Chapter 1

### Chapter 1: The Technology Tree Might Be Off

Dust and sand filled the air, the ground felt like a scorching oven.

This was a desolate, gray desert, unbearably hot, with the star above emitting a cool, blue light that seemed not to be hot at all.

However, the cold radiation from the star, when it hit the ground, made the entire land radiate a scorching heat.

Nan Ling, head down, rode a hover motorcycle, speeding across the desert.

He wore a bulky, old gray synthetic leather jumpsuit that enveloped his entire body, with a hood covering his head and a pair of goggles that blocked the intense radiation over his eyes.

Don't underestimate this faded synthetic leather; its material could withstand the radiation from the star above, and the built-in temperature control system, though occasionally faulty, allowed him to function normally in the 70-80 degree Celsius outdoor temperature.

The ancient seal script character 'Wind' on the front of his jumpsuit indicated that this was a uniform of the Wind Corporation.

Nan Ling crouched low on the hover motorcycle, eventually arriving at a fissure in the desert.

He stopped, dismounted the motorcycle, and then, holding the chain attached to the back of the motorcycle, began to descend into the fissure.

He was a maintenance worker for the Wind Corporation, responsible for regularly inspecting the geomagnetic beacons below the fissure.

He descended with ease and skill, clearly very competent at his job.

As the chain lowered, Nan Ling's body was gradually enveloped by darkness.

The fissure extended downward, and the rock walls on either side began to widen.

Nan Ling, alone in the vast underground space, suddenly started humming a tune.

"Bu ru biu~ Bu ru biu~ Bu ru biu~"

The dark space suddenly became rock and roll.

Nan Ling, swaying his head, didn't mind his body swaying in the underground space.

His off-key humming, though strange, had a certain rhythm to it.

Suddenly, a somewhat irritable voice sounded in his ear: "That's enough!"

"What did I do wrong for the corporation to send you to torture me!"

A woman's voice screamed in Nan Ling's ear.

Nan Ling didn't care. He said, "Almost there, our terms are three years, right? Five more months, and the corporation will send someone to replace us."

"Right now, just shut up, woman. I'll call you when I need you."

The woman's voice sounded angrily: "Fine, kid, when you come up in five months, I'll beat you up!"

Nan Ling didn't mind at all, still humming his little tune...

After all, he had only seen the woman once three years ago, and he had forgotten what she looked like, remembering only her voice.

But at that moment, his descent came to an abrupt stop.

Looking up, he felt the irregular vibrations in the chain and knew what had happened.

He said helplessly, "Alright, it's stuck again."

"Next time, remember to send me a new hinge."

The woman's voice sounded: "Got it, annoying!"

Nan Ling then looked down. His goggles had activated night vision, and he quickly saw a platform about twenty meters below.

That was his destination.

But he wasn't panicked, even though he was stuck in mid-air. He used his waist and abdomen to swing toward the platform.

In mid-air, his swing didn't move him much closer to the platform because he didn't fully swing his body.

But the next moment, a strong wind pushed him, propelling him a significant distance toward the platform.

However, he didn't fall directly from twenty meters; instead, he landed on the rock wall above the platform. The tool slots on the backs of his hands suddenly ejected grappling hooks, and he scraped down the rock wall.

After causing a large cloud of dust, Nan Ling finally landed steadily on the platform.

It was as if he had light kung fu.

A voice in his ear said, "You always scare me. I bet your 'Wind Control Technique' is at Level 3, right?"

Nan Ling shrugged. "What can I do when the hinges you send always break?"

"I had to practice this out of necessity."

The woman said, "There's no choice. The radiation from OB7561 is too intense. The winch, though treated for radiation resistance, is exposed to the radiation for a long time each use, so its performance can't be guaranteed."

Nan Ling said, "Alright, but the Wind Corporation won't give me good equipment for a small worker like me."

The woman said coolly, "But you get a substantial reward each time you work, and your three-year salary is more than twice mine!"

"For the money, stop complaining."

It was a dangerous and lonely job, so the pay was much higher than the normal jobs offered by the Wind Corporation.

Nan Ling didn't say anything more and continued walking forward.

The tunnel was man-made, a smooth, sloping path. In the early days, when there was less dust, he could slide down it.

But now, he didn't dare slide down. If his jumpsuit was torn in the process, he would be at risk of radiation exposure when he returned.

After about twenty minutes, he arrived at a small underground space.

The rock here was dense, no longer part of the fissure.

In the center of this small stone room was a device in operation.

Like an octagonal altar, eight special metal poles were inserted into the ground, and the ground was covered with a dense pattern of symbols and runes that Nan Ling didn't recognize, making it look like an evil cult altar.

But this was an array, a planetary core extraction array, Type 4, according to the Wind Corporation.

Nan Ling's task was simple. He took a glowing white sphere from his toolbox, opened the energy core in the center of the array, removed the dimmed sphere, and installed the new one.

He didn't discard the replaced sphere but put it back in his toolbox to return to the woman for recharging.

These spheres were actually spirit energy canisters, used to power the core extraction array.

Looking up, Nan Ling saw a small bottle of about 200cc of red gel-like substance in a transparent container above the array's core.

That was the core material.

In this era, it was extremely valuable.

Of course, the entire planet OB7561 had only 72 extraction points, and he was responsible for maintaining 14 of them.

On this vast planet, only five people were doing the same job, plus one woman in the outer orbit space station providing logistical support.

After skillfully replacing the energy core, Nan Ling only needed to return in five months to retrieve the container with the extracted core material.

He returned to the tunnel entrance and looked down at the deep fissure.

Originally, there should have been a river of lava here, but now it was empty.

The planet was dying.

Even though the surface was scorching due to the radiation from the star, the core had long since cooled.

Without flowing lava, the planet's magnetic field was weakening, making it unable to effectively resist the star's radiation and solar storms.

As a result, the planet's atmosphere was being rapidly stripped away.

Of course, this didn't matter to Nan Ling. His gaze quickly locked onto the chain twenty meters above, and then...

A faint spiritual energy spread from his chest, and under his will, it stirred the surrounding wind.

He leaped up, and a strong wind pushed him, propelling him rapidly upward.

'Wind Control Technique!'

This was what Nan Ling found unreasonable about this era.

It was clearly a future interstellar age, but why was the technology tree skewed toward cultivation?

(End of Chapter)