From cannon fodder to sweeping across thousands of stars.

Chapter 281 The Vision of the Forerunner
Although the recent situation in the Star Dragon Empire seems to be slowly stabilizing, Amber knows that this is just a temporary suppression due to Agnes' iron-blooded suppression of the separatists.

And if Regent Norton II really decides to push back the 'final moment', the situation in the Star Dragon Empire will even develop from bad to good.

But Amber knows this situation is only temporary.

Because the regent is temporarily dormant, it does not mean that he will reach a reconciliation with Agnes, but that he is accumulating strength for subsequent attacks.

Because of the irreconcilable contradictions between different ideologies, these two spokespersons of 'capitalist revolution' and 'feudal autocratic rule' will eventually have a decisive battle to determine the future direction of the empire.
After talking about the recent changes in the situation in the empire, Lilith also informed Amber of a new piece of news.

That is the clone of Xinglong that was lost in the empire before - LLS943823. After the information collection network was established, its location has been gradually locked recently.

"This guy is having a good time recently. Although we can't directly interact with each other, I still feel the status of this 'clone'."

Speaking of her lost clone, Lilith was also a little helpless.

Although she has now mastered quantum communication technology, if she wants her clone to also learn this 'skill', she still needs to conduct an information exchange to 'upgrade the version'.

But it happened to be this LLS943823, as if it had been locked up and there was no news at all.

"So what you're saying is that your 'clone', who has lost contact with his real body, is now in a secret experimental galaxy in the Star Dragon Empire?"

"As expected of a Master, he easily deduced everything based on other people's information."

However, its volume is much larger than Amber imagined, and only half of it has been excavated so far, and the remaining part is still wrapped by the rock wall.

How did Amber feel after hearing the news?
First of all, he must be very happy. After all, this artificial celestial fortress can be regarded as a "legendary equipment" with the ability to completely wipe out a fleet.

The delay in information exchange also caused this clone to become the only 'alien' that had not completed the upgrade and could not communicate with the main body in real time.

In the end, Amber did not go back directly to the Tower of Babel, but chose to arrive at the mining area as soon as possible to see the Forerunner creation buried in the asteroid belt.

Although Lilith was very busy following Amber around during this period, she still did not give up looking for her lost clone.

And now, based on the last message sent back by LLS943823, Lilith deduced her current location and obtained the hull number of the spacecraft she was on.

Just like the photo sent by Randall and the others before, this regular hexadecahedron was quietly 'embedded' in the rock wall.

After sitting on centipede-like manned work robots and crawling inside the asteroid along the tunnels dug by these robots for a long time, the group finally arrived at their destination.

"Well, although we have always called them 'doppelgangers', they are actually Lilith, there is no difference.
If I were in it, I would not hesitate to try to gain control of the man-made celestial fortress. "

"It is even possible that this 'clone' has infiltrated into the 'experiment' in this test galaxy, and there is a 90% probability that this 'experiment' is the sixth man-made celestial fortress?"

"That's right, Master!" Lilith nodded like she was pounding garlic.

"Emmmm, it's really your style."

Amber suddenly didn't know what to say. He looked at Lilith who was looking at him with a playful smile and asked:
"Then what do you think your clone will be busy with inside?"

But due to Lilith's outrageous personality of being prone to convulsions sometimes, Amber was worried that the clone LLS943823 would cause a big mess inside.
But now that this has happened, Amber can only accept it first and then find a way to solve it when the problem actually arises.
-
A few days later, in the UD74290 asteroid belt, several warships escaped from the jump in a burst of white flash.

Coupled with some information that was gradually unlocked later, the location of LLS943823 finally became clear.

Soon, he, together with 'Miner Leader' George, took Amber and others to the 'A. Bawa Ku' asteroid base which was under construction.

But he was just complaining, and when it was time to get down to business, the former federal naval officer was also unequivocal.

After the surrounding rock walls and metal deposits were hollowed out, many spotlights were set up here, and Amber and others were able to see the entire hexadecahedron.

Randall, who hadn't seen Amber for a long time, first complained about his long-term desire to work in the asteroid belt.

"Boss, we have conducted preliminary detection on this thing, but it has not responded to the detection of various conventional instruments. At present, we only know that the long axis of this big thing should be about 800 meters."

George, who is responsible for coordinating the mining of the asteroid belt, stood next to Amber and said while wearing heavy asteroid overalls with armor plates.

For him, digging this thing out of an asteroid was still a big shock.

"When we first started working on this asteroid, we did a comprehensive inspection. We did find this thing at that time, but we regarded it as a relatively concentrated vein of metal ore inside the asteroid.

It wasn't until we dug deeper and deeper that we discovered that this thing didn't seem to be a metal vein, so we sent the 'Rock Snake' digging robot and mining mules to dig deeper inside, and finally discovered this thing. "

"You guys are so lucky."

Amber patted George on the shoulder, sighing inwardly.

"Ah? Why do you say that?"

"Because this thing is a mining artifact left behind by a super-ancient advanced civilization called the Forerunners."

Amber's answer directly confused George. As a miner who has been planning a 'life path' since birth, he really didn't know about the 'Forerunner Civilization'.

Not only him, but Randall and others on the other side also showed puzzled expressions.

Amber was not surprised by their reaction. Regardless of whether it is the Federation or the Empire, the training of lower-level residents has always been focused on the jobs they are 'assigned' to.

Less popular knowledge like 'Forerunner Civilization' will not appear in their textbooks at all.

"It's okay. It doesn't matter if you don't know about this thing. All you need to know is that it can increase Atlas Mining's mining efficiency and ore refining efficiency by at least ten times."

"Ten times?!"

When George heard this, he opened his mouth in surprise.

He knows the current mining efficiency and refining efficiency of Atlas Mining best throughout the company.

After annexing Timler Mining Company and continuously replenishing mining engineering ships, the size of Atlas Mining's mining fleet is no longer the same.

And this high-quality mining area with no one to disturb it makes Atlas Mining's mining team more efficient.

In this case, increase mining and refining efficiency tenfold?
George suddenly found that he could no longer imagine what this would be like, let alone the impact it would have on the surrounding ore trading market.
Just as he was surprised and confused, Amber had already propped himself up on the rock wall for a moment, and then floated towards the hexadecahedron.

"Boss (Amber)! Be careful. Let the robot pass first!"

Seeing Amber just walking over, everyone started to dissuade her.

However, Amber did not stop. He waved his hand without looking back to signal everyone to calm down, and then slowly floated over.

After getting closer, Amber discovered that the surface of this huge regular hexadecahedron was extremely smooth. Even though it was buried deep in the rock wall and had recently been affected by mining machinery, it still showed a 'mirror' texture.

The transition processing at the corners is very natural, without any flaws or any traces of splicing, as if it is made of some unknown ultra-high-strength material in one piece.

Under everyone's nervous gaze, Amber carefully placed her palm on the surface of the hexadecahedron, and then released a psychic wave.

Soon, the internal structure of the hexadecahedron appeared before his eyes.

Completely different from the seamless feeling on the surface, the interior of the hexadecahedron has an extremely complex network of pipes and node structures that can be expanded, running through the entire space like blood vessels and skeletons.

This ultra-precision processing capability, which is completely beyond the current level of human science and technology, is also one of the hallmarks of the 'Forerunner Civilization' to some extent.

Just when Amber was about to conduct another 'psionic wave scan' to find the core of this device.

The hexadecahedron, which originally looked like an eternal rock, suddenly seemed to come alive. A series of structural changes were heard inside it, and the surrounding rock walls also vibrated.

Amber, who was the closest, didn't even have time to tell the people behind her to retreat urgently before she felt her consciousness being suddenly pulled away.

When he came to his senses again, he found that he was no longer in the asteroid cave.

But in the ruins of a city.

He lowered his head and looked at himself. It was no longer the exoskeleton he was wearing before, but an ordinary piece of clothing.

Amber's first reaction was to wonder if she had traveled through time again.

But a subconscious thread deep in his brain told him that this was not time travel, but 'entering' an illusion.

Before he could think about what happened, the ruins of the city in front of him started to move as if the play button had been pressed.

Raging fires rose on the remains of the building, and there were bursts of panic screams all around, along with a large number of explosions and weapons fire.

Meanwhile, large numbers of panicked civilians fled from the buildings or surrounding streets as if they were meant to be there.

The civilians ignored Amber's presence, passed him one by one, and then disappeared at the other end of the street.

"Buzz buzz buzz."

A low roar came from the air.

Amber looked up and saw several huge warships appearing over the burning city.

Energy rays radiated from the battleship into the city, setting off a larger explosion again.

Amber looked at these huge warships strafing in the air. They were completely different in style from human and elven warships.

It is not a human steel giant ship with sharp edges and cold posture, nor is it a ship with biological characteristics like the elves of the Thousand Star Empire.

Instead, it is filled with a style that combines classicism and technology, but is not contradictory at all.

Judging from the appearance of these battleships, they are more similar to the regular hexadecahedron buried in the asteroid.

"Good guy, this isn't a Forerunner battleship, is it?"

(End of this chapter)