The Bubble Universe
On the outskirts of the megastructure, the "Legion," one of the few civilizations that had not hidden away somewhere after ascending, appeared quite brazen.
A colossal mechanical construct stood upright in the center of the Celestial Throne galaxy cluster.
A flash of spacetime radiance flickered and vanished, revealing its form.
It had no specific shape. Its outline held a certain disharmony, like a silhouette forcibly pasted into this spacetime. At its edges, a few disjointed afterimages would occasionally flicker past.
And in "its" hand, it held a "communicator."
"This is the place, right? The coordinates of a new ascended civilization."
"Mm. The civilization here ascended just recently, but there's no 'civilization investigator' stationed here. Go take a look."
The voice of a superior came through the "communicator."
"That's a little unfortunate," Agent 404 sighed.
"Haha, are you regretting it a little? If you'd transferred earlier, you might have become a member of the 'Ascension Investigators.'"
"Not really. Transfers have their advantages, but they have drawbacks too. What if the ascension fails?"
"You really are stubbornly refusing to admit it."
The superior on the other end of the "communicator" teased him a few more times before hanging up.
Agent 404 clicked his tongue twice, his mood somewhat complicated.
Under normal circumstances, spacetime agents of the same rank were certainly more comfortable than civilization investigators of equal rank. For one thing, after transferring, they could only operate within that civilization's territory. To a spacetime agent who roamed across the entire universe—even across different timelines—that was practically imprisonment.
However, once the civilization overseen by a civilization investigator successfully ascended, the investigator's position would rise several levels at once, and they would enter the Civilization Council to hold a mid-level position, such as joining the "Civilization Relations Committee" and becoming a