Chapter 967: Landing

Abo couldn't understand why, at this critical moment, Limitless Control Group decided to send him, their only experimental prototype, along with its inventor, to this remote star system.

This would definitely disrupt the carefully formulated experimental and production plans, causing disastrous consequences for the research, possibly even delaying it by hundreds, or perhaps thousands of years before this epoch-making invention could finally see the light of day.

Limitless Control Group absolutely could not be unaware of this.

It was because of this that the more Abo thought about it, the more something felt off; the possibilities he had considered earlier now seemed increasingly unreasonable.

The Group even instructed him to bring the entire city, which also meant that his Family, his factory, and even his wife and the newly hatched egg, still incubating, would accompany him here.

Although traveling everywhere was normal for the Limitless, and no one found it strange, they inherently traveled with their homes.

Therefore, he became even more convinced that this was a much larger game than his invention, or even Limitless Control Group itself.

It might truly involve the entire civilization.

Suddenly, at this moment, a voice from outside interrupted his thoughts.

“Abo, may I come in?”

It was a female voice.

Clearly, his wife had arrived.

Abo’s wife, Leileidi, was an engineer and Abo’s capable assistant.

She was not only very skillful, able to complete various experiments, but also helped Abo organize his thoughts.

Abo's thoughts were relatively chaotic; he was always bursting with inspiration, passionately throwing himself into research, coming up with a myriad of wild ideas, but few of them were actually usable.

Leileidi, on the other hand, was particularly adept at picking out the most valuable applications from Abo's vast and chaotic raw ideas, allowing them to be developed.

Many of the pioneering and improved products that passed testing and eventually reached the market were created by this excellent duo; the couple could easily cooperate, and with the support of their team, they were the Group's chief technical experts.

Like Abo, Leileidi was also several thousand years old. Through prosthetic transplantation and biological modification, they had transcended natural death. They had spent their irrational and impetuous youth during their long lives, and at the same time, safely avoided various thought traps. They were already mature long-livers, who would not easily fall into doubt about the world. They had their own understanding of the world, which could support them in completing various tasks.

In their careers, both were equally passionate about their work, like Boya and Ziqi. Outside of work, they had a very good personal relationship and shared interests, but they were not overly indulgent.

Overall, they were an excellent partnership, and others greatly envied them.

“How is the child?” Leileidi walked in, wearing a white dress; she always liked white, even dyeing her hair white.

Hearing her question, Abo finally realized that he had been engrossed in contemplating the Group's purpose for too long and had forgotten the egg he was supposed to be watching.

Evidently, Leileidi had also noticed this.

She sighed; whenever he had something to do, he always became like this.

“Even if you can’t figure it out, you can’t just leave the child unattended, can you?” She walked over. The egg in the incubator was well cared for by the artificial intelligence, but she didn’t quite trust artificial intelligence, so she still needed someone to watch over it.

“Sorry.” Abo immediately got up and began checking the incubator’s work log to ensure the egg was at least fine.

“Alright, busy man, you go think about things. Leave the rest to me. Oh, by the way, have you found the answer?” Leileidi asked.

“Why does the Group want us to come here, and even bring the entire ‘Leiding City’?” she added.

One must know that Leiding City was a full nine hundred miles long, an industrial city. Most of the airship’s interior was filled with workers, with a smaller portion being technicians like themselves.

Technicians and workers constituted the vast majority of Leiding City’s composition. This airship even lacked self-sufficiency, heavily relying on other ships of the civilization to transport industrial Materials and food to sustain the production and lives of the workers and technicians here.

However, the industrial products produced here could also be transported to other parts of the fleet, which was a division of labor.

Now, to have Leiding City alone stock up on supplies and then travel to the North Pole of a planet in this inexplicable primordial star system, still in the Hadean Eon…

It was truly inexplicable.

So, faced with this question, Abo shook his head, lit something similar to a ‘cigarette,’ and said, “I can’t figure it out.”

Smoke sticks were a healthy food for them; the smoke produced after lighting was a slightly concentrated, but body-friendly food. They inherently enjoyed consuming air, and flavored air was especially popular.

Based on the taste of the smoke, various preferences also emerged, with people enjoying different flavors of smoke, so different smoke sticks received different treatment among different groups.

Abo liked this smoke stick with a slight herbal fragrance.

Workers, however, preferred smoke sticks with tar and strong spices, though it really depended on taste.

Leileidi, on the other hand, particularly enjoyed spicy flavors, the kind that made people cough just by smelling them, essentially a whole stick of sulfides, which Abo could never get used to.

For a couple who always got along, this was probably their only disagreement.

Leileidi then speculated, “I’m thinking… could it be that the Group found a new patron, like a very wealthy Shipowner or something, and wants us to go show them? Like holding an exhibition?”

The Limitless civilization's general system is centered around ‘Shipowners’. For example, Abo is the ‘Shipowner’ of Leiding City. Theoretically, the entire ship is his private property, and the workers and other technicians are his exclusive ‘contract laborers’.

Similarly, he also signed a contract with Limitless Control Group. Under the terms of the contract, as an employee of the Group, the control of this ship is temporarily with the Group; it is personally leased by him for the Group's use. In return, the Group will provide sufficient funding for his research and be responsible for maintaining the ship.

And the Group is the same; above the Group are the Shipowners of those large fleets, who are the true helmsmen of the civilization.

Individual Shipowners, individual Groups, and the system of contract labor form the main theme of the Limitless civilization. They are a civilization built on ‘contracts’, with an extraordinary emphasis on order and contracts.

Abo heard Leileidi's guess, shook his head, and said, “No, the Group wouldn't disrupt our production plan for something like that. No matter what, doing so would be a loss.”

“Even if they wanted to hold an exhibition, they should invite the patrons to Leiding City, to visit our laboratory, instead of going to such trouble to move the people and equipment of Leiding City over there. You’ve already seen how much trouble that is.”

“Hmm… In that case, it’s also impossible for them to send us to train others,” Leileidi said.

“Exactly, same reason. If they want to train or hold a conference, it’s more convenient for them to come directly to Leiding City. There’s no need for us to travel five hundred light-years to this place.”

“Then—” Leileidi spoke again, voicing a terrifying conjecture: “Could it be a takeover? This project involves matters too significant, and the Group doesn’t want us to claim too much, wanting the Shipowners to take over? So they’re having us move Leiding City there, then giving us a new ship as compensation, with all equipment and personnel going to the Shipowners.”

This conjecture made Abo ponder for a moment.

Evidently, this was a very plausible reason.

But after a moment of thought, Abo took a deep breath of the surrounding smoke: “I don’t think so. The Group still respects you and me very much. Such a treacherous move could easily lose our loyalty. You know our contract only has two hundred years left; at worst, we just won’t sign with the Group afterward.”

“The Group knows that even if we joined other groups, we would absolutely be capable of carrying out this project. And this kind of behavior is too underhanded; the Shipowners would be ridiculed for doing so.” At this point, Abo paused, exhaling a puff of smoke.

“In any case, I think there’s a very big game behind this. If I had to guess, even the Group isn’t entirely clear what’s going on, so let’s not think too much about it.”

Leileidi rolled her eyes: “You say not to think too much, but aren’t you the one thinking too much?”

“Haha, you’re right. Let’s check on our child instead.” He said with a smile, looking at the egg.

According to calculations, the due date was in two days, approximately twenty ‘shichen’ later.

The ‘shichen’ unit of time was something they learned from a very terrifying higher civilization; it wasn't necessarily easy to use, but primarily, many civilizations in the Universe commonly used this unit of time.

Since that was the case, they could only follow suit.

Many civilizations they encountered would come across this mysterious ‘shichen’ unit of time, as well as a language called ‘elegant speech,’ which many low-level civilizations confined to their own planets did not know the origin of.

But the Limitless civilization knew that this pointed to two particularly terrifying civilizations, named ‘Human’ and ‘Shaman’ respectively, who shared this language called elegant speech.

These two civilizations waged war across the Universe, their battlefields spanning infinite worlds, transcending the known Observable Universe.

The Limitless civilization learned elegant speech from a super civilization capable of transcending the Observable Universe's barrier and traveling to the multiverse, and that super civilization… was a subordinate of the ‘Shaman’ civilization.

According to that super civilization, they were able to participate in that war, which was why they could progress so quickly, but there, civilizations like theirs were countless, and they had to be careful to progress, otherwise they would face annihilation.

When he first learned of this, Abo was speechless with astonishment.

He truly struggled to imagine it.

Because this super civilization could move at superluminal speeds and flatten a globular cluster. Their ultimate weapon had the destructive power to annihilate one hundred thousand light-years in an instant.

Yet, a civilization of this level could only exist as ‘soldiers’ on the battlefield.

What on earth must that battlefield be like?

Thinking this, Abo couldn't help but feel both reverence and fear.

It was precisely for this reason that he ultimately chose to use the unit of ‘shichen’.

Twenty shichen passed quickly.

With current technological levels, their artificial intelligence would essentially not miscalculate; the child would be born precisely at that time.

So they waited quietly.

The spaceship continued to advance, quickly speeding tens of thousands of miles away.

Beneath this black firmament adorned with myriad stars, the communication satellites deployed by ‘Leiding City’ were silently observing the Lower Realm.

Its all-seeing mechanical eye coldly tracked all topographical data on the surface of this colorful, spherical planet.

This data flowed in and out of its antenna uninterruptedly, and within these data streams, all the topographical maps that had swept across this planet were recorded, documenting this land still in the Hadean Eon. This was also the first time this land was ‘remembered’ by anyone.

The land was full of lava rivers, constantly erupting toxic gases and thick smoke.

Earthquakes continued incessantly, and the rumbling geological activity would persist for hundreds of millions of years before gradually subsiding. At that time, perhaps oceans would appear on this planet, but according to atmospheric composition analysis, the oceans here would be liquid methane, not water.

If life could emerge here, it would surely be another kind of wonder.

Soon, the satellite released by Leiding City identified a call from another ship’s main computer, requesting the current detailed location of Leiding City, as they were preparing to receive its landing.

Leiding City, as usual, transmitted its location information and then received the landing coordinates.

This nine-hundred-mile-long spaceship effortlessly maneuvered over the planet. The immense power from its engines was sufficient to counteract the planet’s gravity, and its own Materials and structural strength were enough to withstand its own weight within the atmosphere.

This was an incredibly powerful ship; if it were to be graded, it would be at least a sixth-grade. In other words, this ship could even destroy the newly formed star in the distance.

The North Pole was reached quickly.

Here, the surface lava lake had been leveled, and the surrounding area transformed into a flat plain.

It truly was… a flat plain.

An area of about ten thousand square miles, the surface was as flat as a basketball court, with height differences not exceeding one meter.

The Limitless civilization’s planetary transformation technology was clearly excellent. The temperature here was also lower, with the surface temperature only at two hundred degrees, a level at which ordinary individuals of the Limitless could easily survive.

Though it wasn’t exactly comfortable.

The atmosphere was full of methane and various sulfides, but it didn't matter; they could breathe all types of atmosphere. In fact… the Limitless could survive unprotected in environments ranging from negative one hundred sixty degrees to positive fifteen hundred degrees Celsius, and could live by eating rocks.

This was the result of biological modification.

Now, Leiding City landed in this area, carrying a thick veil of mystery.