Chapter 138 The Interior of the Starship

The spaceship traveled silently through the eerie and mysterious clouds.

Just as Asu Man had said, the intrusion of the "visitors" had partially awakened this ancient Star Citizen who had been dormant for thousands, or even ten thousand years. Although the latter's main consciousness still showed no signs of awakening, the reshaping of local information was still constantly occurring. On the screens transmitting images from the external monitors, the faintly glowing clouds rolled and swirled continuously. In the clouds, incredible things would occasionally appear, sometimes an arc of a vault, sometimes a cluster of crystals, but more often, just unrecognizable crystal cross-sections.

These crystal cross-sections were not the actual forms of any part of the "Star Citizen spaceship," but projections produced in certain special dimensions. The partial awakening allowed these "silhouettes," which should not have appeared in three-dimensional space, to emerge, forming all sorts of bizarre scenes.

"We need to go to the very center of the cloud," the Asu Man crystal floated next to Hao Ren, speaking calmly. "There, some key structures might materialize, and there might even be a chance to awaken this ancient warrior."

Vivian glanced at the crystal. "Sounds like you're not sure either?"

"I'm sorry, but that's the case," Asu Man said frankly. "I've never seen a Star Citizen spaceship of this structure. It must have been created after I entered the Korolov World. This spaceship uses an architecture never seen in the Ancient Era… But according to experience, the core area of the cloud is always where the Mind Crystal is located. It's always right to head in that direction."

"Hopefully, your judgment is accurate." Hao Ren nodded, then ordered Nolan to speed up slightly and fly towards the center of the cloud.

The crystal structures that constantly emerged from the light and clouds were left behind by Nolan. After confirming that they were just fragile "fakes," and that even if they were shattered, there would be no impact, the Ship Maiden's courage clearly grew. She no longer dodged anything that suddenly appeared in front of her, flying almost in a straight line to her destination.

The Turtle Rock was only a few hundred meters long, while the entire glowing cloud cluster spanned thousands of kilometers. The former traveling within the latter was as insignificant as a small insect. Hao Ren could even imagine that the "Star Citizen spaceship" he was on had corridors and cabins hundreds of meters wide, and his inspector's flagship was flying between these magnificent corridors—except that all the corridors and cabins were now hidden in mist and light.

Although it was difficult to distinguish front, back, left, and right in the light-mist, and there was no sense of direction, the data transmitted by the probes indicated that the Turtle Rock had gradually reached the central area of this energy structure.

The things emerging from the surrounding light-mist also changed somewhat, seemingly indicating that they were very close to a special place.

The fractured crystal clusters and discontinuous crystal cross-sections were no longer visible at all. Instead, there were increasingly complete and clear crystal structures. Sometimes, there were even crystal corridors hundreds of meters long and vast, magnificent domes. Although their edges still showed jagged cross-sections, these emerging structures were undoubtedly far larger and more complete than the "fragments" on the periphery.

"A more complete mapping. It seems that the core area really stores more important and stable information," a voice lacking emotional fluctuations came from the Asu Man crystal. "But I still don't sense the main consciousness of this compatriot… I can't even feel a trace of life. This is too strange."

"So it's really not that he slept to death…" Hao Ren was pinched by Vivian halfway through his sentence, and he quickly stopped his uncontrollable mouth. "Cough, cough, I mean, is this dormant spaceship really still 'alive'?"

"It must still be alive. The scenes of partial awakening we saw along the way are proof," Asu Man replied immediately. "It's just… I don't know why, a large amount of energy from this starship has disappeared. Even the mental energy originally used to maintain stability in the core area has vanished, as if it was drawn and transported to a bottomless abyss."

"Energy lost?" Vivian's expression turned serious. "That's not a good sign… If these Star Citizen spaceships are guardians left by the Goddess of Creation, then their energy loss is definitely bad news."

Hao Ren comforted Vivian. "At least the divine power blockade in the X-Cluster is still working. That shows that the entire defense system hasn't completely gone offline. No matter what's locked in here or protected, it should still be safe."

As they spoke, the Turtle Rock's speed had gradually slowed down. More crystal structures emerged from the light-mist outside the spaceship. These tangible "fakes" were so complete and real that even the ubiquitous light-mist seemed to have retreated for the most part.

Nolan decelerated to zero in front of a magnificent crystal barrier. "Boss, we can't go any further. Do you want to open a passage?"

As she spoke, the two secondary cannons at the front of the Turtle Rock had already poked out from under the armor plates, aiming at the seemingly thick crystal barrier in front.

"You'll directly blast through this place," Hao Ren immediately stopped the Ship Maiden, then exchanged a glance with Vivian. "Looks like we have to go down."

"I'll go with you," the Asu Man crystal also floated up. "I'm more familiar with the operating mechanisms of Star Citizen spaceships than you are."

The ring on the Asu Man crystal was to facilitate its movement, so Hao Ren nodded in agreement. Then he beckoned to the platform next to him. Dou Dou, who was holding a few Lego bricks and putting them together, immediately threw away the toys and jumped into her father's arms with practiced ease.

Two people, a fish, and a crystal prism with a ring around it, such a strange combination left the Turtle Rock and entered the bizarre space filled with faint light.

There was no gravity and no air, but there was a faint, omnipresent light that enveloped the entire space. The benefit of this was that they could see the surroundings clearly without any lighting equipment. Hao Ren came to the crystal barrier that stretched into the depths of the light-mist, reached out, gently touched it, and felt its texture: This was the first time he had actually touched these crystal structures emerging from the light-mist with his own hands, and the feedback confirmed the entity’s essential nature.

It was a very hard material. Although the spaceship could easily turn it into dust when it crashed into it, Hao Ren confirmed through his sense of touch that it should be about as solid as granite—but compared to the real starship structure, even something as solid as granite could only be described as fragile.

This was a "fake" condensed by partial awakening. If it were the actual material of the Star Citizen spaceship's cabin, its hardness should be stronger than diamond.

Vivian raised her head. She saw many straight and wide lines on the upper part of the crystal barrier. The lines made the entire barrier look as if it was pieced together from countless crystal plates. She guessed that those lines should be structures used to transmit energy. Under normal circumstances, they should have light flowing through them, but now everything here was just a mapped "fake," so there was no light on the crystal wall. It looked like a dead object.

At Asu Man's reminder, Hao Ren and Vivian quickly found the entrance to the deeper space.

The entrance was at the bottom of the crystal barrier, a triangular door leading to a corridor more than ten meters long: This corridor showed the amazing thickness of the entire crystal barrier.

With such a thick barrier, the place inside was undoubtedly extremely important.

After passing through the passage, Hao Ren saw a space that could be described as "vast."

It was a pyramid-shaped hall—the structure of this pyramid hall was consistent with most of the cabins in the Asu Man spaceship. It seemed that this was the Star Citizens' "architectural style"—the hall was filled with light dust, and the space was vast, so the entire hall seemed to be shrouded in mist. Even the floor of the hall showed a scene of light clouds rolling, and in the rolling light clouds, various crystal structures and incomprehensible equipment were looming, some of which did not seem to have a fixed shape.

It seemed that even in the core area, "partial awakening" was limited. According to Hao Ren's visual estimate, only about seventy percent of the structures in the hall were in a solid state, and the rest were still shrouded in light-mist.

Such an incomplete place, materialized from illusions, was of course impossible to operate.

Everything here was in a static, dead state, like a group of stone statues.

Dou Dou poked her head out of Hao Ren's arms. The lack of gravity made the little guy feel a little uncomfortable, and the lifeless atmosphere here made her even less like it. The fish baby arched gently twice and muttered, "Deathly still."

The little guy also had her own life-support collar, which was a model modified by Nolan in the laboratory. With the power of the life-support collar, the little guy could actually move independently here, but Hao Ren didn't let her run around.

Hao Ren touched the little guy's head. "According to Asu Man, we're actually moving inside a huge living creature."

They came to the center of this vast hall, where there was a huge crystal cluster structure—in shape, it was quite similar to the "Mind Crystal" where Asu Man's body was originally located, except that there was no shimmering light inside the crystal.

The Asu Man crystal floated silently to the side of the crystal cluster. "This is the center of the entire spaceship. If we can really establish contact with this dormant compatriot, it can only be in this place."

"But there are no signs of life here," Vivian frowned, gently knocking on the lifeless crystal. "Can the terminal analyze anything?"

The data terminal had been floating next to Hao Ren. Hearing this, it flew forward and circled the large crystal twice. The conclusion made it quite frustrated. "I can't read anything. This thing is just a 'projection' with an empty shell. It just has more of a realistic feel than an ordinary projection, but the real structure of this hall should still be hidden in those mists."

Hao Ren searched the hall again, unwilling to give up, and tried to stimulate the things in the hall in various ways, but the result was still fruitless.

He began to wonder if he had to blow this place up to wake up this Star Citizen who seemed to have slept to death (he just couldn't forget this idea)?

And in his arms, Dou Dou poked her head out again, looking around curiously.

The little one thought hard, and a thought seemed to pop into her head. Then she stretched out her hand towards the central crystal cluster not far away and said, "Ya!"

The little mermaid's figure disappeared instantly. Using the talent ability of the hunter fish, she teleported directly onto the crystal.