Chapter 1 The Sulun Gate Starfield

This ancient star system, destroyed by war, was silent. The pilgrims and ancient beings who once filled the void had turned to ashes ten thousand years ago. Now, only desolate remnants drift through the vast universe. Among these lifeless ruins, a distorted spatial rift suddenly opened, and a colossal golden starship emerged from the endless darkness.

The starship was shaped like a bizarre elongated shuttle, its hull adorned with elegant curves and cage-like structures. Entirely gilded and resplendent, it was as extravagant and proud as a golden sanctuary floating in space. Its appearance in this desolate battlefield ruin was as striking as a lighthouse, its ostentatious presence completely overshadowing a silver-white spacecraft flying beside it—even though that silver-white spacecraft possessed super technology advanced by countless years compared to the golden behemoth, the difference in appearance was simply too great to ignore.

The two ships, one large and one small, disengaged from warp drive and, after a brief deceleration, hovered smoothly above Sulun Prime. The Land of the Giant Tortoise immediately began inspecting the golden ship. On the bridge of the Land of the Giant Tortoise, Hao Ren sat in the captain's chair, listening to the report. A fair-haired girl who appeared frail appeared on his holographic projection. "This is the Gold Digger-class Mothership, Padian. Self-check complete. All systems nominal. Additional control link status nominal. Spaceship handling perfect. Power core passed high-load testing, successfully transitioning to low-load state. This unit is truly amazing!"

"Alright, alright, how many times have you emphasized that on the way here? I know you're amazing—" Hao Ren waved his hand and glanced at the blonde girl in the communication screen. Without a doubt, this so-called "blonde girl" was actually the data terminal's "Corpse Princess" persona. "Speaking of which, why are you using this appearance?"

"Because this unit has now been promoted to this ship!" The data terminal was smug. "Changing my avatar is just a way to show how awesome I am."

Hao Ren: "..."

Nolan's holographic image popped up from the side. "Anyway, the good thing is that this noisy guy is finally not fighting with me for the mainframe."

Hao Ren continued: "..."

The golden warship Padian hovered in Sulun's high orbit. Then, under the control of the data terminal, its "temporary carrier mainframe," the rear half of the ship slowly opened a huge hatch. A flood of silver-white engineering machines poured out of the hangar, flying towards the vast space according to pre-set programs. At the same time, the Land of the Giant Tortoise also opened its hyperspace unloading channel, and a golden sphere with a diameter of five hundred meters floated out of the channel. A dozen autonomous machines flew around the sphere, using their gravitational tractor beams to smoothly send the sphere into orbit.

As this golden sphere was released into position, the three Guardian Giants also emerged from the hangar. They stepped directly into space without any equipment, walking as casually as they would on flat ground. Muru looked up at the magnificent "Padian," his voice coming through the communicator. "I never thought that one day we would bring this rebellious weapon into our service."

Hao Ren smiled. "Practicality first, after all. The Land of the Giant Tortoise's modification capacity is limited, and I can't completely turn it into an engineering ship. Building a new ship temporarily would be too much trouble. It just so happens we have this big guy on hand. It would be a waste not to put it to some use."

Rementusa in space nodded slightly. "It doesn't matter. The Guardians aren't such stubborn races. Besides, weapons themselves are not guilty, and being able to seize the enemy's things is a kind of glory. Although... never mind, now is not the time to say these things."

When Hao Ren decided to set up an "engine factory" at the Sulun Gate, the data terminal immediately provided a series of construction plans, including the various engineering equipment required and the estimated duration of the entire project. Considering that the parts for the Creation Engine were extraordinarily complex to build, and that Hao Ren also planned to completely recreate the production process that the Creation Goddess had set up back then—which meant that he needed to build more large factories and Death Star Forges—his Land of the Giant Tortoise's onboard processing plant was clearly not enough.

And mobilizing those drones from remote areas to come back and build a factory was obviously too troublesome.

So Hao Ren focused his attention on the golden warship that had been parked next to the Crystal Nucleus Research Station for a long time, and which hadn't been of much use so far.

The ships built by the rebellious sons were obviously primitive compared to the Land of the Giant Tortoise. However, in this universe, it was already one of the most advanced ships, at least more than enough as a simple carrier and engineering platform. Hao Ren used the equipment at the Crystal Nucleus Research Station to carry out a series of emergency modifications to the ship, filling its giant hangar with construction units and autonomous mechanical production lines, and dismantling the ship's large and useless luxury facilities: including two grand cathedrals filled with ornate sculptures and a useless banquet hall. He installed space expansion equipment in the vacant compartments, stuffing more factory modules inside.

The military flagship of the rebellious sons was forcibly transformed into an armed engineering ship by him.

The engineering robots and autonomous machines released from the Padian worked busily like a swarm of bees. Some deployed gravitational anchor points in space, leaving foundation piles for future factory facilities. Others flew further away, using the momentum of those broken celestial fragments to build assembly workshops. Still others carried huge construction units to those distant, dim stars, where they would build Death Star Forges inside the stars. Rementusa provided the blueprints for the Death Star Forges, and the construction units had already completed analysis of the blueprints. Now, they could guarantee that the first forge would be operational within a week.

The most critical components of the engine core would be formed inside those forges—although the data terminal couldn't figure out why these parts had to be manufactured inside dying stars, Hao Ren believed that it might involve causality and symbolic rituals, so he decided to follow the production process in this regard.

After all, there was only one "core ball." He couldn't leave even the slightest flaw due to greed for convenience and rushing the schedule.

While the engineering machines were busy in space, Hao Ren piloted the Land of the Giant Tortoise to the surface of Sulun Prime, accompanied by Rementusa and the other two Guardian Giants.

They landed next to a collapsed ancient temple, and all they saw was scorched earth. The temple leaned against a majestic mountain, but the mountain was now almost split in two, and fractured rocks had rolled down, burying a third of the temple under earth and stone.

Hao Ren stood on a boulder, watching a group of autonomous machines busily working in the ruins.

These autonomous machines were not the batch that had just been released, but had been working here for some time. When Hao Ren left the Sulun Gate, he had left behind some small construction units and a simple portal. Now, the construction units had become factories, and the autonomous machines produced from the factories had been exploring the secrets beneath these ruins ever since their master left, and some autonomous machines had even set off to other planets to expand their range of activity. However, Hao Ren hadn't expected that one day he would put a large-scale project here: to build the engine core, the small production line he had left here at the time was clearly not enough.

These autonomous machines, which had been busy here for some time, had now been connected to the "Pioneer Factory" that had just been deployed in space. They and their new partners in space formed a more powerful work chain, which would undertake the next stage of planetary surface construction and development: originally, Sulun Prime had no construction value, but now that Hao Ren had decided to build a series of factories in this star system, he thought it would be better to make the project even larger, like establishing countless drone nests in the universe. He decided to build a heavy fortress on this war-torn ruin of a star.

In this way, following the Crystal Nucleus Research Station, he would have a second large base in the Dream Plane.

"I will stay and oversee the construction of the Death Star Forges, and help you complete the assembly of the engine core," Rementusa said, looking at the "mechanical squids" flying around in the ruins, his voice steady and powerful. "Muru and Sif will take care of Tanagus."

"Compared to the vibrant Tanagus, this is a difficult place," Vivian said. "You can always go back and take a look when the Death Star Forges are temporarily shut down."

Rementusa shook his head slightly. "No, while I stay here, I can clean up these temples and rebuild the Mother's palaces, building them brick by brick, tile by tile. That will be enough to pass the time. I have been thinking about some things during this time, and now I have a good opportunity to calm down and think about them carefully."

Hao Ren nodded. "Well, I'll leave you a shuttle suitable for your use and a limited authorization. The factories and laboratories here will be open to you—just call me if you encounter any problems."

Just then, the data terminal's voice suddenly came into Hao Ren's mind: "Buddy! Dragon Queen Galazriel sent a message, 'The Hunters' have found the location of Yggdrasil!"