Chapter 446: City of Runes

“Take this statue and find the others as soon as possible,” Chen Xing said.

Han Xiao sized the new statue up. Its shape was a faceless human looking up with a huge eye on its chest, which was strange as well. After he held it in his hands, the item introduction on the interface was [Mysterious Statue] as well but with an additional remark.

_____________________

These statues that you have discovered seem to be a part of a set. Gather all the statues and maybe something unusual will happen.

_____________________

Han Xiao held onto the two statues and asked, “For the sake of 100,000 Enas, I accept the hire. Where do I find you once it’s completed?”

“My schedule is very full. Anyway, it’s impossible for you to find all of them in a short time. I will give my assistant’s communication number to you later. Just inform him once you complete it.” Chen Xing gave a gorgeous smile.

Although he knew the location of the statues, Han Xiao did not choose to come after collecting all three statues—it would make him seem very suspicious. After all, Chen Xing felt that meeting Han Xiao was just because of luck.

Chen Xing was looking for the statues himself, but he had never found any leads. With two statues, the area of detection for the other statues would be much larger. If not because he was very sensitive to the frequency of the statues, he would not have been able to find Han Xiao among the crowd.

He had never expected to find another statue during this performance.

Although he was smiling calmly, Han Xiao knew full well how excited this guy was.

Chen Xing said that he was a collector, which, of course, was nonsense. Han Xiao knew what his goal was.

This singer was a Psychic that used his voice to spread his powers. Although he looked gentle and weak, if Chen Xing wanted to, he could scream in an extremely high and destructive voice anytime he wanted. He was at least Grade B. It was because he put his Psychic powers into his voice that made his voice sound so impactful. These four statues had a special effect for Chen Xing—they could enhance his Psychic powers.

The four statues had originally been a set of totems for receiving prayers from believers night and day. They came from the Arcane Church.

Unlike the practical Crimson Empire and the Federation of Light that believed in freedom, the Arcane Church was a very religious and mysterious civilization.

In the knowledge of most planet and Star System sized civilizations, religions and beliefs were just a comforting or guiding tool for the mind that could at most guide the believers to have a certain attitude toward things in life. Some civilizations even saw religions as the cancer of society.

However, there were countless paths of evolution in the universe. Most religions believed in a fictional god, but some believed in real gods. Luckily for the Arcane Church, they were the latter. They had begun as savages just like the others, but unlike the other civilizations that progressed through technology or magic awakening, their ancestors discovered a way to communicate with real gods. When the gods that they believed in could really ‘respond’ to the believers and when the religions could make technology and society advance, their social structure naturally turned out to be different from most of the technology or magic focused civilizations.

What was a god? In magic terms, they were supposedly beings with enormous magic power. From a technological perspective, gods were superior beings from a higher dimension that could not be detected by ordinary beings. The projections from higher dimensions were all strange and weird. Thus, those that did not look unique enough were basically all false gods.

In both cases, the relationship between believers and gods were usually beneficial for both sides. However, the more developed a civilization was, the more careful their attitude toward the gods was, not giving it a definition easily.

The Arcane Church had its own explanation for the existence of gods, and they had an unbelievable technology that could turn what the believers believed in into a real being! For example, for a religion that believed in a fictional god, the Arcane Church had methods to turn it into a real god. Of course, their reasoning for it was ‘All gods have existed since the start of time, waiting for offerings, and we just build bridges for the lost believers.’ Anyway, it was very Superstitious, and the Great Mechanic Han was not supportive of it.

Therefore, other than the Spirit Emperor, which the Arcane Church believed in, they gathered countless believers from other religions. It was a sacred land shared by all religions in Galaxy. Those four statues were the religious totems of a religion where its gods were materialized. It had gathered prayers from its believers for a very long time.

Most of this information came from the various articles that Han Xiao had read. All three Universal Civilizations had unbelievable abilities. Of course, he was not concerned with such a large matter. His primary target was completing the mission.

...

After the celebration ended, Han Xiao bade farewell to Chen Xing and went back to the rented spaceship.

“What did you get?” Herlous was very curious.

“I got a 100,000 Enas job.”

“Yo, that’s quite a lot,” Herlous said with a surprised tone. “Save a bit more money, and it will be enough to buy a spaceship.”

“There’s no need for that at the moment. The fuel, maintenance, and repairs are all costly.”

Han Xiao waved his hands. He had to at least wait until his own technology was enough to repair spaceships before he bought one. Only then would he be able to save on the cost of it. In his previous life, the players only all had a spaceship in the very late versions. Before that, only large guilds were wealthy enough to have spaceships.

Intercepting spaceships of gray organizations and selling them to the spaceship manufacturers at cost price was a way to earn money as well. He could work with the large mercenary groups if there was an opportunity. However, in that case, he would not profit much, since the people with spaceships were the main combat power in a space battle... unless he was the one piloting.

After setting the destination, the spaceship took off.

As Han Xiao knew the location of the statues, he did not have to waste any time. One of the statues was buried under the ground on some desolate planet; he just had to retrieve it. The usual method of getting it was through intel and detailed search of the entire planet, but he skipped those difficult steps.

There were no twists and turns on the trip. Han Xiao landed on the planet, headed straight to the location, and dug out the third Mysterious Statue. Other than the time spent on locating the exact spot, he did not waste a single second. According to the players’ experience, he had saved at least twenty days.

However, the last statue had an owner.

For this mission, they passed through many areas, returned to the Taralam Star Cluster, and entered the East River Star System, Star Zone 4.

“Planet Secret Blue. There is a civilization on the planet. Due to unknown reasons, the galactic civilization that found this planet did not contact the local civilization, nor did they expose their existence. This means that Planet Secret Blue does not know that they once had a guest from outer space, and they also don’t know what the universe is like. Hence, they are complete natives.

“However, the geographical... astronomical location of this planet is special. It’s located on the path of the objects spat out by a wormhole cluster. Therefore, a lot of space trash has been landing on their planet.”

Han Xiao opened up the star map and introduced their destination to the others.

“The objects from outer space allowed them to derive technology beyond their level, but due to the difference in technological level, the knowledge that they gained from it was limited.

“At the same time, this trash made them certain about the existence of other civilizations in the universe, but that’s all they know.

“What’s worth mentioning is that this space trash from different civilizations showed Planet Secret Blue different systems. Hence, since the early stages of development, they have been researching on magic, technology, runes, crystals, and so on. Focusing on too many things at once might not be a good thing for a developing civilization. In conclusion, their technology standard has yet to reach the level that allows them to carry out interstellar travel.”

Han Xiao tapped the screen.

“The last statue is one such ‘space trash’ that landed on this planet. It was seen as a product of a new technology by a certain local organization. That organization has since kept it under tight security.”

“Boss, what are you planning to do?” one of the Volgas asked.

“Land directly and make the request. If they don’t accept, we will beat them up until they do.”

Han Xiao’s tone was very decisive.

Herlous was stunned. “Is that a good way to do it? How about we communicate with them and give them some information about the universe in exchange for the statue?”

Han Xiao shook his head.

In his previous life, the players had thought this way as well.

Due to the difference in technology, Planet Secret Blue was divided into various organizations that fought each other. After choosing to negotiate, the organization that had the statue took themselves highly and made over the top requests. First, they asked for a ton of information about the universe, which the players agreed to. Then they asked for many advanced knowledges and technology, which the players agreed to. In the end, they even made the outrageous request of making the ‘outer space guests’ conquer other local organizations for them.

The players finally could not take it anymore. After beating them up, they finally gave up the statue. This proved that the prior negotiations were completely meaningless.

Facing people with such a mindset, if they did not show how big their fists were, they would think too highly of themselves.

Of course, if they could really satisfy that organization’s requests, they would get the statue in the end too and even trigger more missions. However, to Han Xiao, violence was obviously the most convenient method.

Therefore, Han Xiao did not want to waste time and chose to directly airdrop and make the request.

...

Located in the Northwest of Planet Secret Blue, the City of Runes was a city based upon, as its name implied, rune technology. It was located in the middle of a forest. Its buildings had engravings of runes that shone in blue and white lights. The theme of the buildings was mostly tall, thin, light, and triangular. There were tall, square towers standing a certain distance from each other engraved with energy-absorbing runes. Those towers were the energy cores of the city. There was no wall at the edge of the city, and the buildings gradually became shorter the further they were from the center, extending all the way into the forest.

Many years ago, some space trash had landed there, and on it were the secrets of the rune technology. The pioneers had derived some technology from it and slowly built that city. It was now one of the largest forces on Planet Secret Blue.

It was late at night.

In the forest more than forty miles away from the City of Runes, dozens of people constructed a temporary camp. The bonfire rune emitted a stable red light, giving out warmth. The people sat around it. They were wearing leather clothes and armor engraved in runes. The border of the camp was covered in green beast repelling runes, stopping the beasts and insects crawling in the night from getting close.

“Captain, how much can these goods sell for on the black market in the City of Runes?” A young man rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

The captain was a short and skinny man that looked somewhat like a mouse. He chuckled and said, “Someone is secretly purchasing space trash in the City of Runes. These goods we gathered would at least make us 8,000 Feces.”

This was a smuggler group that sold space trash. Every once in a while, the trash from wormholes would land at different locations on the planet. Such trash had research value, and every organization was collecting them. However, they would definitely miss some of it. Hence, the space trash black market was born to purchase these objects from outer space. The smugglers were groups of people that searched for space trash and sold them on the black market.

At this time, they suddenly heard the sound of something breaking the sound barrier. The sound got louder and louder, cutting through the silence of the night like a sharp knife. They stood up and looked over hastily. A burning meteor appeared in the night sky and was heading toward them.

The smugglers were way too familiar with this sound. Surprise appeared on their faces.

“Space trash!”

The burning meteor approached very quickly and dashed right above their heads, stirring up a strong wind, shaking the forest, and rustling the leaves. Then, the meteor landed nearby, crushing some trees and making a loud noise.

Boom!

The ground trembled, and they staggered, almost falling.

Fire and smoke rose from the crash site.

“We got lucky!” The captain was overjoyed. “The landing site of this space trash is near us. We can take it away before the search team of the City of Runes arrives!”

The group of smugglers acted very quickly and arrived at the scene. Before them was a pit covered in thick smoke. In the middle of it was an egg-shaped metal object about 2.5 meters tall.

“What is this?” The smugglers sized it up curiously.

“Don’t stand there, quickly move it away.” The captain hurried.

Just as they were about the approach, a loud bang came from the forest, and a small pit appeared on the floor before the smuggler captain.

“Everyone, do not come closer!”

A deep voice came from the other side of the forest. Another group of people appeared in the forest. They were wearing metal armor, equipped with grenades and rifles. One of them was wearing infrared sniper goggles, and the muzzle of the sniper in his hands was still smoking. The sound earlier had indeed been the sound of a sniper shot.

“Troops of Iron Fire Castle!” The face of the group of smugglers changed.

The Iron Fire Castle was one of the large organizations on Planet Secret Blue. They had the technology of metal, gunpowder, and machinery. Their mechanical battle vehicles were the most dreaded on the battlefield.

They were not the only ones. With more rustling in the forest, more teams were approaching. This new ‘space trash’ was like a vortex that attracted all the teams in the forest.

Those teams had very different expressions. What they all had was alert and hostility toward each other.

The other organizations would always have operation teams in the territories of other organizations to snatch any space trash that landed near their territory, preventing opposing organizations from getting new opportunities.

If they could not snatch it away, they would... destroy it!