Chapter 10

After leaving the VIP room, Li Wenyuan fell into a short period of thought.

The only resource he still needed to repair the level 4 singular point was Czero, and now this one gram of Czero had simply stopped him in his tracks. He could only sigh.

To think even a huge company like Coribo couldn’t get Czero. He couldn’t think of a way to get his hands on it either.

Seeing that there was no way to finish repairs, he had no choice but to control the synthetic humanoids to search the place for any visitors from the idealistic civilizations.

According to what Blenning said, Czero was only produced by idealistic civilizations.

“But then again, to think there are idealistic civilizations that have developed into the interstellar era?” Li Wenyuan didn’t quite believe it. The education he had received in his previous life had formed his unwavering materialistic worldview.

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As such, in his mind, the so-called “idealistic civilizations” were but a nominal existence. In fact, they still walked the path of science.

However, just as he was thinking such, a voice suddenly came from beside the synthetic humanoid, “To a certain extent, we are also materialistic. It’s just that our materialism looks like a bunch of lunatics talking to themselves in your eyes.”

The sudden voice startled Li Wenyuan in the virtual world. He looked around but saw nothing.

“I’m right here. You should fix your mechanical eyes. Can’t you see me?”

Only at this time did Li Wenyuan notice that there was a small “fairie” floating in front of the synthetic humanoid’s chest.

At first glance, she looked like she was floating in the air, but the synthetic humanoid’s artificial eyes were able to see that she actually had two pairs of dragonfly-like wings flapping rapidly behind her.

The high-frequency movement of the wings made them hard for the naked eye to detect, but it was just a frame-by-frame slow motion to the mechanical eye.

As for why he said she looked like a “faerie”, it was because Li Wenyuan did feel that she was very similar to the fairies who flew among flowers in Western fantasy movies in his previous life.

What surprised him the most was that the faerie before him looked very similar to a human, whether it was her body shape or face.

This was the second “human-like creature” that Li Wenyuan had seen after Lilian. The pleasant surprise of meeting an old friend in a foreign land even made him forget how this “faerie” had attracted his attention.

The alien who looked like a “faerie” raised an eyebrow and asked curiously, “So you’re really an Ai and not one of those half-modified artificial bodies? I thought that only organic life forms could detect spiritual signals. I didn’t expect that an AI could detect spiritual signals too. This is a good discovery. It seems like we need to put a question mark on the “spiritual theory” in our textbooks.”

Hearing her words, Li Wenyuan suddenly realized that this faerie seemed to be able to pry into his thoughts.

What was going on? Was it magic? Or some unknown technology?

As soon as the idea popped up, he subconsciously became alert. The synthetic humanoid’s cold eyes analyzed the faerie’s body structure, and at the same time, it added a new species to the lifeform atlas that had not been updated for a long time.

“Oh my…” The faerie suddenly looked regretful and said, “Why did you suddenly become alert? If that’s the case, I won’t be able to continue reading your spiritual signal. How about I pay for it, and you chat with me for a while more? This will give me more material for my graduation thesis.”

Although the faerie’s expression was sincere, Li Wenyuan had no intention of staying any longer. He disappeared into the crowd.

The faerie, on the other hand, looked as if she had missed a great discovery after the other party left.

“If I had known earlier, I wouldn’t have reminded him. This way, I could have studied him for a while longer… But who can resist the temptation of communicating with an AI with a heart? Sigh, I hope I’ll be able to meet more similar ones in the future…” The faerie fluttered through the crowd, and everyone scattered in fear as if they had seen a ferocious beast.

The faerie simply disappeared from the crowd as if such reactions were a common occurrence.

It was not until she left that someone in the crowd whispered, “If I’m not wrong, that seems to be someone from the idealistic civilization of the Court of Faris, right? I think the last time we saw them was at the science convention…”

“Shh… It’s said that the science convention at that time ended on bad terms. No one knows what exactly happened, but after that, the idealists almost stopped contacting the outside world and rarely appeared in interstellar space…”

“That being said, almost all the idealistic civilizations are under the protection of the Watcher, so there haven’t been many conflicts.”

“But aren’t they just a bunch of lunatics who talk to themselves? It’s better to stay away from them, lest you get infected…”

…

Li Wenyuan did not know anything about what happened after he left. He simply hurriedly completed the deal with Coribo, then started the spaceship to go back.

The encounter with the faerie made him realize that there were still many dangers in interstellar space that he had never thought of. He thought that with the synthetic humanoids’ high-level protection, it was impossible for there to be any information leak.

However, he did not expect the idealistic civilization to be so shocking. To think they could use some kind of technological method to read his thoughts, which he had never heard of before.

“I have to hurry back. Interstellar galaxy is too complicated for me to grasp now. I’ll come to the stage of interstellar space to broaden my horizons when I have the strength.”

After checking the goods and confirming that there were no problems, Li Wenyuan started the spaceship with a ship full of strengthened alloys and a level-three energy core that was stored in a special container.

Just as he left the spaceport, the bear alien, who was waiting for good news in the security room, received the news that the pirate spaceship had left.

He was stunned at first, then he flew into a rage as if he couldn’t imagine that someone would dare to ignore his threat and leave without paying the guarantee fee.

As such, he quickly opened the communication device with his men and contacted his colleagues working in the trade department, wanting to know how much the trade volume of the pirate spaceship had been in the exchange center.

He had already made up his mind to collect a 95% guarantee fee this time. Otherwise, he would never let the spaceship leave.

“Hello? Beardy? It’s me, I have something to trouble you with… Yes, help me check. Those fellows really don’t know the immensity of heaven and earth. We have to let them understand who the real boss here is!”

The person on the other end of the communication device agreed. After a while, he asked in a subtle tone, “Bear… Are you sure you really want to tax that spaceship?”

“Of course! Otherwise, where would I put my dignity? Do you think a bunch of new pirates have balls?” The bear still didn’t seem to care as if it wasn’t afraid of anything.

Beardy was silent for a moment before he continued, “Fine then, you’re awesome. The spaceship’s transaction amount is 22.5 billion energy coins. I’ve never seen such a trade amount in a border galaxy like ours.”

“It’s only 22… How much!?” Bear, who had been leisurely in the security room, stood up. His four eyes, which were always filled with greed, were now filled with shock.

“22.5 billion! You usually take 30%, right? Since the spaceship provoked you, you will at least take 50%, right? Tsk tsk, that would be more than 10 billion. Remember to give me some when you’re free~” Beardy teased as if he could already see Bear’s expression of disaster.

At this moment, Bear was already covered in a cold sweat. He trembled and immediately shouted to the communication device on the other side, “All of you, get back here! No one is allowed to take a step out of the port! I’ll throw anyone who dares to leave the port into the star furnace!”

The men who were rubbing their fists and eager to arrest the “wanted criminals” were stunned by his roar, then immediately stayed put in the spaceport.

“Are you not awesome anymore? What do you usually say to those pirates? Something like, you won’t live far in this trade and will die sooner or later, right? This time, you’ve offended someone you can’t, huh?”

Beardy’s gloating voice echoed in Bear’s ears, but he was no longer paying attention to it. Instead, he was pacing quickly in the security room, thinking about how to remedy the situation.

His monthly salary as the ” security captain” was not even in energy coins. Instead, it was an electronic currency circulated within Coribo.

Energy coins were only used in interstellar transactions, but even so, one energy coin was already a sky-high price in the eyes of ordinary people. Even with Bear’s annual income, he could not afford one energy coin.

Fortunately, his position was special. As the captain of the guards in this trade enclave, he had the opportunity to secretly collect taxes from those “unlicensed spaceships”.

And here, there was no lack of unlicensed spaceships.

This was a trade station in name, but in reality, it was a place where interstellar explorers could trade and resupply. Coribo’s trade partners were usually those people.

The crazy explorers would usually not return to their home planet for the rest of their lives, and thus the electronic signatures of their spaceships often could not be updated. So, they were regarded as unlicensed spaceships.

Bear earned an extra one to two hundred energy coins a year by collecting taxes. The amount might seem small, but it was enough for him to buy dozens of buildings on his mother planet under someone else’s name.

But now, this trade amount that was as high as 10 billion… He wouldn’t dare to lay a hand on it even if he had ten thousand guts.

So, while he informed his men to leave the spaceport again to escort a “pirate spaceship”, he sent an e-mail to the group on the spaceship, trying to admit his mistake and seek forgiveness.

Li Wenyuan controlled the spaceship and was about to activate the hyperspace engine to head to the next galaxy when he received an email.

When he looked at the sender and saw that it was the guard, he threw the email into the recycling bin.

He didn’t have the mood to wrangle with such a small fry. He just wanted to hurry home.

If the other party wanted to collect taxes, he could do as he pleased. Li Wenyuan had left all the energy coins with Coribo anyway. He didn’t believe that the alien who seemed like the “security captain” would dare to touch such a large amount of energy coins.

Furthermore, the Administrator civilization he represented had already received the attention of Coribo. It was already good enough that he didn’t go to the security captain to settle the score.

As soon as the hyperspace engine was activated, Li Wenyuan’s spaceship disappeared from the galaxy without a trace.