The plunder of the heavens begins with the Spirit Cage.

"By the way, where are you from?"

"Earth."

"Earth!

"So you're a human from our ancestral land?!"

"Wait a minute! What kind of experiment are you conducting? How did you manage to get yourself here?!"

Leila looked at Lu Qianwei in surprise, as if she were looking at some rare species.

"..."

"Your last name and skin color suggest you're from North America, right?"

"What? Didn't you come from Earth?" Lu Qianwei asked in confusion.

Without a second thought, Leila pouted and said indignantly, "Where would we have a chance to go back? We've long since lost our identities."

My ancestors have lived in the industrial city of Thousand Stars since I was born.

"Since you're from Earth, how could you not have heard of the City of a Thousand Stars?"

You should know about the Alpha Space Station, right?

Or has something gone wrong on your end?

"That doesn't seem right either. Every year, there are high-ranking government officials from Earth at the parliamentary session..."

"Uh...you should tell me about the City of a Thousand Stars first, maybe I'll remember it then." Lu Qianwei scratched his face sheepishly.

Leila looked at him suspiciously, but eventually patiently explained the origin of this floating city to Lu Qianwei.

"Then let me explain it to you from the beginning."

The unfamiliar city of a thousand stars you speak of is officially called Alpha Space Station.

"At first, it was just an ordinary International Space Station in near-Earth orbit."

However, due to the arrival of extraterrestrials, the space station was transformed into a place specifically for receiving visiting extraterrestrial civilizations and conducting interstellar communication.

Later, for some unknown reason, more and more alien races began to visit Earth.

Some races, through government policies or other means, ultimately chose to settle on the space station, continuously piecing together the ship's hull and building living quarters, expanding it ever larger.

It's unclear when exactly, but the space station eventually expanded to the point where it affected Earth's gravity.

The Federation of Humankind was then forced to send the entire space station into deep space within the solar system.

She raised her hand and pointed to the endless steel dome and intersecting airspace above her head.

"We are currently in deep space between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, next to the Magellanic Stream."

However, the City of a Thousand Stars has been drifting, and I have no idea where it is now.

"Oh, by the way, there are now more than 3,200 alien races and more than 20 million interstellar residents living here."

The station is divided into four ecological zones: liquid, gas, solid, and energy. Each race can enjoy a high degree of autonomy in its own zone, preserving its own civilization, customs, rules, and industries.

According to last year's statistics, the population appears to have exceeded 30 billion...

At this point, Leila's tone took on a touch of realistic clarity.

"But don't assume that all races are equal and governed by each other."

Ultimately, the ultimate authority here still rests with the Earth Human Federation.

The Earth headquarters remotely oversees the entire Alpha Space Station, which houses a Space Station Council. Representatives from all alien races attend, seemingly giving everyone a voice, but in reality, they only have the right to suggest, not to veto anything.

"The true power of life and death, decision-making, military and political power of the entire station is in the hands of the space station committee formed by humans. The space station commander-in-chief, directly appointed by the Federation, is in charge of everything. Security, military, intelligence, restricted area control, and resource allocation are all decided by humans."

At this point, Lu Qianwei finally understood which film and television world he had entered.

The world-building is vast and vibrant, and the concept is quite interesting.

I remember the movie's story was about the highest decision-maker of the City of a Thousand Planets who fought a major battle with an alien civilization over a high-level energy source, ultimately leading to the disappearance of a pearl-producing planet.

This extreme human hegemon, in order to cover up his crime of destroying Pearl Mother Planet, did not hesitate to slaughter the surviving Pearl people. In the end, he was exposed and arrested by the male and female agents and removed from office.

Regardless of the storyline.

The Pearl People's civilization, or rather, the pearls unique to their planet and the creatures that produce them, all possess extremely high value.

Can you believe that a single pearl contains approximately 2000 million tons of energy?

One is equivalent to 10 times the full fuel energy of a medium-sized interstellar spaceship.

If converted to atomic bombs, that's equivalent to 1333 Hiroshima atomic bombs!

The finest pearls among them are said to have a yield equivalent to 9000 million tons of nuclear bombs.

It is roughly equivalent to a small planet-level energy supply unit, capable of directly sustaining the operation of a planet's ecosystem.

Damn, just thinking about that thing that can devour a single pearl and then replicate itself, producing a whole bunch of 'divine beasts', made Lu Qianwei green with envy!

Chapter 207 Star Core

Old residential areas.

The buildings here have lost their refined and orderly appearance. Densely packed abandoned cabins, spliced ​​steel plates and rusted pipes are piled up haphazardly, spreading upwards in layers, like a steel slum abandoned by time.

Without the guidance of locals, outsiders will only get lost.

Leila parked the flying car in a hidden crevice of an abandoned hull, carefully closed the hatch, and only after confirming that there were no pursuers around did she breathe a sigh of relief and turn to look at Lu Qianwei.

"Come with me, outsider!"

"Anyway, it's difficult for you to move around outside without an identity."

This is the old home where my ancestors lived; outsiders rarely venture here.

Lu Qianwei shrugged, indicating that he didn't care; the value of this world was still quite significant.

The time portal has been extended; we should consider whether to permanently anchor back there and then think about it later.

After treading on the bumpy, old metal steps and winding through the complex corridors, you'll find many doors closed along the way. In the occasional open doorway, you can see the impoverished and simple lives of many residents from various ethnic groups.

After traveling upwards for a while, the two finally stopped in front of a small house with a dented door and peeling paint.

Leila gently pushed open the half-closed hatch. The room was dimly lit, with only two old fluorescent lamps emitting a faint glow.

The room was fairly spacious, but the various furnishings and metal tables scattered around made it feel relatively cramped.

Lu Qianwei followed the girl into the inner room, his gaze falling on the thin old man lying on the bed with tubes inserted to sustain his life.

"Grandpa, I'm back." Leila walked quietly to the bedside, her previously tense expression softening as she gently tucked the thin blankets around the old man.

The old man lying on the bed slowly opened his heavy eyelids, looked at the girl with his cloudy eyes, and asked with a hoarse, dry laugh, "Laila is back... How was work today?"

Did your boss give you a hard time?

"Hehe, who can make things difficult for me?" Leila replied with a laugh.

He then stepped aside to let Lu Qianwei behind him pass, saying, "Look, I met a kind person today, Lu Qianwei."

Mr. Lu saw that I was capable today and is now planning to apply for a job at his company.

Don't worry, Grandpa, I'll use my salary to get you cured.

Upon hearing this, the old man slowly shifted his gaze to Lu Qianwei, nodded slightly in acknowledgment, and was too weak to speak further.

Lu Qianwei smiled in response, without exposing Leila's lie.

The young girl was willing to take such a risk, mostly in order to treat the sick and save lives.

Well, it's a pretty cliché story.

Carefully stepping outside, Leila lowered her head and hugged the velvet bundle she had been protecting tightly. She walked to the window in the room and carefully laid the bundle flat on the table.

Her fingertips trembled slightly, revealing that she was still uneasy.

"To be honest, what I risked stealing was a fragment of a star core that the Dominman civilization wanted to auction at the City of a Thousand Stars."

Leila slowly lifted the layers of soft velvet, finally revealing the contents inside.

What was first revealed was not the object itself, but a closed oval container with a highly technological design.

The container is a matte, deep-space dark silver color, with fine stardust patterns flowing across its surface. It feels cool and hard to the touch and is a pressure-controlled isolation chamber specially made by the Dominman civilization.

It is specifically designed to seal high-energy crystals, preventing internal energy from leaking out, while also resisting damage from external magnetic fields, high temperatures, and impacts...

Without a dedicated decryption key, forcibly disassembling the device will only trigger a self-destruct program, instantly destroying the contents.

Seeing Lyra's head bowed and her expression tense, Lu Qianwei asked in confusion, "What's the use of Star Core Shards?"

"You didn't know that?" Leila looked up in surprise and pulled out the monitor next to her to project the image.

A soft yet profound blue light rippled through the suddenly dimly lit cabin—it was a fragment of a star core.

It is only the size of an ostrich egg, irregularly shaped, but with soft edges.

The interior of the crystal is not solid and pure, but rather contains flowing nebula light, with light and dark swirling, as if sealing a shrunken fragment of the starry sky within a small space.

The soft light penetrated the old fluorescent lights, giving the rusty metal furnishings a tranquil, distant starlight hue.

“This is no ordinary interstellar ore,” Lyra said, her fingertip hovering above the virtual crystal. “It is the only core essence that survived after the planet completely collapsed and was destroyed.”

You should know about the Earth's core, right?

Lu Qianwei nodded.

Take the Earth's core as an example. Under high temperature and pressure, its core is a giant solid metal sphere that is constantly flowing.

All volcanoes, earthquakes, and the earth's ceaseless movement are driven by this solid metal fireball.

Earth's core is mainly composed of iron and nickel, but Lu Qianwei has no idea about the cores of other planets.

But if it can be put up for an interstellar auction, it must have some value.

Sure enough, during Leila's subsequent explanation, Lu Qianwei learned about the formation process of this star core fragment.

The cause was a collision at the interstellar energy level that caused it to disintegrate and explode.

Earth's surface rock layers, ocean water sources, and all living things have turned into cosmic dust.

The mass and energy of the entire planet are stripped away and compressed layer by layer, eventually being refined and condensed into a final product.