Alien Hotel.

Chapter 677 The Target, The Hermitage
Upon hearing the good news from Momo, Yu Sheng and his gang rushed to Black Stone Station. Hu Li, who was still half asleep, immediately followed when she heard Yu Sheng get up. Although she didn't quite understand what had happened until she saw Luo, she was still half asleep from dinner...

In the Black Rock Station control ring, in Luo's private laboratory.

The spacious room was filled with all sorts of dazzling equipment. Cables and material transport tracks crisscrossed the roof in a chaotic yet orderly fashion. Luo sat on the curved platform in the center of the room, surrounded by rapidly refreshing holographic projections and regular displays of various sizes. When Yu Sheng opened the door and came in, she was still operating something, with several mechanical limbs behind her connected to the equipment next to her like tentacles.

The art style, when viewed from the front, resembles a beautiful scientist sitting amidst a bunch of screens during a story mission, babbling about the background settings to the player; from the back, it looks like a mad scientist plotting to destroy the world from an underground base (though considering this woman's academic background, she could also be a mad postdoctoral researcher); and from the side, she's not visible—she's blocked by the screen.

As soon as Yu Sheng appeared, Luo stood up happily: "Boss, you're here!"

“Actually, I’ve wanted to ask this for a long time,” Yu Sheng waved to the other person and looked up at the pile of screens of all sizes next to Luo, “It’s the same in movies, TV shows, and games. Why do you researchers have to have so many fancy monitors around you? Can you even keep up with all of them?”

Luo was taken aback when Yu Sheng's first words were about this, but having spent some time in the hostel, she quickly recovered and waved her hand, saying, "To put it bluntly, it's just the stereotype—surrounding someone with a bunch of monitors and flashing data charts to make them look mysterious. Otherwise, how could the director let you tell at a glance that the person sitting in the middle is a scientist..."

Yu Sheng was stunned: "Then you..."

“I don’t actually need to look at any of these,” Luo said, as the mechanical tentacles behind him clicked a few times. “I’m directly connected to these devices, and the data comes directly from my brain—if it weren’t for some critical systems requiring physical controllers for security reasons, I wouldn’t even need a keyboard.”

Yu Sheng: "Then why are you putting all this stuff around you...?"

Luo: "To reinforce the stereotype."

Yu Sheng: "...?"

“That way, customers will think you’re very professional,” Luo said calmly. “My mentor once said that laymen can’t see the real difficulty and workload in the technical field. You can make yourself look busy by setting up a couple more screens around you and playing videos. When you’re on-site, even if it’s something that can be done by tightening a couple of screws, try to take two hours. That way, customers will be more willing to pay.”

She paused for a moment, then added, "I don't really need this anymore, but I can't break the habit I've developed over the years. You can think of it as my lab's decorating style."

Yu Sheng thought for a moment and said, "Okay, from now on, when I see a bunch of screens flashing around you, I'll know you're not busy."

"Wait, that's not what I meant..."

Yu Sheng waved his hand, jumping straight back to the main topic: "Let's talk about that stargate first—Momo said you found it?"

Luo opened her mouth, and after a few seconds, she finally sighed resignedly, turned around and sat back down in her chair. The holographic projector next to her, closest to Yu Sheng, flickered twice, stopped playing the pre-set content, and instead displayed a complex star map marked with countless symbols.

Several coordinates and route lines on the star chart were shining brightly.

“If my calculations are correct, the Hermitage has at least one illegal stargate in this location. In other words, this should be their border,” she pointed to the holographic projection, then, considering her boss’s educational background, added, “Stargates serve two main functions: long-distance shipping and beacon towers. They can instantly ‘eject’ a spaceship to another stargate, and also release navigation signals strong enough to traverse deep space, guiding ships within the galaxy on their return journey—spaceships in a jump state are affected by warped space and cannot observe the accurate and true starry sky. Without a navigation beacon, they would be lost in the vast space between celestial bodies…”

Yu Sheng listened, stroking his chin and nodding slightly. He could actually understand it; after all, Baili Qing had given him such a thick stack of interstellar captain manuals (driving test materials). Even if he only skimmed through them, he had accumulated a lot of basic conceptual knowledge. Of course, the stuff on the holographic projection was a different story—Luo continuing to play the videos for him didn't really have much of an impact…

Hu Li suddenly twitched his ears and looked up at the star map and coordinate transformation table on the holographic projection.

The big fox finally woke up.

"...Looks like we're not far from the Morona Fault?" she said with some surprise.

"Yes, surprisingly close, but that's for a large spaceship with a superluminal core, and only because we've now found its coordinates. Without those coordinates, that border would remain forever hidden in the vast darkness of the Dark Currents—the Hermitage is surrounded by massive gravitational faults, and these discontinuous spatial zones not only completely block out starlight from their lair but also extend into part of the Great Triangle Nebula. No wonder no one has discovered their lair for so many years."

“Alright, now that we’ve found it, let’s set sail and take a look,” Yu Sheng clapped his hands and made a decision instantly. “You and Momo stay at Black Rock Station and send the coordinates to the Otherworld Hotel. We’ll leave now.”

"Just leave like that?" Luo stood up in surprise. "That's the Hermitage's territory. Even if we find the stargate coordinates, we can't be sure if there's anything else nearby. What if you venture in alone and get discovered..."

“If I get caught, I’ll just open the door and come back,” Yu Sheng said casually. “Wherever I go, that’s where the hotel’s main entrance is. If I can’t beat them, I can still run away, right?”

Luo: "...Holy crap, I forgot about that." Yu Sheng didn't say anything, just waved his hand cheerfully, then opened a door leading to the Otherworld Hotel. Just before stepping inside, he remembered something and turned back to say, "By the way, I'll just 'send' the ship to the Morona Fault. It's shorter from there. You can help us plan the jump path from the fault line."

"learn."

The lights in the control hall on the upper deck of the Otherworld Hotel are already on.

The powerful output of the reaction core has been injected into the entire ship's systems, and a deep, pleasant hum is echoing deep within the interstellar spaceship. Yu Sheng sits in the captain's seat in the control hall, feeling the spaceship gradually awaken like his own body.

The communicator received an external signal. Yu Sheng glanced at the source of the signal and answered the call with a somewhat subtle expression.

A loud, blustering voice came through the console communicator: "Bro! Bro, are you guys going on a long trip? I heard the starport's automated announcement here in the Black Forest, saying the ship is preparing for takeoff or something... Are you looking for a fight? Want me to come along?"

"Don't make a fuss about everything—take advantage of the winter break to catch up on the lessons you've missed," Yu Sheng said, pressing his hand on the communicator. "We're on a secret infiltration mission this time; there won't be any fighting."

"Hey bro! What are you going to do, infiltrating in such a huge spaceship..."

Once the communicator is turned off, the world becomes peaceful.

In the footage from the external monitor, the mountains outside the valley slowly descended—moments later, the Otherworld Hotel touched the sky and was swallowed up by a rolling spatial rift in the blink of an eye, disappearing into a flash of starlight.

Once the light and shadow outside the viewing window stabilized again, what shone into the control hall was the distorted starlight from the vicinity of the Morona Fault.

With a thought, Yu Sheng activated the stealth field of the Otherworldly Hotel, and a nearly transparent "light membrane" rapidly expanded at both ends of the tower-shaped spaceship, enveloping it in the blink of an eye.

As a special starship built by the Secret Order to infiltrate the civilized world, this ship's armor and firepower are not particularly outstanding, but all its auxiliary and special operations systems are extremely excellent, especially its stealth capabilities. It was able to hide right under the nose of the Secret Service for ten years, and it was not even exposed after "Mist City" was exposed. Now, it has been modified by the Secret Service, erasing all the system backdoors and identification features left on the ship by the Secret Order. It can be said that once the stealth field is activated, it is like a ghost wherever it goes.

This is also why Yu Sheng dared to sail this ship to the border of the Secret Order to find his way—even a stealth reconnaissance ship from the Secret Service might not be as effective as this ship.

After a brief period of hesitation, the Otherworldly Inn received navigation data from Black Rock Station.

A deep rumble came from deep within the starship.

A somewhat monotonous announcement came from the ship's AI in the lobby: "Coordinate calibration in progress... Course clear, warp drive activated."

Outside the observation window, the starlight began to move slowly backward, then its speed increased dramatically, and all the star points suddenly contracted into a blue vortex of light in front of the spaceship, while the endless space transformed into a dark red "wake" behind the spaceship. Then the warped space closed, and the starry sky in the real universe became infinitely elongated projections on the outer wall of the space bubble.

Yu Sheng was no longer as excited and nervous as he was when he first entered the jump state—although his consciousness was still directly connected to the Otherworld Hotel, and although he could still see the massive information structure and countless strange messages imprinted on the star space by the creator known as the "Captain" whenever he "looked up," he could now calmly enjoy the process without even hindering his communication with the people around him.

Eileen sat in the seat next to him. The little doll proclaimed herself the vice-captain of the Otherworld Hotel. Her tiny body was almost completely hidden by the armrest when she sat in the chair. There was also a small control screen in front of Eileen that matched her height, which she could press and press to pretend that she was very busy.

The control panel wasn't connected to anything; it was just a flight simulator interface, designed specifically for her to play with—similar to the steering wheel in the passenger seat of a children's bumper car at an amusement park, primarily designed to provide an immersive and entertaining experience.

The little doll knew it was useless, but she didn't care and still had a great time playing with it.

Hu Li sat on the other side of Yu Sheng, intently watching the data transmitted back by the jump engine and the navigation parameters sent by Luo.

Actually, she didn't know this system at first either—but later she asked Baili Qing for a bunch of flight manuals, and also asked Luo about some knowledge of starship control in this world, and taught herself for half a month.

Now she knows how.

(End of this chapter)