Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1338: Visca’s "Treasures
(What to do - better keep asking for monthly tickets, the double period isn’t over yet, comrades! Check your monthly tickets at hand and smash them hard!)
The "treasure" that Visca left in this world hundreds of thousands of years ago has intrigued everyone, including herself — there’s really nothing wrong with this statement, because that girl had long forgotten what she left here.
So Visca eagerly followed everyone to the spatial anomaly point several light years away, where Little Crow and Little Baobao discovered that "treasure vault".
Behind the Imperial Admiral were two "Avalon" class large transport barges. These massive ships were equipped with expansive space extension devices and highly efficient material transporters, ideal for transporting bulk goods and quickly sending large quantities of small-volume goods back to the upper Gnaku. Additionally, their extended Gnaku came with high security levels. Within their belly holds were hundreds of isolated spatial facilities, each capable of generating a completely isolated subspace storage vault. These vaults were both warehouses and "prisons". We brought two of these ships considering Visca’s habit of randomly picking things up back in the day: what she picked could be treasures or dangerous items, and I thought the latter was more likely — that girl doesn’t seem interested in normal and safe items...
This was a vast empty cosmos area, with no space entities within several light years, not even interstellar dust belts were close by. The nearest starlight was twelve light years away, where an aging red dwarf star resided — that bit of starlight was completely invisible here. However, here was a bright vortex emitting an unstable spectrum. This vortex wasn’t an entity but a luminous phenomenon caused by spatial anomalies. It was an entrance to another space, where the energy level was higher than the outside environment. The energy difference caused energy to continuously escape to the other side of the vortex in electromagnetic radiation form, following the path of space distortion, these escaping electromagnetic waves formed a vortex with a radius of 9000 kilometers. The center of the vortex was a dark area with a radius of 1000 kilometers, emitting no light from within. This scene looked like a black hole’s concept art, but that dark region wasn’t a black hole: it was the door to the treasure vault. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮
It was after the mischievous kids duo opened the vault that this vortex formed, giving Little Baobao quite a scare at the time.
The Asida Sisters were tasked with inspecting the structure of this other space, with one inside and the other outside. Using the power of the Space Twins, they could connect the inside and outside with minimal disturbance: we had to prevent the sudden collapse of this treasure vault, given its age, the universe’s self-healing ability wouldn’t allow such other spaces to exist indefinitely.
"Space interior is secure, stability factor barely allows for operation," the Space Twins simultaneously reported over the communication link, "but it’s not advisable to open the entire space all at once, as it might cause local collapse or high-energy release, destroying the treasures inside the space."
Other spaces are things created by distorting normal space or exploiting loopholes in the World Law. Excessive use of such technology would naturally put pressure on the normal world, and when an other space is fully dismantled, it causes intense impact locally: having suppressed normal space for so long, a sudden release would make it gasp for breath, at least that’s how I understood it. The Asida Sisters worried that the impact from suddenly dismantling this space would destroy the treasure vault, and Sandora agreed, ordering the most cumbersome method: take out the contents of the treasure vault piece by piece, as we have plenty of leisure time now anyway.
A batch of engineering ships filed out from the Admiral and barges’ loading bays, flying into that dark space gate. Considering the unstable nature of other spaces, we couldn’t set up a material transfer station inside. Using gravity traction to pull things out was the safest. The treasure left by Visca hundreds of thousands of years ago was right before us, and everyone held their breath at this moment, even Visca, the owner of the treasure vault, and of course, the Heisen Tribe guarding it — Prahan was present too, his ship parked next to the Imperial Admiral, akin to a sparrow beside an eagle. Visca personally invited him to witness the vault opening, proudly referring to these Heisen people as "my vault guards," which left Prahan and his tribe deeply honored. I guessed if time allowed, Prahan would have fasted and bathed for three days before coming to this observance...
I tried to lighten the mood, patting Visca’s little head: "Look at the mess you made this universe into back in the day, holes everywhere you dug..."
Bingdisi played along: "Your brother says you were like a mouse back then, turning this universe into a Mogao Cave..."
"Mouse, eh?!" Little Crow instantly lit up and squeezed closer, drooling.
I slapped myself, internally cursing my mouth for running off. And wondering if there’s still hope for this Silly Bird’s diet!
"Look, look, something’s coming out, it’s a ship!" The little doll suddenly jumped up on the table, interrupting my diet education plan for the Silly Bird, as we saw two engineering ships quickly exiting the other space, towing a long tractor beam behind them, at the end of which was a dark and unimpressive-looking ship. The engineering ships were quite small, making the scene appear like two flies dragging a large Liberation truck. The black ship was slightly smaller than an Expedition Class, yet I couldn’t discern what kind of ship it was: despite being familiar with many Xyrin starships, Visca seemed to always produce inexplicable oddities, reminiscent of that Er Fengzi who never figured out if he was a gunship or a carrier...
"Oh, this ship knows this, it’s the prototype ship that General was developing for the new spacecraft back then!"
Speak of the devil, just as I was thinking of that Er Fengzi, the boisterous voice of that guy blared over the communication channel. Turns out she was hanging around the public link, watching our antics, lying in a cozy little asteroid belt in Shadow Space, counting meteorites crashing onto her head while watching us dig up relics. Her one sentence immediately perked everyone’s ears up, and suppressing my inner joy, I quickly asked: "Prototype ship?! What is this ship for?"
My immediate thought was that today’s surprise would indeed be delightful, and the treasure Visca carefully sealed away hundreds of thousands of years ago would surely dazzle today, maybe even giving Taville another three-day project. However, Er Fengzi’s next sentence nearly choked me to death: "For what? This ship wouldn’t know, after it was built with a bunch of spare parts left uninstalled, General decided it wasn’t even intimidating, so she abandoned it — there was an abundance of such junk ships back then, General always fancied she was an engineer, intending to design new ships, but never succeeded, we were always using blueprints stolen from the Imperial Army, at most tinkering a bit..."
At that, everyone collectively went "Oh", and I rubbed Visca’s little head, my eye twitching slightly as I watched those engineering ships transport what amounted to non-combustible garbage from the little girl years ago to the barge’s storage area. Should I harbor industrial expectations of the Destruction Army ever again, I might as well share Dingdang’s intellect!
Dragging out a scrapped ship the first time was understandable, as a keepsake left by Visca, but the second item they retrieved was rather bizarre: it was a large stone, with a radius of over ten meters, thirty experts studied that gray stone ball for ten minutes and concluded only two things: it’s solid and polished.
"That was personally crafted by General out of boredom back then," Er Fengzi continued to introduce to everyone, "General made a lot of such stone balls, at one point she was keen on doing strange tasks, throwing these stone balls across the universe, and saying that whoever could collect them all would have a wish granted..."
Qianqian immediately delighted: "Seven stone balls in total, right? And little stars inside..."
"No, a total of 97,854,322, and even General herself didn’t know where they all got tossed, so no one ever collected them all." Er Fengzi replied.
Everyone: "..."
Sandora, looking exhausted, waved her hand: "Put them in the Gnaku as souvenirs..."
Following that, the engineering ships found more inexplicable items in the vault: specimens of giant fierce beasts, solid metal spheres dozens of kilometers wide, tens of thousands of identically shaped fragments of wood, some inscrutable stone slab books (with illogical scribbles). We even found an unprecedentedly large encrypted storage box, this slightly reignited hope among a crowd growing despondent, and we opened two hundred-some successively smaller boxes inside, only to find an unknown animal’s fang in the innermost metal box. The largest item pulled out by the engineering ship was rather insane, a planet – it was so huge that the Asida Sisters had to use special powers to place it in a smaller space-time ratio, and once extracted, resize it to scale. This planetary body was rocky, distinguished by being a cube...
That’s right, it’s square, precisely proportioned with sharp edges and corners, each face polished smooth. This cubic "planet" is fixed by a set of reinforced frames to prevent natural collapse. Seeing this cube planet with edges measuring thousands of kilometers, we were all stunned. Er Fengzi proudly introduced to everyone: "This is General Star. One day, she suddenly felt that the planet beneath her should be square, so she knocked it into a cube. We dragged this planet through several worlds, later realizing we didn’t know what to do with it, so we just threw it here."
Everyone: "..."
Back then, Visca really had a temper, thinking the shape of the planet beneath her was unappealing, she actually knocked it into a cube!
Once the engineering ship reported that everything in the "Treasure Vault" had been emptied, we received a pile of indescribable junk, bizarre and varied, with the only common point being uselessness. These scraps filled the entire cargo hold of one transport barge and piled another one almost full. The square planet couldn’t fit into the cargo hold, so the Asida Sisters directly transported it to the Capital World—I reckon soon it’ll become a new tourist attraction in Shadow City.
As for all of us...at least half of us are still immersed in a dizzy state, Visca’s carefully sealed treasures were so high-energy that I had to spend several minutes reshaping my worldview. Suddenly, I thought of the silly fox dog at home, for the first time in my life feeling she’s quite well-behaved: Look, both are going out and picking up things to bury at home, yet the difference between Visca and that nine-tailed husky is like heaven and earth, I will no longer complain about the fox, at least she didn’t grind Earth into a hexagon, right?
Visca’s reaction was just like everyone else’s, she herself looked at the things she buried back then with a fresh gaze, grabbing my sleeve and shaking it with an expression of novelty. I was initially muttering about which whim made this little guy collect these scraps, but upon seeing that faintly excited expression on the other party’s face, I suddenly felt...maybe those were truly Visca’s treasures?
They were treasures from her "childhood times."
"Properly store these things, and build a special Gnaku to store them once we return," I said to Sivis, "Just treat it as Visca’s toy chest."
"Though it’s tough on these loyal guards." I saw Prahan still online on the communicator, the other party couldn’t hear our conversation here, being limited in insight, naturally didn’t know what kind of stuff we dragged out from the "Treasure Vault."
"No," Bingdisi shook her head, "The ’General’s Treasure’ at least gave this race a long-term goal and a belief that can unite the entire tribe, the key is the existence of the Treasure Vault, regardless of what’s inside, even if all the General’s Treasure Vaults are empty, it actually wouldn’t affect them at all."
Speaking of this, Bingdisi couldn’t help but glance at Visca, with an expression of awe: "Uh... Of course, come to think of it, your sister really is quite amazing, back then she was only a step away from being an artist: from a mental perspective."
Due to a variety of reasons, we found it very difficult to explain to Prahan what exactly was the deal with the General’s Treasure, so when the other party inquired about the next step, we collectively coughed for half a day, then Sandora announced that the operations in this world were concluded, the entire military was to prepare to return to the Capital World: Only then did I breathe a sigh of relief.
When about to leave, we gathered the senior leaders of the Heisen Tribe onto the Imperial Admiral to give instructions for subsequent matters, including Prahan naturally. Being able to meet face to face with the "Great General" was something extremely exciting for the Heisen people; when Visca came out, Prahan and several Heisen clan leaders were too excited to speak, constantly tidying their appearance: I quite understand this reaction, after all, it’s been hundreds of thousands of years, back then Visca’s gift of a universe to the race was a magnificent feat, with prolonged times combined with almost divine mythic transitions, the Heisen people’s feeling upon seeing Visca perhaps was akin to fanatics meeting God.
Pandora followed Visca out, her appearance causing the Heisen leaders to suddenly freeze: They hadn’t expected a second Great General to appear, as Pandora hadn’t shown herself during prior communications.
"This is my sister." Visca introduced, briefly pausing before the words "sister," her mind inserting "idiot" as she spoke, creating a deliberate rhythm, then Pandora and Visca started bickering just behind them, which we were long accustomed to, each person keeping their eyes fixed ahead, while the Heisen tribe leaders looked confused: Although Visca and Pandora were bickering, their supersonic hand knifing was already stirring up a small tornado...
"Ahem," Sandora coughed twice, and the two meter-twenty duo finally quieted down, Sandora then opened a holographic device, pointing at the place they had recently uncovered the "General’s Treasure Vault," "We will construct a World Gate nearby, a new universe will be allocated for you to reside in. This current universe is too old, no longer suitable for your development."
Prahan did not seem to think there was anything bad about the universe he was currently in, but he still expressed his gratitude excitedly: "Thank you very much, the Heisen Tribe will cherish this gift."
"You will continue to serve the Empire—I mean, serve your General, right?" I looked at Prahan.
"Of course, the Great General saved our entire race, even bestowed us a world, requiring eternal loyalty to repay." Prahan answered without hesitation, his reasons were very firm: The Heisen Tribe surviving to this day is entirely thanks to Visca’s grace (even though the girl did it unconsciously), after their old home was destroyed, every pin and thread or breath of air the Heisen Tribe has now is actually from what Visca left behind. While Heisen’s loyalty indeed has their own traditions and backbone factors as the main reason, "The Great General’s gift" is also an absolute factor.
When every breath you take comes from someone else’s gift, indeed loyalty is the only fitting return.
"That’s good," Sandora was very satisfied with Prahan’s response, "You will be integrated as a clan, your army will receive advanced treatment as the Imperial Vassal Army, after moving to your new home, the Imperial engineering team and other clans will help you establish your residence. Within the Empire, there are many clans like yours, though most do not have your long history, I think they will be very happy to gain a new family member."
I saw Prahan’s face reveal an expression of surprise and expectancy, while the clan leaders serving as background color behind him whispered among themselves, it seemed the Heisen Tribe hadn’t considered the existence of other "colleagues" before. It’s understandable, especially when their initial "guardian" was a little mad one who’s scarcely aware of her own identity; they likely hadn’t even heard of the term "Xyrin Apostle." I pondered briefly, deciding to give these folks a heads-up: "Well, then, you may encounter lots of new things, the outside world is quite complicated, likely not quite matching your expectations..."
"We have long anticipated this, ever since the day knowing of other universes’ existence, the Heisen Tribe scientists have been speculating and demonstrating the complexity of the multiverse." Prahan smiled slightly, very confidently.
I blinked, thinking, hopefully, these people won’t feel a sense of collapse about the "Great General’s" image when the time comes...
With the affairs of the Heisen Tribe settled, the fleet finally set departure from this world, returning to Shadow City. (To be continued. If you like this work, please welcome you to come to Qidian.com to cast recommendation votes, monthly votes, your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please go to m.qidian.com to read.)
