Chapter 329 -The Juberly Hub!
After the scavenger attack, Short Horn Star headed straight for the Juberly Hub without making any stops.
After several days, a massive fortress that floated in space appeared outside the windows of their ship. The Juberly Hub looked like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, with its futuristic steel structures standing out in the backdrop of countless distant stars. It looked both intimidating and mysterious at the same time.
Spaceships came and went through its docks in an unceasing manner, and their massive engines left behind lines of multi-colored light in space. Thousands of these lines surrounded the space station, and even though there was no sound in space, it was as if a magnificent firework show was being held.
Such was the beauty of civilization.
After turning on their communications channel, they started receiving signals from countless sources. Each space ship was in the process of gaining entry to the hub, and voices of all languages and accents mixed with the robotic voices formed a unique cacophony of sounds.
The bustling hub was in sharp contrast to the stillness of space.
Short Horn Star started to slow down its speed as it approached the Juberly Hub.
The space station grew larger and larger in their ship’s windows before it soon took up the entirety of their view. It was then that the people on-board finally realized the scale of this gigantic space fortress. Short Horn Star, which was only comparable to a small city in size, was like a tiny pea next to a watermelon when put next to the Juberly Hub.
The players, who had never seen this before, had looks of awe on their faces. They were shocked to the core. One would truly feel insignificant when in front of a space station such as that.
“So… so big!”
“It’s basically a small planet.”
“So, this is Galaxy.”
The players could not hold their excitement back, and soon, they even fell in love with the sight in front of them.
The shimmering stars in space would remain to be a wonder for all who looked up at their skies. The players were no different. Bun-hit-dog made sure to record everything, and he hated that he could not use more cameras to capture this moment.
Han Xiao, on the other hand, remained calm as he stroked his chin. The glint in his eyes suggested that he was in deep thought.
Entering the Juberly Hub was the first step in their journey in space. The Juberly Hub was a middle point—a massive hub where countless forces interacted with each other on a daily basis. Information from all over the Colton Star Cluster passed through the hub. It could basically be treated as a ‘main city’, as it offered many features such as rooms for rent.
To Han Xiao, the Juberly Hub would be an important place for the first part of his plan. Most of his future activities would start out from the hub. If he was to map out his future movements in the Colton Star Cluster, it would look like a spider web with the Juberly Hub at the center.
Han Xiao believed that the most important objective right now was to make a breakthrough in his strength. LV 70 meant nothing in space. He already had an astronomical amount of experience, 27 million. So, all he had to do was find a way to turn all that experience into actual combat strength. In other words, he needed to complete his class change requirements, find a subclass, and look for advanced knowledge.
Juberly Hub was a great place for trading advanced knowledge. The Enas that he had earned earlier would be put to great use soon. Han Xiao currently already possess two pieces of advanced knowledge, and he needed a total of five to class change. Based on his memory, however, the Enas that he had was not enough. Advanced knowledge was always expensive to acquire.
Yet, compared to Planet Aquamarine, the process of acquiring advanced knowledge was ten times easier. As long as he had enough money, he would not even have to worry about getting into a good relationship with the buyers.
Earning money was an important objective.
Just then, the captain’s voice sounded over the ship’s broadcast system.
“We’re about to enter and dock in port 273. All passengers, please head to the waiting area near the ship’s bridge to wait for landing. Allow me to once again express my gratitude for choosing our travel company as well as my deepest apologies for the earlier incident. Thank you for your cooperation on-board.”
Short Horn Star entered a large docking area, and the bottom of the ship locked on to the docking rails. After the ship was secured, the port’s metallic gates opened, and the ship was led in on the rails before the gates closed again.
The passengers on spaceship then headed toward the bridge to wait to disembark while carrying their luggage. The players were all carrying Han Xiao’s material boxes. The large packs of materials and equipment looked rather suspicious and easily grabbed the attention of the surrounding onlookers. However, the passengers all knew that Han Xiao was the one who had protected the ship from the scavengers, and they looked at Han Xiao’s group with kindness in their eyes… Not that Han Xiao and the players understood what a kind expression would look like when it was on the face on another species. To the players, these warm looks were as good as threatening glares, and they were in a constant stage of worry for their own lives.
“I’m finally free!” Kerlodd was emotional as he stretched out his arms, as if trying to embrace the sky.
“Calm down. It’s not like I treated you badly. I didn’t torture you.” Han Xiao gave him a sidelong glance before saying, “You even earned 1,500 Enas because of me. I feel like you should be thanking me instead.”
“I would… if you would just return my equipment to me.”
“Wow, why is it so noisy here? Sorry, what did you say?”
Kerlodd felt helpless about this. He knew Han Xiao well enough that probably only if God Gal himself showed up would Han Xiao be willing to give back what he had taken. He shook his head and got serious.
“I need to go back to work, and I need to submit a report. I won’t go back on our promise, and I will make sure to not trouble you with my report. Even if you don’t trust my words, you should be aware that due to the dangerous nature of the Observers’ job, what you did wasn’t nearly enough to warrant a bounty on your head. You can rest assured that no one will trouble you due to this.”
“Sounds good.” Han Xiao chuckled as he silently put away his gun.
“I will count it as my bad luck for meeting you,” Kerlodd said dejectedly.
“I’m pretty happy though,” Han Xiao replied happily.
The spaceship shook once before it finally came to a stop. The exit slowly opened up, revealing a white platform in front of them. The dock was as massive as a city square, and there were bright lights all over the place. The ceilings must have been at least a few hundred meters high to be able to fit the entire Short Horn Star inside. At the end of the platform was the entrance into the space station.
When Han Xiao brought the players off the ship, he was able to catch a glimpse of Lerden, who hurriedly dragged along his bounty and was walking at the front of the group.
After the attack, Han Xiao did not get another opportunity to converse with Lerden, and their relationship did not progress any further, but that was fine for Han Xiao.
We should be able to meet again as long as I interact with the Sunil Storyline.
After walking through a long, winding passageway, they finally arrived inside the Juberly Hub, and the space around them suddenly opened up. They were currently at the Hub Center of the space station. However, although it was called a center, the place was more like a city and measured several dozens of kilometers in length.
At the edge of the Hub Center was a gigantic, arched French window through which they could see the vastness of space that was just outside. The group had walked into through an entrance near the French window.
The Hub Center’s ceiling was also extremely tall, and the top was over a thousand meters away from where they stood. At the very middle was a white tower that was built right through the ceiling. Countless buildings surrounded this tower, forming rings upon rings of structures. The buildings were all built with drastically different designs, and each building took up a large amount of space. Each floor was a huge platform on its own, built with all kinds of facilities and areas. There were also bridges that connected these tall buildings with one another. The dizzying number of bridges and walkways between the buildings formed a maze-like megastructure, while many public air transport vehicles darted through the open spaces.
The ground was also dotted with a variety of massive infrastructure such as gyms, theaters, and public parks. This was a place where countless different species interacted with each other. Transport could be seen flying around the air at all times. The players almost felt like this was all too much for their eyes to take in. It was like they had entered an unimaginable world, and everything that had only been a figment of their imagination in the past had become reality.
Basically, they were speechless and really excited.
The Hub Center offers many features.
Han Xiao’s memories all started to come back to him.
It can be divided into approximately ten or so areas, and there are all kinds of restaurants, equipment shops, and entertainment centers such as bars and race tracks of all kinds of species.
There are also training grounds designed for Supers, which offer gravity training rooms, combat simulators, meditation rooms, mechanical workshops, as well as offices that offer jobs and employment for Supers.
There are powerful entities such as the Mercenary Alliance and the Mage’s Organization; there are also financial groups and other forces that are interested in hiring Supers. There’s also the trading center, which allows one to trade with people from all over the cluster, and there are also shipyards that specialized in building and repairing spaceships…
Essentially, this place would be able to meet all his needs for a while.
Juberly Hub would be a long-term base for his plans in the future.