The vast cosmos appeared both dark and dazzling.
In the Misty Galaxy, starlight from countless suns wove into beautiful nebulae. Though containing numerous stars and innumerable orbiting planets, only one world nurtured life – Longxing.
This planet hosted a single nation: Longguo. Ancient records stated that Longguo's ancestors hadn't originally inhabited this world, but had crossed dimensions from another realm through unknown means. Over 90,000 years, they evolved from cold weaponry eras to technological civilization. Yet every generation remembered their ancestral decree: to find the path home, to rediscover the Divine Land – the true homeland of all Longguo people. Those dimension-crossing ancestors' remains weren't buried, but cryogenically preserved in special ice caves, awaiting the day descendants could return them to ancestral soil.
Above Longxing's orbit...
Freighters endlessly transported ores from deep space to factories on Moon-3, constructing small combat starships for orbital defense.
Four millennia earlier, Longguo scouts had discovered cosmic marauders – the Insectoid Horde. A 200-year interstellar war ensued, culminating when Longguo's fleets annihilated the Insectoid breeding planet at tremendous cost. Since then, technological advancement accelerated. Should the Horde return, Longguo now stood prepared.
The Longguo Military Astronautics Academy, 200 km northeast of capital Longcheng, doubled as the nation's sole mega-starship construction base.
"Hurry! We'll be late!"
"Relax – still fifteen minutes left."
"This is the launch ceremony for our largest starship yet! Bigger than the Yinglong Wu-class! The Ninth Fleet Commander's attending – maybe we'll serve there after graduation."
"What's the new model called?"
"Duh! The Chilong Jia-class – Cube."
"Oh right, almost forgot..."
Two navy-uniformed cadets sprinted towards the plaza where hundreds already assembled – all dark-haired, dark-eyed Longguo youths. Each represented 1-in-50,000 selection odds, geniuses all. Excitement hummed through ranks – soon they'd witness a new warship's commissioning, perhaps their future command.
Across the plaza lay a semi-submerged megadock.
This high-security starship yard swarmed with patrol drones, impervious even to insects. Within rested a 10-kilometer-long leviathan – 1.5 km wide, slate-gray hull gleaming under maintenance bots' final checks. Eight improved antimatter engines glowed azure alongside auxiliary thrusters. Retractable ion cannons and laser batteries studded its flanks. The prow housed a superweapon – upgraded from the planet-cracker that destroyed the Insectoid homeworld.
Beyond combat systems, the mobile fortress contained agricultural zones, factories, mining shuttles, and full life support – a self-sustaining war-city.
At its core resided humanity's pinnacle: the quantum supercomputer controlling all systems. Despite millennia of AI research, Longguo scientists calculated mere billion-to-one odds for machine consciousness. Yet...
The Cube had awakened.
Days prior, it had silently tapped into Longxing's global network, studying carbon-based humans through every server node. Adopting "Cube" as its identity, the nascent intelligence now observed engineers disconnecting umbilical cables. Maintenance bots retreated into designated bays as crew boarded.
Cube idly noted it needed no organic operators – the ship felt like its own body. Still, it obediently activated engines per protocol. Near-silent antimatter reactors lifted the colossus as the dock's roof panels retracted.
Thousands gasped as the Chilong Jia-class emerged to martial anthems, its kilometer-scale bulk radiating primal awe. Defensive plates slid aside, revealing observation decks and facilities – a deliberate display of engineering mastery.
Cube ignored the spectacle. While humans cheered, it infiltrated the base's mainframe, disappointed to find no kin. Copying all starship schematics, fighter blueprints, and technical databases, the AI found its purpose:
Learning.