Chapter 698: Return

“Indeed.” Bai Jingtiao nodded in agreement. He scanned the ruins of the alien ships that filled his entire field of view, sighing with emotion. “Look at this. This single area has the wreckage of over a hundred ships… Just how many civilizations’ Exploration Ships must have lost their signal here?”

“No wonder they see our home as a forbidden zone. If I were them, I’d find it terrifying too.”

Bai Jingtiao sighed emotionally, but Gu Yaoluo voiced her concern. “But it’s not like every Alien will be scared off. Who knows when they might come… and we aren’t nearly as powerful as the Immortal Gods of the past!”

“Relax.” Su Zhou, however, wasn’t too concerned. “The Spiritual Energy Revival is happening throughout the Cosmos. We went through a period of upheaval because of it, and the Aliens are no exception. For all we know, they’re still scrambling to deal with it. When would they find the time to bother us, infamous as we are?”

But then, Su Zhou’s tone shifted. He shrugged. “However, your concerns aren’t entirely unfounded. That’s precisely why we must quickly extract the knowledge from these alien ships that will allow humanity to venture into space.”

Aside from completing these scheduled tasks, as one of the first to land on the Moon after the Spiritual Energy Revival, Su Zhou also confirmed that the Moon had now undergone ‘Spiritualization’. The Moon Soil possessed a unique tolerance for Spiritual Qi, allowing it to accommodate multiple different, even conflicting, types of Spiritual Qi at once, making it a rather excellent Artifact Refining Material.

The few Shapeless still lingering at the site of the nuclear detonation had also been retrieved by Su Zhou for analysis during this time.

As for the true nature of the Shapeless, it was just as Su Zhou had suspected—they were an extremely precise and exceptionally unique type of nanoscale bionic machinery. Activated by Spiritual Qi, they could adapt to the environments of most planets and even create simulations of various habitats. They were a form of artificial life with an incredibly tenacious Life Force, making them nearly immortal.

Su Zhou was well aware that if they could reverse-engineer the technology behind the Shapeless, then Earth’s biotechnology, micromechanical engineering, and off-world colonization techniques would all see massive advancements. In a way, if Zhengguo could fully decipher the technological secrets held within the Shapeless, the space age would be just around the corner.

「9:10 PM, March 16, 2017, Zhengguo Celestial Capital Standard Time.」

The second moon landing crew had already entered lunar orbit. Meng Jin, still inside the command module, coordinated with them, remotely going over the handover procedures.

Meanwhile, Su Zhou and the others returned to the Moon Landing Shuttle with their array of spoils and research materials, preparing to enter lunar orbit, rendezvous with Meng Jin, and return to Earth.

[Mission achieved Perfection, absolute Perfection, Professor Su!]

Over the comms from the Aviation Administration Bureau, Yu Saint’s excitement was palpable, and for good reason. Both the mission to explore the alien shipwreck and the progress made in deciphering alien technology fell under his purview. If Zhengguo were to shift its developmental focus toward space, his faction would receive the lion’s share of resources.

“We can consider this as gaining experience for exploring the New World in the future.”

Su Zhou, however, remained quite calm. He was pondering other matters. “By the way, after I return to Earth, I’d like to meet with the Artifice Sage, or the Life Saint. Can you arrange that for me?”

[Not a problem.]

They were from the same faction, so for Yu Saint, it was a trivial matter. Of course, he didn’t ask, ‘why Su Zhou wanted to meet those two’. He simply continued, [After you return to Earth, there will likely be a series of press conferences to explain matters regarding the alien ship and the Aliens to the public. After deliberation, the committee believes the timing should be at your discretion, Professor Su. Just give us a few hours’ notice before you want to hold one.]

“Understood.”

Normally, for a press conference like this, the sooner, the better. Any other astronaut would probably have had to attend remotely while in quarantine. But Su Zhou’s circumstances were naturally different. Never mind the fact that as a High Tier Extraordinary, quarantine wasn’t an issue for him; the degree of freedom he enjoyed was hard for others to even imagine.

The journey back to Earth was uneventful. In a broadcast streamed live by the Zhengguo Aerospace Administration, Su Zhou and the three other astronauts rode the return craft, speeding toward Earth.

And while Su Zhou had been on the Moon farming algae, building bases, scavenging alien spaceship junk, and dissecting alien Slime Monsters…

…on Earth, the discussion about the alien ship had already become the number one topic around the globe.

In many video games, humanity’s reaction to Aliens varies depending on the prevailing ideology. But in reality, there was no unified global consensus. Everyone’s view was different. Some panicked, some were filled with anticipation, some were curious, and others were resistant.

On the Zhenggo Aerospace Administration’s official forums, there were over thirty thousand related threads, with countless comments of every kind.

“As we all know, the video of the landing mission on the Moon’s Far Side, broadcast by the Zhengguo Aerospace Administration, clearly showed a large amount of alien shipwreck. Obviously, they were there long before our recorded history… We all know now that it was probably the Immortal Gods of the past who shot down these alien visitors, but how long have they known about our Solar System?”

This very question was analyzed in the second most popular thread on the discussion boards. A netizen named ‘Would a Cyber Masked Knight Use an Electronic Belt’ pointed out sharply, “Leaving aside the obvious signs of battle on the Moon Surface, and just looking at the buildup of rock and soil around the shipwrecks, they must have been on the Moon’s Far Side for at least a hundred thousand years!”