NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 1 - The Wandering Hunter
Chapter 1: The Wandering Hunter
Lin Zhichen piloted the Haiyan-class frigate, cautiously navigating through the asteroid belt.
The hundred-meter-long metal hull weaved through the asteroids like a swimming fish, with the nearest meteorite only a mere hundred meters away.
In the vastness of space, this distance was almost negligible.
The densely packed meteorites and the sluggish starship resembled a hunter with a gun cautiously advancing through a dark forest, where every step was a matter of life and death.
This was the solar system, within the asteroid belt between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.
Three years ago, this was a tranquil expanse of starry sky, devoid of human presence except for the occasional noise from meteor collisions.
But now, this was a hunting ground, where the roles of hunter and prey weren’t fixed and could switch at any moment.
Three years ago, the entire solar system suddenly transmigrated to a new universe. One day, the tens of billions of natives on Earth woke up to find themselves with personal panels—just like NPCs in a game.
Before the panicked people could regain their composure, a starship filled with a sense of science fiction already arrived in Earth’s outer space orbit, bringing greetings from the Human Federation to the natives. Fortunately, the humans of this universe were no different from those of the original universe in terms of genes and appearance.
The bewildered Earthlings, overnight, ascended from natives who had not yet left their home planet to civilians of the interstellar era.
Then they discovered the peculiarities of this universe—not only did everyone have personal panels, but NPC wild monsters and pirates with spaceships would also appear in the starry sky.
These pirates, though lacking in intelligence, were far more dedicated than normal people. They wander the starry sky all day long, and once they spot a lone starship, they swarm it, often leaving the victims with nothing but ruins. However, when they encounter a powerful fleet, they keep their distance, making them extremely troublesome.
This was the normal ecology of the new universe, detailed on the Federation’s star network. In the endless sea of stars, in regions untouched by intelligent beings, the brainless ones that appear were as dense as meteorites, enough to make any intelligent life shudder.
This special situation resulted in massive casualties when exploring star regions. Every colonial star system was built upon the lives and wreckage of starships.
The solar system was very fortunate because it transmigrated to the edge of the Human Federation, exchanging places with a normal star system. The desolate planets suddenly became habitable, and with tens of billions of natural humans, it immediately drew the high attention of the Federation government.
A defense fleet was quickly assembled to maintain the stability of planetary order.
After a brief transition, the United Nations was upgraded to the Earth Autonomous Government, joining the Human Federation as a whole and receiving support from the Federation, transitioning from a primitive industrial planet to the interstellar era.
Due to the threat of NPC wild monster fleets, the intelligent life nations of the new universe’s galaxy place utmost importance on fleet construction. The Federation even distributed star network helmets to Earth’s populace for free.
In a virtual world similar to the metaverse, every citizen could receive professional skills training and obtain corresponding professions.
Lin Zhichen chose to be a captain, as commanding a starship to roam the starry sea was his dream.
The benefit of this profession was that if one could achieve an “A” grade or higher in the graduation exam, they could receive a standard frigate from the Federation for free upon graduation.
The long interstellar journey inevitably made him restless, and the unchanging view of asteroids outside the porthole caused his mind to wander.
He opened his personal panel:
“Name: Lin Zhichen (Light Red)
Gender: Male
Age: 21
Talent: Heaven Rewards Diligence (Purple): Effect 1: Effort leads to rewards, skill practice will improve; Effect 2: Members within the faction enjoy the influence of this talent
Psionic (Awakening Degree 99.93%, Not Activated)
Profession: Captain (White, Advanced): Effect 1: Ship Evasion +8%; Effect 2: Sub-light Speed +5%
Skills: 1: Cultivation * Refining Qi into Spirit (Red, 99.93%)
2: Ship Command (White, Advanced 78.42%)
Evaluation: A weakling with boundless potential!”
“Just a little more!” he encouraged himself inwardly, feeling the faint sense of weakness in his body, and suppressed the urge to continue cultivating.
The prerequisite for refining Qi into Spirit was refining essence into Qi. Where did essence come from?
Essence was the innate primordial essence. People consume grains and metabolize them, with a daily limit. After maintaining the body’s normal needs, only a tiny bit remained.
Lin Zhichen recalled his past life, though the memories were already blurred.
He vaguely remembered that it was during the late Ming Dynasty. He was cultivating with his master in a Taoist temple in the desolate mountains. Due to his exceptional talent, he became a great Yin God cultivator in just sixty years, and was only a step away from becoming a Yang God.
However, when the Qing soldiers entered the pass, they destroyed the mountains and temples. The Taoist temple was burned to the ground, and his master and junior brothers died in battle. He was the only one who managed to escape after a desperate fight.
With resentment in his heart, he knew that the great trend of the world favored the Qing over the Ming. So, he made a desperate attempt, intending to pass through the tribulation of the Yang Fire and become a Yang God True Person, an achievement unseen in a hundred years, to battle the true dragon of the human world. However, he was reduced to ashes in the sea of fire, with only a trace of his Yang God consciousness traversing time and space, arriving several hundred years later.
The new world was already in the Dharma-ending age, lacking any soil for cultivation. He spent eighteen years, with the help of a trace of the Yang God prototype, barely managing to cultivate into a Yin God, still far from his previous life’s cultivation, let alone the Yang God path.
Unexpectedly, at the age of 18, the solar system transmigrated…
“It seems that the moment I achieve the Yang God will be when I awaken my psionic abilities!”
Excited in his heart, he suppressed his emotions.
The psionics of the new universe were different from the cultivation of the old era. Even newly awakened psionics could interfere with the physical world, and creating a nuclear bomb by hand wasn’t a dream.
In comparison, only those who reached the Yang God realm in ancient cultivation could interfere with matter. No wonder cultivators in the past were chased by the government like dogs, while psionics in this world hold noble status and are respected wherever they go.
But now he had a greater reliance. As a gift from arriving in the new universe, every Earthling can obtain a talent panel that displays their personal information.
Among them, 15% of Earthlings acquired talents, a rate much higher than the 5% reported by the Federation government.
The talent levels start from gray and white, followed by five levels: red, orange, yellow, green, and blue, with the talents improving as the levels progress.
Based on the color sequence, it was speculated that there should also be green, cyan, blue, and purple levels, but there had never been any information about this on the star network.
His talent, Heaven Rewards Diligence, was purple, which, even according to speculation, was the highest level. Such a high talent made him afraid to reveal it, and he cautiously completed virtual learning three months ago, graduating with an “A-” rating and obtaining a frigate.
Fortunately, as long as one never wished to, the personal panel could be completely disguised. Now, it was like a dragon freed from its shackles, swimming in the vast sea.
Although intelligent beings in the new universe could see their skill proficiency through the panel, the learning and practice of skills were no different from the original universe. Effort didn’t necessarily lead to progress, and skills could regress if not practiced for a long time. The panel merely provided a reference.
“Captain, we have a situation!” The radar observer’s report interrupted his reverie. He stepped forward and saw several small red spots flickering on the radar.
This was the marker of an unknown vessel, with a size no larger than his frigate, meaning the ship’s length didn’t exceed 200 meters.