Age of Cosmic Exploration

Amulo was a good kid. Anyone who knew him would attest to him. Other than the occasional conflict with his parents, he was truly a kid with a good heart.

His favorite pastime was gaming, and he was particularly good at spaceship and battleship simulator games. In reality, after humanity arrived at the New Solar System, the population number increased greatly, and in the foreseeable future, this number was only going to increase until the number of new-borns reached more than 95 percent of the total population.

Under these circumstances, the issue of education became very important. Other than traditional schooling system and proliferation of level 2 and 3 space civilization’s scientific knowledge, games were an important element of this construct...

After a game was born, it would be there to stay, be it a game for children or adults. To borrow a simple example, sports initially was a game. Soccer, card games, mah-jong, golf, these are all games. Even the electronic games created after the advent of computers were also games. Even in the harsh period right after the Hope left Old Earth, there were already games in the Hope’s central mainframe.

Therefore, to destroy the gaming culture within humanity was impossible and improbable. However, half of the human population was from the eastern culture, which meant that the zeitgeist was traditional and conservative. They had a negative view of gaming. In fact, in the eighth year after humanity arrived at New Solar System, there were cries for the government to ban the sale of games to underage teens.

On the other hand, the remaining fifty percent from the more liberal western culture had their own perspective. In the years after humanity had arrived in New Solar System, due to the relative peace and great scientific leaps, it was a warm bed for an artistic renaissance. The vibrancy of this renaissance couldn’t be underestimated, and the demand for enrichment of gaming culture was brought up alongside its cries for a ban.

The party who started this debate was a Caucasian family with 10 children. Their eldest was already 16, and he was a space baby. The parents were in the field of education; the wife was a secondary school teacher, while the husband was a university lecturer. They had their own perspectives and understanding on education. When the cries for banning of games appeared in the society, they joined their names to release this counter-article.

Their articles believed that banning games was no different from killing humanity’s creativity. This was something undesirable. From the information taken from the space merchants, all the civilizations with racial senescence had a common thread: all of them had lost their cultural games and would not create new games anymore. In fact, dying civilizations did not have the concept of games in their cultural systems. This was something confirmed by the space merchants’ information.

The article also argued that games and knowledge could be interlinked. If the only reason for banning of games was for a better result, then the children that came out of the educational system would be no different from an AI robot because they would merely be carbon copies of each other. For innovation and creativity, there had to be more than a marking system that relied solely on numbers. This article was actually directly against the educational scheme at the time, but it had at the very end of the article its trump card.

It was related to humanity’s current situation in space. Humanity’s condition was actually treacherous despite the illusion of safety. Under this situation, it was necessary for each individual to be a soldier. Of course, compulsory military service for all civilians was impossible as that was too unrealistic. However, the least they should do was ensure that each citizen could wield guns or pilot space vehicles at the most dangerous situations and not only hide. The best method to do this was not through compulsory military training but games.

Through simulation games, like spaceship simulators, human children could master these skills from young. Using humanity’s current technology, the simulation of piloting these spacecraft was actually not much different from the real thing. If it was necessary, they could find the best players and cultivate them as future pilots. According to scientific research, the best players could actually pilot the Space Combat Jets used by Homo Evolutis. It was proven that their sense of dimensionality was actually not worse than that of the most basic Homo Evolutis. They were only lacking in the Homo Evolutis’ sense of danger, but that could be cultivated through experience.

Due to this last paragraph, the article caught society’s attention almost instantly. Even the government officials had read it. Guang Zhen asked the Academy the validity of the claim and it had been confirmed to be true. Right after that, he started promoting the commonality of gaming.

The reason was simple. Even though Homo Evolutis had a natural advantage in piloting space vehicles, they were not all great soldiers. After all, the birth of a Homo Evolutis was completely random; an electrician or painter could awaken to become a Homo Evolutis. They were not natural fighters, and these occurrences were not uncommon within the Black Star Troopers. They relied on their natural advantage as Homo Evolutis to survive in war, but in terms of combat prowess, they were absolutely no match for professionals like Ebon or Liu Bai.

In contrast, the ratio of good fighters in the Defense Unit was greater than Black Star Troopers. In fact, they had plenty of good pilots with natural instinct around vehicles. After their potential was fully activated, even facing up against the non-fighting type Homo Evolutis, they still had a 30 percent chance of winning. What if the number of good pilots in the Defense Unit became several hundred or thousand times the number of Black Star Troopers? Then... the Defense Unit could truly replace Black Star Troopers to become humanity’s real guardians.

Just like that, after the games were broadly introduced to the new generation, the scores of these children were secretly recorded by the government. The number of potential great pilots had reached 1,700 plus, and Amulo was at the forefront of that list. He was primed to be a human spaceship pilot in the future.

But...

What if such a great pilot awakened to become a Homo Evolutis? This kind of combination...

Was akin to the presence of a demon! A demon that could cause chaos through the enemy ranks! His space combat prowess, according to the data, could even rival Yao Yuan’s...

Amulo could feel himself becoming part of the Steel Ball, and plenty of information surged into his mind. It merely caused him to feel like his head had become a bit heavy. After he ignored this white noise, it didn’t feel like anything was out of place. At the same time, the structure, speed, energy, and weapon information of the Steel Ball were at his fingertips.

"The maximum speed of the Steel Ball is 4.7 times the speed of normal battleships; it is reaching five times the maximum speed of the energy umbrella propeller. The longest period of flight is 472 days...

"The interior of the Steel Ball is equipped with homeostatic function. There are auto circulatory and waste disposal services...

"The shell of the Steel Ball is created using the alien plant’s alloy. It can defend against most plasma weapons. Attacks that are too strong might destroy the shell directly...

"The Steel Ball contains a powerful plasma shield. The plasma shield has the ability to decentralize other plasma shields, causing the Steel Ball to phase through other shields that it comes into contact with.

"The Steel Ball has three set of weapons. Super long-range, particular condensation ray: its damage is similar to the cannon fire of a guardian spaceship, one bullet each shot and cool down of 60 seconds after each shot...

"Middle and close distance, explosive plasmatic bullet: it has the ability to shatter energy shields. It can take down all sorts of shield at close range. It was created using the latest half-energized ammo. Cool down time of 0.04 seconds after each shot and every Steel Ball is equipped with 674,200 shots...

"Close distance, energy condensation knife: it can slice through objects less than xx mass. No cool down time, the range of attack is about six meters around the Steel Ball...

"The Steel Ball contains a 360 degree, no blind angle surveillance, and the longest surveillance distance is 7,940,000,000 kilometers...

"The Steel Ball has the ECS system and related creator’s particle creator and isolator..."

In just a few seconds, Amulo understood all the above information instinctually and an excitement arose in his heart. This Steel Ball was much greater than a normal spaceship; this was even more of a boss than the sosses he faced in games...

How could he not win with this thing?!

Just as he thought so, the Steel Ball had already appeared before the enemy spaceships. The bullets started firing from the holes that appeared on the surface of the Steel Ball. They shattered the enemy’s plasma shields easily. In just a few seconds, several spaceships within his sight exploded. After that, the group of battleships behind the explosion and carnage all turned towards him.

"...Just regular mobs?"

Amulo mumbled to himself as the Steel Ball rushed out of the crack above the second defense line, trailing a road of explosions and light...

The white Steel Ball! The power of a demon!