The Fourth Round is the Earth’s core.
Far off on the horizon, a beam of light shot up—that was the iron sphere formed by the collision and fusion of all the Fourth Round satellites.
After that, no more satellites were launched.
The planetary engine of the White Space began to activate, and the entire White Space moved at high speed.
Then, aiming at the iron sphere, it began to pour a vast sea of soil and minerals onto it.
The Poet wrote on paper:
[That day, we piloted the Moon, sailing homeward.]
……
All day long, everyone looked up.
The unlucky Raiders stuck on the “far side of the Moon” couldn’t witness this spectacular forging scene firsthand; they had no choice but to watch the live broadcast.
Forging a planet.
This was the greatest project in human history, bar none.
Driven by the planetary engine, the White Space orbited around the iron sphere.
Massive clumps of soil were poured onto the iron sphere, sticking together.
The iron sphere grew bigger and bigger, ever larger.
However, just as everyone was getting fired up, eagerly waiting for the familiar Blue Star to return to their view, the spray of soil suddenly stopped.
“No more Points.” Miss Nuo spread her hands.
“Just the Strategy Points from the Mangu District aren’t enough. And the other regions are basically paupers. Even if you add them together, they probably still have less Points than our last Mangu District mission.”
At this moment, a yellow sphere the same size as the White Space appeared before them.
Miss Nuo manipulated the control panel, pausing the White Space just outside the sphere’s Roche Limit, letting the autopilot keep the newly born Earth at a safe distance.
The reconstruction work was temporarily halted.
The whole world had been watching, their blood boiling, and now that the work had suddenly stopped, it was hard not to feel a surge of resentment.
“That’s it for today,” Miss Nuo spread her hands, “I still need to save some Points for the next mission. Once that’s done, we should be able to go home.”
“Next mission? Preparation?”
Everyone was a little confused; after all, they’d already prepared for missions before, and the last mission had hardly used up any resources.
“When we were trapped on the Crystal Warship last time, I studied the warship’s framework closely—especially the most crucial part: that Teleportation Engine.”
“Afterwards, when we escaped, I made off with some of the engine’s power units.”
“—Superlithium, a mineral you can’t find on Earth, but it’s everywhere in Nerrifa. It’s an essential material for Teleportation Arrays and Teleportation Sequences.”
“The really interesting part came after.”
Miss Nuo grew increasingly excited, walking up to the bulletin board, her fingers tapping rapidly.
“Clack—” a few silver stones fell to the floor.
“See this? Superlithium! When I brought this stuff back to the White Space, it showed up in the exchange list!”
“We can redeem it now!”
“Oh, and then?”
Seeing the Mangu Raiders’ utterly baffled faces, Miss Nuo stomped her foot in frustration.
“Warp Engine! You idiots, a faster-than-light Warp Engine! With that, we can travel freely to Nerrifa! We can transport all our large-scale tech equipment there!”
“A Super Battleship equipped with an Electromagnetic Railgun, or just regular nuclear weapons… If we can successfully bring those over to Nerrifa with a Warp Engine, do we even have to worry about failing a Strategy Guide mission? You blockheads!”
……
Everyone was so stunned their mouths went dry.
“So… that’s still a long way off, right?” Ah Lei asked tentatively.
“Long my ass! What do you think I’ve been doing all this time? Stellar Modeling is never the hard part; the only difficulties are Warp Technology, and Particle Stabilization during faster-than-light travel.
In other words—all preparations are complete, we just needed Superlithium.
Now we have Superlithium, we have all the prerequisites for a Warp Engine. At any time, we can enter warp and show up in Nerrifa!”
Nest.
Wu Xiaomi’s eyes were spinning in circles as she listened.
“Watch! All of you, out of my way!”
Miss Nuo’s fingers tapped at the air again.
This time it was more complex; she spent quite a while inputting the modeling, carefully comparing materials and data.
“Alright, witness a miracle!”
“Bang—”
The sky suddenly went pitch black.
Looking closely, it wasn’t nightfall at all.
A steel construct the size of a city was pressing down over the Mangu District.
It was not relying on any jet engines or support pillars to keep itself aloft; it simply floated there, solemn and steady, in midair.
“This is the Peace, built especially for warp travel. It has twenty-five nuclear missile silos and two Electromagnetic Railguns, three God’s Rod orbital kinetic weapon systems, and two hundred conventional cruise missile launch tubes.”
“The entire ship can accommodate three thousand Crew working together. The hull is designed for warp travel, made from special Nerrifa materials, so it won’t get torn apart during warp.”
Miss Nuo made a gesture.
“Click—”
A straight elevator shaft dropped down from the sky.
The elevator stopped in front of everyone.
“Now, who wants to come with me—to be humanity’s first pioneers in interstellar travel?”
“Me, me, me!!!”
Wu Xiaomi shot up her hand, jumping again and again.
Because she wasn’t tall enough, she bobbed left and right trying to get Miss Nuo’s attention.
Of course… she didn’t really need to—Miss Nuo had already noticed her.
“Relax, there are three thousand slots.” Miss Nuo laughed, ruffling the girl’s hair.
A tidal wave of cheers erupted all around.
Just then, Ah Lei suddenly spoke:
“This is a prototype, isn’t it? It’s full of tech humans have never touched before… Can you guarantee everything will run safely?”
Miss Nuo sneered, “Of course… not.”
Silence fell.
“Relax, I’ve done the math. As long as there’s no problem in the nuclear warhead storage or the Antimatter Superlithium Engine Room, the Peace won’t crash…”
“What’s the crash rate before we reach Nerrifa?” Ah Lei asked again.
“According to the last calculation, Nerrifa is in the Andromeda Constellation, Witch-Head Nebula, at the edge of the Great Void, about seven hundred light-years from here,” Miss Nuo said.
“For a seven-hundred-light-year flight, the conservative crash rate is about 62 percent.”
“…..”
Crash—
Everyone stepped back in perfect unison.
A question mark popped up above Miss Nuo’s head: “It’s only 62 percent, that’s still a 38 percent chance of success, right?”
At her words, everyone took another step back.
Those in the back row were already crouching, trying to sneak away.
Afraid of being drafted.
“Hey! Even if we crash, you’d have the honor of being the first humans to break out of the solar system and see the dreamy, mysterious beauty deep in the universe… Aren’t you curious at all?”
“No, not at all.”
Everyone retreated another step.
By the way, yesterday’s cream bread was really delicious. I wonder if I’ll still be able to eat it once we’re on the starship…
Wu Xiaomi was already daydreaming, savoring the memory.
Noticing how quiet things were, she snapped back to herself and looked around.
(°Д°≡°Д°)?
“Where did everyone go?!”
How was it just her and Bai Xiaozhi standing right up front?
Before she could react, Miss Nuo was already affectionately ruffling the girl’s hair.
“Look! Just look at Wu Xiaomi! Look at that resolve!”