Otherworldly Starfield Market Test

As one of the five major cities on the White Tower Floating Continent, Jiangyuan City had a population of over twenty million under its jurisdiction, with more than a hundred thousand students in each graduating class.

With such a large student population, there was naturally more than just one Kindling academy. Even though Jiangyuan First Ember Academy gathered the elite students of all Jiangyuan City, it could not possibly encompass every awakened student in the city.

According to past conventions, the number of students who successfully awakened in each class was usually around a thousand.

Half an hour later, on the outskirts of Jiangyuan City, at the ultra-long-range Star Sea deployment platform.

More than five thousand Jiangyuan City residents had already gathered here.

As one of Jiangyuan City's few major annual events, quite a few people had come to watch the otherworldly starfield deployment ceremony. Including the students, teachers, and parents who had just arrived, the crowd surrounding the deployment platform had now reached five figures.

Another twenty minutes or so passed. Once the District Director of the White Tower Ember Bureau confirmed that all newly awakened Jiangyuan City students had arrived, the otherworldly starfield deployment officially began.

The first students to take the stage were not from Jiangyuan First Ember Academy. On the contrary, they had been arranged to go last as the grand finale.

Even from the central district of Jiangyuan City, massive pillars of light shooting into the sky could be seen every twenty minutes or so. Each pillar of light signified that one hundred newly awakened Jiangyuan City students had been deployed into an unknown Star Sea countless light-years away.

Song Chi and Sun Hao were assigned to the same batch. They stepped onto the platform together and swiftly summoned their Psionic Shuttles. Once all one hundred Psionic Shuttles had lined up neatly, an Ember Bureau officer outside the deployment platform gave the order.

A pillar of light a thousand meters in diameter shot straight into the heavens.

As the hundred Psionic Shuttles vanished from the platform, Song Chi's father and mother, along with the other parents outside the deployment platform, did not leave. Instead, they took outdoor tents from their backpacks and slowly began setting them up.

They planned to wait here overnight. The initial otherworldly starfield exploration period lasted twenty-four hours, and students could actively choose to return in an emergency. Worried about their children, none of the parents were willing to go home. They were all willing to spend the night waiting here.

The intense sensation of weightlessness made Song Chi instinctively close his eyes. The violent shaking made the shuttle's hull seem to groan and creak. If he had not fastened his seat belt in advance, he did not dare imagine how badly he would have been tossed around.

As the weightlessness and dizziness gripping him greatly subsided, he did not wait for his body to recover. Suppressing the extreme discomfort within him, he forced his eyes open and quickly activated the Psionic Shield component on the shuttle.

Song Chi wholeheartedly agreed with something his homeroom teacher often said in class: the alien races of the Star Sea would not wait for you to get your bearings. What you needed to do was always be one step faster than them, whether attacking or running away.

The Psionic Shield, enhanced to lv7, had a charging time of 23 seconds. More than twenty seconds later, when the black shield covering the surface of the Psionic Shuttle was fully activated, Song Chi finally let out a sigh of relief.

Only then did he have the time to adjust his physical condition and inspect the environment outside the shuttle.

As for why he had not activated the Psionic Shield before deployment, that involved another piece of common knowledge within Kindling Human Civilization.

During ultra-long-range deployment, the hull of a starship had to withstand immense spatial pressure. If an energy shield was activated beforehand, it would inevitably overload under the effects of spatial force. After all, no matter how strong an energy shield was, it could never compare to the mighty power of the void.

There was no need to elaborate on what it meant for a Kindling Starship's energy shield to overload.

As far as Song Chi knew, once an energy shield overloaded, it would need at least half an hour of cooldown before it could be activated again, with some taking as long as an hour. During that time, a Kindling Starship would not be entirely defenseless, but its defenses would be reduced by at least 70 percent, sending the danger level soaring without limit.

Therefore, activating a starship's energy shield before deployment was a major taboo for all Kindling captains.

His gaze fell on the display screen, and Song Chi frowned slightly. The screen was utterly black, which meant there were no stellar bodies or floating continents nearby. Looking at the radar readings, they likewise showed no large celestial bodies or floating continents within its detection range. Forget floating continents—even small debris fields had not been detected.

Seeing this, Song Chi felt a faint sense of unease, but he did not dwell on it immediately. Another matter had been occupying his thoughts all along.

After repeatedly confirming that there was no danger around the shuttle, he took out the Star Sea Market Token still hanging from his chest and swiftly directed the psionic energy within his body into it.

After all, major items such as the Fury Tiger Type I Star Sea Floating Continent mining vehicle and the Mining Vehicle Prospector were still stored in the market.

"It has to work!!"

Song Chi shouted in his heart. Whether he could open the Myriad Heavens Market in an otherworldly starfield was extremely, extremely important. To a great extent, it would even determine the upper limit of his future achievements. How could he not worry?

As psionic energy continuously flowed into it, Song Chi's heart gradually sank. The Star Sea Market Token showed no response for a long time.

Just as he was about to give up, a familiar pulling force suddenly acted upon his body.

Feeling that pulling force, Song Chi could not hide his excitement. Joy was written all over his face, and in the next instant, his figure abruptly vanished from within the Psionic Shuttle.

At the same time, Song Chi's figure quietly appeared within the Myriad Heavens Market.

Having confirmed the result, he did not linger in the market. With a thought, he withdrew from it and returned to the Psionic Shuttle.

Before the shuttle's control console, with the most important matter resolved, Song Chi could finally focus all his attention on exploring this unknown starfield.

During the first few stages of a Kindling Starship, the time one could remain in an otherworldly starfield was only twenty-four hours. If he wanted to obtain resources, he did not have much time to waste.

The Shattered Star Sea's resources might be extraordinarily abundant, but that did not mean every random starfield would have piles of rare resources waiting to be picked up. To plunder resources, he first had to find resource points with a high chance of yielding them, such as asteroid belts, small debris fields, and Star Sea Floating Continents.

The Shattered Star Sea was unimaginably vast, stretching across endless light-years. A single Kindling Starship scattered within it was not even comparable to a grain of sand in the vast ocean. Thus, finding such resource points in the span of a single day was actually far more difficult than one might imagine.

This was why Kindling Human Civilization repeatedly emphasized that a good Sky-Patrol Radar was worth more than anything else.

The lv7 Psionic Engine roared to full power, and the Cangqiong began racing in one direction at cruising speed near the speed of light. At the same time, Song Chi's gaze swept repeatedly over the Sky-Patrol Radar, his eyes filled with anticipation.