Chapter 391: A Twist in the Dreamscape

Ge Ya had been speaking with Du Qiu until now. Although most of the suspicions concerning Du Qiu had been dispelled, it was tentatively confirmed that he had no ties with the Dominant.

Yet a lingering doubt remained. How could the consciousness of such an intelligent being coincidentally connect with and descend upon the seed producer left by the Tianhuang Civilization, and then, under the name of Dominant, seize a small fleet to establish this base?

Just look at this base in the system—every production facility you could imagine is here. With time, advancing to a level-six civilization would be a sure thing.

At that very moment, Du Qiu suddenly remarked that those main battle ships, which looked identical to those of the Dominant Civilization, only had level-five combat capabilities—an observation that left him quite startled.

“Are you saying your warship is only level five?”

Ge Ya couldn’t quite believe it. If this were true, it would firmly prove that this consciousness was not from the Dominant.

There’s no reason for the Dominant to waste effort by building a base and then producing a fleet operating at level five. Isn’t that just a colossal waste of time and energy?

Not that the Dominant even needed to eat anymore.

“Exactly. If you don’t believe me, I can dispatch a warship and activate its strongest shield for you to test its durability! Or, you could simply…”

“Send us one warship so I can study it,” Ge Ya interrupted Du Qiu before he could finish.

Instantly, Du Qiu replied, “Fine. I’m a consciousness that descended here from a branch of the Dominant Civilization’s small fleet—everything here is operated by artificial intelligence. I’ll send you a warship right away.”

However, I haven’t yet mastered spatial jump technology, so the warship can’t jump through space. It can only travel at faster-than-light speeds, heading to your fleet, where you’re free to examine or destroy it.

“Alright. Please arrange it as soon as possible—we’re waiting.”

At that moment, Du Qiu noticed that the dream’s duration had already exceeded its usual length, yet he hadn’t exited the dream as abruptly as he did in earlier sessions.

What was going on?

As the strength of his consciousness grew, Du Qiu could already gauge the dream’s duration within the dream.

He had always been one to voluntarily exit before the dream time ran out, since being forced out was never a pleasant experience.

But this time, the long conversation with Ge Ya extended beyond the normal dream duration, and yet he wasn’t forcibly ejected. That was rather intriguing.

There were many differences from his earlier dream entries. For instance, Du Qiu’s current consciousness strength was more than triple than before.

Also, he had entered the dream from outside the Solar System, even while his fleet was traveling at faster-than-light speeds…

All these factors might have contributed to the prolonged duration without a forced exit.

Du Qiu didn’t think too much about it, intending to spend some time later verifying which factor rendered the dream’s duration defunct.

Now that he hadn’t been forcibly removed, he figured it was a perfect chance to build a rapport with Ge Ya—even if Ge Ya only supplied part of their technology, it was a huge bonus.

Of course, the issue of the dream’s duration was Du Qiu’s biggest vulnerability at the moment.

Du Qiu couldn’t remain in the dream state all day, meaning he couldn’t control the fleet and the base continuously. If an enemy attack occurred while he was absent from the dream,

it would be a total loss when he finally reconnected—everything wiped out.

Back in the Dominant Civilization, he had been able to develop his affairs quietly.

Now, hiding in this star system for only ten years, he was discovered and raided by the Ge Ya Civilization. If he hadn’t been in a dream…

this base and fleet would have undoubtedly been regarded as a branch base of the Dominant Civilization by the Ge Ya Civilization and been wiped out without hesitation.

At that moment, Ge Ya, from the fleet Du Qiu was stationed with in the Kuiper Belt, randomly selected a main battle ship for inspection.

Du Qiu immediately ordered that this warship launch toward the Ge Ya Civilization fleet, stationed 2.8 light-years away, at a top speed of 300 times the speed of light.

“Too slow. I’ll send my fleet to intercept your warship,” Ge Ya ordered.

No sooner had the main battle ship taken off than Ge Ya sent new instructions.

Soon, Du Qiu saw a small fleet of 100 warships suddenly appear 10 astronomical units ahead of the main ship’s flight path.

Alarmed, Du Qiu quickly commanded the main battle ship to exit faster-than-light mode.

In an instant, the two forces closed in on each other.

Ge Ya’s fleet dispatched a landing ship that swiftly boarded the main battle ship. Moments later, Du Qiu saw a group of Ge Ya humans board the vessel.

These Ge Ya humans were identical to the templates of the simulated robots from Heavenly Garden and the Dominant Civilization—absolutely perfect humanoid beings.

They stood around two meters tall, with exquisitely refined features. Through the transparent face masks, one could see their brown skin!

It seemed that Blue Star humans and the Pleiadians, or Ge Ya, did indeed share some genetic heritage.

The universe is vast—with each star system giving birth to uniquely different beings.

For example, the Tur Civilization’s warship had Tur beings with jellyfish-like appearances. The people of Dream Technology felt as if they were witnessing monsters and struggled to accept such creatures as intelligent.

Now, seeing Ge Ya humans and Blue Star humans bearing such similar appearances, a sense of kinship naturally emerged.

The Ge Ya moved quickly, conducting comprehensive inspections of the warship’s power system, energy circuits, navigation, and weaponry.

As the Ge Ya landing ship prepared to leave, a Ge Ya voice resonated.

“Miracle, we have inspected your main battle ship. Its combat power is indeed below the level expected of a level-six civilization. Does that mean the civilization you belong to is only level five?”

After a moment of thought, Du Qiu replied, “Actually, there isn’t a level five. The base I’ve set up here is largely built upon equipment from the Dominant Civilization. My civilization is only at level four. That’s why I requested a complete set of technical data from level four to six from you.

With that, once I upgrade my civilization to level six, I believe I can discover a pathway from the Taiji Galaxy to the Taihao River System.”

Ge Ya now fully trusted this self-proclaimed Miracle consciousness—it was definitely not an extension of the Dominant or its splinter consciousness.

Both the Ge Ya Civilization and the Dominant Civilization were peak level-six cultures. Thanks to careful discretion in Ge Ya’s information control, they indeed possessed technology that, in some aspects, surpassed that of the Dominant.

For instance, certain applications of spatial technology were highly coveted by the Dominant Civilization.

Yet the technological gap between the two remained minimal—a testament to the Dominant’s skill in espionage.

This greatly compensated for the Dominant’s shortcomings in technological research and development.

Furthermore, over the past century, the Dominant had begun cultivating a cadre of intelligent scientists to mitigate this weakness.

This was another main reason why the Dominant had slowed its offensive against the Ge Ya Alliance.

In the Dominant’s view, since the Ge Ya Alliance had nowhere else to run, it was better to build up strength and then decimate them in one swift blow once the gap widened.

This was preferable to a desperate, mutually destructive struggle.

Ge Ya believed that handing over their complete technology system data to Miracle was a way of nurturing an ally—a practice they had embraced for thousands of years.

Had it not been for Ge Ya’s generous sharing of technological knowledge, few intelligent civilizations would have been inclined to join the Ge Ya Alliance.

So after Du Qiu finished speaking, Ge Ya responded, “No problem. The Ge Ya Civilization will provide you with complete technical data from levels four through six.

However, although the fundamental principles of scientific technology are universal, each race develops them based on its own traits.

So the data we provide may not be entirely suitable for your people—you’ll need to select and adapt it yourself.

I mentioned before that our Ge Ya Alliance might be annihilated by the Dominant Civilization within a century. If your civilization fails to reach a peak level-six development within that time, do not hastily venture through the secondary passage into the Taihao River System.”

Du Qiu was taken aback. He had assumed he might only get a few pieces of technology—but receiving the full set of data was an enormous boon.

This was truly like stumbling upon a fortune.