The Gate Builder

The research spaceship began a detailed exploration of the asteroid belt.

The floating city on the giant gas planet was also in a heated debate.

"You're crazy! It took us 600 years to gain a foothold here, and today you're telling me that you want us to return to the era of drifting?"

The mayor of the floating city, who was also the speaker during the celebration, let out a shocked voice.

Although he believed the Chief Scientist's words, he didn't think it was a good idea.

"Listen to me, Mayor. We will never have a future in this floating city!

"The resources here are always in short supply, and the surrounding environment is very unstable. Basically, every 60 years, we will be involved in a big storm here, and the previous construction will be destroyed!

"The previous hole in the atmospheric protection shield almost cost us all our lives! What can we do in this situation?

"We spent 600 years piecing together a primitive spaceship that can travel between here and the satellite, but how many resources did it bring? It's merely a cup of water on a burning cart of firewood!

"Listen to me, this is a rare opportunity. You and I both know that there are not many kind people in the galaxy. There are not many civilizations like the Administrator that are willing to help. If we miss this opportunity, we will be trapped here forever!"

The mayor listened to the Chief Scientist's words from the bottom of his heart and was silent for a while. In the end, he slowly shook his head.

"You also know that there isn't much kindness in the galaxy. How far can we go with just a colony ship without any guards? We don't even know if we can find a habitable planet.

"If there isn't even a place that can barely accommodate us, our civilization might really disappear from history..."

Everyone fell into deep silence.

The Chief Scientist's eyes darkened slightly. He knew that the mayor was telling the truth. If this all-in choice failed, then the entire civilization would enter the countdown of life.

However, being trapped in this floating city was equivalent to a slow death, and the Chief Scientist was not willing to give up.

He was about to say something when the mayor suddenly changed his tone and looked at him seriously.

"However..."

"Once upon a time, our ancestors had many disputes to continue the civilization.

"At that time, they chose to let the people vote to decide the direction of their entire civilization."

The Chief Scientist's eyes lit up. "You mean..."

"Let's vote, I will respect the people's choice."

Thus, a vote that determined the life and death of a civilization began.

The entire floating city's population of two million received their own electronically registered tickets and were sent to one of the two options through the city's local area network:

Should they choose to take the colony ship and enter the dangerous galaxy again, or continue their stable but hopeless life here?

Three days later, they got the results.

Looking at the people moving everything they could onto the colony ship, the mayor showed a helpless expression.

"As expected, do people always look forward to the unknown?"

"No," the Chief Scientist shook his head and said seriously, "People just don't like a future without hope.

"Have you forgotten the foundation of our civilization? If that's the case, it seems like we haven't called ourselves that in a long time."

The mayor was stunned for a moment, then he said in realization, "The one who never stops flowing like water? Ever since those damned aquatic invaders invaded us from the inside, we seem to have a deep hatred for water."

"But isn't that the real name we used when we entered the galaxy? We are the Turbulent Civilization..."

...

The colony ship provided by Li Wenyuan had already left the galaxy, and the abandoned mining station and city had lost their last chance of survival.

He had no interest in restarting a useless mining station, but he was still quite happy to have gained a good scientist.

"Thank you for your help, respected Administrator. According to the agreement, I will no longer be a member of the Turbulent Civilization, but pledge my loyalty to you."

The Chief Scientist's words stunned Li Wenyuan. He couldn't help but ask,

"The Turbulent Civilization? Your name sounds very similar to the 'Turbulence Empire' in the Milky Way. Are you two related?"

"They are our enemies, they were originally an intelligent aquatic race under our rule and were absorbed as our citizens.

"But we didn't expect them to be so vicious. With some unknown means, they parasitized and controlled many people, and then slaughtered the rest of the species.

"After that, they replaced us and became the main race of the Turbulent Civilization, and we are now a group of wanderers."

The Chief Scientist lowered his head and summarized his history of blood and tears in a few words.

Li Wenyuan, on the other hand, was slightly surprised. He didn't expect that there was such a deep blood feud between them.

"The synthetic humanoids are still the best. They're hardworking, don't sleep, and only follow orders without any flaws."

After sighing, he continued to look at the asteroid belt.

The scan of the research spaceship had found some abnormal signals, and he was now pinpointing the source of the abnormality.

"After scanning the entire galaxy, this is the only place that has some abnormal signals. Did humans leave something behind?"

Li Wenyuan narrowed the scanning range in high spirits and finally determined that it was on a Rocky asteroid that was larger than the other asteroids.

It had a diameter of about ten kilometers and looked ordinary, but if it landed on earth, it would be enough to cause a mass extinction.

And the abnormal signal came from there.

"What will be here?"

Li Wenyuan also stared at the asteroid curiously and sent out a drone to try to approach it.

However, a change also happened at this moment.

Perhaps a heat source signal was detected, and something sleeping on the asteroid was activated.

The entire rock shell was blasted open, revealing a dim green fluorescent light in the core.

Upon closer inspection, one could see that they were an amalgamation of nanobots.

The fluorescent light seemed to be the source of the abnormal signal. However, after the nanobots were activated, they no longer emitted these lights, as if they were deliberately attracting people to explore this place.

Even without their rock-like crust, they still formed a sphere with a diameter of about five kilometers. In the windless universe, ripples appeared on their surface as if they were being blown.

After that, the activated nanobots began to peel off from the surface, gradually spreading from a tight sphere into a storm-like existence.

"This is..." Li Wenyuan stared at the scene in front of him in disbelief.

The research spaceship had already left the asteroid belt under his control when the strange movement occurred. At this distance, it was difficult to see the storm formed by the nanobots with just his eyes.

Only the drones near the asteroid belt were still recording this magical scene.

The storm formed by these nanobots seemed to have extraordinary destructive power. All the asteroids within the storm's range began to shrink visibly.

Whether it was metal, rock, or ice, everything they touched would be broken down and then reintegrated into their own.

Seeing that the nanorobotic storm was getting bigger and bigger, Li Wenyuan suddenly became alert. He was almost about to let the unmanned fleet in the solar system jump over and destroy these seemingly endless nanobots.

However, it was also at this moment that the nanobots seemed to have received some kind of signal and instantly stopped.

As they stopped, a weak signal was transmitted from all the nanobots to the research spaceship.

[ New technology has been added to the technology tree. ]

[ New coordinates have been entered into the star map. ]

Li Wenyuan, who hadn't heard these two words for a long time, was slightly stunned. When he looked at the nanorobotic storm again, he found that it seemed to have lost its vitality, as if sending out this signal would lead to its destruction. It had turned into a cloud of floating nanobot dust.

"What's going on..." This scene confused Li Wenyuan. In his confusion, he opened the technology tree and saw the new technology.

[ Research on the gate builder ]

[ Technology level: 6 ]

[ Introduction: Through the wreckage of a group of strange nanobots, we have analyzed bits and pieces of a destroyed ancient civilization. They seem to be related to a huge stargate, but the specific situation still requires us to conduct repeated research. If we can find their stargate, perhaps we can speed up the research process and find the gift left by this ancient civilization. ]

[ Possible technology: None]

"The gate builder?" After going through all his memories, Li Wenyuan didn't find any relevant information.

However, Li Wenyuan was very interested in this independent technology that had no prerequisite or follow-up technology on the technology tree.

"Not bad, I have to improve my research ability so that I can quickly research these Level 6 technologies... The first step of expansion is almost complete. After the construction of the scientific research zone is completed, we should further promote production capacity..."

"If I'm not mistaken, there seems to be a completely abandoned giant building nearby?"