Chapter 1 Mingyu
"We can withdraw to the southeast star region."
The atmosphere in the command post was tense.
The blond deputy commander looked nervous and urged urgently, "The Ming family's fleet didn't arrive on time, and the Central Star Region has clearly broken the contract. Even if the Human Alliance members want to convene a federal arbitration meeting, our decision is understandable. This time the Black Tailed Beast Tide came suddenly and fiercely, we..."
"war."
The descendants of Celtic royalty have hair as black as night.
The upper half of his face was covered with an iron mask, his nose was high under the mask, and his lips were slightly lighter in color.
Behind the ferocious iron mask with intricate patterns are a pair of captivating eyes.
The man's eyes were long and narrow, and his black pupils, the same color as his hair, were surrounded by a circle of light blue, like a clear ring embedded in an expensive dark gem.
"The fleet cannot retreat."
"If left unchecked, the Black Tide Beasts will engulf the planet. Even if ordinary residents can temporarily hide in the underground city, they will still die in the end."
"The main fleet can remain to contain the enemy," the deputy commander said immediately, "but you should lead the escort team to retreat temporarily..."
His voice gradually faded under the gaze of the new king.
Those dark eyes held an indifference born from the eternal night, yet concealed a frightening sharpness, an overwhelming aura. The deputy commander's lips trembled, still wanting to persuade him, but no words came out.
"The fleet will reorganize immediately. The escort forces will be incorporated into the main fleet. After a headcount, the fleet will set sail." The new king's voice was calm, with an irresistible force. He paused for a moment, then continued, "Don't despair. Reinforcements from the Central Star Region will arrive."
Not for the covenant, but also for those planets that can produce awakening crystals.
Deputy Commander: "Yes." He could only whisper, "But if they come too late, we can't wait."
Celtic King: "I will transfer the overall command authority to you."
Deputy Commander: “…”
He realized something and his face suddenly changed. He looked at the new king in disbelief, and his arms hanging by his sides began to tremble.
The dark-haired man looked away.
He stepped forward, walking towards the starship suspended on a silver platform not far away, his posture calm and steady.
The deputy commander turned pale, took two steps forward, and called out in a hoarse voice, "Your Majesty!"
"Ding ding--" The energy fluctuation monitor hanging in the air issued an alarm sound that was about to exceed the maximum detection value, drowning out his voice.
In the pitch-black universe, the red light of the burning tails of the black-tailed beasts lit up. After a brief pause, the war returned and intensified.
The dark golden king ship took off first.
The new king stood on the bridge, facing the overwhelming number of aliens, without any fear in his expression.
He raised his hand.
Dazzling colors flowed out from his fingertips, sweeping across the entire ship in an instant.
The mask on his face melted and peeled off, revealing a handsome face like a god descending from heaven.
The starship's dark golden hull was engulfed in a stream of even richer spiritual particles, the entire vessel seemingly ablaze with a dazzling golden flame. The surrounding energy field distorted, and the ship's thrusters erupted with a resounding roar, instantly emitting a fiery burst of white flames, propelling the massive starship towards the universe at an accelerated speed.
A violent gale of energy rises in the silent universe.
The starship turned into a shadow at high speed.
The upper deck of the ship lifted up, revealing the striking black muzzles of its guns.
A golden arc of light flickered in the muzzle, growing brighter and brighter as the energy accumulated.
Thousands of golden points of light converged from above the bridge, forming a golden giant figure in the universe.
It held the radiant Spear of Destiny, pointing it at the massive, black-winged star beast that obscured the sky. The stream of golden particles gushing out from the starship drew a blinding golden line across the pitch-black night sky.
The main guns opened fire, and the giant hurled the spear of fate.
The burning gold was so intense that it seemed to split the entire universe in two.
In the next few hundred days, no matter where you are in the human star field, no matter whether it is day or night, no matter who you are, when you look up at the starry sky, you can see that dazzling color.
As if it would be forever engraved in human pupils.
On the last day of the old star calendar and the eve of the beginning of the new star calendar.
The new Celtic king of the Northern Star Region, the last human alien ship with a spiritual power level exceeding 3S, fell in the Battle of Dawn along with his subordinates.
The crashed sun burned out its light, blocking the violent alien creatures in front of it and protecting a large area of human star fields behind it.
Beneath the embers, the residents of the Northern Star Region waited for reinforcements. As the Central Star Region Legion retreated, humans quickly rebuilt a defense line behind the burning star line to resist the invasion of star beasts.
The long night is coming to an end.
"Then a new star rises, and the world becomes bright again."
"That light also illuminates its funeral."
The picture faded and the sound faded.
After a period of darkness, the words on the screen lit up, becoming the only source of light in the room.
After a moment of silence, a low murmur could be heard in the classroom, "Wow... that last scene was so tear-jerking..."
"The actor who plays the Celtic King is so handsome... he has such a powerful aura! I want to be his fan!"
In the classroom, the black blackout curtains automatically rolled upwards, the high-end speakers at the front and back of the room retracted into the walls, and the large virtual screen floating in the front folded up and dimmed, transforming into a medium-sized screen. This medium-sized screen had a dazzling white background, and was covered with stripes of writing requirements for viewing a movie, making people dizzy.
This was a film appreciation class at Central Star University. The lecturer was an elderly professor with wavy, graying hair and round reading glasses. She wore a dark green dress, and despite her age, she looked sophisticated and fashionable. She stood up from the front row and walked onto the podium, which had risen from the ground after the projector screen went out.
"This is my personal favorite niche movie in recent years." A round microphone the size of a fingernail was suspended in front of her, and the sound was transmitted clearly to every corner of the classroom.
Mingyu, who was sleeping in the last row, was startled by the noise. He sat up in a daze and squinted at the light screen in front of him.
Analyze shooting techniques, lighting and shadow effects, camera movements... Mingyu glanced at the report requirements on the screen and had no idea what these things were talking about.
The reason he chose this course was simply to make up the credits for the arts courses required by the school, and when he remembered this, there was only this one film appreciation course to choose from.
Mingyu wondered how this course, which sounded so easy, could still have plenty of vacancies until the day before school started. After attending one class, he realized there was a reason for this.
The teacher of the film appreciation class was very strict, and asked them to study at the same level as film school students. After each movie, they had to submit a movie report of thousands of words. Then the teacher would spend several more classes breaking down the movie and talking about it over and over again, and asked them to re-understand the movie after listening to the explanation, revise their reports and submit them again.
Mingyu yawned, sat up straight, lifted the baseball cap that was pressing on his head, skillfully turned on the communication bracelet and light computer on his wrist, and began to search for reviews on Star Network.
"Funeral of a New Star," a celestial art film released earlier this year, explores Mingyu's favorite topic of interstellar navigation and, in a rare move, focuses on the last Celtic king of the Northern Star Region, who perished in the Battle of Dawn sixty years prior. The film is replete with static long shots and slow motion, close-ups of the protagonist's face, profound yet incomprehensible shifts in light and color, and a fragmented yet interwoven narrative.
No matter how handsome the lead actor who plays the Celtic King is, Mingyu can't help but fall asleep.
While he was listening to the rambling speeches of his classmates who were called upon by the teacher, he was trying to understand the key points of the praise or criticism through the screenshots of other people's film reviews, and then struggling to form sentences in his own words on the blank document.
Fifteen minutes later, the bell rang for the end of get out of class. Mingyu had just managed to finish the beginning of a line when he turned off the screen and stood up with regret.
Writing a movie review was even harder than when he'd first taught himself starship design.
In fifteen minutes, he could quickly scan a paper on starship design and grasp the basic principles and important innovations, but he had no idea what the focus of those film reviews was.
Mingyu pushed open the door and was the first to walk out of the classroom.
He is a sophomore at Metropolitan University. His hobbies are space travel and starship design, but his major is space travel history.
This is a notorious major in comprehensive universities that is used to gild the gild.
Turn off the mute mode of the communication channel.
The bracelet screamed as if it was about to die.
Mingyu pursed his lips, unconsciously tightening his fingers as he glanced at the calendar. After a brief pause, he quickened his pace and walked out of the teaching building. He adjusted his expression and answered the call: "Mom."
The woman on the screen was well-maintained, youthful in appearance, her shoulder-length hair curled. In the interstellar age, the average lifespan was around 200 years, with noticeable signs of aging starting after 100. When she and Mingyu stood together, it was hard to tell if they were mother and son or siblings.
"I was in class just now, Mom." Mingyu explained, "I turned off the mute button and didn't hear the call—"
"Do you know why I called you? Do you understand that you should remember the date?" Ming's mother, Zhao Ying, said sternly, frowning. "Xiao Yu, you're not a child anymore. Why do you always do things that make your parents worry? Your parents have been worried about you since you were a child. Can you be more sensible?"
"You should fly the aircraft home now. I'll have Doctor Zhang wait for you at home. I'll send people away when you get home. You're really causing us trouble."
"I was rushing to finish my homework and made a mistake remembering the date," Mingyu explained, only to be met with even more fury from his mother. He turned off the camera on his screen, pretending the signal was bad, and nodding in response to his mother's scolding, he headed towards the private aircraft docking station near the dormitory.
His private aircraft was in the dock.
"Homework? What kind of homework do you have for that crappy major?"
"Are you too bothered by monthly checkups? Do you know how much your parents have sacrificed for you?! I'm embarrassed to tell you this! You're an adult, yet you secretly used your little brother's energy stone to force his awakening, without even considering the damage it would cause to your body if the forced awakening failed! You've been unable to awaken successfully for so many years, and you still don't realize how poorly you are? You think you can succeed with just an energy stone?"
"Because you failed to awaken, Mom and Dad took turns taking leave to stay home and take care of you for the past year. How much important work have they missed out on?! You're only a few months old now, and you still insist on going to college..."
"You haven't awakened your spiritual power, and you've had terrible grades since childhood, so why would you go to university? So what if you lucked out and got into a comprehensive university? They still spread the rumor that we paid for your education... you just want to embarrass us..."
His mother scolded him for a long time and finally hung up the phone.
Mingyu had a blank expression on his face and reached out to pull the brim of his hat.
He is in a bad mood.
Mingyu had been scolded by his parents for many years and had long since learned to get used to the slander they uttered. He had also learned not to refute them, otherwise he would be scolded for even longer.
He hasn't learned to ignore his parents' harsh words yet, but he no longer gets too angry about these unreasonable accusations.
Mingyu was in a bad mood, mostly because the physical examination meant he had to go back to the Ming family and stay in that cold manor for at least the next 12 hours.
Thinking of this, Mingyu felt that the sunlight falling on his body was cold.
It was lunchtime at the university. Some had already finished their meals and were heading to their dormitories from the cafeteria. Others, too lazy to go to the cafeteria, were lining up at the vending machines to buy nutrient solution. Mingyu hurried out, against the flow of people. Many slowed their pace and turned to look at him.
"Hey, hey, look, isn't that who just passed by!..."
"That's who!"
"Is it Ming Yu, the second young master of the Ming family?"
"Who is it...don't ask riddles...what Second Young Master? Which Ming family?"
"Are you stupid? Which Ming family still exists in the Central Star Region?"
"It's him, it's him! He's the treasure that everyone in the Ming family holds in their hands, so be careful not to mess with him..."
"Hey, isn't he just a useless piece of shit who failed to awaken? These days, the rate of spiritual awakening has reached 90%, yet he still failed. Failure to awaken is fine, but it's said he's been a scoundrel since he was little, relying on his good looks to curry favor with teachers."
Mingyu glanced at them out of the corner of his eye.
A group of young men and women, around eighteen or nineteen, looked like freshmen who had just entered a comprehensive university. The new school year had just begun, and these freshmen had probably just been briefed on his "great achievements" by their seniors.
"I think he looks just so-so. What's the point of calling him the divine face of the central star region?" A tall boy in the center of the crowd looked down at Mingyu. His voice was neither too loud nor too soft, just enough for Mingyu to hear, "His facial features are just ordinary..."
Mingyu usually doesn't bother to pay attention to these people.
But he was in a bad mood today, so he stopped, turned to look at the other person, and raised the brim of his hat.
The soft autumn sunlight shone down from the sky, illuminating his features clearly.
The young man, who was just twenty years old, was blessed by the Creator with his appearance.
He had fair skin and delicate features. His short, soft black hair, slightly longer at the forehead, brushed against his brow bone. His eyes were round, with chestnut-brown pupils and thick, long, slightly curled eyelashes. His nose was straight, with a small tip, and his lips were rosy.
It was an Oriental face, with an indescribable elegance. He pursed his lips, his expression revealing a hint of discontent, yet also a touch of innocence, as he glanced at me. The sunlight fell on the tips of his hair and his curled eyelashes, making them playful and lively, like the bright colors adorning a forest elf.
Mingyu: "Nothing special?"
Boy: “…”
He hummed twice, as if stunned.
Mingyu slowly pulled down his hat, turned around and continued on his way, passing by the group of people.
The other accusations were hard to refute, but this one was easy to vindicate, given its unremarkable features. He thought with amusement.
His white private aircraft was parked on the first floor of the docking bay. Mingyu used his wristband to swipe open the docking bay door, swiped his card again on the screen at the entrance to verify his identity, and then entered the aircraft's parking location.
A dull sound of mechanical chains turning could be heard from the docking port. Mingyu glanced to the left and saw that the rectangular transparent parking box where his aircraft was parked had moved forward two spaces under the action of a mechanical transmission device, and was then lifted up and moved to the take-off area on the top floor of the docking port.
After reaching the highest point, the transparent walls above and on the sides of the parking box automatically move outward, and the bottom tray under the aircraft finally becomes flush with the ground of the take-off area. With a slight sound, it enters the card slot.
Mingyu took the elevator to the take-off area, unlocked it with his fingerprint, and sat in the cockpit of the aircraft.
The cockpit of the small aircraft served as the passenger cabin, capable of carrying only two people. All civilian aircraft of this type were fully automated. Mingyu programmed the route to the Ming family on the screen and confidently let the aircraft take off. He reclined the seat, leaned back, put on earplugs, and donned an eye mask.
Mingyu's body sank into the soft seat.
The earplugs worked remarkably well, instantly blocking out the loud roar of the aircraft's engines as it took off. The black eye mask also effectively blocked out the outside light. Mingyu's hearing and vision no longer provided him with any information, but his other senses were activated by his own will.
Faint points of light were scattered in his world of consciousness, flowing and gathering, slowly outlining a small, blurry scene.
It is the mental power known as the sixth sense of human beings.
Mingyu let out a breath.
He was not dreaming, Mingyu thought, even though his parents, brothers, younger brother, and many others... all thought he was a useless person without mental power.
But he did awaken his spiritual power.
It was so weak that it was not even enough for the lowest F level, and it could not even move the pointer of the mental power detector. When Mingyu first noticed the difference, he even suspected that he had some unknown mental illness.
One year and three months ago, Mingyu was declared a complete failure in awakening his spiritual power, but he "saw" the world for the first time through his sixth sense.
The young man felt sick to his stomach when he thought of what he had seen and heard.
He frowned and muttered, forcing himself not to recall the past, and extended his mental tentacles, trying to train his ability to control his mental threads.
His mental power was too weak. Unlike high-level mental powers, it did not emit bright light, but was transparent without any sense of existence, and was as difficult to detect as air.
The range of his mental power thread was not far. It flew over the city together with the aircraft, transmitting images of the surroundings.
The aircraft left the campus of the comprehensive university, passed through one city after another with scattered buildings, and arrived at Galaxy City five hours later and entered the Galaxy Business District.
A huge virtual advertising light screen stands at the entrance of the Galaxy Commercial District. Aircraft fly through the center of the screen, and blocks of color are broken up and quickly reunited.
The light screen is broadcasting a report on the opening of registration for the 4th Star Navigation Competition preliminaries.
Against a vibrant background, the host, whose avatar resembled a bunny in a suit, beamed with excitement as he spoke in a rhythmic voice, "Registration for the quinquennial Star Navigation Competition preliminaries has reached its final day! Navigators and ships, be sure to seize this opportunity—this year's competition boasts generous prize money, but also exceptionally fierce competition—according to reports, Navigator Mingyan and Ship Feilun, both highly anticipated in recent years, have confirmed their registration—"
The holographic screen disappeared behind the aircraft, and what appeared before them was a tunnel built into the Galaxy Commercial District. The tunnel was constructed from transparent glass on all four sides, revealing the glittering display windows of a high-end shopping mall.
Not far behind the mall is a suspended courtyard. The striking retro-Gothic building houses the magnificent, retro Galaxy Library, with large windows housing floor-to-ceiling wafer storage racks.
Finally, the aircraft entered the wealthy area of Galaxy City and began to slow down. Three minutes later, the slow-moving aircraft turned onto the private channel of the Ming Family Manor and landed in the docking port.
Mingyu shifted reluctantly in his seat, removed his blindfold, and retracted his mental energy.
Ming Yan, the favored son of heaven who is admired by countless people, Ming Yu's elder brother and the eldest son of the Ming family, is standing on the helipad of the manor.
Ming Yan was a student at the Capital Planet's First Military Academy, graduating this year. Wearing his white uniform, he stood on the docking platform, his face etched with disdain as he watched the aircraft carrying Ming Yu land in front of him.
The look he gave Mingyu was full of disgust, as if he could pick up a dagger and stab him at any time.
The aircraft's thermostat was working properly, but Mingyu felt a little cold. He sat up, zipped up his jacket all the way to his chin, and opened the aircraft's hatch.
"Hurry up and come here!" Ming Yan said coldly, "Mom and Dad and Dr. Zhang have been waiting for you for hours. Do you know how much trouble you've caused others?"
Mingyu's mother, Zhao Ying, had also received the message about the aircraft's arrival. Her expression was grim, but she emerged from the house to greet him, like a concerned mother, overly worried about her child, sullen and angry, yet still caring. She put her arm around Mingyu's shoulders and led him to the manor's basement medical room. "Go get checked out."
A professional medical team led by Dr. Zhang was already waiting in the medical room. Because they had wasted more than five hours in the Ming family manor, their expressions were not very gentle and they nodded perfunctorily to Ming Yu.
Ming Zhilang, the current head of the Ming family, was also waiting in the basement. His expression was serious, and he didn't speak, but his gaze met Ming Yu's with accusation. He was dressed in a full suit, as if he had just left a business meeting to await Ming Yu's medical examination results.
To outsiders, they appear to be a pair of strict but loving parents.
The silver-gray inspection instrument lights up green, indicating that operation has started.
Mingyu changed his clothes as requested by the doctor and lay down in the medical examination cabin.
The sensor connector of the instrument, connected to the data cable, pressed against my body, feeling slightly cold. Fine needles ejected from the head electrode pierced my skin, inserting into my temples and the back of my neck, causing a slight pain.
Mingyu's body trembled slightly, and then he closed his eyes, trying his best to relax his body and mind.
The memories that he had suppressed in the aircraft overflowed uncontrollably in a scene that was almost similar to the time when his mental power awakened.
"If it dies, it will die. It will save us from wasting our energy."
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