Wormhole Cells

Tang Chuan did not linger at the landing pad. After accepting the private number Teregal had given him, he quickly left on his own.

There was nothing he needed to ask for the time being. Even if there were, Quintessa could directly breach their information system and find the answers for him.

As one of Heka Star 18's main landing pads, it was enormous—truly enormous, magnificently so.

After all, it was meant to park spacecraft. Its scale and facilities were beyond anything Azure Star's airports could compare to.

All kinds of spacecraft, large and small, were parked across the boundless landing pad.

In the air, Heckarian Standard Shuttles came and went, weaving through the sky dozens of meters overhead.

Whenever a new spacecraft landed, airport personnel would pilot shuttles down to clear people from the area, preventing casualties caused by the spacecraft's air pressure.

Just one corner of this planet gave Tang Chuan a more tangible understanding of interstellar civilization.

But before long, Tang Chuan was once again cursing the shamelessness of interstellar capitalism in his heart.

There was no other reason—the landing pad was too huge. If he wanted to walk out, his legs would break first!

There were public vehicles on the ground, but each public hover vehicle stopped only briefly, with long intervals between arrivals.

Most importantly, they charged money!

If he wanted to get out of the landing pad faster, he could. Shared Shuttles were available in every direction, like shared bicycles.

But they were expensive too. One Heckarian hour cost two hundred universal credits!

That was enough to feed a family of three for an entire month!

These bastards were scamming rich alien idiots, weren't they?!

Yet in the end, Tang Chuan became one of those rich alien idiots he had mocked and rented a Shared Shuttle about the size of an Azure Star car.

No choice. He had money.

And he could not be bothered to wait for the bus...

The Shared Shuttle resembled one of Azure Star's concept cars. Parts of its outer shell were made of transparent material, though if one did not wish to be watched, the shell could be set to opaque at any time.

Heka Star's civilian shuttles flew at dozens of different altitude levels, all to prevent "midair traffic accidents."

After all, without traffic rules for airborne shuttles, the sky might seem open enough for birds to fly freely, but shuttle collisions and casualties would still be easy to cause.

This was in line with Tang Chuan's expectations. If a planet wanted to popularize flying vehicles, its traffic control measures would inevitably have to be far stricter than ground traffic regulations.

Otherwise, shuttles were too fast and difficult to control. A single accident could cause devastating loss of life and property.

Thus, to operate a Shared Shuttle, aside from swiping a card and paying, one also had to choose a flight altitude. The shuttle would then remain at that altitude and could not casually enter other aerial lanes.

Of course, areas with smoother traffic, less airspace control, and a better view of the scenery below cost extra...

Ugh. Tang Chuan felt sick.

But since he had money, fine. He directly selected the most freely navigable flight altitude, with the best view—and naturally, the highest price.

The shuttle set off, rising directly to its designated route. There were four or five meters of space above and below, allowing Tang Chuan to move freely within the "free movement zone" of that traffic path.

As a high-level Level 9 Civilization, its Shared Shuttles naturally possessed Artificial Intelligence. Though not fully humanlike, its intelligence was still far beyond Azure Star's technology.

But Tang Chuan directly blocked the intelligent system. With Quintessa around, other Artificial Intelligence was utterly useless.

Quintessa directly breached the system, took control of the shuttle, and carried Tang Chuan on a tour of the planet.

Looking down over the massive airport, Tang Chuan estimated that it covered nearly ten thousand hectares. It was a major airport shared by military and civilian use.

The civilian section took up most of the area. Of course, in special circumstances, the entire civilian section could be requisitioned and nonmilitary spacecraft banned from flying, as was written into Heckarian law.

Tang Chuan looked toward the restricted military core zone and vaguely spotted a colossal, heavy, bizarre spacecraft. After Quintessa magnified the image, he was stunned as well.

What kind of spacecraft was that—or rather, what kind of creature...

It was several kilometers long and wide. On the bulging sections of its outer shell, one could even make out steel-like muscle fibers. Above those swollen muscles grew gray flesh, naturally covered by a shell resembling an armored insect's carapace—or perhaps... exoskeletal tissue?

Across its scales and armor grew natural patterns that seemed to inscribe certain Universal Rules, leaving anyone who saw them awestruck.

Quintessa explained at the right moment, "This is a Biological Starship. It should be a core technology granted to the Heckarians by their superior civilization. Rather than calling it a spacecraft, it would be more accurate to call it a controllable starry-sky creature capable of carrying passengers.

"It is cultivated from the cells of some strange organism and used to travel through wormholes, achieving short-distance Spatial Jumps. At a time, it can only jump around a dozen light-years.

"After all, traveling through wormholes requires involvement with and control over too many Universal Rules. Not to mention a Level 9 Civilization—even a Level 8 Civilization cannot create a spacecraft capable of roaming wormholes for long periods on its own."

Tang Chuan asked in surprise, "Then does that mean low-level civilizations can almost only rely on Biological Starships if they want to explore the stars over long distances?"

"That's right," Quintessa said. "Even for some slightly more advanced civilizations, Biological Starships are the most practical and cheapest option for long-distance jumps."

Tang Chuan asked curiously, "Cheap? Then these things must be pretty widespread?"

Quintessa smiled as she explained, "A long, long time ago, while performing a wormhole jump, a sage from some advanced civilization discovered that at the instant a wormhole opened, starry-sky organisms from another dimension would drift out. They fed on the spacetime energy within wormholes.

"However, these lifeforms, later named Wormhole Creatures, possessed very low intelligence. Most acted on instinct, and some lower-grade Wormhole Creatures had no particularly formidable strength aside from being able to move within wormholes.

"So people saw a business opportunity. Advanced civilizations competed to capture those lower-grade Wormhole Creatures.

"They extracted their flesh and blood, spent a long time modifying them, and cultivated controllable Biological Starships capable of dividing and multiplying into various forms. They could be easily controlled by intelligent lifeforms.

"They allowed lower civilizations to travel through wormholes and make interstellar jumps at a relatively small cost, while protecting the intelligent lifeforms inside from being eroded by wormhole rules and decaying into ruin.

"However, these cultivable Wormhole Cells are considered relatively expensive even for Level 8 Civilizations, and not many Level 8 Civilizations possess them.

"Yet once cultivation succeeds, the cost of interstellar jumps can be reduced to the lowest possible level.

"Based on my scans, Heka Star's vessel should be a defective batch of Wormhole Cells sold to the Heckarians by a high-level Level 8 Civilization. It has certain difficult-to-detect flaws.

"But for a Level 9 Civilization, that is still enough to take pride in. They can perform spacetime jumps, launch sudden devastating strikes against other civilizations, and excavate rare resources in the distant depths of the galaxy before transporting them back to their own civilization."

Tang Chuan more or less understood. So even among civilizations of the Main Universe, interstellar jump technology and resources were money-burning undertakings.

Just like on Azure Star, if you lacked the technology and the ability to build it, what could you do?

Buy it.

As long as you had the resources, you did not even need to make it yourself—they would sell you a complete product directly!

As for whether it had flaws, that was for you to inspect!

If you found out about the flaws only after buying it, then it was no longer their problem.

As for the specific technology?

Sorry, you would not understand it even if they taught you. You also did not have the conditions necessary to put that technology into operation.

What, you wanted to take a look and try it out?

That would not do. They were afraid you would only half-understand it and end up playing with fire, bringing disaster upon yourselves. That would make their sin far too great.

For your own good, it was best not to bring up the matter again.

Tang Chuan smiled and shook his head. "Since only a few Level 8 Civilizations possess it, where did the Heckarians get one? Are they that rich?"

Quintessa gave Tang Chuan a meaningful look. "Naturally, they rely on the fact that their Number One main star possesses a low-level Fourth Cosmic Speed powerhouse!"

Tang Chuan froze for a moment, then laughed. "So no matter where you are—any place, any dimension, any civilization—strength is still what matters."

Quintessa smiled as well. "Aside from a few extreme circumstances in the Main Universe... yes, Master, you are right. Strength is the foundation of everything."

Tang Chuan said, "That makes me look forward to your second treatment even more."