Lu Sheng expanded his level 13 spiritual energy outward. His power, imbued with the power of two emotion rules, could faintly detect traces of Mokodo's departure. Her level 14 aura was dissipating rapidly across the starry expanse like a receding tide.
Sheng, Haiji Dao and Anon Turing now stood together in the void, breathing in the familiar essence of their home universe they hadn't felt in a long time.
Standing beside Sheng, Haiji Dao gazed at the now vanishing spatial rift and spoke: "The Chief Star Elder asked me to relay to both of you that your family and friends who remained in the Hundred Great Star District will be taken care of. You can proceed to the center of the galaxy with peace of mind."
Sheng understood that these words were primarily addressed to him. The Turing family, from which Anon Turing came, was a powerful family within the Hundred Great Star Regions, spanning over ten Star Regions. They didn't particularly need Mokodo's attention, and even if they did, it would likely have already been handled.
"Please convey my gratitude to the Chief Star Elder."
Lu Sheng glanced around, his gaze finally settling on the spaceship before him. This old-fashioned ship, both in terms of model and technology, had accomplished its greatest mission by leaving the interdimensional battlefield. The hull, already aging after a long series of space travels, had become even more dilapidated after this last one. The power supply also appeared insufficient. It was clearly unrealistic to continue aboard this ship to the center of the Celestial Serpent galaxy.
"What should we do next?"
"Surely we can't keep traveling in this thing?" Anon muttered, clearly sharing Sheng's concerns. As the most exceptional genius in the Turing family's history, Anon Turing, who had been pampered since childhood, harbored great disdain for the dilapidated craft.
"Don't worry, the Chief Star Elder has arranged everything."
Haiji Dao raised his hand, operating the communicator embedded in his combat suit's wrist, and said, "To reach the Hunting Bow within half a cosmic year, crossing over a thousand star regions along the way, we'll need at least an Immortal-class vessel capable of traveling through Star Gates. That's why for the rest of the journey we'll be hitchhiking."
Haiji Dao's words contained a few unfamiliar terms that piqued Sheng's curiosity, but since he seemed busy arranging the jouney, Sheng held his questions back for now.
The three of them stood in the vast, silent void, waiting for, in truth, not a particularly long time. As the eighth stray meteorite passed by Sheng, Haiji Dao raised his head, his gray eyes gleaming slightly. He glanced in a certain direction and said, "It's here."
Sheng and Anon followed his gaze. In the dark void, a sudden and violent spatial disturbance erupted in one spot, where space itself seemed to be boiling, with large ripples and a strange force that Sheng could clearly sense but could not capture or describe. It was as if the "transparency" in that area was rapidly melting, and the strange force that he felt was this molten transparency.
"The power of space." This phrase popped in Sheng's mind.
Soon, the void melted completely. A long, conical object quickly emerged from it, like the head of a slender and elegant starry swordfish. But it wasn't long before Sheng realized that this object had nothing to do with slenderness and elegance.
What he saw was just an extremely insignificant part of the object that flew out of the melting void. When the entire object appeared before the three of them, Sheng couldn't help but feel amazed.
It was a dark brown spaceship, roughly the size of twenty azure planets, bloated in appearance, yet its surface shone with a variety of hazy and magnificent lights.
After the spaceship fully emerged, it began to shrink rapidly, not stopping until it was about the size of one and a half azure planet. At this moment, Sheng noticed a pattern of dozens of purple stars of varying sizes printed on the side of the spaceship. It looked like a specific symbol.
Then, the largest purple star in the center of the pattern lit up with a blue light.
Several figures slowly emerged from that star. Sheng narrowed his eyes slightly, clearly seeing that there were fifteen of them. All were martial powerhouses of level 12.
They were notably tall. Sheng himself was already quite tall— he had refined his body through his martial arts training, and after countless reconstructions his physique had reached a height of nearly 2.2 meters [TN: 7 feet]. This seemed like the right stature for his current power.
But most members of the approaching group stood over 3 meters tall [10 feet]. The leader was a woman, looking relatively smaller among them and still close to 2.5 meters [8 feet].
Each of them bore at least three purple stars on their foreheads, resembling the pattern on the surface of a spaceship. The woman at the forefront had five purple stars between her brows, indicating her as the highest-ranking among them.
The group approached Sheng and the other two. The leading woman, with stunning purple hair and an impeccably proportioned figure, smiled brightly. She made an odd gesture with her hands, as if performing some strange ritual, and spoke:
"On behalf of the Star Spirit Flower merchant guild, I sincerely welcome you, esteemed Lord Bone Long Blade."
Her voice seemed transmitted through a translator. Haiji Dao's perpetually stoic face cracked into a rare, light smile. He returned the woman's peculiar greeting with the same odd courtesy, "Miss Purple Beautiful Heart?"
Sheng guessed the name was a direct translation as well.
"Yes."
The purple-haired woman smiled and nodded, inviting Sheng and the other two aboard. Surrounded by a group of purple-haired people, Sheng and the other two moved toward the spaceship. On the way, he overheard Haiji Dao and Miss Purple Beautiful Heart talking.
Now he got a rough idea of what Haiji Dao meant by "hitchhiking". The three of them were going to use the Star Spirit Flower merchant guild's spaceship to reach a place called the "Hunting Bow". Along the way, the three of them would also be responsible for helping protecting the vessel. It was like joining as bodyguards for the guild's spaceship.
And if Sheng was correct, the "Hunting Bow" they mentioned repeatedly in their conversation was a nickname for the center of the Celestial Serpent Galaxy.
Sheng heard that Miss Purple Beautiful Heart's real name was Zi Yanxin, she was the spaceship's captain, and when she asked about his and Anon Turing's identities, Haiji Dao replied that they were both students. It did look that way. After all, he and Anon Turing were both only level 12, while Haiji Dao was level 13.
It was clear that Zi Yanxin's agreement to giving the three of them a ride was based on Haiji Dao's strength as a level 13 martial artist. As for Sheng and Anon, both being level 12, they were expendable.
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Translation notes by dhoo
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The Hunting Bow... we'll learn more about it in the next chapters. - NEW term
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This seemed like the right stature for his current power.
I simplified the original version. What do you think of it? Here is a translation of what the author wrote: "This was the right stature for his current power. The proportions of every part of his body were also optimized to perfection." Every part? Was the author being thorough in his description so that we don't imagine a super tall Sheng with super short arms? It feels unnecessary, it's quite natural for his limbs to grow with his body. Or do you think the author was making a dirty joke?
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Haiji Dao's perpetually stoic face cracked into a rare, light smile.
Haiji Dao seems younger and more cheerful in the manhua. It makes sense for a general spending his time fighting on a violent battlefield to be serious. I like this Haiiji Dao: serious, efficient, respectful, experienced and straightforward. And sometimes fun.
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The Star Spirit Flower - NEW term
星灵花 (trad. 星靈花), xīng líng huā: 星 star 灵 quick/spirit/etc. 花 flower
The Star Spirit Flower merchant guild is a powerful family/merchant-guild trading goods across the galaxy. The Star Spirit Flowerspaceship is a gigantic spaceship, as big as "twenty azure planets".
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Zi Yanxin aka Purple Heart, Miss Zi Yanxin, Miss Beautiful Purple Heart - NEW character
紫妍心小姐 (trad. idem), zǐ yán xīn xiǎojiě: 紫 purple, 妍 beautiful, 心 heart, 小姐 Miss
Miss Zi is an important member of the Star Spirit Flower merchant guild; she is the captain of the Star Spirit Flower spaceship.
See the discussion on her name in my Glossary.
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Lord Bone Long Blade is a literal translation of Hái Jí Dāo dàrén (daren is sir, lord), it's the first time the question of communication between people from different planets is raised. How can all these people coming from different planets, star systems, Star Regions or even Star Districts can so easily talk to each other? The author quickly dismisses this question by indicating that high tech suits with integrated translators allow everyone to communicate with only minor issues like this translated name. Why not.
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Miss Purple Beautiful Heart is a literal translation of Zǐ Yán Xīn xiǎojiě (xiǎojiě is Miss), it's Haiji Dao witty answer to Zi Yanxin's mistake with his name.
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Big numbers
What do you think about the size of the Star Spirit Flower spaceship... twenty azure planets... too big? Well, we're talking about "advanced" civilizations who can surely mine thousands if not millions of planets, and the star ship of the Star Elder of the Hundred Great Star Regions was also bigger than the Lyresas family planet, but I assumed it was a small planet, and twenty azure planets feels too much for me. It feels like it would be a nightmare even just to move inside it. It could also greatly affect the trajectory of any nearby planet. The Earth diameter is 12,750 km (8,000 miles). If the author meant that the spaceship's length is twenty times bigger than this diameter then it measures 250,000 km (160,000 miles, 80 times the US width from the west coast to the east coast). It would take 10 hours to go from one end to the other at the speed of a 2026 Earth spaceship (ten times faster than the fastest fighter plane). Damn. But maybe the author meant that the spaceship's volume is 12 times Earth's volume and it has a round shape, that would be more reasonable. Its diameter would be 2.7 times the Earth's diameter, which is 34,500 km or 21,500 miles (11 times the US width, since the US length, from the west coast to the east coast, excluding Alaska, measures around 3,000 km). It would only take 1 hour instead of 10 hours :) Well, I tried to fathom how immensely big this ship is in the author's imagination. The Purple team has 50ish level 12s, maybe they're not bothered by the gigantic size of the ship, maybe their speed inside the spaceship is immense too.
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Three digits
In the very beginning of this chapter, after "They didn't particularly need Mokodo's attention", 七五三 (753) is mentioned. It could be a mistake (I use an alternative Chinese version which has probably been automatically created by converting simplified to traditional characters), or it could be a reference to the Japanese rite of passage for 7-5-3 yo children, called 七五三 (Shichi-Go-San), or a reference to gambling, I don't know. Do you know more about it? For now I'll skip it. Here is the complete sentence from metanovel dot org: 並不太需要摩科多的關照,就算需要,這關照大概率也早就開始"七五三"了. It's not the first time I see three digits between quotes like this, and I have no idea what it means.