Chapter 1597: To The Relic
Ning arrived on the outside of the hallway in a sudden burst of teleportation. He landed on soft ground and stood still. A few of the people around him nearly slipped and fell, but their friends caught them before they could.
Ning looked around at the barren land and the dark sky. Krimanax was massive in the sky, a bright source of secondary light next to the faraway sun.
“Everyone okay?” the leader of the group asked, and quick affirmations returned to him through the bond that they shared through the Connector.
“Good! Let’s move.”
They began walking.
Ning stared around the place as he walked, having never come here before. Whenever he needed to get away from the underground or find a place to gather some Spark, he always went to the other side of the moon so as to not be seen.
Because of that, he never saw this side of the moon at all.
The very first thing he saw when looking around was the massive, mountain-sized rockets that were kept out in the open. There were 10 of them, and from what he could see, another one was being made.
They built it in layers, carving the rocket out of the ground and then turning it into newt-metal. It was simply ridiculous how easily these people could begin making something.
By the looks of it, the rocket was about a fourth of the way done, and as a result, more needed to be worked on it before it could fly. From what Ning knew, they had about 9 more months before Urelon went back to the dark side of Krimanax, and they would be forced to leave for another moon at that point, most likely Wream.
Wream was a special moon from what Ning had heard. It was where all the relics were kept. He wouldn’t mind going there and looking through the relics at all.
There were also the moons Eo and Ivowar where cities for human colonies had been built, but they weren’t large enough for the people to want to go back to, and they also had lower gravity, which people did not prefer.
Ning’s group began walking toward the south, which Ning couldn’t tell direction-wise at all. These people had no compass at all, so he wondered how they knew which way was south at all.
More likely than not, they just had a Thinker divine the answer. The Thinker in their group was also constantly consuming Spark, going through the complicated amount of data in their mind to make sure they weren’t going astray.
Ning felt weird slamming the hard ground with his feet as he was more than used to walking on soft and fluffy Spark-filled ground on the other side. Unfortunately, all Spark had been cleared away over half a year ago, and what had gathered recently was also beginning to be stripped away.
Ning felt soft vibrations through the ground and was notified to look to the left. He did, and saw a few people in the distance, dressed in spacesuits just like them, working on gathering Spark.
There had to be more so in other places as well, but he couldn’t see so from where he stood at the moment.
Their group walked slowly, but for a group of 11 that were stuck by their stomach and backs, they could be considered to be quite fast.
Ning breathed in the fresh air within the suits and knew that the Converter of the group had been constantly working.
Ning saw many craters formed from Spark gatherers collect all Spark in one place, pack it up, and then teleport it back to the cities. There were many such craters around the place, most of which had to be created a long, long time ago.
In fact, Ning doubted any of the craters near the cities had been created anytime recently. It would have to be further away.
They continued walking for a while before they ended up on uneven grounds again. Because people had worked on the ground they worked on before, the Carvers had the ground smoothed out entirely.
There had been not a single uneven ground until just now.
“How are you feeling, Lieutenant, Ning? Having fun?” someone asked from the from. The person, of course, hadn’t spoken at all but had rather sent the question through the Connector.
Ning gave a bright smile through his glass helmet and nodded. “Very fun. The outside world is very fun to be in.”
“Of course,” an answer came back. No one spoke after that.
Ning looked around the place as they continued walking and walking and walking. The path to the relic was a long and boring one. All they did was walk and they had to walk for a long while.
Most of the places had been cleared of all Spark, so the people were forced to move as far away as they could to find grounds to gather more Spark.
Some great distance later, Ning and his group had finally arrived at the crater, on the rim of which was a large flag with the cloth on it barely even moving.
It was the marking flag that was used by the people on a mission to remember where they had been and to continue the mission some other time if they needed to.
Ning and the group walked around the rim of the crater, arriving at the other side where the map was stuck on the ground.
“Alright, we have eyes on the target, ‘the leader said.
Ning looked to the side, and just beyond the lip of the crater, there was another crater. And this was the one that was being talked about in the mission.
Ning and the group walked to the edge and looked around.
“Where’s the relic?” someone asked.
“It’s supposed to be within that crater, right?” another one asked.
Ning looked down from the lip of the crater and noticed something tiny glimmering in the sunlight. He had found the relic.
“There!” he pointed down at the ground for people to see. “Do you see that shining thing? I believe that is it.”
“Huh? Oh! I see it,” another man said.
“Good job, Lieutenant Ning. You’ve got good eyes.”
A few more people praised before the leader spoke.
“Good work, Ning. Alright, now time to go retrieve it. Remember, the task is simple. If it is tiny, we carry it with him back. If it’s not, we teleport it over to Wream directly,” the leader said. “Also, the crater is incredibly difficult to traverse so we will be taken down by our Carver. Prepare yourself for it.”
Everyone seemed serious enough at that point that no one said anything else. They all gathered in a small area to make it easier for the Carver.
“Alright, let us move!” the man said.
The Carver moved up front and carved the ground around them, creating a sort of wall around them to keep them cupped inside. Then, the entire thing slowly moved as the ground they were standing on itself took up and left.
The ground moved to the edge of the crater before it began to slowly descend through the side of the crater.
It was a fun journey for Ning, letting other people help him move. It took them no more than 5 minutes to get to the bottom of the crater.
The walls of the thing that carried them to the bottom opened up and they saw the shining relic not far away from where they were. Only a hundred or so meters walk away and they would get to it.
The place was filled with Sparks, so it was a little difficult to maneuver through it. The thick Spark came up to their shin, which was honestly a lot of it considering how large the crater was and how this place hadn’t been explored before this.
Ning was suddenly very surprised about something. Until now, he had known that they would be coming here to get a Relic. He knew just briefly about the relic and had thought of the mission to be nothing more than going in and out of the place.
His greater intention with this mission was to experience how it was to work as a team within various missions. So, when he finally arrived at the crater with the relic, Ning was quite confused.
There were two pieces of information that made him confused. First, there was a relic here. Two, there was Spark gathered here for the maximum of 5 years that Spark can remain without breaking down.
The two information weren’t a lot of deal on their own, or even when put together. The answer here made perfect sense already. In a place where people didn’t visit, Spark had gathered here. As for the relic, it was just a simple coincidence.
What Ning focused on instead then, was the crater. The previous crater was created to gather Spark, but why was this crater made? No human had got to it in a long time certainly, as there was a relic at the center.
Which made Ning question why the Crater was there. How was it there? He couldn’t think of any other answer expected for the most obvious one.
The crater was made by the relic. It had fallen down from the sky like a meteor within the past many years, the impact of which had turned the ground into a crater.
How much force was needed to make such a large crater? And most importantly, how strong was the relic that it withstood being turned into a meteor?
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