Chapter 328 The Starry Sky Seems to Have Been Conquered
Three days after the Lunar Orbit Station 1 was officially established, an extremely rough photograph was transmitted back to Earth.
The photo didn't show the grand starports of science fiction movies, nor the pristine, brightly lit circular spacecraft. Instead, it showed only a narrow, cramped life support tunnel, its walls riddled with exposed pipes. Several Foundation Establishment cultivators, having just finished their extravehicular activities, leaned against the tunnel wall, clutching tubes of nutrient solution, their faces as white as if they'd just been pulled from the water due to weightlessness and vacuum pressure.
The only landmark is a piece of discarded titanium steel plate hanging at the entrance. The edges are not polished, the cutting marks are charred black, and five words are crookedly burned out with a plasma welding gun: "[Lunar Orbit Station 1]".
The person who took the photo only intended to record the project's progress on the internal system. However, after this unfiltered photo was transmitted back to Earth, it went viral on the Cultivation Alliance's intranet.
People in the engineering system were the first to forward it, cursing Lao Liu's crude aesthetic sense while silently saving it. Soon after, the military, various training academies, and the hunter guild's casual forums were all flooded with this tattered sign.
"Is this humanity's first lunar orbital station?"
"Don't worry about whether it's damaged or not, as long as it can hold our patrol boats."
"With the Guanghan Base on the moon and Unit 1 standing in the sky, the framework of the Earth-Moon defense line is now in place!"
"I used to think interstellar teleportation was outrageous enough, but now we even have registered units in lunar orbit."
Below the post, the discussion exploded exponentially. Some dug up blurry screenshots of the Guanghan Base's groundbreaking ceremony, while others created a holographic commemorative image of the ugly titanium steel plaque, accompanied by a highly provocative bold slogan: "From this day forward, humanity has a place to set foot in the stars."
Kyoto, Joint Control Room.
Wang Mingyuan sat at the end of the conference table, finished reviewing the public opinion briefing on the encrypted terminal, and remained silent for a long time. On the large screen, the search popularity curve for "Lunar Orbit Station No. 1" had already shown an out-of-control upward angle.
"We've already had the cybersecurity department suppress it several times, but it's still not working." The head of the Coordination Agency stood aside with a complicated expression. "The photos initially only circulated on the project's intranet, but someone leaked them to the academy's system. Now, the Coordination Agency's backend is about to be overwhelmed by applications for the lunar mission. In 72 hours, the number of applicants has increased eightfold."
On the other side of the conference table, the logistics minister rubbed his temples in exasperation: "Of these eight times the number of people, more than half don't even have the most basic qualification certificate for vacuum weightlessness operations."
The screen switched, and densely packed electronic application forms were projected onto the screen.
[Request to be transferred to the Guanghan Base Mining Area Guard Team.]
[Applying to participate in the selection process for reserve pilots of lunar patrol boats.]
[Willing to undertake any high-risk operations, only seeking a lunar deployment.]
The last application came from a struggling individual, with only one sentence in the reason section: "The roads on earth are too crowded; I want to try going to heaven."
Wang Mingyuan closed the summary report without expression.
"Raise the screening standards. Anyone without low-orbit simulation results will be removed from the lunar orbit list; anyone without a record of handling a vacuum accident will be strictly prohibited from entering the core mining area. Those who haven't even undergone closed-loop survival training and are just there to join the fun, will be sent back immediately."
He paused, his voice cold and hard: "Also, notify the propaganda department to change their public messaging. Tell everyone that Lunar Orbit Station One is not a starport, not a colony, and certainly not a tourist attraction. It's currently just a metal can that can barely allow patrol boats to stop and catch their breath."
"Understood." The logistics minister nodded in agreement.
But everyone knew that while official statements could be changed, the fervor spreading across humanity could not be suppressed. From the groundbreaking of the Guanghan Base, the interstellar teleportation array was successfully completed, the Ten Thousand Swords Array was successfully verified, and moss grew in the lunar greenhouse… Earth had won too quickly and too rapidly. The fruits of victory piled up, inevitably giving rise to extreme and blind optimism.
……
The Third Cultivation Academy of Central Plains, Low Gravity Tactical Training Ground.
It was already late at night, but hundreds of students were still wearing extremely bulky vacuum simulation suits, repeatedly practicing zero-gravity posture correction in the magic array force field.
A young cultivator who had just completed the Foundation Establishment stage lost control of the nozzle angle on his back due to unstable true essence output. He spun out of control for more than ten meters and crashed into the titanium steel protective net in a very disheveled state.
The instructor, with a cold face, blew his whistle: "Out of the game."
The young monk gritted his teeth and struggled to his feet: "Instructor, I request to do it again."
"Your true energy output is extremely chaotic, and the attitude thrusters are delayed by half a beat." The instructor looked at him coldly. "Once you're in lunar orbit, even a half-second mistake is enough to turn you into a dried-up corpse floating in deep space. You can't even stand steadily in the simulation field, yet you're risking your life to die in the sky?"
The young monk removed his helmet, sweat dripping down his pale chin. He didn't offer any explanation, but simply turned to look at the public screen at the end of the training field.
A photo of Lunar Orbit Station 1 was playing on a loop there. The rough, ugly titanium steel sign stood out starkly under the cold white light.
"My father was a lowly wandering cultivator who spent his entire life hunting low-level demonic beasts. He died without even saving enough for a single Foundation Establishment Pill." The young cultivator looked directly into the instructor's eyes. "I was able to achieve Foundation Establishment thanks to the academy's expansion of enrollment. But on Earth, my potential has already been reached. All the good spots on the surface are taken, and there aren't any on the moon yet."
The instructor looked at him silently for a moment, then finally put the whistle back in his mouth and uttered only two words: "Return to the unit."
The young monk fastened his helmet again and stumbled back to the queue.
Inside the training field, people kept losing control and crashing into the protective netting, only to grit their teeth and climb back to recalibrate the nozzles. No one complained; all those eyes behind the heavy masks were fixed intently on the dilapidated, cramped orbital module on the screen.
……
Guanghan Base, 380,000 kilometers away.
Old Liu was lying on the outer shell of Lunar Orbit Station 1, installing a second set of external energy storage racks on the supply compartment. When the first batch of candidates selected for the Lunar Orbit Station were transmitted to him through the internal channel, the plasma welding torch in his hand almost veered off course onto the main power line.
"Another two thousand people?" Old Liu cursed in the channel. "Are those little brats down there so hot-headed they could go and set off for the Taiyi Furnace? If they actually come up here, they're probably hoping to take a selfie with Station One."
"It's just the shortlist; there are still three rounds of elimination." Li Xiang's voice was crackling with static. "The number of applicants is too large, so the Coordination Bureau has to relax the initial screening criteria."
Old Liu tightened a reinforcing bolt and looked up at the enormous thing behind him.
Lunar Orbit 1 station hovers quietly in low lunar orbit. The three main modules are forcibly connected by a thick central shaft, with six aesthetically unappealing damping trusses extending from the outer layer. No matter how much netizens on Earth praise it, to this veteran engineer, from a distance it looks like several gas cylinders welded together.
"Let them come." Old Liu pressed the welding torch back against the bulkhead, the pale blue arc of electricity dancing silently in the vacuum. "But tell the training team not to issue patrol weapons right away. Throw all the greenhorns to clean the circulating filters and sewage pipes. Only those who can stand up and keep working after vomiting can talk to me about their organizational structure."
A soft laugh came from the other end of the channel, followed by the disconnection.
Old Liu kept his head down and continued welding. Beneath his feet lay the vast lunar surface, shrouded in deep shadows; while in the far distance, the Earth hung silently in the void, like a blue lamp. Lunar Orbit Station 1 was tiny, sandwiched between the two, like a rivet just driven into a vacuum.
……
Seven days later, the first base of the Kyoto Space Elevator was completed.
The first batch of candidates who passed the initial screening lined up in front of the huge elevator, carrying extremely heavy tactical equipment boxes.
Most of them were very young. There were orthodox cultivators from academies, low-level rogues exuding a murderous aura, and array apprentices who had just been transferred from the front lines of the project.
The officer in charge of escorting the group stood in front of the cabin door, his cold gaze sweeping over the group of eager rookies.
"Let me reiterate one last time." The officer's voice, though not amplified, rang clearly in everyone's ears. "The moon is not a gilded resume for you. There are no sacred mountains or blessed lands there, only vacuums, high-risk radiation, mine collapses, depressurization alarms, and mechanical malfunctions that could suck you dry at any moment. Exit now, and you will not be punished."
The spacious underground plaza was deathly silent; not a single person in the queue moved an inch.
"Enter the cabin."
At the head of the line, a female cultivator gripped the handle of her equipment case and was the first to step into the cold, white cabin. The second person, the third person… hundreds filed in.
With a dull thud as the airtight valves locked, the elevator began to ascend at a terrifying rate of overload.
The ground receded rapidly, the clouds were violently ripped apart, and the deep blue stratosphere flashed past the window. As the absolute blackness of the starry sky pressed down relentlessly before them, the cabin, which had been filled with whispers, instantly fell into a deathly silence.
Some people saw the enormous curvature of the Earth for the first time, while others stared out the window at the bottomless void, their Adam's apples bobbing with difficulty.
No one cheered, but in that deathly silent cabin, countless eyes shone with an eerie light in the darkness.
……
Joint control room.
Wang Mingyuan stood with his hands behind his back, watching the various launch indicators on the big screen progress smoothly.
"Professor Wang, should we further reduce the number of applications for the next batch?" the head of the Coordination Agency asked in a low voice.
Wang Mingyuan watched the backs of the group of young people in the video, who were trying to appear calm. He was familiar with that look in their eyes, a mixture of fear and extreme excitement. In the era of massive infrastructure construction, every pioneering road was built with that kind of look in their eyes.
"No need to press down. Now that the road has been opened, people will always have to move forward," Wang Mingyuan replied calmly.
He turned and walked back to the console, raising his hand to bring up a set of star map models with extremely high privileges.
On the screen, a three-dimensional projection of the moon is slowly rotating. The Tranquil Plain on the near side is dotted with lights, and the vast mining area, the spirit-guiding array, and the tiny orbital station are clearly visible, symbolizing humanity's glorious achievements in conquering the stars.
However, as the model slowly rotated to the far side of the moon, all the cursor and the boom came to an abrupt halt.
The screen was now filled with an absolute, deep blackness that seemed to swallow all light. In that vast shadowy region, forever turned away from Earth, there was no life, no light; the data transmitted back by the deep space probes exhibited an extremely unnatural stillness.
Optimism is growing wildly on the surface of the earth, and everyone is immersed in the fervor of conquering the stars.
But Wang Mingyuan stared at that vast and unknown black shadowy area, his gaze colder than that of polar glaciers. The commotion humans were making on the moon was so great that he began to suspect that deep within this excessively quiet background noise, something was coldly watching them.