Some people die, and they are truly dead!
Some people die, and it may just be the beginning of another journey.
One moment, Li Qing was haggling with a vendor at a border jade rough market, holding a gray crystal covered in cracks and caked with dried mud and gravel.
The next second, the entire world erupted in dazzling white light, the sky collapsed and the earth split apart—and then the cracked gray crystal in his hand suddenly began to glow.
A powerful attractive force surged forth, pulling his soul into the crystal.
He called it a soul, because before being swallowed by the crystal, he had clearly watched his own body disintegrate.
Then, under the illumination of billions of stars, he slept for an unknown number of years, until—
Until he woke up once more, and was astonished to find himself inside the body of a young man who was also named Li Qing.
At first he thought it was a body possession, but after receiving all the memories without any obstruction, he realized this wasn’t possession—it was reincarnation.
This Li Qing was that Li Qing.
The two shared the same origin, except that one was the main consciousness, which had been asleep, while the subconscious had reincarnated and been born as a human.
When the main consciousness awoke, the subconscious naturally merged back into it.
After receiving eighteen years of memories from his subconscious, Li Qing was astonished to discover the wonders of this new universe.
Yes, a new universe.
In Year 1 of the New Galactic Calendar, the old universe was annihilated, the new universe was born, and Starsea Survival began.
Much like the many universal survival novels Li Qing had read before, all of Earth’s humanity, along with the many civilizations and races of the old universe, were transported to the new universe to begin Starsea Survival from a crude Colonization Ship.
It was an era of magnificent upheaval, an age of heroes, where countless ancestors of Earth’s humanity strove and fought so that human civilization could take root in this new universe.
Li Qing should have been one of those strivers, but at the moment of the old universe’s annihilation and the transportation, the cracked crystal in his hand was suddenly stimulated and activated, drawing his soul inside.
What followed was a slumber of over ten thousand years.
By the time he awoke, it was already Year 10018 of the New Galactic Calendar—ten thousand years since Starsea Survival had begun.
Over those ten thousand years, humanity had endured countless wars, experienced lows and glories alike.
Countless pioneers fought on, one after another, and in the end humanity not only succeeded in Starsea Survival, but also established a brilliantly splendid civilization in the Imperial Throne Sector of the Fourth Star Sector on the Perseus Arm of the new galaxy—the United Empire of Humanity—and joined the Humanoid Species Interstellar Alliance of the new galaxy.
After ten thousand years of development, the United Empire of Humanity had grown so powerful that it was now one of the four permanent council members of the new galaxy’s Humanoid Interstellar Alliance, which boasted over a thousand civilizations large and small.
The United Empire of Humanity was jointly ruled by fourteen powerful Starsea Lords serving as Electoral Families, together with a Noble Senate composed of 272 Starsea Warlords of varying sizes.
A so-called Warlord referred to a top-tier family that possessed its own private colonized planets and a powerful private fleet—something like the military governors or warlords of ancient times.
As for Li Qing’s luck in this life, all things considered, it was quite good.
He was born into the Qinghe Li Clan, one of the Warlord dynasties.
“Qinghe” referred to the Qinghe Star System—a prosperous star system with one natural planet, seven terraformed planets, and more than a dozen large space habitats, with a total population exceeding 80 billion and over 300 million active players, ruled by this family.
The Qinghe Li Clan rose to prominence over three hundred years ago.
Its ancestor, Li Gang, rose to fame early thanks to his Purple Epic-grade Innate Talent and built a successful career for himself out in the wider world.
He later returned home, defeated his brothers to inherit the family estate, and married into the Shangqiu Yin Clan, rapidly growing the clan’s power.
Over two hundred years ago, Li Gang took part in the Empire’s wars of expansion, destroying an alien civilization in the Fifth Faust Sector that had territorial disputes with the United Empire of Humanity, and seizing a Class-II Continental Planet.
After eighty years of diligent governance, the clan finally earned the Empire’s recognition, formally joined the Noble Senate, and was elevated to the ranks of the Military Lords, becoming known as the Qinghe Li Clan.
Li Qing was born into this aristocratic dynasty—by any measure, an excellent start in life.
Unfortunately, he was not of the main line but a member of a collateral branch, and an illegitimate one at that.
He didn’t even know who his mother was.
His earliest memories were of being brought home by his father; he had never seen his mother, nor had he ever heard his father speak of who she was.
At first he had held out some hope, but as he gradually grew older, and with his father’s coldness over the years, he slowly came to understand: his mother was probably of humble origins, and he was likely not just a son of a concubine, but more probably an illegitimate child.
Fortunately, although his father and half-siblings disliked him, he had at least been brought into the Qinghe Li Clan.
No matter how poorly he fared, it was still far better than drifting outside as a commoner.
Having given up on his father, Li Qing’s greatest wish over these years was to turn eighteen and come of age.
Under the rules of the entire United Empire of Humanity, all descendants of Players who had come from Earth to the new universe, as long as they successfully awakened an Innate Talent and obtained Player Status, were required to go out and pioneer.
From the descendants of the fourteen Starsea Lords down to those of ordinary commoners, anyone who successfully awakened an Innate Talent and obtained Player Status had to go out and pioneer.
Although the Starsea Survival phase had passed, and the current era was one of Starsea expansion and colonization, and the United Empire of Humanity had already built a glorious civilization, one still had to prepare for danger in times of peace.
The universe was not safe.
Human civilization currently occupied only a single spiral arm of the New Galaxy, while the other three spiral arms and the vast galactic core were home to enormous numbers of alien civilizations.
Those civilizations, like humanity, had once been participants in Starsea Survival and had likewise survived.
Their strength was no less than humanity’s, and some even surpassed humanity in overall power.
By Imperial law, later generations could not rest on their ancestors’ laurels.
All noble descendants had to go out and pioneer, with their pioneering achievements determining their future standing and inheritance rights within the family—three years per stage, ten years in total.
Of course, there were certainly second-generation nobles who didn’t want to go.
Such noble children who refused to pioneer would be deemed to have forfeited all inheritance rights.
Li Qing certainly had no illusions about inheritance rights.
What he had his eye on were the resources the family provided for pioneering.
As a Military Lord family, the clan provided every descendant who went out to pioneer with an Escort Ship and one hundred million Star Credits in starting funds.
That was what he was after.
He would never amount to anything in the family anyway, so he might as well take the pioneering funds and leave early to make his own way outside.
With a warship and one hundred million in starting funds, no matter what, it would be better than staying with the family.
For pioneering purposes, however, one hundred million was a drop in the bucket—not even enough to buy a Destroyer.
But if he expected nothing at all, and simply took the colonization money to live elsewhere, one hundred million Star Credits would absolutely be a substantial sum of money.
He could casually find some remote colony planet and buy a sizable plot of land, purchase some robots or clones to start a farm or ranch, marry a wife, and live quite comfortably.
That was how the original Li Qing had thought, but now that Li Qing’s main consciousness had awakened, with a golden finger in hand, that idea had certainly been tossed aside.
Sitting in a simply decorated but highly technological room, Li Qing lightly tapped his fingers on the desk, and a light screen popped up, displaying his bank account.
It held only 2.24 million—his saved pocket money from all these years.
This was the difference between great noble families and ordinary people.
Even though he was merely an unloved concubine-born son with no property of his own, his basic monthly allowance alone exceeded that of the vast majority of workers.
“Still, it’s a bit too little.”
This amount of money couldn’t accomplish anything.
He would still have to wait for the colonization funds.
Closing the banking interface, Li Qing rubbed his chin, and with a thought, he vanished.
The surrounding space shifted, and Li Qing instantly went from his room to the cold starry sky.
Darkness stretched in all directions with nothing around, only a source of light glowing below.
Looking down—even after sleeping here for tens of thousands of years, every time he saw it, he felt a shock that came from the depths of his soul.
At the center of the star system below him was not a normal star, but a colossal cosmic miracle so vast it exceeded the limits of his imagination, something he didn’t even know how to describe.
A pure white sphere whose size had to be measured in astronomical units, surrounded by extinguished stars.
Extinguished in the literal sense.
If not for the information transmitted to him by his golden finger, the Palm Universe, he wouldn’t even have known what to call this Super High-Dimensional Fortress known as the ‘Witness of the Stars’.
That’s right—this thing’s official name was the ‘Witness of the Stars’, the only thing currently visible within the Palm Universe: the wreckage of a Super High-Dimensional Fortress from an ancient Transcendent-God Level Civilization, one that had compressed an entire galaxy as its power source!
Well, to be precise, it was damaged—calling it wreckage would be going too far.
After all, its central system was still intact, and an extremely tiny fraction of its functions could still be used.
With a thought, Li Qing turned into a streak of light and flew toward the wreckage of the ‘Witness of the Stars’ Super High-Dimensional Fortress below, which had replaced the star as the source of light illuminating this star system, its size measurable only in astronomical units.
To be honest, as the master of the Palm Universe, he knew just how terrifying this thing’s power was in its intact state.
There was no need to describe it with his impoverished imagination and vocabulary.
One only needed to know that its energy core was a galaxy even larger than the Milky Way that had been compressed down, and that in its prime it was surrounded by millions of compressed stars and black holes for offense and defense, and that when fully activated, its terrifying gravitational force could forcibly drag an entire galaxy out of its original orbit, to understand how absurd it was.
Unfortunately, all of this was past glory.
Even if this thing could still be repaired, the conditions for repair—
Better left unsaid.
As the master of the Palm Universe, Li Qing ignored the residual gravity of the extinguished stars floating around the high-dimensional fortress and plunged directly into it, appearing within a space inside the fortress surrounded by streaks of flowing light.
The space was empty, surrounded by flowing light, and beyond it countless streams of light drifted in irregular patterns.
He had no idea what they were, because his current permissions didn’t allow him to enter or find out.
He was confined to moving within this small space of less than a thousand square meters, plus entering a certain undamaged area inside the pile of wreckage that still retained its complete form.
That was part of what had once been the dock of this Super High-Dimensional Fortress.
No one knew how large it had once been, but the portion that remained alone possessed a shipbuilding capacity of up to 2,300—enough to simultaneously begin construction of two Titan Super-Flagships, or one hundred and ten Battleships, or two thousand three hundred Escort Ships.
Moreover, this super dock came from a Transcendent-God Level Civilization, complete with fully integrated production lines for weapons and components.
Besides ships, it could also manufacture the accessories that came with blueprints, such as missiles and shells.
However—
Although this Palm Universe looked awe-inspiring, in reality it could only serve as a logistics base.
With materials, blueprints, and professional shipbuilding skills, one could use the shipyard inside to build warship after warship.
Beyond that, until it was repaired, this thing could only serve as a super warehouse.
It could open a channel gap to take in objects no larger than ten kilometers in diameter—dead objects only, such as wreckage and meteors.
It could not actively pull enemy warships inside.
Of course, if a gap was opened and the enemy voluntarily flew in, that was another matter.
But under normal circumstances, no one would willingly dive into the unknown, right?
The Palm Universe came from an unknown Transcendent-God Level Civilization of some unknown era.
Normally, after countless billions of years, the universe would meet its end—the old universe destroyed, a new one born from a singularity.
But sometimes, certain super civilizations in the universe, unwilling to accept their civilization’s end, would find ways to create ultimate technological constructs capable of crossing the universe’s destruction—super civilization artifacts.
Almost all super civilizations failed, but some succeeded.
And this crystal ball he had obtained, this Palm Universe, was a super civilization artifact that had successfully crossed an era—but was now on the verge of destruction.
He didn’t know what the civilization had been called, because although this super civilization artifact had survived the end of the era, it had been severely damaged.
When he first entered, there was only a single star system wrapped in a terrifying, boundless storm, its interior drifting with countless extinguished stellar cores, and at its center, a battered Super High-Dimensional Fortress on the verge of collapse.
After ten thousand years of dormancy, the Palm Universe had stabilized and was no longer collapsing.
Strictly speaking, it had already survived the end of the era, but whether the Transcendent-God Level Civilization still existed remained unknown.
But regardless of whether that civilization still existed, the Palm Universe now belonged to Li Qing—he was now the master of this Palm Universe.
With the Palm Universe in his possession, he certainly would not resign himself to mediocrity the way his latent will once had.
Although the Starsea Survival phase was over, powerful enemies still existed in the universe.
And with the end of the Starsea Survival phase and the new universe’s rules gradually taking shape, this was the perfect opportunity for him to make his mark.