Wormhole Cells

Tang Chuan didn't linger on the landing pad. After accepting the private number Teregal gave him, he quickly left on his own.

For now, there was nothing he needed to ask. Even if there were, he could have Quintessa directly infiltrate their information systems to find answers for him.

As one of the main landing pads on Heckar-18, it was massive—truly massive, impossibly grand.

After all, this was a place designed to park starships. Its scale and facilities couldn't possibly compare to the airports on Azure Star.

The endless landing pad was filled with all kinds of spacecraft, large and small.

Above, Heckarian Standard Shuttles zipped back and forth, weaving through the sky dozens of meters up.

Whenever a new ship landed, airport management personnel would pilot shuttles down to clear the area, preventing casualties from the ship's atmospheric pressure.

Just this one corner of the planet gave Tang Chuan a real, tangible understanding of interstellar civilization.

But before long, Tang Chuan cursed the shamelessness of interstellar capital once more in his heart.

Why? Because the landing pad was so huge that if he tried to walk out, his legs would give out!

There were public transit vehicles on the ground, but each one had a very short stop time and long intervals between arrivals.

And most importantly—they charged a fee!

If you wanted to get out of the landing pad quickly, you could. Public shuttles were available everywhere, like shared bikes.

But the price was steep: two hundred standard credits per Heckarian hour!

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

This was clearly a scam targeting rich aliens!

In the end, though, Tang Chuan became exactly the kind of rich alien he was complaining about. He rented a Shared Shuttle about the size of an Azure Star car.

What could he say? He had money.

And he couldn't be bothered to wait for the bus...

The Shared Shuttle looked a bit like a concept car from Azure Star. Parts of its outer shell were made of transparent material, though if you didn't want to be seen, you could set the shell to opaque at any time.

Civilian shuttles on Heckar flew at dozens of different altitude levels, all to avoid "mid-air collisions."

After all, without traffic rules for aerial shuttles, it might seem like the sky was the limit, but in reality, collisions and casualties would be all too easy.

This matched Tang Chuan's expectations. If a planet wanted to popularize flying vehicles, it would inevitably need traffic controls far stricter than those on the ground.

Otherwise, shuttles moved too fast and were too hard to manage. Any accident could cause massive loss of life and property.

So to operate a Shared Shuttle, besides swiping a card and paying, you also had to select a flight altitude. The shuttle would then stay at that altitude, unable to intrude into other air lanes.

Of course, if you wanted smooth traffic, a panoramic view of the scenery below, and fewer airspace restrictions, you had to pay extra...

Ugh, Tang Chuan was disgusted.

But hey, he had money. Fine, he'd just pick the most expensive flight altitude—the one with the most freedom, the best view, and the least restrictions.

The shuttle launched, rising directly to its designated track. There was about four or five meters of vertical space where Tang Chuan could freely adjust—the "free movement zone" of this traffic lane.

As a product of a high-level Level 9 Civilization, the Shared Shuttle naturally had artificial intelligence. It wasn't fully human-like, but its intelligence was far beyond anything Azure Star's tech could match.

Tang Chuan, however, directly disabled the AI system. After all, with Quintessa around, any other AI was useless.

Quintessa hacked into the system, took control of the shuttle, and began flying Tang Chuan around the planet.

Looking down at the massive airport, he estimated it covered at least ten thousand hectares. It was a combined military and civilian airport.

The civilian section took up most of the area, but under special circumstances, the law allowed the entire civilian area to be requisitioned, grounding all non-military spacecraft.

Tang Chuan looked toward the restricted military core zone. He could vaguely make out a massive, bulky, and bizarre spacecraft. When Quintessa zoomed in on the image, Tang Chuan was stunned.

What kind of ship—or creature—was that?

It was several kilometers long and wide. Bulging parts of its hull revealed steel-like muscle striations. Above those bulging muscles, naturally growing on the gray flesh, was a shell like that of a beetle—scales and armor, or perhaps... an exoskeleton?

On top of the scales, patterns grew as naturally as if they were inscribed with some kind of Universal Rules. The sight alone was awe-inspiring.

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. It's less a ship and more a controllable, rideable space creature.

"It's cultivated from the cells of some strange creature, used to traverse wormholes and perform short-range Spatial Jumps—maybe ten or so light-years at a time.

"After all, traveling through wormholes requires understanding and controlling too many Universal Rules. Not even a Level 9 Civilization, let alone a Level 8, can create a ship capable of long-term wormhole travel on their own."

Tang Chuan was surprised. "So you're saying that low-level civilizations basically have to rely on Biological Starships if they want to explore the stars over long distances?"

Quintessa said, "That's right. In fact, for slightly higher civilizations, Biological Starships are still the most practical and affordable option for long-range jumps."

Tang Chuan asked curiously, "Affordable? So these things are pretty common?"

Quintessa explained with a smile, "A long, long time ago, a wise being from a high-level civilization was performing a wormhole jump when they discovered that at the moment a wormhole opens, star creatures from another dimension emerge, feeding on the spacetime energy inside.

"These creatures, later named 'Wormhole Creatures,' have very low intelligence. Most act on instinct, and the weaker ones, aside from being able to move within wormholes, don't have much power.

"So someone saw a business opportunity. High-level civilizations began competing to capture those low-level Wormhole Creatures.

"They extracted their flesh and blood, spent a long time modifying and cultivating them, and eventually created controllable 'Biological Starships' that could split and grow into various forms, easily piloted by intelligent beings.

"This allowed lower civilizations to travel through wormholes and perform interstellar jumps at a relatively low cost, while protecting the intelligent beings inside from being eroded by the wormhole's rules and turning to dust.

"However, these cultivable 'Wormhole Cells' are still quite expensive even for Level 8 Civilizations. Not many Level 8 Civilizations possess them."

But once successfully cultivated, it could reduce the cost of interstellar jumps to a minimum.

Based on my inspection, this Heckarian vessel should be a 'defective product' of Wormhole Cells sold to the Heckarians by a high-level Level 8 civilization, carrying certain hard-to-detect flaws.

Still, for a Level 9 civilization, that's something to be proud of—they can perform space-time jumps, deliver thunderous strikes against other civilizations in an instant, and excavate rare resources from the depths of distant star rivers to bring back to their own civilization.

Tang Chuan roughly understood now—even among the civilizations of the Main Universe, interstellar jump technology and resources were a costly endeavor.

Just like Azure Star, without the technology or the ability to forge it, what could you do?

Buy it.

As long as you had resources, you didn't even need to build it yourself—they'd sell you a complete package!

As for defects? You check for yourself!

If you found them after buying, that was your problem.

As for the specific technology?

Sorry, teaching you wouldn't help—you wouldn't have the conditions to make it work anyway.

What, you want to take a look and try?

No can do—I'm afraid you'd learn just enough to be dangerous and burn yourselves. That would be on us.

For your own good, don't bring it up again.

Tang Chuan smiled and shook his head, asking, "Since even Level 8 civilizations only have a few, where did the Heckarians get theirs? Are they that rich?"

Quintessa gave Tang Chuan a meaningful look and said, "That, of course, relies on their number one home planet possessing a low-level Fourth Cosmic Speed powerhouse!"

Tang Chuan paused, then laughed. "So it seems, no matter the place, dimension, or civilization, strength is what truly speaks."

Quintessa smiled as well. "Except for a few extreme cases in the Main Universe... yes, Master, you're right. Strength is the foundation of everything."

Tang Chuan: "That makes me look forward to your second course of treatment even more."