The situation was amazing. We originally came here to unravel the secrets of the Green Star. This should be the legacy of the Old Empire from tens of thousands of years ago. It was a high-tech planetary battleship. Well, at the very least, it was a planetary fortress. I felt that we would encounter layers upon layers of encrypted databases, crisscrossing starship bridges, or automatic defense robots armed to their heels. There might even be a few waves of hibernating ancient guardians. Then, I would lead this group of girls with overwhelming combat power and charge into the planet and dig out some old records from the planetary core database. This was the normal development model.
But in the end, this was the situation: we did pass through two starship bridges and encountered a cluster of high-tech buildings. But in the end, we arrived at a low-gravity 'satellite' floating in the core of the planet. (I could only name it this way. How to call this small planet sealed in the core of the planet was a problem. Calling it a little green ball or a little green ball wouldn't be appropriate. So, Tawil suggested calling it a 'Geocentric Satellite'. Who said that satellites can only revolve around the planet? It's different to stuff it into the planet and take it away.) This low-gravity satellite was lush and lush. Under the protection of an outdated shield system, it was able to resist the thousand-degree temperature of the planet's core. There were countless plants that were so huge that they looked like they were in a fairytale world. However, 99% of them were mass projections that could be crushed with a pinch. The only thing that had substance on the ground was the vines that seemed to have wrapped around the entire satellite. Well, we also encountered a messy little girl. She seemed to have some mental issues. Such a child might not even be able to become a class cadre even if she was thrown into the temple of the Goddess of Life for three years …
"It's impolite of you to think that way," the older sister reminded me sternly. My older sister reminded me seriously. I maintained a mental connection with her, and as we chatted idly, I began to ridicule this elf-like little girl. Then, as expected, I was taught a lesson.
"Even though she's not that smart — I should say that she's too naive." Big Sister quickly followed up the second half of the sentence.
The little girl who tried to repel the invaders with her toy bow hurt her knee. She was a mass projection, and the plant she fell on was also a mass projection. Logically speaking, a normal projection generator would not be able to cause damage to two mass projections when they collided, but it happened. She hurt her knee, and it looked like she was in pain. This made Shadora curious. The projection generator here has too many unnecessary functions to make the environment look as real as possible. The Xi Ling apostles only used the mass projection technology to create some tools and work environments for themselves, but the mass projection here seems to be in a virtual world. I feel like the natives living here are like the players trapped in a virtual online game. They have mixed the virtual and the real together. Is this the purpose of this place?
An illusory ideal world that would still be lush and green after the apocalypse? So what's up with the indigenous people here? The little girl in front of me didn't look like she had experienced the end of the world. She looked more like she was born and raised here.
No matter what the truth was, I still had to carry the little girl who hurt her knee and continue forward. I had to endure her questions and act like I'm not a lolicon under Lin Xue's mischievous smile. I also had to calm myself down at all times so that I wouldn't get angry at the troublesome person on my back who would occasionally stab my ear with an arrow. This was a complicated task, especially when the other party couldn't tell me where to go. The last requirement was even more difficult.
"Do you know where your home is?"
I couldn't help but ask after the other party stabbed me with an arrow again. "Also, what's your name?"
"I can't casually tell others my name. Moreover, you are intruders," the little girl replied firmly. "Just keep going forward. Turn left … or right. Anyway, I will tell you. Our village is not far away. It's a very big village. The chief happens to be a guest in the village for the next two days."
"Relax, relax." Lin Xue looked at me with a mischievous smile. "We're really close this time. There really is a village in front."
"Did you notice something?" I said to everyone through the mental link without batting an eyelid. "The gravity here is slightly stronger than on the moon. If you're not careful, you'll float. However, this little girl doesn't seem to feel it at all. She felt like she was walking on solid ground and she even hurt her knee."
"Because this is an environment dominated by mass projections. More than 90% of the things around us and the little girl herself are mass projections," Sandora replied. "Regardless of the gravity in the real environment, this little girl seems to be living in an 'environment' with gravity close to that of Earth. Based on her body shape and movement habits, I deduced that the gravity she felt should be similar to that of Earth and close to the gravity on the surface of a Green Star. For a mass projection, it's relatively easy to fool the perception of the environment. "
This was a strange world where reality and illusion existed at the same time. We were walking in the real world, but this projected girl believed in the information from the illusion. Both of us were actually able to communicate normally under such circumstances. It was really strange.
It was a little troublesome to walk under such circumstances because my sister didn't want the little girl to notice our strange walking posture. Therefore, we had to ignore the gravity around us and use our own methods to 'walk on solid ground'. It didn't take much effort, but we had to be careful with every step we took, which made us feel very uncomfortable.
After walking in this uncomfortable state for more than ten minutes, we finally reached our destination: an elf village surrounded by plants.
The village wasn't big. At a glance, there were only a dozen or so households. The radius of the village couldn't be more than three to four hundred meters, and the houses were sparsely spaced. The entire village was surrounded by a circle of thin gray 'mushrooms' that were more than ten meters tall. These mushrooms acted as the village's natural fence. Between the mushrooms, there were thick fences woven with plant fibers, which acted as the village's walls. There were also many smaller 'mushrooms' growing on the ground in the middle of the village. The houses were built on the stalks of these mushrooms. It looked like tree houses that were built after hollowing out the tree trunks. These mushrooms were quite different from what I remembered. Judging from the cross-sections of the doors and windows, these mushrooms were likely some kind of woody plant. Alright, since we were already in such a strange place, let's not worry about woody plants.
I didn't know what kind of habits the residents had in this strange world formed by mass projections. However, it was obvious that this was the time for leisure. There were groups of two or three villagers strolling in the empty space of the village, or chatting under the shade of the large mushroom houses while drinking drinks. This small planet's protective layer had a halo of light that filled the atmosphere, providing light to the land below. It was currently daytime, so the light was rather strong.
Just from the outside, this seemed like a simple and peaceful village in the forest. It was filled with the wonderful feeling of a fairy tale mixed with a legend. Even if there was something eye-catching about this place, it was just that the residents here all had elven characteristics. However, when I thought about how everything here was a mass projection without any life or substance, I felt a wave of strangeness. The scene before my eyes became increasingly unreal.
The arrival of an outsider attracted the attention of the villagers. The first few people who saw us exchanged nervous glances before quickly running back to their houses. When they came out, they were already holding various kinds of weapons in their hands. The women and children who didn't carry weapons looked at us as if they were facing a great enemy. Two of them saw the strange little girl on my back and instantly cried out in alarm.
"Daddy! Mommy! I'm back! "
The strange little girl agilely jumped down from my back. After two or three steps, she — fell to the ground. She couldn't even run steadily when her legs were fine, let alone now that her knees were injured.
A young man and woman not far away exclaimed softly in alarm before quickly running over. However, we were closer. The older sister stepped forward to help the strange little girl up first, patting and comforting her with familiarity. A twelve-year-old child should have already passed the age of childhood, but this little girl was obviously developing at a steady pace. She was just like a child when she was coaxed. It was also precisely because of this that the older sister's naughty child control aura had the effect of adding three levels to her skill. By the time the little girl's parents bent down to check on their daughter's injuries, the little girl was already giggling happily.
"This is my daddy and mommy. Thank you for bringing me home." The little girl politely nodded at us before introducing the strangers in front of her to her parents. "Daddy, mommy, this is the intruder I met outside. He's a good intruder."
What kind of mess is this?!
The little girl's parents' faces were filled with confusion. Then, they quietly shielded their daughter behind them. The surrounding nervous villagers held their respective weapons: pots, spades, ladles, and shovels, forming a loose encirclement. It looked as if they were defending against an intruder, but the scale of the encirclement didn't give off any pressure. Furthermore, I didn't feel any killing intent from these people at all. Rather than saying that they were facing the enemy, it would be more accurate to say that they instinctively picked up a defensive item under the effects of confusion and fear. Then, they came closer to see what was going on. Spectators, I gave them a definition.
"Who are you people? How did you come here?" The little girl's father quickly calmed down and asked loudly while protecting his wife and daughter.
Even though I knew that they were all mass projections, I felt that they themselves didn't seem to realize this. So, I replied seriously, "We came from above."
I pointed at the sky. This geocentric satellite was enveloped in a layer of atmosphere and a shield. It had its own independent lighting adjustment, so the dark red inverted land with a dazzling river of lava couldn't be seen clearly from here. Looking through the layers of clouds and the shield, I could only see a blurry dark red shadow faintly discernible in the clouds. I wasn't sure if the residents here understood what I meant. Did they know that there was another land in the sky above their own world?
"Above?!" The villagers were in an uproar. The little girl's father even exclaimed in surprise, "You came from the Inferno Sky?"
The other party exclaimed in surprise as he observed our appearances. "You really look different from us. Did you fall from the sky? Is that place still burning? " As he said that, his gaze fell on Liliana. Liliana was still in her transformed state and looked just like a blood elf. "Huh? This girl also came from the Inferno Sky? "
"So you call the earth's mantle Inferno Sky. That's quite appropriate." Liliana blinked. "But we came from above. We penetrated thousands of kilometers. By the way, do you know how much a kilometer is?"
The unit of measurement that the other party used didn't seem to have a kilometer, but he still understood what Liliana meant. He was even more surprised. "Above? You penetrated the Inferno Sky? "
Sandora and I exchanged glances. Her voice came through our mental link. "Ah Jun, they don't seem to know that they live in the earth's core. They also don't know that they live in a projection world."
This was a little different from our initial guess, but I wasn't in a hurry to find out the answer. Anyway, the Green Star was now docked in the capital of the Empire. We had all the time in the world to figure everything out. I just felt that the situation before me was a little dark and humorous. These natives who existed as mass projections had no knowledge of anything happening on the surface. They didn't even know where their home planet had been dragged to. Their knowledge of the world was limited to the "seemingly normal" inner world that they lived in, and the burning mantle above their heads, which was treated as the sky. To them, visitors from outside the "Inferno Sky" were inconceivable because they needed to penetrate the sky …
Were they really projections from someone's main body? Or were they just virtual characters that were evolved from a program without a main body? Through the mental link, my older sister, who was more cautious, raised such a question. If the villagers here were regular mass projections, then they must have their own main body somewhere (I thought of the huge group of tombs I saw on the mantle, the countless bodies sleeping in the hibernation pods), which meant that they should have a high level of scientific knowledge. Primitive people couldn't operate a projector, but the situation now was a little off. They looked more like the elves who lived in the jungles in fantasy novels and had never even seen human stone castles. I saw them, and they even used wells to fetch water.
That water was also an illusion, but it must be a virtual object created by a program.
Of course, there was another possibility, which was that the high-tech race that modified the Green Star was actually no longer here, and these low-tech elves were actually some kind of experimental subjects. They didn't know how to use a projection device, but they were stuffed into hibernation pods by the original builders of the Green Star, and their souls and other things were transferred to this place. The small planet at the center of the earth was actually a biological laboratory.
The more I thought about it, the more I felt that it was a pity that I didn't write a screenplay. If you randomly put together a couple who loved each other so much that they couldn't even become a couple by the end of the cast list, if you threw them into Hollywood, they would at least be seven or eight Oscar winners …
The elder sister's affinity and Liliana's elven appearance finally came into play. After talking for a long time, the vigilant villagers all put down their weapons. I realized that these elves were quite cautious and a little neurotic. Although we were "invaders", we didn't make any hostile moves when we came here, and they were already on guard. Could it be that in this society, as long as a creature was dressed differently from their own race, they could be treated as an enemy?
The strange little girl was taken away by her parents, and the villagers dispersed. Finally, a male elf who looked similar to a middle-aged human walked over and introduced himself as the village chief.
"I'm sorry, we grew up listening to the legends. Anything that comes from the Fiery World is extremely dangerous, and any alien that appears in the forest could be an invader." The middle-aged man led us to the largest treehouse in the village. "That's what the legends say."
"Oh." I didn't comment, and simply brushed him off. There were too many questions left in this strange place, and I decided to keep a low profile before discovering more secrets.
The elves' treehouse was built in the mushroom stalk, and the interior was different from what I expected. It wasn't damp at all, and there was plenty of light. The surrounding arc-shaped walls were dry and clean, and there was a soft white light coming from the inside of the mushroom stalk. It turned out that when you looked out from the inside, these walls were transparent.
The village chief's house didn't look very exquisitely decorated, and everything was just the simplest household necessities. Wooden furniture, plant fiber hanging chairs and tapestries, as well as a few small ornaments of unknown quality. That was everything on the first floor. Because the mushroom stalk was very tall, every house here was as tall as a few stories. These buildings made of local materials were destined to be unable to develop into commercial buildings or courtyard houses.
"Our chief is currently handling some matters, and when the time comes, she will personally come to meet you guests."
The middle-aged man let us rest on the slightly smaller hanging chairs, and then he stood up to prepare drinks and food. He seemed to be very hospitable, and it seemed like he wanted to make up for his previous offense. Liliana wriggled restlessly in the middle of the plant fiber hanging chair, and in the end, she jumped down and snuggled into my embrace, burying her head in silence.
"What's wrong with this girl?"
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry as I looked at the people around me. Lin Xue had a look of disdain, Shallow Shallow had a pensive look, and Sandora was looking at us with a faint smile. My sister poked my head and said, "Ah Jun, mind yourself."
It was quite heavy, and the combined weight of the two of them was about to crush the not-so-sturdy hanging chair!
"Boss, I don't like this place," Liliana said in a muffled voice, "There's a huge lifeform that's awakening, and I feel like I'm being enveloped by it. The lifeless projection here also makes me uncomfortable — my physique is too sensitive."
Was there a need for this girl to twist a normal sentence into an abnormal second half?!
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