The space elevator was finished, and the first phase of the Dragon Palace was completed.
After several safety tests,
Zhao Chen invited the leaders of every country to ride the space elevator in person.
About the space elevator, many countries' leaders were still a little nervous.
After all, from the ground to the Dragon Palace Starport in space was said to take only ten minutes one way.
That was simply past imagining.
These countries' leaders all valued their lives very much.
But the trouble was that the Fierce Dragon King himself had invited them, and said he would try it in person too.
He had said he would ride it himself;
how could they, the invited, dare not come?
"This… it's been tested before?" the king of one country asked carefully, looking at the thing before him like a train carriage.
"It has. Before being handed over for use, this space elevator went through nearly a thousand tests, without a problem in a single one," the technician receiving them beside him said.
"Er… someone like me, already over eighty: will riding this be a problem?"
"I have a heart condition, too."
A few pressed him with questions.
The technician said with a smile, "You can all rest assured. This space elevator we developed has no restrictions at all; anyone, pregnant women included, can use it. There's a stabilizing device in the cabin; however fast it goes outside, inside it feels like being on level ground. Oh, right. Provided you don't look out the window. Some people may get dizzy looking at the view out the window, the same kind of feeling as seasickness, airsickness or carsickness."
Hearing this,
everyone's worry eased a little.
Zhao Chen walked into the space elevator's carriage.
"This way, please; be seated." Uniformed attendants in the carriage showed everyone to their seats.
All at once, dozens of people had gathered in the carriage.
Outside the carriage, reporters with cameras were recording the whole process.
Many people around the globe were watching this scene in front of their televisions at this moment.
The space elevator's doors slowly closed.
Many people in the elevator still harbored worry.
"What's there to be afraid of? The Fierce Dragon King himself is right here. Isn't his life worth more than yours?" Fire Lydia said dismissively, though her eyes looked curiously at the view beyond the glass windows.
"Elevator One starting; countdown ten seconds."
A mechanical female voice came in the elevator.
During the ten-second countdown, some were nervous, some excited, some shut their eyes.
These ten seconds were very long for most of them.
The instant the ten-second countdown ended,
this space elevator car left the ground at astonishing speed and flew up into the sky.
Some, at that instant, swayed without meaning to,
gripping the handrails beside them for dear life.
But very soon they found that inside the elevator they felt no discomfort at all, no push in the back, no weightlessness and so on.
Everything was truly as if they were in a quiet space.
But when some looked out the window, before long they were covering their mouths, fighting the urge to throw up.
"Holy cow! It really is flying; this speed must be faster than the most advanced fighters right now!" Fire Lydia looked out through the glass and shouted excitedly.
For Fire Lydia, who could fly planes, the speed outside the window was no problem at all; she was used to it in an instant.
And at this point Fire Lydia saw Zhao Chen actually stand up with a drink cup in his hand.
"You can stand up?" Fire Lydia blinked and said incredulously.
"Yes. You can walk about in the elevator," the attendant said, standing beside her.
Only then did everyone notice that the attendant had never sat down from start to finish.
Fire Lydia stood up at once, and sure enough found she was as steady in the elevator as on level ground, without the least sway.
"At this speed, it actually feels just like being on level ground. Just what technology is this!" Fire Lydia felt it was unbelievable.
The attendant did not explain much; it was not that he did not want to say,
but that much of this space elevator's technology could no longer be explained by talk alone; to anyone not a researcher, it would sound like a fantastic tale.
So there was no need to waste breath on it.
It was enough to let them experience the actual process.
Very soon the space elevator had shot up into the clouds and began breaking out of the atmosphere.
At this point some of the bolder ones, like Fire Lydia, stood up and looked at the view out the windows,
watching the ground draw farther and farther from them, until they could see the blue planet before them and the pitch-black space of the universe beyond.
"So beautiful." Fire Lydia, looking at the view outside the window, this fiery-tempered one who could never sit still, now stood quietly, lost in the view.
Ten minutes.
For the nervous, it was long.
But for those enjoying the moment, it seemed to pass very fast.
"Space Elevator One is about to arrive at the Dragon Palace Starport." The mechanical female voice sounded at this point.
A few breaths later,
the sound of some kind of mechanical docking could be heard.
Then the space elevator's gate opened.
A very large corridor appeared before them.
"Welcome to the Dragon Palace Starport." The attendant pointed with a smile toward the corridor.
Everyone walked out of the space elevator.
"Wow!" Fire Lydia walked out of the space elevator, and when she looked to either side,
she was stunned.
On both sides of this corridor was transparent glass, through which the view outside could be seen.
Dragon Star could be seen in the distance, and the moons farther off too,
and the Dragon Palace Starport before them.
Just how large the Dragon Palace Starport was had not yet been published.
But by the sizes worked out by astronomical observers of every kind on their own,
it was certainly as big as several football fields!
And its docking berths alone numbered over thirty,
able to dock thirty T1 starships at the same time.
And this was only the scale of the first phase.
According to what the Fierce Dragon Kingdom had announced, the Dragon Palace Starport would keep being expanded later as needs required; as for what its finished form would be, no one knew.
Not even the researchers within the Fierce Dragon Kingdom knew.
At this moment, walking along the corridor, through the glass three starships could be seen moored in the Dragon Palace Starport's berths!
"Unbelievable. The gravity here is actually the same as on Dragon Star!" someone said with feeling, stamping on the floor.
"Both in the space elevator and in the Dragon Palace Starport, we've used the most advanced artificial gravity system. It ensures that in this environment, the gravity here imitates Dragon Star's exactly," the attendant explained.
They walked into the Dragon Palace Starport.
Here could be seen the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's most advanced technology; even some top technology not yet used on the ground appeared here:
holographic projection, artificial intelligence, robotics and so on.
"Look at all this before us. Then look again at the science-fiction works I've read before. This is simply a real-life version! Some of those things aren't even as good as the science fiction we're seeing before our eyes!" a country's leader said with feeling.
The others nodded in agreement one after another.
The Fierce Dragon Kingdom could bring out unbelievable technology every time.
Though they had long since prepared themselves for it,
when they truly saw it, they could not help being shocked and moved.
Zhao Chen looked at these people's expressions.
He knew the purpose of this trip had been achieved.
The reason for letting these people see the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's most advanced creations of technology
was chiefly a few aims.
First, to make them realize the chasm-like gap in technology between themselves and the Fierce Dragon Kingdom; only so would these countries follow in Zhao Chen's footsteps obediently.
Second, to keep them always fired with drive for technological progress and development, and give them a sense of urgency.
Only so would their own countries keep up the rapid development of technology too.
A luxurious private room in the Dragon Palace Starport.
The leaders of every country sat around a large round table.
Zhao Chen was among them.
"I hear you've all had a tour. How did you find it?" Zhao Chen asked the Nancy Empress, seated on his left, with a smile.
"It's unbelievable. Though we knew of your construction plans before, it's truly hard to imagine how you built such a big thing in so short a time," the Nancy Empress said sincerely.
"Our Frost Dragon Kingdom's capital has been upgraded and rebuilt quickly these past few years too. I thought we'd more or less kept up with the Fierce Dragon's pace of development. But now, looking at this Dragon Palace Starport, at all this technology I've never seen before, I know the gap between us hasn't narrowed; it keeps widening," Fire Phoenix on the other side said with feeling.
"We're allies now. Very soon the technology you've seen will be handed down too. You'll be able to see it in your countries as well," Zhao Chen said with a smile.
After this banquet ended,
the leaders of every country went back to the ground, and almost all of them hurried straight back to their own countries without stopping.
No one knew just what had set them off.
But what everyone could see was that these countries were all stepping up their investment in technological cooperation and development with the Fierce Dragon Kingdom.
Everyone was courting their ties with the Fierce Dragon Kingdom at any cost, increasing technological cooperation.
This truly achieved the result Zhao Chen had expected.
And Zhao Chen at this moment was in the Dragon Palace Starport, listening to Secretary Officer Barbara's report on her duties.
"At present the construction of the Dragon Palace Starport's second phase has begun. The second phase's main aims are these. Expand the Dragon Palace Starport's present area threefold, then build the first T2-grade dock in the Dragon Palace Starport. Then, relying on this T2 dock, we'll skip certain T1 technology outright. For instance, we're preparing to build T2 interstellar industrial ships here directly. The later construction plans out in the universe will all be shouldered by these T2 interstellar industrial ships. A dedicated starship factory will be built, for building the starships to come. That's the construction plan for the Dragon Palace Starport's second phase!"
Having heard this,
Zhao Chen asked, "And the development outward after that?"
"We're carrying out the outward development at the same time too. First we need to establish what stage the Trial civilization on the planet opposite us is at now, whether it's a threat to us, whether we have a chance to attack, and so on. Besides that, we're looking for other planets with resources, to build habitats and mine resources there. As for resource extraction on our Dragon Star at present, unless technology improves greatly, output can hardly progress any further. In this situation, to meet our future needs for interstellar construction, we need more mining areas and sources of resources! Expanding outward is a step we must take in the future! But to expand outward, we first have to find out clearly whether other interstellar civilizations still exist in our star system, and whether there are other threats, how many planets can be developed, and so on. Only when we've cleared these up can we move forward step by step!" Secretary Officer Barbara set out the plans for the future.
Zhao Chen listened very attentively too,
raising questions now and then, or suggestions of his own.
——————
On a planet.
On the boundless land, strange buildings could be seen rising from the ground.
At the top of a certain building a full thousand meters tall,
a humanoid creature was looking down at the land before it.
"Has the hive-race been completely cleared out?"
Behind this figure, a subordinate like a servant bowed and said respectfully, "After the hive-race invasion, in half a year we cleared out all the Hive Motherships. Within a year, we cleared all the hive-race from our home continent. After that we spent a year clearing the hive-race from the other continents almost entirely. Now, if there are still hive-race on our planet, they're probably only in places where people seldom go."
"Two years to get through this calamity. It's set back our development greatly. Our interstellar plan has to speed up! Of the hundred great Trial civilizations, only seventy-nine are left now. Our Frey civilization must come out of this Trial of the Gods!" The Lord of Frey clenched his fists.
For these civilizations taking part in the Trial of the Gods, in truth over half had reasons beyond their control:
either they were coveted by powerful civilizations, or problems had arisen within and they needed more advanced technology.
And the Trial of the Gods was a chance for them.
Though winning the one place out of a hundred civilizations was very hard,
compared with interstellar wars in which a great, great many people would die, the Trial of the Gods was in fact much less bloody.
"Report! We… we've found the existence of another civilization!" A video window popped up; on the other side was another Frey officer.
"Where? A native civilization, or a Trial civilization like us!" the Lord of Frey pressed.
The countries on this planet had already been unified by their Frey civilization,
and it had already begun to develop outward.
"A probe satellite we launched found a planet on the other side of the star. That planet has already built a space elevator and a starport. It was because of that space elevator and starport that we discovered this civilization's existence. Before this, we'd never detected it. Going by this speed of development, it's most likely a Trial civilization like us," the subordinate said.