7,000 years after the Spark Project began, the solar system welcomed a new visitor.
This guest was not an ordinary interstellar meteorite, nor was it a huge icy wandering planet. Compared with these two, he looked very small - not much bigger than dust, so much so that human civilization was unable to discover him for a while.
He calls himself the Star Painter and is a cosmic adventurer.
Becoming an adventurer was simple; all he had to do was leave his home planet and live in the universe. But pursuing art was much more difficult. He had to learn to pierce the mid-membrane at the right place, maintain his own membrane thickness despite the erosion of the super-membrane, and return to the mid-membrane at the right place. Only with this ability could he instantly transcend the barriers of time and space and witness the beauty of the stars with his own eyes. He had heard that only with sufficient experience could he paint on a curtain, and only then would his work be applauded by gatherings of his peers.
Of course, Star Painter hasn't produced any high-quality work yet, and he's always a loner who doesn't like to talk at gatherings. This might be due to his bad luck, after all, highly praised works often feature oases, and ownerless oases are all too rare.
Finding an oasis is also one of the adventurer's jobs, and turning the job into a hobby is the strength of the Star Painter.
This universe is too barren, filled with deserts and wastelands. Without a way to combat loneliness, adventurers will eventually go mad—and the Star Painters don't want to be listed on the "honor roll" of the mad. That list is updated at every gathering, and with each update, a large number of numbers are added, indicating that the number of fellow adventurers in the universe is dwindling. Without good works, new adventurers won't be attracted, and without new adventurers joining the adventure, good works are even less likely to appear.
Honestly, the Star Painters felt hopeless about their future. If the adventurers gave up, it would be difficult for the Federation to continue. While finding a suitable universe was difficult, finding a universe with an oasis would be even more difficult. No one could blame the Federation.
The universe is too chaotic, including the sea of supermembranes that envelop countless other universes. Finding a suitable, orderly place to settle, or at least temporarily roam, is incredibly difficult. All ordered entities that thrive in this ordered place need unity. Without that cohesion, they are a loose mess, vulnerable to dissolution at any moment by the shifting of the cosmic membrane. Survival is so difficult; only by uniting all forces that can be united can the long-term survival of ordered entities be increased.
The Star Painters pinned their hopes on the Federation's broadcasts to this universe, but they didn't know if any other ordered entities would receive them. No, they most likely wouldn't. The membranes of the universe couldn't be identical, unless that ordered entity was incredibly complex, enough to encompass any membrane. But because of that complexity, they wouldn't be able to determine the universe's original membrane. Without that, they wouldn't be able to develop enough to transcend the membrane and receive the broadcasts.
This is a cosmic paradox - those who are good at riding fall from their horses, those who are good at swimming drown in the water, those who are good at drinking get drunk, and those who are good at fighting die in battle.
The Federation's broadcasts were super-membrane, while the mid- and sub-membrane broadcasts couldn't provide full coverage. Therefore, they could only alert and rescue a very small number of ordered entities, with adventurers making up the majority. Adventurers' work was truly about saving the dying and healing the wounded. They weren't necessarily saintly angels in white, but they were definitely the kind of people every person in distress hoped to meet.
Thinking of this, the Star Painter chuckled, regaining enough energy to continue working. He turned forward and glanced at the energy-emitting membrane-dimensional creations of this universe. Just one glance made him stop the super-membrane drill that was about to reach critical mass.
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