Marta Alliance, Star Calendar 3371, Second Star Zone, Gladell Star.
Gladell Star was a gambler’s sanctuary. This planet had no daytime; eternal, bustling night ruled everything, dictating that this place was a fertile ground for chaos and crisis, while also ensuring that endless opportunities existed within that chaos.
“I won!!!”
From the chaotic card table came a burst of excited shouting. A shirtless, muscular man’s face was flushed with excitement, resembling an about-to-explode supernova. The electronic chip display in front of him was spinning frantically, the digital column representing his stakes continuously climbing. He clenched his fists so tightly that even his breathing stalled.
As the red digits locked into place one by one, the amount on the display stopped at a node in the billions—this was the first person in Gladell to win a billion-node stake since this star year began.
The surrounding cheering instantly drowned out the electronic sound of the stakes being credited. Envy, jealousy, and desire—various emotions surged among the crowd as they gathered around this heroic victor.
Gladell’s night sky also lit up with short-lived fireworks for this newborn winner. The light of the fireworks filtered through the glass of the dome, casting an extravagant, decadent crimson that reflected on every gambler’s face.
According to tradition, this winner could become a Silver Sparrow member of Gladell, and Gladell would gift this gambler an F-class star. Although F-class stars were not suitable for habitation and lacked life, if one could mine a stellar core and sell it onward, they could make a fortune.
The shirtless man’s eyes were red with excitement. “Friends! Tonight, your expenses are all on me!”
With a grandiose wave of his arm, he triumphantly proclaimed his victory and looked toward the friends who had come with him, only to find that at some point, the surroundings had grown quiet. The people around him turned a blind eye to his announcement; everyone stared with wide eyes, looking behind him.
Puzzled, he turned his head, then froze, his expression blank for a brief moment.
Not far away was the midpoint of the Gladell Casino, where there was a special exhibition platform.
On the platform, chips made of rare meteorite gold were piled into a small golden mountain. Behind the golden mountain stood a knight’s sword. The knight’s sword was petite—about the size of a palm—but the sharp, brilliant gleam of its blade was piercing, making the entire golden mountain appear as though it were leaning against this knight’s sword for support.
This golden mountain could be said to be Gladell’s most iconic feature. There were 20 of them in total, representing Gladell’s Golden Falcon members—
These people were Gladell’s supreme members, possessing not only unfathomable backgrounds but also representing individuals who had previously won stakes at the tens-of-billions level right here in Gladell.
In the hundreds of years since Gladell’s establishment, there had only been 20 Golden Falcon members, some of whom had already passed away, leaving very few alive today.
Furthermore, aside from members, no one was permitted to take gold coins from this small golden mountain.
At that moment, however, a figure in a white cloak quietly paused before the golden mountain. He looked like a white bird that had fallen into a chaotic battlefield—too dazzling, and far too out of place.
The boisterous casino was pressed onto the pause button. Everyone curiously sized up this person, including the nearby croupiers and hosts. Because his face could not be seen, making his identity unrecognisable, the exquisite faces of the croupiers and hosts already displayed the charging traces of an android’s pre-attack sequence. Everything was poised and ready for action.
Over the past century, it was not as though greedy gamblers had never reached out toward the golden mountain. However, aside from members, anyone who dared to lay a finger on the golden mountain would face Gladell’s cruel punishment—
The seemingly docile and lovely croupiers and the bird-like, gentle hosts would instantly reveal the fierce side of their android nature, ruthlessly severing the hand that touched the gold coins.
Those attempters failed to leave Gladell; their blood remained on Gladell’s floor, turning into pitch-black stains.
Yet the owner of the white cloak remained calm and collected. He stretched out a hand, reaching past the warning infrared boundary in front of the exhibition platform without triggering the alarm. In full view of the public, he picked and chose within the golden mountain, selected the coin that belonged to him, and tossed it in his palm.
“!! Holy shit! Who is this?!”
“I can’t see his face; it’s covered way too thoroughly!”
“Needless to say, he must be one of the Golden Falcon members…”
“What is he going to do with that coin?”
Gasps echoed from all around the casino. Many people could not help but speculate about this person’s identity, and discussions rose and fell in waves. The croupiers and hosts, however, relaxed, recovering their original gentle faces and continuing to invite surrounding gamblers back into the games.
The atmosphere eased, and the main hall became lively once again. Seeing a guest take away a gold coin, vicious security guards nearby walked over to the exhibition platform, cautiously bowed to this mysterious guest, and extended a hand to lead the way for him.
The dazzling gold coin was tossed high into the air once more, quickly and steadily landing back into the palm. The person draped in the white cloak fiddled with the gold coin in his hand while being led by the security guard toward the door of the casino’s inner hall.
As he walked, his cloak slipped slightly, revealing a lower face blocked by a black mask. A strand of indistinctly colored hair hung down one side, and beast-like, glowing green eyes swept across the nearby onlookers who were sizing him up. He quickly adjusted his cloak, concealing that leaked splash of color.
The tall, heavy doors of the casino’s inner hall opened and closed. The white figure walked inside, disappearing into the darkness of the door crack.
Among the casino crowd, a spectator watching the door close suddenly spoke up, “Hiss! I think I know who that person was just now!”
“Who?” The person next to him turned sideways with curiosity, following his gaze toward the closed doors.
“I vaguely caught a glimpse of his eyes.”
“He should be that newest Golden Falcon member—an Alpha who swept through Gladell ten years ago and later used billions in winnings to establish the City of Shattered Stars, right in the First Star Zone, District 134.”
“Although very few people have ever seen him, legend has it that he has a pair of dazzling green eyes. You all must have heard of it, right?”
“So, it’s him!! I know! The master of the City of Shattered Stars, Lu Rong. That goes without saying, he must be here to attend the auction!”
“Yeah, he’s definitely here for the stellar core this time.”
The reputation of the City of Shattered Stars had long spread far and wide throughout the Alliance—oh, no, even back when the Empire was still around a year ago. Many people knew of the City Lord’s obsession with stellar cores; wherever he appeared, no matter the cost, the stellar core of that place would invariably end up in his hands, without exception.
In the casino, the commotion grew tumultuous, the discussions gradually muffled, and the gossiping crowd slowly dispersed.
Behind the doors of the casino’s inner hall, Lu Rong untied his cloak, removed the leather mask covering his face, and handed both the cloak and mask to a nearby male attendant. The male attendant’s metal-lustered eyes looked toward Lu Rong, caught off guard as he locked eyes with Lu Rong’s green ones.
This pair of eyes resembled fireflies in the dark, the green so intense that it made all jewels pale in comparison. Yet this beauty was majestic, carrying a natural sense of oppression when looking at someone. The attendant lowered his head awkwardly, inexplicably blushing, his movements exhibiting a slight lag.
Lu Rong straightened his cuffs.
To attend this auction, he wore a formal silver-gray suit today, his bowtie crisp and rigorous. A ripple-like play of light from the hall chandelier fell upon his shoulders, making him look as though he were draped in a tranquil lake.
The attendant adjusted himself, lowering his head to avoid looking at Lu Rong again, and led the way while holding Lu Rong’s clothes. “The room has already been arranged for you. Will you be using the Golden Falcon coin this time?”
Using the Golden Falcon coin meant that the user would definitely secure their chosen lot; no matter how much anyone else bid, he would outbid them at a higher tier until everyone gave up.
The Golden Falcon coin was currently being ruthlessly toyed with by Lu Rong. It flipped back and forth between the fingers of Lu Rong’s left hand, running for its life, while a smile hung on the corner of Lu Rong’s lips. “Yes, I want Lot 07.”
As he spoke, his left hand paused, and the coin flew out from between his fingers, landing in his right hand. Pinching the coin between his index and middle fingers, he held it out toward the attendant. “May I go take a look at the merchandise first?” Lu Rong looked down at the somewhat slender attendant.
The attendant accepted the coin, uploaded Lu Rong’s question, and a few minutes later replied, “Yes, please follow me.”
The hall was empty and deserted, footsteps clearly audible. The attendant led Lu Rong to the edge of a cryptographic teleportation point. Lu Rong stepped onto it, and a scanning beam swept across him. A few seconds later, Lu Rong’s figure vanished from the hall.
After two seconds of darkness, Lu Rong appeared in another hall. Standing beside the teleportation point was a middle-aged man with slicked-back hair—a familiar face to Lu Rong, as this was the person who had checked him for cheating when he won billions in Gladell ten years ago.
Lucas, who had been the head of security back then, had clearly received a major promotion by now, becoming the private supervisor of the auction house.
“Mr. Lu, good evening. It’s a pleasure to see you again,” Lucas greeted him excitedly. “Lot 07 has already been prepared for you, but according to the regulations, you can only look at it first and cannot take it away immediately. Once the auction dusts settle, we will have the lot delivered to your spacecraft.”
“Alright.” Lu Rong had no objections to this. With both hands tucked into his pockets, he followed behind Lucas. “Which lot are we on now?”
“We are currently on Lot 03,” Lucas introduced. “It’s an astrolabe of all things. You know how astrolabes are—in the eyes of someone who likes them, they’re worth a fortune, but in the eyes of someone who doesn’t, they’re just a piece of scrap iron.”
“After all, there are far too many substitutes capable of deduction, calculation, and direction-finding, and the earliest astrolabes have already been damaged. These replicas aren’t worth mentioning.” As Lucas spoke, he stopped in front of a security door. After the door scanned his biometric information, the giant locking knob on it rotated and stretched, opening a crack in the thick door. Lucas extended a hand, inviting Lu Rong to enter first.
Instead, Lu Rong stood unmoving. “I want this astrolabe as well. Money is no object; help me bid on it.”
Lucas choked for a second, realizing he had spoken too quickly just now. Catching that Lu Rong’s expression did not seem to mind his words, he chuckled dryly. “Alright, I’ll arrange it for you.”
Lu Rong stepped across the heavy security door first.
Inside the room, 810 monk doses of stellar cores were safely placed inside a radiation shield. They were shades of deep and shallow brilliant yellow, the deepest ones approaching red-brown, arranged together like neatly ordered golden piano keys or resembling congealed magma. Stellar cores could almost be considered a kind of magma in a certain sense, given that they were the scorching core produced from the deepest parts of a planet, formed by liquid condensing into a solid.
In the interstellar era, stellar cores were one of the vital energy sources, capable of powering various spacecraft, mechas, and large-scale factories. Therefore, the mining and circulation of stellar cores had always been restricted by various factions, serving as another hard currency alongside gold.
“The grade of this batch of goods is excellent, and the energy output is fantastic. It’s rare to get goods this good anymore.” Lucas caught up with Lu Rong after handling the auction matters and began enthusiastically introducing them. “You definitely won’t lose out on bidding for this batch.”
Lu Rong carefully examined the stellar cores inside the radiation shield. He rotated the display knob beside it, giving all the stellar cores a rough scan.
Lu Rong: X01, how many of them have the serial number F6134?
Out of thin air, a voice inaudible to Lucas answered Lu Rong: 67 monk doses.