Chapter 1013: Chapter 1013: The Letter
"I have told you everything I know."
The Great Clan Leader leaned back in his chair. Having said so much, he seemed a bit parched. After taking a sip of tree juice, he quietly looked at us. "This is the history of the Tree Elves and the secrets of this planet."
Sandora went straight to the point: "What exactly did the Imperial General give you back then? A piece of information? How do we extract it?"
"It’s recorded in the planet’s navigation system. The Navigator has the authority to activate the system, but we don’t know how to read it. Perhaps you have a way. But before that, all the Tree Elves must be awakened first. Back then, the General told us that the core database could only be read once, and after extracting the data, all systems on the planet would reboot, deleting everything. During this process, the life support system will shut down."
I recalled those millions of hibernation chambers on the mantle’s surface. This was quite an undertaking.
"Then let’s start now," Sandora said, then looked out the window. The window of the small wooden house was narrow, and from this position, only a small part of the village could be seen, along with two mushroom treehouses and several Tree Elves walking across the clearing. "These Tree Elves, when they awaken from their dreams, will retain memories from their dream time, right?"
"Yes, these constantly added new memories are crucial to delay the dissipation of souls. Tree Elves must continuously receive new informational stimuli to survive. Such a lock has been written into our genes," the Great Clan Leader nodded. "Scholars among us have studied this and believe it’s due to the unique learning mode of Tree Elves."
Sandora nodded but said no more.
I didn’t know how the Great Clan Leader was connected to the planet’s operating system. She suddenly disappeared from our sight for a moment, and a few minutes later, the awakening of all the hibernating occupants began. The exploration team at the mantle location relayed that energy flows in all hives increased, and for the first time, there were spiritual reactions in some of the hibernation chambers: Tree Elves being extracted into the database were gradually returning to their own bodies. Based on the current pace of the project, it would likely take a few days to complete, but we were no longer willing to wait. I thought this project might be limited by the internal network bandwidth of Green Star and its information processing capability. The former couldn’t be changed, but the latter could probably be assisted by the Xyrin Host: after all, they’re all Imperial-made equipment, and the mass-produced Bubbles should be able to interface with the Green Star system, right?
Upon hearing my suggestion, Sandora also agreed. Once the Great Clan Leader appeared, we proposed the demand for her to open all systems of Green Star: the interference within Green Star was still in effect, and we had not yet found where the operational core of this last Old Empire fortress was.
The elderly lady agreed readily: "Of course, that’s originally yours. The control room is located in the mantle’s middle layer, and some flying devices from tens of thousands of years ago remain on the Oasis, prepared for special situations. But I’m afraid I can’t go with you: I’m a limited mass projection, unable to leave the Oasis. You will meet my true self at the end."
The group got up to leave, but before bidding farewell to the elderly lady, Lilina suddenly curiously looked outside. In the distance, the gigantic green mountain range was slowly undulating at a rate almost imperceptible to the naked eye. The massive vine sprawling across the entire Oasis was also the only truly existent living organism on this Inner Star.
"What exactly is that? I observed it sprawling over the entire planet, and all the vines are from the same plant," Lilina asked. "The life response is strong, but it seems very old."
"That’s not a vine; it’s a tree. It had to transform to survive at the Earth’s core. It’s our Mother Tree," a glimmer of somberness flitted across the Great Clan Leader’s face. "Our homeland of the Tree Elves had many Mother Trees. It’s said they were plants sown by Gods at the beginning of Genesis. All Tree Elves were born from the pods of the Mother Trees. When leaving our homeland... um, taking the homeland away with us, we could only take one Mother Tree. It has been growing for tens of thousands of years, and it’s too old now... and we still haven’t managed to collect its seeds. It seems that after leaving the homeworld, the Mother Tree has lost the ability to reproduce."
I was stunned. Earlier, I thought Lu E’s claim of picking herself from a tree wasn’t credible, just part of a dream setup, but it turned out to be true. Tree elves really grew from trees?
This defies logic! They’re just flesh mortals, not energy life forms, and certainly not divine beings. How could a plant produce tree elves, such advanced creatures? Darwin would probably dig a hole to bury himself here!
But Lilina seemed thoughtful, and after a moment, she tugged at my sleeve: "Boss, it’s true. This thing has a bit of divinity in its aura, but it’s too weak. You wouldn’t notice it unless you felt carefully. The birth of this race is quite interesting. Their Mother Tree actually came from the Divine Realm."
"Is there a problem?" The Great Clan Leader couldn’t help but ask as he saw us muttering, which clearly showed that these last remaining Imperial Family members from the Old Empire really hadn’t been in contact with the Empire for long. According to the Old Empire’s iron-blooded style, the old Imperial Family members left behind back then (specifically those who survived from the Old Empire Era) wouldn’t dare interrupt the Emperor when speaking. Even though the Imperial Code doesn’t cover this, the deterrence is such that it’s awe-inspiring even when just standing there. Would you dare make a loud noise in front of two Cybertrons?
"No, nothing. Take us to see those flying devices."
I originally thought of sending seventy billion to the control hub, but upon hearing that Green Star’s security system had long malfunctioned and the control zone could only recognize registered vehicles, sending seventy billion would likely get shot down: Guard Towers don’t recognize new faces, even if it has the Old Empire’s universal identification algorithm.
What’s left in the Oasis were a few transporters, no longer looking fresh. Although Imperial creations could often still function normally or look new even tens of thousands of years later, that’s inside sealed relics, and the ones in the Oasis clearly haven’t reached those preservation conditions. They’ve just been parked directly in a desolate Big Forest, with tree elves only managing to build a few seriously substandard hangars for them. Since no one maintained them, these flying devices looked quite shabby, but fortunately, the system was still intact. Sandora tinkered in the power core for a while, and the transporter started normally—a drive redundancy module malfunctioned, but she "played" with it.
Green Star isn’t a true Planet Battleship, nor is it a Space Fortress—it lacks weapons compared to the former and insufficient defense compared to the latter. Green Star is more like a makeshift mismatch. This final creation at the end of the Old Empire Era seems unrefined and lacks planning. According to the Great Clan Leader, its last part of the remodeling was personally done by Imperial engineers (and anyway, it took two years to remodel this thing!), which is even more incredible, suggesting that when disaster struck, everything was too late. The Imperial General who ordered Green Star to set sail had to quickly pack whatever usable things into this planet difficult to categorize, urging it to retreat immediately. Thus, when we found an extremely unreasonable command center in the Mantle which relies on a set of temporarily added Energy Furnaces for power, it wasn’t surprising.
Green Star’s control center is located in the Northern Hemisphere, mid-section of the Mantle Layer. A several-thousand-kilometer-long tunnel extending from Earth’s Core is the only road leading to the control hub.
The design and current state of the control hub are lamentable. It’s inside a hexagonal column-shaped cavity wrapped in interstellar alloy armor plates—a solitary gray-black Obelisk building. The structure uses anti-gravity equipment to hover in the cavity’s center and measures roughly one kilometer across. Around the base, several half-kilometer-long beams connect to data endpoints on the cavity, a quite common universal interface. Sandora immediately recognized this thing as a converted planet surface command center. At that time, the final batch of engineers didn’t have the time to build a brand new starship core, so they just packed in a command center from some unknown Colonization Star. The planet surface command center’s universal interface has limited bandwidth, thus most operational modules of Green Star rely on local equipment for automatic operation. This control hub clearly also lacks necessary maintenance. After working for tens of thousands of years, its interface beams have become intermittent. The tree elves haven’t learned how to repair their bridge. The control hub’s door was already open, and we found a small dock beside its base. The dock’s automatic response facilities had failed, so Sandora had to use a somewhat aggressive landing method—which I mean, she maintained it would be a safe landing even as we crashed.
"I’d bet those tree elves have never used these transporters; they don’t even know transporters should land on Runway Three." Sandora clawed open the transporter’s door, which couldn’t be opened due to a malfunction, and mumbled.
I helped my sister and Lin Xue down, while Qianqian had already jumped to the ground on her own. The gravity here is quite normal, and the feeling of solid ground was nice. I couldn’t resist a small hop: "There’s no way. They started modifying the planet after the war, and during the remodeling process, the Imperial Army kicked them out of their original world halfway through. How much time could they have had to learn—and in the Old Empire days, there wasn’t a Military Integration Department, and eighty percent of Emperors couldn’t be bothered to teach their vassal races how to wield Ghost Energy."
Sandora quickly found the control hub’s entrance at a corner of the Obelisk. Not far from the entrance was a still-working Transmission Device. All the transmission devices in the hub had been locked to the only route, leaving no options. Through this, we arrived at Green Star’s navigation hall—or the observation hall for Navigators.
In the spacious circular hall, lights blazed brightly, and we finally saw familiar Imperial equipment again. The equipment’s condition here looked decent, though the tree elves don’t know how to repair them; at least they know how to clean these control stations. A dozen Navigators, all dressed in light green uniforms, had already lined up before the transporter: a bunch of old men and women.
Even though Tree Elves live long lives, most of these Navigators were already not young when they set off, and they couldn’t stay in the hibernation pods throughout the journey. Working for long periods in normal time flow made these Navigators old and frail.
I immediately recognized one of them, a kindly-faced old lady we just met on Oasis Star: the Great Clan Leader. She was no longer wearing that rustic robe full of ancient style but was dressed in a clean and sharp space suit, with a badge of crossed green leaves and vines on her chest. She bowed to us in greeting but did not perform the Imperial military salute: they hadn’t had time to get used to life as an Imperial Family member before being sent on their journey, thousands of years passed, and they probably long forgot what the Imperial military salute looked like.
"There are over a hundred Navigators in total, and most are in hibernation. Each shift, only fifteen Navigators remain awake." The Great Clan Leader briefly introduced the current situation of the Navigator team. As she spoke, an elderly man with gray hair suddenly wobbled over, looking at us with a curious expression, and then he loudly said, "Oh, we’ve finally seen you again. We’ve been waiting for a long time... waiting in this room without seeing outside... cough cough... has the mission ended? When can the spaceship land? I haven’t seen sunlight for a long time..."
A voice suddenly interrupted his somewhat rambling words, it was another Navigator: "Elder, you need to rest, leave this to us."
The old man nodded, turned, and returned to his place. The Great Clan Leader explained to us: "This is the oldest Elder of the Tree Elves, he used to be our Leader. When the planet set sail, he was the first-generation Captain, but now both the Captain and Leader have been replaced by younger Navigators. The Elder still stays with the Navigator team but no longer handles specific affairs."
The elder who had just sat down suddenly remembered something and shouted from afar: "Remember, open the database after everyone wakes up! The General told me, do not make any mistakes! The General will come back for his things! Who are these strangers?!"
The elder seemed a bit confused, quickly forgetting our identity, even asking those around him why he was there, and the other Navigators, helpless, had to lead this first-generation captain away. The Great Clan Leader softly said: "The Elder occasionally becomes unclear. Three thousand years ago, he personally took people to observe the workings and control principles of Furnace No. 4. After returning, he got severe radiation sickness. Soon after, he relieved himself of all positions, but we must let him come to the control room. Once it’s time, he will come here, and no one can stop him. However, when he’s not clear-minded, he can still be taken out, after all, it’s not very compliant to let him stay here."
Lilina nudged my arm: "Boss, I’ll work on a treatment plan, but the effect might not be significant. He’s too old, even bestowing immortality might be a bit too late."
The terminal in the hall allows checking the current operation of Green Star and the activation progress of the life support systems at the mantle. The planet’s operational situation is not optimistic; many devices are damaged. It’s a miracle that these emergency cobbled-together things have normally operated for tens of thousands of years. If not discovered in time, in a few more hundred years, its energy conduction would go haywire, endangering the life support system. We also found the database for recording crucial data, which is embedded within Green Star’s operating system, coexisting with the planet. Once this database is activated, Green Star will enter standby mode, the engines will stop thrusting (of course, the engines are already defunct), the life support system will halt, and all weapons and defense systems will go offline. Fortunately, the Earth’s Core "Oasis" system has independent power; otherwise, it would surely have been incinerated by the mantle.
The three mass-produced Hosts from Shadow City arrived at their workstations a few minutes later. They located the mainframe room of Green Star. Most computation cores manufactured during the Old Empire era are equipped with interfaces for parallel work with other similar equipment, saving us a lot of trouble. Once the three Hosts were mounted in the Green Star mainframe room, the activation speed of the hibernation pods increased dramatically—yes, at an astounding speed. Originally, it might have taken two to three days to activate all, but after the Hosts took the stage, one-third was activated in just half an hour!
It seems that the bandwidth limitation on this task wasn’t as significant as previously imagined.
Of course, this is merely the activation we’re talking about, which means reinscribing the Tree Elf spirits from the database back into the hibernation pods and disconnecting them from Green Star’s overall life support system, allowing them to rely on their reserves for subsequent operations (awakening their bodies, rebooting their souls). This subsequent process will probably take several days, as the population here counts in billions.
And once the spirits of those Elves enter the hibernation pods, the core database of Green Star can be activated, which will be quick, expected to take just an hour.
The virtual world formed by mass projection on Oasis Star automatically entered a shutdown program when the hibernation pods’ activation number reached fifty percent. We watched the whole process from the monitor, as forests and grasslands gradually lost their color, shaking villages turning into two-dimensional background images. The "villagers" had disappeared before this (or perhaps, in this virtual world, they should be called "logged out"?), first sent back to the database, then reinscribed into their bodies.
Finally, the severely unreal vegetation of the forest began to disappear entirely, and soon, the lush green oasis shed its disguise.
It turned into a lonely planet with a radius of fifteen hundred kilometers, its surface covered in brown rock and soil, with only the Tree Elves’ "Mother Tree" left on it—a large patch covering seventy percent of the planet’s surface, a whole mass of gray-green vines.
It was no longer recognizable as a "tree."
"I didn’t expect it to be this old..."
The Great Clan Leader stayed by our side, never speaking throughout the entire process, only breaking the silence now, "Without the Mother Tree, Tree Elves cannot reproduce. During the voyage, we can still rely on hibernation pods to preserve the race, but..."
"It’s okay, I have a way."
I smiled gently, showing a reassuring look, then took Dingdang, who was sleeping with a button, out of my pocket, "She will let you have a new Mother Tree."
The Great Clan Leader’s eyes showed a look of wonder: "Do you plant her in the ground?"
I: "..."
You can interpret it that way if you wish!
The hibernation pods just activated can’t be opened immediately. The living organisms inside have been asleep too long; the pods need time to reconcile the sleeping ones with their souls. However, now the pods are operating on their reserve energy, having detached from Green Star’s overall system, no longer affecting our database operations, so these pods were handed over to the engineering team for handling. Meanwhile, Sandora couldn’t wait to order the database opened. As Green Star’s main systems shut down one by one, this one-time database revealed the secrets it had preserved for tens of thousands of years to us.
It turned out to be a letter—from a sender we never expected.
The Imperial Emperor, Harlan. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please visit Qidian () to vote for recommendation tickets, monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)