Chapter 1 A Novel Experience

For both Katrina and Lawrence, today's meeting was a novel experience. The Siren Queen had rarely left the deep sea in her memory, let alone signed any agreements with other races, and Lawrence had been born and raised on the Ark, never having seen an alien in his life—the last time he saw Nangong Wuyue, he was quite startled. Both were rookie representatives of their respective races, and it was thanks to their strong mental fortitude that they didn't drop the ball despite it being their first time in such negotiations.

The entire negotiation process was uneventful, proceeding as smoothly as expected. The Siren Queen had already finalized many things with Hao Ren in advance, and Lawrence—he was now only seeking a temporary foothold for the Ark fleet so they could have a chance to repair the equipment on their ships. Faced with this major problem that threatened the survival of his race, he was willing to accept almost any condition.

And the Siren Queen only wanted one Ark from him, which was far better than he had imagined.

The negotiation took place in a lounge next to the bridge of the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace. As an important meeting that determined the life and death of races, the ownership of planetary leases, and top-level exchanges between two civilizations, the meeting place seemed remarkably simple. Perhaps many years later, the Sirens and Ark people would vividly describe this point in their history books: on a certain day of a certain month, two leaders shaped history in the lounge of a small spacecraft.

There were only five people participating in the negotiation. Representing the Aioi sovereignty were the Siren Queen and her two scribes. Representing the Ark civilization was only Lawrence, and Hao Ren listened to the entire process as a witness. There was also an outside observer on the scene: Little Nolan sat on the negotiating table, responsible for recording the entire meeting in detail.

In the end, the two sides finalized the planetary lease agreement. The Ark fleet gained the right to temporarily dock on the surface of Aioi at the cost of one ship, with a docking time not exceeding two hundred years. This time limit was mutually agreed upon by both parties. If the Ark fleet completed repairs before then and found a new, long-term settlement, they could leave early. And if they still couldn't find a suitable new home, the Sirens were willing to negotiate a solution with the Ark civilization, such as extending the lease term.

Katrina didn't really care how long these Ark fleets stayed on Aioi, because she and her people could never move back anyway. Aioi was idle anyway, and even if the Sirens returned to Aioi, they were a deep-sea race with little interaction with the Ark people who lived on the surface of the sea. Perhaps the two sides would only meet when launching spaceships into space. But even if the Sirens themselves didn't care about the lease term, as a formal negotiation, the two sides still set a general term of "two hundred years." However, Hao Ren and Katrina both knew that this deadline was not very meaningful.

Lawrence had no objection to the Siren's request, stating that in addition to the "Throne," the Sirens could choose any one of the remaining twelve Arks as "rent." Given that the Ark civilization itself had suffered technological collapse and lost control over the Arks, all operations in the process were fully entrusted to the third party of this negotiation, Hao Ren, for assistance.

After the two sides exchanged opinions, and the two Siren scribes handed over the written materials they had recorded to Katrina and Lawrence respectively, Little Nolan climbed off the table: "All data has been archived and recorded, uploading to the civilization supervision department in 180 secondsecondsseconds."

Hao Ren was stunned for a moment: "Why are you talking like that?"

Nolan pointed to her small body: "Activating the mounted cargo container while simultaneously controlling thirteen Arkarkarkarks, a bit laggyyyggyy..."

Hao Ren broke out in a cold sweat: "Hurry up and transport one of the ships back to the surface world, and shut down this damn giant container... I just don't understand why such a small container takes up so much memory."

Nolan: "That's a spatial containeinerineriner, and it's not compatible with this shipshipshipship, the amount of calculation is very highhighhigh..."

"Stop talking, it's tiring to listen to you," Hao Ren waved his hand immediately, then stood up and looked at Katrina and Lawrence. "So your business is settled. I will supervise as a third party. Uh, although we are all friends, I will still handle things officially and declare the following two points in accordance with the regulations: First, both parties promise to strictly abide by the contents of the agreement unless they encounter force majeure; second, if both parties need to renew, change, or terminate the agreement in advance, they must re-register with me. If either party violates the agreement, I will intervene—there are tens of thousands of armed drones that can reach Aioi within twenty-four hours, although I don't think I'll need them."

Lawrence stood up, looking solemn: "As long as I live, I will never violate the contract."

In order to save the system resources of the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace and prevent any problems when navigating the remaining twelve Arks, Hao Ren decided to let Nolan transport the giant ship that the Sirens had agreed to take back to the surface world first. The structural diagrams of the twelve Ark giant ships and the condition of each ship were sent to Katrina. These were the data that Nolan had compiled when inspecting the Arks before. Hao Ren told the Siren Queen the truth about the condition of these ships: "To be honest, these ships are basically missing parts, mainly the life support systems are seriously damaged. In the later stages, the Ark fleet relied on dismantling and repairing each other to maintain them. So if you can wait, I can piece these ships together and give you a complete one... Lawrence also means this."

"No need to be so troublesome," Katrina looked at the ship images on the holographic projection with shining eyes. The scale of each ship was larger than the Nassaton, which was an unprecedented huge wealth for the Sirens. "As long as the energy and power systems are roughly complete, whether or not the life support devices are needed is the same. To be honest, the human life support equipment is of no use to us. It's just scrap iron when we pull it back. Only the power group and the like can we study."

Hao Ren thought about it and agreed: "Then pick one."

Katrina immediately turned to discuss with the two scribes beside her, and finally pointed to one of the ships: "Let's take this one called 'Long Road'. It looks big!"

Hao Ren: "..."

Little Nolan sighed: "I feel a bit laggyyyggyy..."

Everyone waited temporarily in the drone nest, while Nolan drove the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace alone to recover the Ark chosen by the Siren Queen. Hao Ren wanted to see what the newly activated super container on his spacecraft looked like, so he asked the data terminal to give him a live broadcast of the scene from space. He saw the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace slowly flying towards the "Long Road" Ark, and then a small bright spot suddenly appeared at the front of the small spacecraft. The bright spot was like starlight, initially inconspicuous, but then it expanded rapidly, forming a bright sphere with a diameter of hundreds of meters in the blink of an eye, and continued to expand. On the surface of the bright sphere, the images of the stars in the universe could be seen projected on it in a distorted manner: the sphere turned out to be a distorted space-time continuum. Because of the spatial closure, the starlight was bent on its surface, which allowed the sphere to be observed with the naked eye.

Otherwise, it should be unobservable.

This distorted space-time continuum continued to expand, and in a short half-minute, it soared to a point where it could swallow the Ark giant ship that was more than one hundred kilometers long. The Ark slowly fell into that curved, strange mirror surface that looked like the surface of a black hole, and soon disappeared completely.

Then the spherical surface quickly shrank, returning to a certain device on the bow of the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace. Nolan's image appeared on the communication screen. This time, she simply turned into a pixelated image: "Recovery completeeteete..."

"Okay, okay, hurry up and go with the data terminal," Hao Ren said with a black line on his forehead. "I'm really tired for you."

After the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace put the Ark into the cargo container, the data terminal put the Giant Tortoise Rock Terrace into its portable space, and finally they returned to Earth through the reality wall rift of Tanagulus. It sounded a bit incredible, but for the Shilin Protoss, who had maxed out the spatial technology, this small spatial nesting technique had been outdated for many years. However, Hao Ren was still a little unhappy: "The scale of the spatial rift of Tanagulus is too small. Every time we want to transport something big out, we have to use a lot of technical means. Tsk, it's really troublesome."

Vivian couldn't help but roll her eyes when she heard his remarks: "You don't really expect a big crack in the reality wall, do you?"

Hao Ren smacked his lips: "The universe is so big, we've only explored such a small place. Maybe there's really a big crac..."

Before he could finish his words, Lily and Vivian jumped over and stuffed his mouth hard: "Shut up!"