Chapter Seven: Preparations Before the Final Mission

First of all, I wish everyone a Happy New Year! My apologies for finishing this only now—let me make up for it at the start of 2013 with this chapter!

After gathering the data from the Adventurer, he returned to the connecting passage, cast one final glance inside, and began to repair the hole in the Adventurer’s hatch. If he left it unrepaired, the air inside would leak into space, and his father’s body would burst from the pressure difference. Once he had returned to the Starry Sky One and disengaged the docking between the two ships, he packed up the collected data and transmitted it back to Earth. At the last moment, he decided to include a photo of himself with his father, accompanied by a message: “If I fail to return from this mission, please give this photo to my mother.” After completing all this, he settled into the pilot’s seat and prepared for the next task: using Tayue’s gravity and orbital speed to accelerate his ship.

After adjusting the ship’s orientation, he activated the propulsion system, entered a sequence of commands into the main computer, relinquished manual control, and pressed the execute button. The upcoming acceleration would occur at a tremendous speed, far beyond the reflexes of a human pilot, not to mention the precision required at such velocities. Reclining in his seat, he once again felt the intense G-forces, even stronger than during Earth’s launch. Suddenly, the crushing gravity vanished—his ship had completed its acceleration. A glance at the instruments confirmed he had surpassed the third cosmic velocity, hurtling rapidly toward the edge of the solar system.

Once the acceleration faded, Li Xingyu unfastened his restraints and left the pilot’s seat, though he didn’t remove his spacesuit. Soon, his ship would break through the solar system’s boundary—a process fraught with potential dangers. The suit might save his life. The gravitational forces in this border region, while present, weren’t entirely stable. Though there were no major celestial bodies, smaller cosmic debris existed, and should the ship be struck and its hull breached, the suit could preserve his life and give him a chance to repair the damage.

He picked up a bag secured beside the seat, containing his MVP5—a compact multimedia computer the size of a phone, capable of photography, videography, music playback, and more, powered primarily by the solar panels to the north. There was also a high-powered laser pistol whose beam width could be adjusted to vary its area of effect—useful for blasting away space dust during extravehicular activity. For a sense of its power: at its narrowest setting, it could pierce a five-meter-thick steel plate from a kilometer away; at its widest, it could shatter rocks up to a meter in diameter within a hundred meters.

The pistol was powered by rubies—a recent scientific breakthrough allowed the conversion of certain materials’ mass into energy, and rubies proved especially suitable. A single ordinary ruby could fuel ten maximum-power shots, but his bag contained over twenty regular rubies and a top-quality heirloom ruby passed down in his family. Additionally, he carried some of his father’s belongings: several sapphires also usable in the pistol, a family-heirloom diamond rough, and some uncarved jade.

There was, too, a mysterious stone-like object—the only memento from a trip with his girlfriend to the Kunlun Mountains. She’d twisted her ankle on it; its curious texture and attractive appearance compelled her to keep it. Before his mission, she gave him not only a cherished necklace but also this stone, believing it would remind him of their time together among the stars.

The bag also held simple tools and life-support or emergency supplies. After a quick inventory, he closed and secured the bag to his suit.

After checking the ship’s systems and confirming it was nearly time, he returned to the pilot’s seat to await the moment the ship would exit the solar system. He would need to perform a spacewalk soon after, so everything he required was with him.

With nothing to do but wait, his mind wandered back to what had happened during his hibernation. In the quiet, he became aware of changes in his body since his awakening. His senses seemed much sharper, especially his vision—he could see farther into the starry depths. He was more energetic, having completed numerous tasks without rest and without fatigue. His body felt stronger—not in size, but in resilience, as proven by his endurance during the ship’s acceleration near Tayue. During the launch from Earth, he had felt close to his limit, but this time, despite greater forces, he was unharmed. There were other subtle changes he hadn’t yet noticed or understood.

Inevitably, his thoughts turned to the cultivation practice he’d undertaken in his mind during hibernation. Could it truly have been more than a dream? He tried focusing his awareness on his lower dantian and soon sensed the peculiar energy he’d felt during his sleep. With careful intent, he guided this energy along certain pathways within his body—the meridians, well-known in traditional medicine but never anatomically confirmed in modern science.

The sensation matched what he’d experienced before: as the energy completed a circuit through his body, new energy flowed in from the outside, nourishing him as it merged with what was already there. The newly absorbed energy felt raw at first, but he knew that with further cycles, it would become indistinguishable from the rest. He now felt certain that he had, in fact, been cultivating during his hibernation. Realizing this, however, made him hesitant to continue; cultivation depended entirely on conscious control, and any distraction could send the energy spiraling out of control, causing intense physical distress—something he had already experienced when his control lapsed.

In the cultivation world, such loss of control—when the true energy runs wild within—was known as deviation. Minor cases could rupture the meridians and leave one paralyzed and insane; severe cases could lead to complete mental collapse or even cause the body to explode from the energy’s violent release. Even if the consequences weren’t so extreme, there could still be lasting damage, regression in cultivation, or permanent blockage of progress unless healed by rare spiritual medicines or the intervention of a true master expending his own life energy to repair the damage.