Chapter 387

Chapter 388: Hyperspace Illusion Arts

Yu Sheng felt the two pretty boys on the ship had a deep misunderstanding and bias about his piloting skills, and he even had proof.

But he could not argue it away.

He really did not have much hands-on practice. Still, every veteran starts as a newbie, right?

Starting out by driving a main battleship was a bit unlikely, of course, but thanks to a special and very useful way of piloting, the Otherworldly Hotel moved under Yu Sheng’s control and began to speed up.

The “Giant Tower,” which looked like a soaring cathedral strapped to a ship, slowly left the near-star zone around the Grand Void Spiritual Axis. As power climbed, huge emission grids along the tower’s middle and tail shone brighter. Some smaller towers that circled the main spire lit up too. The shields came online and shifted into jump-ready mode, while the external monitors showed the last Immortal Palace in the planet’s high orbit shrinking fast behind them until it became a dim dot near Youth Form.

Yu Sheng sat in the captain’s chair and narrowed his eyes.

His senses blended with the ship. The starship’s roaring reactor seemed to beat with his heart. He could feel every power conduit, every engine, every compartment, and the faint starlight washing over the ship’s armor.

He bathed in this distant light hidden with countless secrets, and for a moment he felt as if he could hear the stars’ whispers and low hums.

Yu Sheng snapped his eyes open like someone jolted from a short fake dream, then stared with doubt at the vast, dark Deep Space beyond the Observation Window.

A fluffy tail dropped onto his arm as Foxy leaned in: “Benefactor, what’s wrong?”

“…I almost fell asleep. I thought I heard something, but maybe it was just in my head,” Yu Sheng said as he shook his head. He recalled that odd feeling from moments ago, that sense of hearing the stars when he bathed in their light and looked into Deep Space, then he frowned and turned aside: “I’ve heard that the Algladians can listen to the voice of the stars. They think the stars in the universe whisper, and in those whispers there is truth and guidance, right?”

“That is what they say,” said Zheng Zhi from behind him. It was his first time on a starship too, and his excitement had not faded, but he grew serious at Yu Sheng’s question: “They can sense tiny changes in many stars, in spectra and magnetic fields and so on, and they use that to guide daily life. Because of this ability, they have far more ‘star readers’ than other races, the kind who do not need a Navigation Computer and can compute a Youth Form Chart in their own heads to pilot a ship.”

He paused, then continued, thinking back to what he had read: “Of course, only they can understand what ‘the whisper of the stars’ really means. It is a ‘cognitive gift’ tied to their race, like how some people are born with an extra color receptor. No matter how much theory you learn, you cannot imagine what the world looks like with that extra sense. The Algladians’ universe always has more colors and sounds than anyone else’s. Anyway, they say it and we can only accept it, since they really can predict a lot by watching the night sky.”

Yu Sheng listened, thoughtful, and did not speak for a while.

He had no proof, but he felt what he had just “heard” was not the same as the Algladians’ so-called star whispers.

He let out a slow breath and looked up at the vast stars outside the Observation Window.

Whatever it was he sensed in that brief trance, it did not feel dangerous or hostile.

On a nearby holo, fresh data and graphs popped up. The auxiliary piloting System reported their position and status and confirmed that jump prep was complete.

“We’re about to enter jump,” Yu Sheng reminded them, “sit tight for the bumps when we go in and out of Hyperspace.”

Irene, who had been running all over the hall, darted back at once, sprang onto the chair on Yu Sheng’s other side, and copied him by turning on the seat’s safety lock.

But the seat’s side locks only poked out a little, then a line of red text popped up on the holo by the armrest: “Warning, no passenger detected. Safety locks cannot close. Please be seated at once.”

The little doll froze mid-bounce, staring blankly at the harsh message.

Two seconds later, the little thing exploded: “I @# this #? piece of junk #?…”

In a blink, the chair’s designer lost all ancestors and kin, and even the neighbor’s dog did not manage to keep its parents.

Seeing this, Yu Sheng grabbed the doll by the scruff and tossed her to Foxy on the other side: “Hold her.”

Foxy said okay and hugged the still-cussing doll to her chest. Irene seemed to think this was shameful and fought hard on the spot, but Yu Sheng knew the hand strength of a Nine Tailed Fox. Those two thin arms were like a vise when they clamped down. Irene flailed twice in Foxy’s arms, then went limp, sunk in gloomy sadness.

The shipwide broadcast began the jump countdown. Moments later, the Phase Engine came online.

It was Yu Sheng’s first time starting this thing. He felt a huge surge of energy flood the drive array. The Phase Engine swallowed almost one third of the ship’s total power output like a black hole, then an unreal boom sounded in his ears. The whole ship seemed to jolt inside real space, then lost mass and entity and dropped into a bubble sealed off by Warp Space.

The starlight outside the Observation Window twisted, blurred, and stretched to infinity. The stars became a tunnel no naked eye could track or tell apart, then even the tunnel was gone. Outside the Otherworldly Hotel, only a red-to-blue gradient spectrum remained, as if the observable universe had been pressed into a thin film of light wrapped around the ship.

Artificial gravity failed for a heartbeat, then slowly returned.

In Foxy’s arms, Irene had already forgotten her gloomy shame. The doll opened her eyes wide at the strange red-blue film that looked like a billion stars squeezed into one layer, then slowly opened her mouth: “…Wow.”

Luna sat behind Yu Sheng. She tilted her head. The light of Hyperspace shone on the alloy shell of this Artificial Saintess for a long time before she whispered: “Very pretty.”

“Elder Senior Uncle, this feels smooth,” Xuan Che murmured to Immortal Yuan Hao, “and a big ship is steadier. Way steadier than the small shuttle I rode last time.”

Immortal Yuan Hao thought for a moment: “I once had a Celestial Ship fail, right as it entered a jump…”

Old Hunk had barely begun when Irene glared at him: “Shut up.”

Immortal Yuan Hao sounded a bit sad: “There was a long story after that.”

Yu Sheng heard the talk around him but said nothing.

He still sat in the captain’s chair, but most of his mind and senses rested on the Otherworldly Hotel. He synced tightly with the ship, breathing and moving with it, drifting with it into the “Hyperspace” beyond the material universe, past the speed-of-light limit.

For a moment, it felt like his senses rose beyond his flesh and even beyond the ship’s steel body. He felt as if he crossed the stars in an instant and wandered through a more basic, more “foundational” layer of this world.

He did not know if this was normal, or how it compared to the Algladians’ vision of the world. Maybe no one else could do what he did: watch the universe from a faster-than-light view while syncing with a ship in jump.

Star currents rushed under his feet. Yu Sheng looked around between the stars and saw two tiny beams of light in the far distance, like the oldest bodies in this universe, shining deep in the star sea.

He saw a strange star too. That star and its planets sat in a corner of a far galaxy, hiding in the shadow of a dust cloud, and at set times it turned a weird pink.

He saw a quasar erupt at the edge of a gravity rift. Dazzling flashes and wild energy spread across light-seconds of space. A bit of “information” pressed straight into his mind, telling him the name of this sight: “Cosmic Sparkler.”

[Weird name.]

Many odd, quick thoughts flowed through Yu Sheng’s mind, and now and then the stars passed him messages. He understood some strange bits of “knowledge” that were not harmful but did not seem useful either.

Then he stopped in a field of starlight and saw tiny “glints” deep within it.

They were like footnotes at the base layer of the world, shining inside the cosmic background radiation.

Yu Sheng hesitated, then reached out to touch those “info clusters” floating in the background glow.

New data flooded his mind. He “saw” unreal flames rising, starlight in the flames, and the stars whispered, telling him secrets from some corner of the universe:

“This rule runs on this bug. Do not touch.”

Yu Sheng yanked his “hand” back.

“…?”