Chapter Ninety-Five: Civilization Warship (Part One)

The spiritual tide nourished everyone’s bodies, healing all hidden injuries. Even those who had lost arms or legs in battle were restored to normal.

Yi Gang descended from the sky with Little Rabbit, and at last this crisis had passed.

Xu Xiao and the others stepped forward. At that moment, the Civilization Core appeared in Yi Gang’s hand, and a vast void projection unfolded, showing Sun Meng’s image.

“Now that the bottleneck to advancement is gone, all that remains is to finish building the civilization warship in order to break through. The test for the first hundred of us is to try to uncover Tier Three technology from this ship, so you can already begin construction of the warship,” Sun Meng said.

“Our civilization’s technology still has room to improve, but the basic framework is already complete. Once the new technologies from your side arrive, we’ll be able to finish building the warship,” Xu Xiao replied.

“There are ten entrances. I chose the front section of the warship, so I should be able to find technology related to the main cannon and the command room. Anything else I should pay attention to?” Sun Meng asked.

Xu Xiao thought for a moment. “If possible, reach the core control room first and bring up the ship’s full structural map. That should help us the most.”

Sun Meng’s eyes lit up, and he nodded. “Understood. The competition is about to begin, so I won’t be able to communicate with you for a while.” With that, the image changed.

Sun Meng had already been teleported into the ship, and there was no one else nearby. The rules of this test were simple: use the projection of the Civilization Core in hand to scan the technologies discovered aboard the ship. Once a technology was scanned, no second person could scan it again. The system had divided the entire warship into nine hundred sections, and each section contained different technologies.

During this test, participants were allowed to attack one another. As before, those eliminated would revive in the main city.

Sun Meng looked around. It seemed to be a living area. He took out the Civilization Core and began scanning, and soon received a result.

Interior Environmental Harmony Control Technology.

A technology that prevents people living in a room from suffering excessive psychological pressure, suitable for long and monotonous voyages.

Sun Meng curled his lip. He felt this technology was rather useless for Earth civilization. He quickened his pace, rushed out of the room, found the route leading upward, and hurried along it.

Flight was forbidden here, and their own abilities had also been limited to some extent. His intuitive perception, for instance, could only sense movements within ten meters.

“Navigation room. Looks like I’m lucky.”

Reading the words on the door as translated by the system, Sun Meng smiled.

He kicked the door open. That was how the rules worked here: hiding and ambushing others was very difficult, so in the early stage the only way to gain more was to see who was faster.

Scan.

A book appeared in Sun Meng’s hand.

Interstellar Travel Guide, Resource Planets and Disaster Edition.

“Good. Maybe in the future Earth civilization can use this to develop the stars.” Sun Meng thought to himself. Judging by the pace of this civilization game, it might truly come to the point where Earth civilization had to keep voyaging through the cosmos.

Adjacent to it was a room full of instruments. Sun Meng walked in, preparing to scan it.

But just as he had scanned a third of the room, he felt a trace of danger.

He flipped aside, narrowly avoiding the attack, and the scan was interrupted. Following the direction his instincts had sensed, he loosed an arrow backward. Then a splitting arrow shot along roughly the same trajectory.

“Xixikas has been eliminated. Ninety-nine contestants remain.”

The system’s voice rang out, and everyone was shaken. All were guessing who had struck so quickly, and they all became wary. This test was already a gain for them, but who wouldn’t want even more?

If the system now announced that anyone who eliminated another contestant would obtain the scanned technologies of the person they defeated, the fighting would become even fiercer.

Sun Meng paid no attention to the fellow he had dealt with and continued scanning.

Tier Three civilization-level signal radar.

Well. Sun Meng felt this was completely standard spacefaring equipment. Could it be that Earth civilization would really have to begin interstellar travel in the future? Would the whole continent-world drift through the universe, or voyage across dimensions?

Still, the rewards were set by the rules of the game; he could not decide them himself. For now, he could only hurry to gather as much as possible. The person who had ambushed him had set a bad precedent, and the contestants he encountered afterward could basically not be trusted. After all, there were only so many rewards. The fewer people remained, the more each survivor might receive.

Perhaps because all of these were functional rooms, they were connected by doors. He scanned three rooms in a row, but only obtained one piece of technology similar to a flight suit. The other two rooms had already been scanned by the earlier intruder.

Pushing open a door, he found a corridor leading upward. Sun Meng carefully made his way up and arrived directly on the deck.

The entire deck was divided into five sections, and Sun Meng smiled. There was a very good chance the main cannon technology was here. He scanned section by section, and besides one main cannon technology, he also obtained four other kinds of functional cannon technology.

Interference, armor-piercing, marking, and ultra-long-range. Four functional cannons in all. It seemed the specific technologies would automatically change according to the civilization in question. A tremendous haul indeed.

“After the deck, it should be the command room,” Sun Meng said, glancing at the room behind him. He leapt onto the stairway and kicked the door open.

Inside, three contestants were fighting one another. Hearing the door kicked open, they all looked over at once.

What greeted them, however, was a single red arrow.

The arrow burst apart, and a fierce wave of energy slammed the three of them into the walls.

“Sorry,” Sun Meng said softly. Another arrow flew out, piercing the chests of all three.

“Seventy-nine people left. Looks like the odds of running into others are getting higher and higher,” Sun Meng muttered as he began scanning the room.

Warship structural map.

Sun Meng looked at what he held and smiled. He had arrived a little late, but thankfully the item was still his.

He opened the map and checked the sections against it, discovering that the area at the bow corresponded to the part he had scanned only halfway. Looking at the other broken door, those three contestants must have already finished scanning the remaining sections.

“Search everything again, or head straight for the next section? That’s a bit of a headache,” Sun Meng said. He walked out through the other door, and as expected, the rooms here had all already been scanned.

Following the structural map, he planned to head first to the engine room.

This ship drew power from three locations, with engine rooms at the front, middle, and rear, though the energy types differed. Without the structural map, he would never have known any of this.

All the while scanning along the way, he picked up two more ordinary technologies before finally reaching his first destination.

“Energy Conversion Engine Room. If we had this, Earth could burn spirit stones as fuel, couldn’t it?” Sun Meng thought of a joke as he stepped inside.

After scanning the equipment inside, Sun Meng felt a little awkward, because what he obtained was a design plan for an energy conversion formation array. The result was somewhat different from what he had imagined, but it did suit Earth’s current situation.

He already had one energy-related technology, so next would be weapons.

After choosing his route, Sun Meng advanced rapidly. Half the rooms he encountered along the way had already been scanned, which made him increasingly cautious.

Outside the battleship’s storage bay, he encountered someone he knew.

Watching the green tentacles send five contestants back to the main city, Sun Meng stepped back a little.

Usara turned and looked at him. “I didn’t expect you to be this fast. This is the battleship’s storage bay, and I really need the technology inside. There’s a mech storage bay over there; if you want it, that side is yours.” As she spoke, she brought the divine statue in her hand to her chest. “If you’d rather fight a round, I’ll accompany you to the very end.”

At her words, countless tentacles appeared on the surrounding walls.

“Looks like that battle didn’t cost you much after all. On the contrary, it turned this place into your home ground. Your offer sounds pretty good,” Sun Meng said with a smile.

“But for the sake of my civilization, I’ll have to give it everything I’ve got.”