Chapter 69 The Ark Fleet's Whereabouts

Hao Ren finally found Willie and Scholar Auro in a hotel in the royal city: they were a noble bastard and a down-on-his-luck scholar from remote city-states, naturally unqualified to stay in the king's castle. Willie was startled when he saw Hao Ren and his group again, especially when he saw Vivian. The jumpy young man leaped from his chair. "The Ice Witch!"

"That's what you call me too," Vivian said with a smile. "I've scared everyone in the city."

"You are the Ice Witch," Willie said subconsciously, shrinking his neck and cautiously looking around. This was a cheap room in a hotel, with only a simple, thin wooden plank separating the room from the corridor outside. He always felt that countless people were eavesdropping on the movements here, because he knew he was talking to the Ice Witch, and perhaps the king's knights were already guarding the door. "I said it when we first met, but you didn't admit it at the time… And you didn't say there was a Fire Witch too."

Lily scratched her head, looking confused. "Actually, I just wanted to show off…"

"Are you still afraid of the Ice Witch now?" Hao Ren asked Willie with a smile. "You see, we really have the ability to plunge this world into winter—we've completely repaired the Ancestral Hearth this time, and of course, we can completely destroy it the other way around."

"I'm afraid," Willie admitted honestly. Perhaps his greatest courage was admitting he had no courage. "But I don't think the Ice Witch is a bad person. To be honest, I always thought the Ice Witch was a demon who would bring winter to the world. My grandmother said that on the first night of winter, the Ice Witch would appear from the end of the world in an icy tin chariot, blowing cold wind into the Ancestral Hearth and completely freezing the heart of the world—but you repaired it with the Ice Witch. It seems legends aren't always true."

"That's right, legends aren't always true. Humans don't possess the truth; they only possess the motivation to pursue it," Hao Ren patted Willie on the shoulder, then reached into his arms and took out a few photographs, handing them to the young man. "We're about to leave. These are gifts for you."

"This is…" Willie took the pieces of paper in confusion. He had never seen such exquisite cardboard: stiff, smooth, without mildew, and with vibrant colors, with exquisite and unbelievable pictures on it, as lifelike as magic. "What are these?"

"Beautiful, aren't they?"

"Beautiful…?" Willie's tone ended with an uncertain question. "They are beautiful, but I don't understand what they are."

"Forests, oceans, open skies, and stars," Hao Ren pointed to the pictures on the photos. "These were found in the… library left by your ancestors. I printed them out. This is what the world you once lived in looked like. I've met many people in this Ark, but you're the only one who's still interested in these things, so these are for you."

Willie quickly pushed the cards back. "I can't accept something so precious…"

"Knowing they're precious is enough," Hao Ren said with a smile, waving his hand. "I'm here to say goodbye and give you something. Now that this matter is over, we should go back. Nolan, prepare for teleportation."

Willie took a step forward subconsciously, but a white light that appeared out of thin air blocked him. Hao Ren stood behind the white light, looking at the stunned Scholar Auro beside him. "Scholar, go back and tell this child's father that it was Willie who brought the witches of frost and fire to the Ancestral Hearth. Willie's name has been engraved in the depths of the Ancestral Hearth. Even if his father is a governor for the rest of his life, his achievements won't be as great as this bastard's little toe."

Scholar Auro smiled and bowed slightly. "I will request the king to personally write a letter to inform the governor of this matter. This letter will be stamped with the royal seal and kept in the treasure house of Hearthstone Wall forever."

That old man was also sly!

The teleportation beam flashed away. The next moment, Hao Ren and the others had returned to the bridge of the Petrified Royal Turtle.

Elizabeth jumped down from her chair and happily welcomed Hao Ren, complaining about how boring it was to stand by on the ship. Nolan's holographic image floated over from not far away. "The situation of the Ark has been investigated."

Hao Ren pressed the little demon's head to quiet the girl down, then turned to look at the image above the console.

In the vast space, the Ark fleet had been completely eroded and transformed by the drone swarm. He saw the huge elliptical colony ships covered with spots of silver light. The black heavy armor at the front of the ships had been stripped off, revealing the complex and old circuit systems and mechanical structures inside. A series of control devices newly installed by the engineering drones were glittering in those ancient systems, like mercury in dark crevices. Until this moment, there were still groups of drones wandering between the Arks. Those drones were checking the control sensitivity of each Ark and the fusion state of the "penetration core" with the latter.

Although the drone swarm was Hao Ren's own force, this scene still made his scalp tingle:

It was like a group of termites were gnawing and occupying a group of slow giants.

"I've cracked the navigation system of these Arks, but I found that they don't have a clear destination at all, so I simply turned off the original navigation of the Arks and let the drone swarm completely replace the 'nerve lines' of these ships with the penetration core," Nolan said from the side. "In addition, I also did some emergency repairs to the FTL engines of several of these ships. Now they are in a state where they can accelerate at any time. You can let them go wherever you want—but it's best not to toss them around too much. These old machines can't withstand too many accelerations and decelerations."

"These ships need to be docked as soon as possible for a thorough overhaul," the data terminal added. "We've already discovered several habitable planets in the Dream Plane, partner. Where do you think it's appropriate to send them?"

As the terminal spoke, it listed all the Dream Plane ecological planets that had been registered so far. Hao Ren began to carefully select from them. He first shook his head and ruled out Tanagoth: "Tanagoth's atmosphere is toxic to the Ark residents, and the planet is currently inhabited by the Zoom, and the Tana will move back in the future… That's chaotic enough, no way."

Elizabeth shouted, "Holleta's ecological environment is good…"

"Don't be silly, that place has an owner," Hao Ren waved his hand. "It's not our territory. And to be honest, the residents in the Ark have degenerated for too long and are now savage by nature. At least for several generations, they are not suitable for contact with any alien civilization."

As he said that, he clicked his tongue with some regret. "To be honest, if it weren't for the war, there would have been many ecological planets at the Gate of Suluun. That place was the chief experimental field of the Creator Goddess. It was such a lively place back then."

"But now there's only a pile of scorched ruins left, and the atmosphere is full of poison," Nolan also said with some emotion, then her expression straightened. "If you just want to find a place to dock, then Aerym could work."

"Aerym?" Hao Ren raised an eyebrow. "There's no land there."

"These Arks don't need land," Nolan said as she switched the holographic projection above the console. "I found some interesting structures when I disassembled these ships… They seem to have been designed to land on the ocean from the very beginning. The ship's ecosystem also has a special water extraction and filtration function. When landing on planets with abundant water resources, the life support system will also recover faster."

Hao Ren immediately began to study with great interest, but now his knowledge in this area was not as good as Nolan's. After looking at it until his head was dizzy, he could only roughly see that the shells of these Arks seemed to have the ability to deform.

The designers of these ships had thought from the very beginning that their descendants would try to take root on various planets. They did their best to create a series of engineering miracles with relatively primitive technology, and now, ten thousand years later, these most basic settings are still perfectly preserved!

"But Aerym is the Siren Star," after the initial excitement passed, Hao Ren still frowned. "And even if the Ark can land on the ocean, it can't float on the sea forever—without land resources, the humans in the Ark are no different from being trapped in space."

"Let's think about that later," Lily said carelessly after hearing this, waving her hand. "The most important thing for these Arks now is to find a place to catch their breath. They can stay on Aerym for a while, and you should be able to find a new planet after all the bits and pieces are repaired. Then move them over there. If that doesn't work, go to the Siren Queen and have the people of the Ark sign an eight-hundred-year lease agreement with the Sirens. Anyway, your old business is pimping…"

Hao Ren immediately glared at the foul-mouthed husky. Lily quickly shrank her neck. "Uh, I mean real estate agent…"