The Ultimate Evolution

During the long flight, Sheyan did not remain idle. He asked some questions he wished to know, such as how to pilot a large Imperial spacecraft, and things to look out for in a long voyage.

The Lieutenant apparently knew that Sheyan was a VIP guest, and he had also heard of Sheyan’s feat of flying a Wasp to Uplos and back, so he answered every question he could.

Sheyan asked these questions for a reason. Before he departed, he already learned from the Realm that there were often turbulent dimensional rifts in places where the primary plane overlapped with other subplanes.

That means astonishing acceleration and wild maneuvers. As far as the physiques of the pilots in the Empire were concerned, they already found it difficult to get through the asteroid belts outside Uplos, let alone traveling through a dimensional rift. That means Sheyan must go alone, and he naturally had to pilot the spacecraft himself.

Sheyan then inquired about the current situation on Uplos. He was curious how the Predators would react to the death of their Arbitrator, but he was told that there were no reactions. Their fights were recorded by something like a black box, which succeeded in being transmitted back to the Predator’s home planet.

The proud Predators believed that since the Arbitrator had fought with his full power in close combat and died in battle, it was a fair fight. As long as he did not die unfairly like being blasted by a plasma cannon or bombed by a mine before he had a chance to fight, they found nothing wrong with it.

As for the matter of the Arbitrator being outnumbered by the contestants, that was as it should be in the Predators’ eyes. Predator warriors were supposed to be that strong. It would be more weird if a bunch of Predators had to gang up on a puny human. So since it was a glorious death in battle, there was nothing wrong, and there was no revenge to speak of.

Sheyan soon made his return to Alps Base 7. Compared to before, the base had become bigger and much more prosperous. Next to the old base, a large number of new sub-bases were being built, and they would be merged into the old base. They looked like scattered bubbles in water that continued to cluster into one big lump of bubbles.

Because there was no weight in vacuum, human space bases were built like legos and had a large number of connecting interfaces built in advance. They could be combined and expanded at will, so as to make use of the vast emptiness in space to expand infinitely.

This also showed that the Empire had probably come to the decision to develop and exploit planet Uplos at all costs.

Sheyan was not treated with discrimination this time, perhaps due to Archer’s dramatical increase in power, or perhaps due to the Brigadier General uniform he was donning. However, a series of tedious immunity precautions were still routinely performed on him. Sheyan did not mind that, but he did find the disinfectant sprayed on him smelling really bad. It truly made him wonder; human technology had undergone thousands of years of development, but why did disinfectant still smell so bad? Couldn’t they improve it a little?

He could not help recalling the present that Jinkuang promised to give him before he left. When he thought of that, he did not know whether to laugh or cry. He had searched his room inside out for a whole day back then, but could not find any presents at all. In the end, Sheyan found a line of messy handwriting in the doorway….

“Errr, about that, I seem to have forgotten something…. I’ve already lost the present I’m leaving for you. Fine, fine, I’ll make it up to you next time…. Ah, forget it. Take this instead.”

Of course, this kind of miserly behaviour was very much in line with Jinkuang’s sneaky personality. If he were to give a present so generously, would he still be the great jinkuang? But in the end, Jinkuang still steeled his heart and left a generous souvenir for Sheyan.

It was a small piece of worn-out linen plastic.

Sheyan examined it for a long time but he still could not tell what it was. He did not dare to smell it in case it was a piece of cloth torn off the sock on Jinkuang’s foot. That was not impossible.

Finally, he recalled a big hobby of Jinkuang, and that was, like ladies who would carry Louis Vuitton and Hermes handbags when they go out, Jinkuang would always carry a black pig feed sack wherever he went.

This cloth fragment in his hand was obviously once a part of the ragged pig feed sack, because Sheyan could see the word “feed” on the cloth he was holding.

The present may be cheap (it was really, really cheap), but it was the thought that counts! Sheyan still put it away with a sigh. That slut Jinkuang indeed had a very unique personality. Even the gift he left behind was so unique. Every time Sheyan laid eyes on the gift, he would never mistake it for a gift from someone else.

After the inspections, Sheyan officially stepped foot into the extra-large space base. If it was a city that could accommodate 200,000 people before this, that figure had now soared to at least 500,000. Furthermore, from the countless construction projects carried out around the base, its expansion to a base with a million in population was only a matter of time.

The Lieutenant who received Sheyan made a call, then politely asked him to wait for a while. He explained that some big shot had come for an inspection, so at the moment, both Lieutenant Colonel Archer and Lieutenant General Mungo could not leave their posts. He informed Sheyan that he would have to wait for about three hours.

Sheyan, of course, would not stay in that place as the Lieutenant requested, even if there were plenty of wine, good food and sexy long-legged girls there. Do not forget that Sheyan had a perfect guide for this trip — his servant, Old Charlie.

To be honest, Sheyan had always been quite curious about the lives of the people under the rule of the Empire, and now was undoubtedly a good time to look around.

He firmly believed that the most interesting things about a certain place – including the food, art, scenery, folklore and specialties – would definitely not be found in the luxury restaurants and hotels meant for the rich and powerful. He would only discover them if he blended into the lives of the majority of people in that place. Even though he might have to endure some problems with the environment or hygiene, it was totally worthwhile. After all, if you want to try authentic Italian squid ink spaghetti, you have to bear the cost of your teeth blackening.

The streets of Alps Base 7 were visibly more prosperous than before. It seemed that there had been a large influx of people, just like the crazy influx of foreigners during the gold rush in West America.

Pi element was no doubt the main reason for this crazy wave of immigration.

More importantly, there were strange magnetic fields, terrifying beasts and bloodthirsty plants on planet Uplos, not to mention the existence of Predators, so it would probably be extremely difficult to establish a fully automated mining project there. Based on the current technological level of the Empire, they could only perform the plundering type of mining on Uplos instead of a sustainable development.

So if the planet was successfully developed, there would surely be a high demand for human resources, such as drivers for various construction machinery, as well as workers for maintenance, transportation and so on. The population expansion of Alps Base 7 was obviously in preparation for that.

“Let’s go,” Sheyan spoke to Old Charlie after pondering for a while.

Old Charlie’s eyes were half-closed at the moment. He was obviously immersed in nostalgia having come back to this familiar place. A feeling of sadness emanated from him. When he heard Sheyan’s words, he asked in a hoarse voice, “Where shall we go, master?”

“We have two to three hours, so maybe we can visit some places that you’re familiar with and have something nice to eat along the way? I come from the bottom rung of society, so I’m very interested in the lives of ordinary people a few thousand years in the future,” Sheyan said with a smile.

“I’ll be your guide if you insist, master, but my presence might cause you some trouble,” Old Charlie said.

Sheyan narrowed his eyes. He knew that Old Charlie was someone with a story, and the story was definitely not an ordinary one. It might even involve the internal affairs of the Empire.

However, Sheyan was not a timid person. Ever since Old Charlie became his servant, he no longer had any relationship with the Empire. They were backed by the Nightmare Realms that could stand toe to toe with the Empire and were powerful enough to cooperate with them! Moreover, the big boss of Alps Base 7 was someone who had cooperated with Sheyan before. With all these factors combined, what did Sheyan have to worry about?

Of course, for Sheyan, the underlying reason for his decision was to win over Old Charlie. This man was a very capable and shrewd old fox, and he was even willing to risk his life to raise his evaluation in Sheyan’s eyes. Even if Old Charlie himself did not say anything, Sheyan still believed that he should do something for a servant like this and help solve some of his worries.

They went north with Old Charlie leading the way.

Most cities on Earth had rich areas and slum areas, and so did Alps Base 7. The northern district of Alps Base 7 was the slum.