Chapter 3: First Meeting (Part 1)
The Star Navigation Competition, held every five years, is known as the cradle of hope for humanity's future.
The universe is vast and mysterious, rich and dangerous. Star navigators resist the cosmic dark tide and guard the boundaries of safe star fields. At the same time, they also explore new routes outward and search for new resources for human development.
The Star Navigation Competition was created to select outstanding young space explorers. The military, the Star Navigation Department, the Ministry of Resources, and various civilian expedition teams... countless eyes were watching this competition, trying to recruit the talents they valued.
Mingyu signed up, firstly to satisfy his desire to be a starship designer, and secondly to try his luck and make money.
The Star Navigation Competition, a highly anticipated event across the entire human star field, consists of three stages: preliminaries, star field competition, and finals. The prize money for the finals is so astronomical that Mingyu dares not even think about it. However, to encourage participation, each team will receive a certain amount of bonus star coins during the preliminaries, which will be distributed based on the contribution points of each participant.
The registration fee for the Star Navigation Competition is 300 star coins per person, which is not expensive, and you can earn a little by passing a qualifying competition.
The Starship Race team requirements include one to three starship designers, one to three starship maintenance technicians, one to three starship pilots, five to ten starship observers, and one to fifteen starship support personnel. During the initial qualifying period, many participants were unable to register as a complete team, so the system matched teams based on their registered status. Teams were given a five-day run-in period before the official qualifying rounds began. During this period, anyone could withdraw from the competition and receive a full refund of their registration fee.
If the applicant is not initially matched to a team, the registration will be deemed unsuccessful and the registration fee will be refunded.
There are actually quite a few people who sign up for the Star Navigation Competition qualifiers with the idea of making money, but as a star navigation enthusiast, Mingyu feels an irrepressible excitement in his heart.
This is the Star Navigation Competition after all! It's a more realistic event than any other Star Navigation game.
Who wouldn't be excited about this if they've dreamed of space travel?!
Mingyu's eyes lit up. He put on his helmet and logged into the Star Network immediately. He immediately saw the difference in his Star Network operating interface.
A new column appeared on his operating interface: Star Navigation Competition.
Mingyu clicked on the Star Navigation Competition operation icon with excitement and anticipation.
The Star Network is an incredibly realistic holographic world, and the Star Navigation Competition has opened up a whole new dimension within the Star Network world.
As Mingyu clicked on the Star Navigation Competition logo in the floating panel, his figure appeared in a corridor that seemed to have no end.
This is a suspended corridor.
The surrounding scenery was as black as the starry sky. The corridor was covered with a brocade carpet, and the columns on both sides were covered with pink starry roses. In front of Mingyu was a stone door with a sign hanging on it: "Colorful Team Lounge".
Colorful is the name of the team he currently belongs to.
Mingyu didn't push the door open right away. He looked around and, with his good vision, saw another stone door at the corner of the corridor, hidden behind a bush of flowers. It was inscribed with "Duck Duck Go Team Lounge."
This corridor obviously includes the lounges of all registered teams, but I don’t know how long the corridor is with thousands of teams lined up.
Mingyu took a deep breath and took a step forward. The stone door sensed his identity and the patterns on it lit up.
A new light screen was pulled down, considerately displaying the team information for the members who were joining the team for the first time:
Captain/starship pilot: Mu Baixing.
Starship Observer : Chiyi.
Starship Observer: Orange Two.
Starship Observer: Lan San. Second identity: Starship Maintenance Technician.
Starship Observer: Green Five. Second Identity: Starship Repairer.
Starship Observer: Ziliu. Second identity: Starship Maintenance Technician.
Starship Designer: LUCE.
Mingyu: ...
Mingyu stopped pushing the door, pulled his hand back and rubbed his eyes.
What?
What are red, orange, blue, green, purple, one, two, three, four, five?
...Is this the true meaning of the colorful world? !
Mingyu felt that the team he belonged to seemed a little unreliable.
He took another breath and finally reached out to push open the stone door.
"Zizi——" With a heavy sound, the door opened in front of Mingyu.
"Was the door opened from the outside—" an enthusiastic voice came from inside the door, "Wow, I didn't touch it! Is our team's designer here? Come and welcome the designer—!"
"Is the starship designer here? So soon! He's here just as I said he was! Let me see! Let me see!"
"Brother Cheng, move aside a little! You're blocking the way too tightly!"
"Brother Lu, please give way a little..."
"Ah, don't scare the newcomer... h-keep your voice down..."
"Wow--!"
Five heads, red, orange, blue, green and purple, appeared one after another from the crack of the door that Mingyu pushed open, exclaiming in unison. Their bright hair colors almost blinded Mingyu's big, kazilan eyes.
"It must be a top student!" They exclaimed in unison, their voices so loud that they echoed in the corridor.
Mingyu: “…”
Mingyu couldn't help but pull his black-framed glasses.
His StarNet avatar was completely different from his real-life appearance. Mingyu didn't use his real-life appearance, but instead selected from a bunch of free avatars and assembled a simple, plain-looking man with glasses, without any additional cosmetic features.
Oh no, Mingyu thought, this virtual appearance seemed to have caused his teammates to have some unrealistic associations based on stereotypes.
Mingyu was a little embarrassed and quickly introduced himself, "No, I am..."
“Boss—Boss!” He hadn’t finished his words when the red-haired young man who opened the door first enthusiastically pulled Mingyu into the lounge. With a loud voice like a loud speaker, he turned around and shouted into the room, “Our team’s starship designer is here—he looks very capable—”
Mingyu: "Wait! I'm not..."
"Quarrel."
A cold male voice sounded in the house.
At that moment, it seemed as if the air conditioner in the room suddenly stopped working, and the temperature dropped to zero degrees in an absurd second.
So much so that in an instant the colorful-haired guys were frozen from energetic young men into ice sculptures stuck in place.
"Oh no." The red-head realized it later and muttered, "I forgot, Black Tide Day just passed, and the boss has been very irritable these past few days..."
The orange, green, blue and purple people standing next to him froze in place, all showing regretful expressions. Then they all made a zipper-pulling motion on their mouths in unison and signaled to Mingyu with their eyes to keep quiet.
At the end of the common room, there was a slight sound from the door of the room connected to the inside, like the sound of a doorknob being turned.
The colorful-haired guys concentrated and held their breath, but at this moment they regained their ability to move. They straightened their backs and tiptoed back a few steps, almost shrinking to the door leading to the lounge.
Mingyu: “…”
After the group of colorful heads moved away, he could see the scene in front of him clearly.
This was a circular public room with five corridor doors leading to private lounges in different directions. The corridor door directly in front of Mingyu had opened a crack after the slight sound. A palm rested on the edge of the door, and it was completely opened.
The man had long fingers with protruding joints. A part of his wrist and then his forearm appeared from behind his palm.
His skin was pale, his muscles slightly tensed when he exerted force, and his lines were smooth.
The man was tall, almost a head taller than Mingyu. His short, slightly long black hair was a bit messy, as if he had just been woken from sleep. His eyes, filled with an uncontrollable coldness, swept towards the door.
Mingyu: “…”
Mingyu swallowed the words he was about to use to explain his identity.
He was stunned for a long moment before he found his voice again. He spoke as if sleepwalking, "You... really like watching 'Funeral of a New Star', right?"
The man frowned slightly: "What?"
Mingyu: “…”
Mingyu has seen many people who are either beautiful or handsome, but this man's temperament is really too special.
Sharp, yet condensed.
Mingyu felt that he should not appear in such a selection-based star navigation competition, but should appear in the meeting room of senior military officers.
You also have to sit in the main seat to preside over the meeting.
"'Funeral of a New Star.'" Ming Yu stared at the man, his voice vague. "That literary space film tells the story of the Celtic star region before its destruction during the Dawn War."
"...Did you create a face based on that Celtic King's design on Starnet?"
Black hair, with blue eyes framed by black.
The former features are common to most Asian faces, but the latter is too special: very few people in real life have eyes that look like this.
Mingyu only looked it up during his film appreciation class. He learned that when Funeral of a New Star was first released, the Celtic King's look was criticized as a bit of a show-off. Viewers at the time were critical of this unconventional aesthetic for an art film, until an immigrant from the Celtic Star Region came out to dispel the rumors, stating that the Celtic King's eyes were just that color.
He is so special that he seems like a big spender among ordinary players.
Mingyu sincerely admired: "...You have a really good aesthetic sense."
The appearance of the leading actor in New Star Funeral is already outstanding enough, but the eyes on his face are not as natural and harmonious as those on the face sculpted by his teammate.
It’s just right, and it perfectly matches Mingyu’s aesthetic.
The man frowned again.
He carried an oppressive, cold aura, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees in an instant.
The red-haired man who had just shut up couldn't stand it any longer and could only explain in a low voice: "I haven't seen any 'New Planet Funeral'... The boss's face looks like this."
Mingyu: “…”
He uttered an "oh", blinked, and came back to his senses.
How could someone really look like this?
If it really exists, a pie might really fall from the sky and hit a hungry passerby who has not eaten.
Mingyu: It seems like this is a group of late-stage chuunibyou youth role-playing on Starnet. They must always maintain their character settings and never deviate from the settings or go OOC.
Not only is he in the late stage of chuunibyou, but he is also a wealthy person in the late stage of chuunibyou.
While avatars on StarNet can be customized freely, advanced beauty features and special accessories require payment. This guy must have spent a fortune to create such a stunning look.
Mingyu has no prejudice against people with chuunibyou or rich people.
He then extended his hand, his thoughts calming down, and with a friendly smile, he introduced himself: "Hello, I'm LUCE, the assigned starship designer."
The man reached out and gently shook Mingyu's hand. His fingertips were cold, and they separated from Mingyu's immediately. His tone was polite but distant.
"Mu Baixing, starship pilot."
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