Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
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The giant main meeting room was filled with a three-dimensional projection, which showed the positions of the spaceship in the universe and the environment surrounding it. In this way, when someone was sitting in the meeting room, he would feel like he was floating in the universe instead of sitting in the spaceship.
At the moment, the 44 members of the management committee were having a universe meeting above the earth. All of the 44 members were sitting down in their designated chairs and were dressed in white outfits that had been specifically made for them.
They were all looking at Lu Zhiyu. This was the first time that many of them were meeting Lu Zhiyu. Most of the members from the original management committee had only heard of Lu Zhiyu, but they had never seen him in the flesh.
“This is our main plan, and it’s divided into three steps. I call this plan the ‘Truth Initiative.’ The three steps will be recorded into the inner program of the main-brain David, and it will act as the foundation that we will use to design Truth’s route. Only the captain will have the access authority to amend it,” Lu Zhiyu explained.
He then asked, “Are there any questions?” he asked.
Lu Zhiyu was sitting in the middle of the room, with everyone else sitting around him. Gu Chaoran and Fabio were sitting the closest to him, and Gu Chaoran was the first to raise his hand and pose a question.
He asked, “Captain, it might take us more than 2,000 years to finish this plan. Are you really serious about this?”
Lu Zhiyu looked at Gu Chaoran and replied, “Some of you have taken the elixir of life recently, which means that you will now have a life span of nearly 200 years. What you don’t know is that the elixir of life is a technology that I leaked, and many of such technologies that have gained popularity on earth in recent years all stemmed from Truth.”
Lu Zhiyu then added, “Moreover, age won’t even be an issue in our advancement. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have chosen you all in the first place. The moment we left earth, we already became an interstellar civilization that’s detached from the mother star. Now, I need your help to create an interstellar civilization that belongs to us, a real and authentic interstellar civilization!”
“A civilization?” they all asked in unison. “A civilization that is only made up of us?”
“Isn’t Truth an exploration spaceship? I felt something that there was something off about this spaceship when I first boarded it. After all, this is a colonial spaceship, which has an enormous residential area at its lowest level. The technologies inside this spaceship have far exceeded those that the earth civilization’s masters possess. So, I have to ask… What exactly is going on here?”
“Aren’t we supposed to return right after we arrive in the alpha system in Centaurus?”
“What is this new civilization that he is talking about? An interstellar civilization and a race initiative?”
Several heated discussions broke out among those in the meeting room at that moment as many of the members kept raising questions about what Lu Zhiyu had just shared with them. Some of these questions were answered, while others were not. Some people felt ecstatic about the plan, while others were really worried about it.
After the meeting, Lu Zhiyu asked Gu Chaoran, Fabio, Molly, Wang Yi and Zoe to stay in the meeting room. He then turned to them and said, “Aside from the Truth Initiative, the interstellar civilization initiative will also be launched in the near future.”
He then added, “Please prepare yourselves for this. The residential area will be put to use very soon. Meanwhile, please gather some details about the interstellar civilization initiative, such as how to lead the civilization into the future, as well as how to manage it. You will be in charge of all of these matters, especially you, Gu Chaoran!”
Lu Zhiyu then pointed at Gu Chaoran and continued, “I won’t appear in front of many people, so you will need to be the de facto leader of Truth and the new interstellar civilization. If you handle the job, I’ll have to replace you with another person, tasking them with the role of being the acting captain and the head of the management committee instead!”
After Gu Chaoran had decided to enter the spaceship Truth to get to the universe, he had already fully prepared himself for everything that was going to come. After hearing the Truth Initiative and the interstellar civilization initiative from Lu Zhiyu, he finally understood what that choice really meant.
“They don’t understand it. None of them understand what it means to get into this spaceship. This is a ticket to becoming a god!” Gu Chaoran said.
This was his chance to rise above the ordinary and change fate. The Interstellar Civilization was just as divine as a god was to earth’s civilization. Moreover, it hadn’t even been detached from the mother star or been able to utilize all of the resources inside its own planet yet!
Some scholars had divided civilizations into three stages. The first stage was the part of the civilization that could fully utilize all of the resources in its own planet. It could control earthquakes, volcanos, and the climate on the planet. The earth’s civilization was close to this period of the civilization, but it still had a long way to go to reach the top of this stage.
The second stage of civilization involved the civilizations that were able to utilize all of the resources inside their star systems, They were also able to get out of the star systems where their mother planets were located by using the power of stars.
They were also able to use their technologies to build spaceships that were able to travel across the universe. They were even able to reconstruct planets and civilizations for an interstellar colony. The civilization of Atlantis was at this particular level.
As for the third stage, it was an interstellar civilization, and as such, it was able to use its technologies to determine the fate of the galaxy. The most basic characteristic of such a civilization was that it was able to master the space technologies, only after which it could then control the enormous galaxy from an interstellar distance.
Now, the spaceship Truth was a lopsided existence. It was a civilization that was born within earth’s civilization, but it had also received Lu Zhiyu’s civilization power, as well as the inheritance of the technology-driven civilization of Atlantis.
It wasn’t a stage-two civilization, but neither was it just an ordinary stage-one civilization. It had great potential, and it was likely that it would become a stage-two civilization in the near future. There was also a chance that it would become a stage-three civilization after that.
To the inferior civilizations, advanced civilizations were just as powerful and mysterious as gods, and the gap between these two kinds of civilizations might be larger than that between human beings and gods. There was a chance that Gu Chaoran might become the supreme leader of such a civilization, which made Gu Chaoran feel like he was living the dream. After all, this choice had allowed him to take a leap forward, basically going from a human being to a god.
“It was the right choice to leave earth. Soon, I will become the supreme leader of a new interstellar civilization, one beyond the milky way and the universe, where there are trillions of stars and countless living beings. Not everyone has such an opportunity in life,” Gu Chaoran.
Then, as his body shook, he looked at Lu Zhiyu and declared, “I will do everything in my power to satisfy your expectations of me!”
Then, the other three people left, leaving only Wang Yi and Zoe standing at the center of the room. Zoe looked calm, yet Wang Yi seemed to be a bit tense.
Lu Zhiyu could only recall a few ancient memories about these two people. To them, it had only been a short period of time since they had been with Lu Zhiyu. However, to Lu Zhiyu, it had been hundreds of years.
“We meet again, my old friends!” Lu Zhiyu said to the pair. “To be honest, I don’t have that many old friends left, so I cherish each and every one of them. I’m really happy that you could board this spaceship, though I am not sure whether this is a good choice for you or not. Why didn’t you stay on earth?”
Upon hearing this, Wang Yi felt weird that Lu Zhiyu had called him an old friend. As he stared at Lu Zhiyu, he answered his question carefully, “I don’t have any family left. My grandmother, who raised me, passed away last year, so I signed up for this mission after reading about it in the news. Luckily, I was selected, and before I knew it, I was here.”
Lu Zhiyu guffawed, then asked, “Is this what most people consider to be fate, Wagn Shi’er?”
Wang Yi got even more confused after he heard what Lu Zhiyu had called him just now. Only his closest childhood friends knew this nickname, and after they had all grown up, none of them even used the name any longer. Hence, he found it very strange that Lu Zhiyu, who he didn’t really feel familiar with at all, knew about and had used such an intimate nickname to address him just now.
Zoe then looked at Lu Zhiyu and said, “You’re a strange person. Ever since you showed up here, and every time that I have ever met you, I always have felt that you’re weird. I can’t understand you at all.”
Lu Zhiyu nodded, then said, “I understand. There’s no need for you to say anything else. Besides, we’ll have tons of chances to meet each other in the future and get to know each other better. For now, welcome to Truth. I hope that you can enjoy the rest of the trip!”
After that, Zoe and Wang Yi left the meeting room. Wang Yi tried to recall who that man that they had just spoken to was for a long time. Finally, after the cabin door opened and they walked into the portal, a name suddenly came into his mind and he exclaimed, “Lu Zhiyu!”
Wang Yi immediately turned around and ran back to the main meeting room. However, when he got there, he discovered that the meeting room was already completely dark, as the projector and lights had all been switched off. There was only an empty room left, which was filled with the scent of technological machinery and iron.
Where is everyone? he wondered.
After the meeting, Lu Zhiyu had opened the dimensional door and returned to the crystal wall that belonged to him. It was at that moment that the routes and the exploration plans of Truth fell into the hands of the management committee.
Now that he had delegated the responsibilities to the members, Lu Zhiyu didn’t need to stay any longer. From now on, all he needed to do was to periodically come back and check to see how things were progressing, along with making future plans for Truth.