Chapter 516 - 363: Hope

A thousand meters underground, the faint golden light rain of Purification slowly dissipated.

Ian withdrew his palm. The corruption on the three hundred-odd survivors had been completely purified.

The cloudiness in their eyes had vanished, leaving only endless gratitude.

Ian noticed a little girl staring blankly at him, her face streaked with tears.

’He sighed to himself. In his past life, a girl this age would be in school, the apple of her parents’ eye.’

’But in this world, even survival wasn’t guaranteed.’

"Thank you, milord..."

The chieftain touched his neck, where pustules had once festered. Tears streamed down his aged face as he staggered forward two steps, about to kneel.

Ian’s Gravity Field silently supported him. "That won’t be necessary."

He glanced around, seeing the fervent hope in their eyes.

"I need to understand this world. Tell me everything you know."

The old chieftain nodded repeatedly, leading Ian to his living "room"—in truth, just a space partitioned off by rusty iron plates.

Inside were stacked several boxes of yellowed paper books, a few Metal plates etched with blurry text, and a crude bed woven from fungal hyphae.

With trembling hands, the old chieftain handed over a thick, leather-bound book, its cover largely missing.

The edges of the pages were blackened, the paper oxidized and so brittle it looked as if it would crumble at a touch.

Ian didn’t reach out to take it. Instead, his immense Spiritual Power swept over the pages like an invisible wind.

In an instant, every word, every illustration, and even the faintest trace of ink was scanned, analyzed, and reconstructed.

The linguistic structure of this world was rapidly dismantled and reorganized within his Morning Star Level Sea of Spirit.

A second later, he had mastered the planet’s common tongue in its entirety—all its grammar, vocabulary, and historical variations.

"Starlight Calendar... Year 8,427." Ian’s gaze fell upon the date on the page.

The old chieftain was stunned. He hadn’t even opened his mouth, yet this "deity" who had suddenly appeared had already read the ancient script in the book.

"You... You can read our script?"

"It’s simple enough for me." Ian mentally flipped through the reconstructed pages of the book within his Sea of Spirit.

This world was named Estelle, which meant "the world blessed by the stars."

A powerful Empire had once existed here: the Starlight Empire. It had ruled Estelle Planet for over ten thousand years and was an incredibly brilliant civilization.

Though the illustrations on the pages were faded, they still conveyed the magnificence of that era.

Countless Floating Cities hung in the sky like stars, their surfaces coursing with networks of silver-blue Starlight Energy.

Beams of light shot from the tops of High Towers, weaving a protective network through the clouds that covered the entire continent.

This world’s maximum Energy Level was one Level higher than that of the Profound Yellow World.

The humanoid figures in the illustrations wore Long Robes patterned with stars, holding orbs of condensed starlight in their palms.

They were this world’s Extraordinary Beings, known as "Starlight Apostles."

Through Meditation, Apostles absorbed the light projected from Void Stars, condensing a unique form of Energy called "Starlight Power" to temper their bodies and elevate their spirits.

High Tier Apostles could invoke stellar projections, illuminating the land for hundreds of miles with a single thought.

The discipline focused on Starlight, Thermal Energy, and spiritual tempering. It had similarities to the Meditation of the Wizard System but was more reliant on external Energy sources.

As Ian continued to scan through the information, a glint suddenly appeared in his eyes.

’They actually had fragments of Space Technology, and the levitation core for the Floating Cities... a Star Realm anchoring device.’

’Unfortunately, it’s all extremely fragmented—mostly just scraps of information.’

The books also mentioned a high-end technology common in the Wizard World: intercity Teleportation Arrays.

Ian was stunned. All of this was considered extremely advanced knowledge in the Wizard World, yet it was all mentioned in these scattered books.

’Logically, for such an advanced civilization, especially with the protection of the World Will, Erosion from the Abyss shouldn’t have been able to invade this realm so quickly.’

’Some secret catastrophe must have occurred. Or... the entire defensive system was breached from within.’

’Though building a Floating City isn’t as complex as constructing a Wizard Tower, it’s still not something an ordinary civilization can accomplish.’

’It requires exquisite skill in space compression, Energy conversion, materials smelting, and psionic fabrication.’

’It also requires an extremely abundant supply of High Tier materials, the involvement of numerous Mid-High Tier Extraordinary Beings, and ongoing maintenance.’

Ian’s gaze paused on a particular passage. ’This world has extremely rich Vein Ores of Star Realm Refined Gold.’

It was the Empire’s highest-grade strategic resource, found in special ore veins where Void storms met the material world.

This strange Metal was normally extremely difficult to form, but for some reason, it wasn’t particularly rare on this planet.

Because it was so important, it was strictly controlled by the Empire and forbidden from circulating among the populace.

It was hard enough to withstand Star Gravity and its Energy Conduction was nearly lossless, making it an essential material for the core components of Floating Cities, the Starlight Throne, and advanced starships.

’So Star Realm Refined Gold wasn’t actually that rare in this world.’

The old chieftain added in a low voice, "A thousand years ago... the black tide suddenly erupted in the Imperial capital, the ’Eternal Star Dome’."

His voice was laced with a fear passed down through generations.

"The books say that on that day, a purple sun hung in the sky. The Eternal Star Dome rotted from within, the Starlight Network collapsed, all the Floating Cities plummeted, and a rain of blood-red fire fell from the sky..."

"The few remaining survivors fled underground, but the corruption permeated the soil, the water, and the air. We could only eke out a living with the Purification techniques left behind by our predecessors... Food grew scarcer, the fungi mutated, and children were born with profane markings on their bodies."

The old man looked up toward the ceiling of the cavern.

"In my great-grandfather’s generation, people still went to the surface. By my generation... most of us have never seen the real sky in our entire lives."