I Pick Up Talents on the Interstellar Battlefield - Chapter 508 - 415: Subspace Storm

Chapter 508: Chapter 415: Subspace Storm

Looking at the bizarre scene outside the porthole, Dongfang Mingyue’s eyes showed a hint of curiosity.

Since she was a child, she had hardly ever left Azure Wood Star, even traveling to other planets was just ordinary interstellar voyages.

This was the first time experiencing subspace travel.

Seeing the curiosity in Dongfang Mingyue’s eyes, Captain Jin standing beside her smiled and said:

“Everyone might not be very familiar with subspace, so while the voyage is stable, I’ll give you a brief introduction.” Captain Jin paused and continued,

“Subspace is not an extension of the real cosmos; it is a parallel subordinate dimension to our world—there are no stable spacetime structures here, time flow is sometimes tens of times faster than reality, sometimes slower as if stagnant, and there could even be situations like ’traveling for one day, half a month has passed in the real world’; space is even more chaotic and disordered, the distance between two points has no fixed value, a target that seems right in front of you one second may appear billions of light-years away the next second.”

He paused and continued: “The reason the Human Empire can achieve cross-star realm voyages relies on the subspace engines—it can tear open a temporary rift in the spatial barriers of the real cosmos, allowing the starship to enter subspace; and then it navigates through naturally formed subspace energy flows using the ’nonlinear characteristics’ of subspace. You must know, in the real cosmos, even the fastest starship takes decades to cross a star sector, but through subspace, we can achieve this in just a few days, and this is the core principle of subspace travel.”

Qin Tian leaned against the porthole, watching the dark purple clouds outside constantly pass by, casually asking: “Since subspace is so chaotic, how do we ensure the route doesn’t deviate?”

“By relying on two things—star matrix and navigational charts.” Captain Jin’s voice carried a bit of certainty, “The star matrix is a special navigation device developed by the Empire, capable of capturing ’constant energy anchors’ in subspace, like stars in the real cosmos, providing precise positioning for the starship; while the subspace navigational charts are the result of millennia of accumulation, marking safe routes verified countless times, avoiding known energy turbulence zones and danger nodes.”

At this point, his tone slightly darkened: “However, subspace is by no means absolutely safe. The greatest danger is subspace storms—chaotic vortices formed by violent collisions of energy flows, once caught, the starship’s defense shield won’t last ten seconds before being torn apart, even the debris would be ground into particles; equally terrifying are the dimensional creatures, they are native life forms of subspace, with diverse forms, some can penetrate metal hulls, some can directly erode crew members’ psyche, once targeted by them, it’s nearly impossible to escape.”

Dongfang Mingyue felt her heart tighten, subconsciously clenching her hand.

Captain Jin seemed to notice her tension and quickly added: “Miss Ming Yue, there’s no need to worry. The Empire’s subspace navigation technology has been improved over thousands of years, and is now radically different—the ’anti-chaos coating’ of the starship can shield most dimensional creatures’ perceptions, the ’storm warning system’ can detect danger ten minutes in advance, in general, the probability of accidents occurring in subspace travel is less than one in ten thousand. Of course…”

His tone changed, carrying a hint of solemnity, “If an accident really occurs, the probability of death is nearly one hundred percent, which is the risk that always accompanies subspace travel.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a dazzling green arc suddenly flashed outside the porthole, followed by a slight tremor of the starship, as if passing through an invisible barrier.

Seeing everyone’s expressions tighten, Captain Jin reassured, “Everyone relax, it’s just normal energy flow fluctuations, we’ve entered the core area of the safe route, there won’t be much movement in the coming days, everyone can rest assured.”

Dongfang Mingyue breathed a sigh of relief and looked out the porthole—the dark purple clouds continued to flow slowly, occasionally, tiny bright spots swept past the starship, those were energy particles in subspace, beautiful yet harboring deadly danger.

Five days passed in the blink of an eye.

Just as Captain Jin said, the subspace travel technology was mature, seeming dangerous all around, yet the voyage was smooth and safe.

However, communication bases couldn’t be connected within subspace, so logging onto the Star Net was impossible, making daily entertainment activities quite lacking. Apart from daily cultivation and nurturing spiritual artifacts, Qin Tian spent most of his time chatting and playing cards with Dongfang Mingyue and the Xiahou brothers, occasionally Captain Jin would join in, sharing extraordinary encounters or interesting tales he experienced during decades of interstellar voyages.

“Old Jin, when can we end the subspace voyage, eight dots.”

Xiahou Wen played a card, it was the Mahjong game spread throughout the Empire for thousands of years and still enduring.

“Almost, two days later, we’ll re-enter the cosmos, arriving at the Euler Star Sector… one dot.”

Captain Jin paused his fingers and drew a “one dot,” placing it on the table.

“Two days later, alright, mainly because being unable to go online here is just too boring.”

Xiahou Wen complained, although he was a Tier Seven Spiritualist, he was also a modern person, incapable of living without the internet in daily life, so after just five days without the Star Net, he felt listless, finding everything uninteresting, even meals weren’t enjoyable.

“This is network dependence syndrome, for those of us working in this field, it doesn’t exist, we’ve gotten used to it.”

Captain Jin said with a smile.

While the group was joking, the metal door of the recreation room suddenly banged open, a young man in crew uniform poked his head in: “Captain! A-Jun suddenly feels unwell, Doctor Wang wants you to go take a look!”

Captain Jin’s smile instantly faded, placing the Mahjong tiles in his hand, and stood up: “Everyone, I’ll go check the situation first, we’ll continue playing when I return.”

“Business is important, you go quickly.” Qin Tian nodded and said.

Captain Jin followed the young crew member, quickly walking towards the crew accommodation area, pushed open a cabin door, and saw the twenty-something A-Jun lying on the bed, pale-faced, with some red rashes on his skin.

A middle-aged doctor in a white coat was packing up a medicine box beside the bed, seeing Captain Jin come in, he stood up and said: “Captain Jin, A-Jun just has a normal food allergy, I’ve prescribed him anti-allergy medication, resting for half a day will help him recover. However…”

Doctor Wang’s tone shifted, becoming serious: “Just now, while chatting casually, A-Jun mentioned something, which I think you should know.”

Captain Jin furrowed his eyebrows, his gaze landing on A-Jun: “A-Jun, what happened?”

A-Jun didn’t expect what he casually said would be reported to the captain by the doctor, feeling a bit embarrassed, he scratched his head: “Captain, it’s not a big deal… Just lately, I’ve been quite unlucky. When I reported to Shuang Hua star, my luggage was lost at the Star Port; recently when dining with colleagues, everyone was fine, but I got food poisoning; after boarding the ship, my room toilet constantly clogs, repaired several times but still not fixed, now I’ve had an allergic reaction too, just thought my luck has been a bit bad lately, so I casually complained.”

In A-Jun’s view, these were just a series of coincidental minor incidents, but as Captain Jin listened, his expression instantly changed, raising his voice sharply: “Why didn’t you report such things earlier!”

The sudden shout completely stunned A-Jun, he opened his mouth, unable to speak for a long time: “Cap—Captain, I…”

“Captain! Something’s wrong! There’s been a major incident!”

At this moment, Captain Jin’s communicator on his waist suddenly sounded, a trembling, panic-filled voice pierced the cabin’s silence: “Front—front monitoring detected abnormal energy reaction—it’s a subspace storm! It’s racing towards our starship!”

“What?!”

Captain Jin’s expression changed drastically, A-Jun and Doctor Wang also froze instantly, the color draining from their faces completely.