Department in 9986 of the New Empire Era and first delivered to Inspectors. It was very popular. A few years later, sixteen large military enterprises of the Pan-Galactic Civilization Community under the rule of the Empire began to produce this spaceship in large quantities. Today, this spaceship has undergone many detail adjustments. In a hundred years, it has quickly become one of the most popular personal equipment for Inspectors. As a spaceship that often has to perform missions in the mortal world, it uses safer secondary psionic energy as power, can travel across worlds, has self-defense firepower (not suitable for combat, cannot fire on the surface), comes with a perpetual ecosystem, has a space-expanded cargo hold that can accommodate several times the cargo of the ship's body, is fast, has excellent protection, and is extremely suitable for Inspectors who travel around all day.

That was the introduction to the ship.