8 Entering the Starport

The bustling stores of different culture at different levels gave Hong a weird feeling.

The human population was too huge, and biased cultural thinking had long been settled since the formation of a central government. The result is a mixed cultural population of people from different origins. You can see Chinese stores next to American stores next to Greek stores and so on.

It was a little weird since the culture in the cultivation realm was closer to Chinese than anything else, so he had long been used to it. Seeing such cultural diversity and different style of living for everybody gave off a weird feeling of openness and vitality.

Gradually, they passed through the city as Hong watched on in silence. The taxi driver at the wheel seemed to be playing video games while chatting with his friends.

The high-rise buildings gradually shortened until they could barely be classified as a skyscraper. The edge of the city could be seen since the buildings suddenly stop.

You could not tell from the artificial sky since it was designed to look like you are on planet Earth at any location in the city. In fact, being at the edge of the city, it would look like the city stopped before a vast beautiful landscape that stretches around the gigantic metropolis. If you tried to leave, you would hit a soft barrier that pushes you back.

The freeway that goes through the city seemingly heads towards the direction of the beautiful landscape. But before it could leave the city, it enters a large portal which looks like it punctures the blue sky. The background in the portal displays the vast outer space.

The taxi followed behind the other vehicles as they passed through the portal. An energy field passed through the taxi which is designed to hold the vacuum of space back.

The vast sky, beautiful landscape, and the metropolis seemingly disappeared in an instant. It was replaced with the vastness of outer space. The ground was replaced with floating blinking lights of blue color which allowed the AI of each vehicle to stay in line.

Fascinated, Hong looked around like a kid who had never been into outer space before.

Looking behind, the space city could be seen in it's full glory. The size being comparable to a planet.

The space city looks like a giant sphere with the one dome being the metropolis while the other being made of metal. Imagine two domes making a sphere.

The metropolis within could be fully seen while being surrounded by a type of advanced glass material. The bottom half was made completely out of an unknown metal that emitted spots of light everywhere.

Floating holograms showed freeway signs, recreation, exits, ect. There's even an exit to get a close up view of the central black hole.

Seeing the rapidly approaching exits, Hong took a look at his time before shaking his head. There was a temptation to visit the central black hole, but he'd be running on a time crunch if he really did stop there.

"Based on Chen's memories, black holes affect time to a large degree. It's possible a day could pass for me but 20 years for the outside. The research stations doing a tour of it are a little expensive as well. Old rich people build their homes near them to accelerate time as well." He rubbed his chin as he scrolled through Chen's memories.

There are touring locations around the black hole, but are operated by the research stations. Old folk with enough money like to use black holes as places to accelerate time when they retire, aside from visiting the virtual realm.

"However, it would be a great spot for cultivation without the need of a time formation. I need to check these black holes out once I've completed the mission. Such a fascinating object born from the collapse of huge stars and neutron stars." He thought with deep interest.

Holographic signs passed and one could see the various stations and places outside the metropolis, floating about while trying to attract customers.

The taxi pulled off onto an exit that read 'Starport NW-238' along with many other craft. Soon after, many highway signs appeared like 'long-term parking' or 'short-term parking' or 'front entrance'.

Up ahead, Hong could see a huge floating station with a peculiar rectangular shape compared to the spherical space city Astraeus. Countless spacecraft would appear out of hyperspace, encased in a red shield before it dispersed. Then they would float to the side to a terminal in an orderly fashion.

This is a commercial starport, generally used by most of the population for traveling. This one is meant to take Hong to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, including the portal that allows you to pass the Great Barrier. There are other ones around the space city, but they are generally used for closer star regions in the galaxy and not for long distance travel.

The spacecrafts did not have any sort of thrust that generated light from the back like they used to back then. With full control over the fundamental forces of nature including most forms of energy like kinetic, potential, light, thermal, etc. there is no need for them anymore.

A spacecraft can convert most of their energy into kinetic energy if desired. They can also covert gravitation or electric energy into kinetic energy if desired with 99% efficiency.

There's also the fact that most of humanity's current energy comes from the Calabi Engine, which is highest tier of energy you can get nowadays. It is a device that harnesses the energy of higher dimensions. The Calabi Engine is able to expand compactified higher dimensions from Calabi-Yau manifolds, which releases significant amounts of energy in the process.

Although it has been around for a while, they have yet to shrink the device so it fits in a mech or spacesuit. It is current used on spacecraft, ring worlds, space habitats, military, and some metropolises'.

The taxi pulled into the front entrance were buses, taxis, and vehicles dropped off people at the spaceport. The place was quite lively as people over the intercom occasionally spoke.

Pulling to a stop, Hong opened the taxi door and stepped out.

"Have a nice day." Said the taxi driver looking back.

"You too sir." Said Hong as he closed the door.

The taxi pulled out and took off as he checked the area out.

An energy field surrounded the entrance, which allows people to walk out without the need of a spacesuit. Breathing in the air that reeked of being reused for thousands of times, he walked ahead and entered the station. He quickly blended in with the crowds that were everywhere and did not stand out.