Age of Cosmic Exploration

"That’s right, I have obtained this illusory space..."

In a meeting room somewhere on the Hope, the group who had removed their space armors were discussing the issue regarding the illusory space. The ball of light was also with them.

"No, that might not be the whole truth. The more accurate way of describing the current situation is, until the original owner of this illusory space returns, another god-tier space civilization comes to dominate this illusory space, or another space civilization obtains a greater load capacity of this illusory space than I did, then I suppose you can say I have obtained this illusory space."

Yao Yuan scratched his head and explained the situation with a bitter smile.

Other than ZERO, the other two couldn’t hide their excitement because ZERO had hyped up this illusory space too much. If humanity really obtained this thing, then it was an ultimate victory for humankind.

"But... the load capacity I managed was only 0.00007 percent. You can count for yourself how many zeros there are after the decimal point, and the functions that I am able to use are... practically none."

Yao Yuan continued to explain with an awkward smile, "I have gained part of the information about this illusory space. First, this space was created by a race by the name of Mo. The time of creation was about 70,000,000 years ago. After creating the breakthrough technology of Perpetual Gears Assembly, they became a god-tier space civilization...

"Secondly, it was around 24,000,000 years ago that the civilization managed to capture this high-ranking demon by the name of Mecha God Granzon. They were defeated when they were in the middle of modifying this demon, and that’s how this illusory space became ownerless.

"Just like how ZERO described it earlier, most of the energy of this space is being used to seal away Granzon. Therefore, the percentage of suppression I can manage to induce on this high-ranking demon equals to the amount of resources I can use from this illusory space. Unfortunately, I can only manage a 0.00007 suppression rate at the moment. This 0.00007 percent includes the information about the history of this illusory space, its creator, and the technology storage of this Mo race."

The two who were grinning excitedly froze. With some lingering excitement, Ji Jie asked as the information registered in their mind, "Chancellor, does this mean that... the information about the Mo race is the complete 0.00007 percent?"

"Of course not." Yao Yuan shook his head. "But that is not far away from the truth. The functions that I can use at the moment include teleportation of less than 10 people to any location within the illusory space and removal of any lifeforms or civilizations that have a lesser load capacity than I do in this illusory space. Other than that, I am able to bring a group of less than 10 into the illusory space for as long as three months every 10 years, or use the function of the dark dimension for less than 3 years. Er, the so-called dark dimension refers to the dimension occupied by these people who are still asleep. I am able to draw their consciousness into the illusory dimension of the illusory space, where death is not equal to death, unlike this space we’re in.

"Furthermore, if I do not use any of those powers, I will be rewarded with the power to perform a controlled warp every 10 years, or if I don’t use that, I will be able to demolish any material within a 3/10 light-second radius every 50 years... Well, demolish is not the correct term, it is more like pulling these things into the intermediate space between the physical space and illusory space and abandoning them there. That dimension is a space between existence and non-existence, so technically, we wouldn’t need to worry about them anymore."

The duo who started to get disappointed earlier had their interest reignited while listening to Yao Yuan. Regardless, Jay still chimed in to ask, "Isn’t an Immortal extremely rare in space? You only managed to get so little load capacity after suppressing the demon, so don’t tell me the level 8 space civilization had an Immortal that was more powerful than you? How else did they manage to draw so many space civilizations into this illusory space?"

Yao Yuan answered, "That is the next topic that I wish to discuss. The load capacity I meant earlier refers to the Immortal load capacity, or in other words, the resource level I have as the owner of this illusory space. It will never decrease. It will never increase either if I don’t try to suppress the demon even if I do have a better method to do that in the future. Other than that, there is another load capacity by the name of contribution load capacity. Simply put, however much you contribute to this illusory space, the illusory space will return to you that much amount of resources. Unlike the Immortal load capacity, this contribution load capacity will fluctuate until it is completely depleted. I believe that this level 8 space civilization has collected the contribution load capacity over several billion years, and that is why they were able to attract so many space civilizations here."

Then Yao Yuan turned to ZERO and said, "Now I understand why you could lead the Hope on those controlled warps... There is another illusory space within your UFO, right? So you are able to pass freely between the illusory space inside the UFO and the physical space of the Hope. You have exhausted the contribution load capacity that you have collected inside that illusory space to lead the Hope on those controlled space warps, right? You have also mentioned that you cannot do anymore controlled space warps, and I believe that is because your contribution load capacity is now completely depleted, correct?"

After ZERO heard that, she grumbled with some degree of dissatisfaction, "You’re right, I’ve exhausted all of the contribution load capacity on you humans. In exchange, I only ask for a physical body after you’ve become a high tier space civilization. That demand is not too high, is it?"

"It isn’t," Yao Yuan sighed and confirmed.

In fact, when he found out about contribution load capacity and ZERO’s sacrifice, the first thing he felt was guilt. He shouldn’t have treated the girl so badly before this. Contribution load capacity was invaluable because it was a joint existence with the illusory space. It was not life, material, or spirit, it was the basis for all god-tier space civilizations. It could record a lifeform or a civilization’s contribution towards it according to its own unique set of laws. The contribution load capacity was incredibly important. In fact, the amount of contribution load capacity ZERO had exhausted on humanity was enough to enable her to live on forever in her illusory space. In contrast, humanity had done nothing worthwhile for her in return, so humankind truly owed her too much.

Suddenly, Ji Jie asked, "Then how do we earn this contribution load capacity?"

Yao Yuan looked at her with approval. Indeed, under the condition where the Immortal load capacity wouldn’t increase any time soon, what they needed to do now was to collect as much contribution load capacity as possible. As long as they didn’t attract the wrath of the high tier space civilization, humanity was going to be invincible should they have enough contribution load capacity.

"First, the most crucial thing for this illusory space naturally is to suppress the high-ranking demon. Therefore, everything related to the suppression, including technology, messages, information, or even items will be able to be exchanged for enormous amounts of contribution load capacity or even a smidgen of Immortal load capacity. The second method involves the technology that hasn’t been discovered or recorded by the Mo race. It can even be a technology from low tier space civilizations. As long as it is not in the records of the Mo race, they can traded for contribution load capacity. After that, it’s a collection of different space information, which includes biological information, demon information, universe information, or information about other god-tier space civilizations that haven’t been recorded by Mo race before.

"These are the most effective ways to earn contribution load capacity. Of course, there are also some manual labor tasks that we can do..."

Yao Yuan shook his head with a frown.

"Manual labor?" Other than ZERO, who showcased a fearful expression, the duo was confused.

Yao Yuan explained, "You’ll understand it better if I just show it to you..." His finger reached out to the air and the shadowy gears appeared around him again. He pressed one of them and the four of them disappeared again.

They then reappeared in a state of darkness. On one side was darkness and chaos while the other was light and a large construction made up of numerous gears.

"We’re at the edge of this illusory space. Ever since its creation, an illusory space will grow alongside the god-tier space civilization that created it, and this illusory space... unfortunately is still too young, it is not even one million years old. This is because the Mo race was a young god-tier space civilization. Therefore, this illusory space is very small. In fact, according to the information I’ve received, the size of this place is about one-twentieth of a galaxy. Furthermore, this illusory space has stopped expanding. The reason for that is because, one, its owner has disappeared and two, most of its resources were expended on sealing Granzon. In fact, I was told that this illusory space is gradually downsizing, and the smaller this illusory space becomes, the weaker the seal on Granzon becomes. According to calculations, in about 12,000,000 years, if we still haven’t discovered a solution to deal with Granzon or stop the minimization of this illusory space, then this place will collapse... due to Granzon’s escape and destruction.

"You see those gears? Some of them are coming loose and others have cracked. The so-called manual labor is locating these weakened gears and reporting them to the system. This mission requires the most manpower but provide the least contribution load capacity. If we’re unlucky, the amount of resources we provide might even be less than the amount of contribution load capacity we obtain.

"Other than that, the other manual labor is to create new gears. This is probably how the level 8 space civilization collected so much contribution load capacity. It is tedious, but it is a constant source of contribution load capacity. Unfortunately, we are unable to do this... this is because we do not have the technology to build the gears necessary for this illusory space. We do not have even the simplest metallurgy technology to build a gear of this caliber..."

Yao Yuan concluded with a bitter smile, "Therefore, this illusory space that I’ve inherited, while it is extremely valuable and can be considered our trump card... it is going to be nothing more than a decoration in the foreseeable future."