Chapter 1

The J巨gui岩tai Rock-Table quietly rested on the surface of this primitive, desolate planet. A silent crack opened above the spaceship, and several small objects shimmering with a faint blue light flew out. Like fireflies in the night, they circled the ship twice before scattering into the dark depths of the jungle, quickly disappearing into the heavy darkness.

The images from the probes were quickly relayed to the functioning holographic device on the bridge. The images showed dense, primeval jungle, and occasional wreckage and ruins within. Nolan, now only a few inches tall to conserve main frame resources, lay next to the projector, pointing at the screen. "I suggest you take this route. It's a bit longer, but easier to traverse, and more importantly, the trees are sparse, so you can see the sky."

"Honestly, going out to scout the map at night isn't a great idea," Nangong Sanba shook his head. "Are you sure you don't want to wait until dawn?"

"Night is inconvenient for some, but completely different for others," Vivian said, arms crossed, a confident smile on her face. "My perception and combat ability are stronger at night than during the day, and Big Dog's eyesight is also better at night. So the so-called inconvenience of night operations doesn't exist for us—and right now, intelligence is the priority. The longer we stay on the ship without it, the more uncontrollable things become. The sooner we explore, the better."

Vivian, as a highly qualified dark race member (though her bloodline is now subtly difficult to define), was naturally persuasive. Nangong Sanba thought about it and stopped talking. Hao Ren specifically turned to Lily and reminded her, "Don't run too fast when you go out exploring. Even though we all have communicators, this planet is in such a strange star system. No one can say for sure what potential dangers there are. It wouldn't be good if you got lost."

Lily waved her tail nonchalantly. "Aiya, Landlord, you're so fussy! My nose is so good, how could I get lost? You need to have faith in my race..."

Hao Ren thought, it's precisely because I have faith in your race that I'm so worried—how many people don't know about huskies running wild?

"Everyone else stays on the ship," Hao Ren turned to the others on the bridge. "Old Wang and Sanba, keep an eye on things. Nolan has already urgently brought a set of spare shield generators online. This ship now has a basic shield, and with its armor, this is the most solid—and the only—forward base we have on this planet. Don't leave the ship until we get back."

"What if there's an emergency?" Little Elizabeth asked, bouncing. "Like if ferocious alien monsters want to attack the righteous airborne regiment..."

What kind of nonsense has this little girl been watching?!

Hao Ren's eyes twitched as he looked at the high-level demon in loli form. The lines coming from her mouth were insanely out of place, but thinking about Old Wang's ideal of universal harmony, he couldn't get angry. After all, it was a family tradition, so he could only nod. "Then use righteous demonic fireballs and tactical nukes to teach them a lesson... to teach the monsters. There are all kinds of weapons and equipment in Hangar Two. Autonomous machines can also be used as emergency defense robots. If you encounter something that even your dad's demonic fireballs can't handle, use those things. Anyway, they're not hard to operate. If you really can't figure it out, Nolan can take over."

"But honestly, I still hope the weapon systems can come online as soon as possible," Nolan, now a mini-AI interface, said weakly, lying on the console. "I don't ask for much, just that the two rows of rapid-fire close-in defense guns on my head can turn around. Then we shouldn't have to be afraid of anything on this planet..."

"In any case, I'm entrusting these people on the ship to you," Hao Ren nodded solemnly to Nolan. "We'll keep the communication channels open and confirm the signal every thirty minutes unless something happens. If everything goes well, we'll come back once after checking the outer areas of the ruins."

"Safe travels."

Hao Ren left the ship with three people, preparing to check the ruins northwest of the crash site. The three people with him were Vivian, Lily, and Nangong Wuyue. The first two didn't need explaining, they were both good at night operations, and Nangong Wuyue, being an elemental creature, perceived the outside world in a very different way than ordinary people. Vision only accounted for less than one percent of her perception, so she could also come along to scout.

But the main reason for bringing her was that Hao Ren believed that you had to bring a healer when exploring, even if that healer could only turn into a ball and roll around after the group was formed, at least she could add some health to the nearby area while she was rolling...

The night on this planet wasn't very cold, probably because it was close to the primeval jungle and the climate was relatively mild. The air was also slightly warm and humid. The spaceship crashed on a relatively open wasteland, next to the edge of the jungle. The low-hanging starry sky covered the fields, merging with the vague outline of the jungle in the far distance. And so, the alien landscape, the crashed spaceship, and the still-smoking impact crater combined to form a quiet and mysterious picture. Hao Ren climbed onto a nearby boulder, looked at the scene, and couldn't help but have the data terminal take a picture.

"I'll send it to the inspector platform later, 'Famous universe-renowned idiotic inspector finally capsizes on an alien planet'..."

"If you dare to send it out, I swear I'll draw Crayon Shin-chan on your shell, you believe that?" Hao Ren glanced at the terminal. "Too much nonsense."

Lily also climbed onto the stone, poking her head out next to Hao Ren, muttering as she looked, "Feels like it crashed really badly..."

The massive interstellar spaceship only underwent limited deceleration and angle adjustment during landing, so it ultimately smashed into this land. The terrain within a few kilometers around the crash site had been completely changed. A radial impact crater that was still smoking replaced the original landscape. Only a circle of outward-sloping, collapsed stalagmite-like structures remained on the edge of the crater, while the J巨gui岩tai Rock-Table quietly squatted in the center of the impact crater. Half of its hull was almost completely shattered, and the remaining half was also scarred and battered. Sparks and arcs constantly shot out from the broken wounds, leaving a pungent smell of ionized air.

But the spaceship was repairing itself, the process even visible to the naked eye: the most severely damaged armor plates were wriggling and healing, and the crystalline structure beneath the armor plates was covered by a layer of light network. Matter seemed to be generated out of thin air, constantly condensing and forming in the grids formed by the blue beams. Some parts that were too severely damaged and no longer worth repairing would fall off from time to time, replaced by newly manufactured parts.

This was a necessary function for every inspector's flagship: self-restoration. Nolan's previous statement was not an exaggeration. Any basic structure of this ship had the ability to restore the entire ship, but... it needed time.

Hao Ren knew that the internal repair process was more complicated than the external one, and in order to speed up the repair and get those critical devices online as soon as possible, he had left all the autonomous machines in his personal space and the ship's mechanical bay on board. Those little things with a bunch of mechanical tentacles should be busy traveling through the power furnace and engine at this time, salvaging the things that had been twisted and deformed by the crash.

After confirming the condition of the J巨gui岩tai Rock-Table from the outside, Hao Ren identified the direction and led the three members towards the forest.

"There are two moons in the sky?" Lily looked up at the sky, as if she had just discovered the wonder of this world. "Just like Holletta, but the smaller moon looks even smaller... I really want to howl."

"Restrain yourself in this unfamiliar place," Nangong Wuyue quickly stopped her. "It would be troublesome if a howl really brought out an alien monster."

Hao Ren also noticed the two bright moons in the sky. He saw that the larger moon was actually dimmer, with vaguely visible wood grain-like patterns on its surface, while the smaller "moon" was only the size of a soybean, but twice as bright as the larger moon, which was really strange.

Perhaps there was a layer of "shell" with extremely good reflective properties on its surface?

Vivian released her shadow bat swarm. These small bats, condensed from magical power, were equally agile and flexible in the alien night. After they entered the bushes, they seemed to disappear. Only occasionally could some shadows be seen flashing between the treetops of the forest. Hao Ren knew that these small bats hadn't flown far. They were circling and guarding within a few hundred meters of their mother, scanning the surroundings without any blind spots like countless reconnaissance drones, allowing Vivian to instantly control the complex environment of this alien jungle.

Lily didn't have blood magic as useful as Vivian, so she could only open her eyes wide. Her pair of krypton gold dog eyes shone brightly in the dark forest, allowing her to see clearly a hundred meters away. With her talented nose, her reconnaissance was also quite effective.

Although they had not yet reached the city ruins they had seen from the air, it seemed that the forest had swallowed too many ancient civilization relics. So, after walking in the forest for a while, they began to come into contact with traces of man-made objects.

The first thing they came into contact with was a collapsed metal tower—this tower-like structure, built of an unknown alloy, lay horizontally among the soil and rubble. It seemed to have been swallowed by the earth at one point and oxidized underground for many years, but later, as trees grew and vines proliferated, it was rolled out of the soil by some huge plant roots. The tower was covered with green vines and aerial roots, and moss spread along its skeleton. The decorative coatings and corroded components that had once existed on the tower had been obliterated by time, so it was difficult to directly determine its former function. It only had one function here:

To tell later comers that a civilization had once existed here.