In warp mode, the Otherworld Inn swept past the stars at superluminal speed. When all starlight could no longer catch up to the ship, the distorted celestial projections on the outer wall of warped space finally vanished. Outside the spaceship, the space left only endless, profound darkness.

Hu Li was monitoring the state of the warp engine, while Erin, after enthusiastically tinkering with the "control screen" for quite some time, finally felt a bit bored.

"When will we arrive?" The little puppet (blonde) sprawled on the seat, glaring at the ceiling of the main control hall. "Usually, wherever we go takes just a door-opening's effort, but suddenly having to fly slowly like this is so uncomfortable..."

"This is slow? We're in warp!" Yu Sheng glanced helplessly at the little puppet, "Don't take my 'Teleportation Gate' speed as the normal travel speed. Plus, I haven't been to the place we're looking for this time. How else are we supposed to get there?"

"We don't have the authorization codes for the destination Star Gate," Hu Li also raised his head, "So we can only rely on the spaceship's own warp to travel—if we had the Star Gate codes, we could find the nearest Star Gate at Shuji and 'jump' directly over there, which, though still requires some time, is much faster than warping."

Erin flipped up to sit and stared wide-eyed at the Great Demon Fox: "Hey Hu Li, when did you learn all this cool stuff..."

"Recently," Hu Li's ears twitched, "I finished reading Savior's flight manuals and borrowed a lot of materials from Baili Qing and Luo."

"Really..."

"Really," Hu Li replied earnestly and even advised Erin, "You should read more books; there's a saying that books contain beautiful women..."

Erin blinked: "What does that mean?"

Hu Li: "Literally, books contain beautiful women, but you can't take it literally..."

Erin perked up: "Wow—are you talking about those with illustrations? Isn't that a bit unhealthy..."

Hu Li slapped the armrest with his tail: "That's why you can't take it literally! The saying is telling you that reading can..."

Erin went back to her immersive fiddling with the control screen.

Yu Sheng, ignoring the chaotic exchange between Erin and Hu Li, after watching the commotion for a while, got up and left his seat, then, keeping a necessary watch on the ship's state, he slowly left the control hall.

In a nearby corridor, he found Luna staring blankly.

The "Artificial Saintess" was quietly standing in front of an observation window—the large porthole almost occupied an entire wall of the corridor side, and outside the porthole, one could see part of the Otherworld Inn's ship structure. A subsystem module connected to the "main tower" floated not far away, the connection bridge between them emitting a flowing glow. Apart from that, there was only endless darkness and void within the warped space.

Occasionally, it seemed like light and shadow illusions from the real universe appeared in the depths of that darkness, floating at the border of warped space. But when concentrated on, it seemed just an illusion—empty in the dark.

Yu Sheng had heard Luo mention this phenomenon; she said it was the "existence" of the real universe directly imprinted into the observer's consciousness, rather than something visible optically—because in warp mode, light from the real universe could no longer catch the ship, but the "existence" of the universe itself still played a role. Information from the material world continued to connect with the observer's mind in a way beyond the understanding of intelligent beings, and ordinary people could only catch glimpses of shadows.

Yu Sheng often saw more from those shadows—like messages with double slashes.

So, what was Luna seeing here? 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"What are you thinking about?" Yu Sheng came to the observation window, seemingly casually asked.

Luna hesitated for a while, then slightly lowered her head: "I, don't know."

"Not knowing what you're thinking?" Yu Sheng tilted his head, "Or thinking too much, not knowing how to express it?"

Luna turned her head, the corridor light pouring down from above, falling on her nun's veil like a layer of diffused phantom light.

"Thinking, too much," she said softly, and after a while of silence, she slowly spoke, "Finding the Star Gate, does it mean, I found my home?"

"Not entirely," Yu Sheng shook his head, "Finding the Star Gate only means we've found the entrance to the Hidden Monastery's lair. Crossing the border, we'll face a strange starry sky—a mysterious and cloistered 'Church Country.' According to the Special Service Bureau, they control at least double-digit colonized planets... Your hometown is just one of them and might be well hidden."

"But as long as we find the Sacred Realm, we'll find the map." Luna stuttered slightly as she spoke, her voice very determined.

Yu Sheng didn't speak right away, just quietly watched Luna in front of him.

He knew that this "Artificial Saintess," forged entirely with black technology, was essentially still that country girl who had just left her hometown. About the "outside world," she knew very little, and her understanding of the star domains was even less. She probably didn't understand what a star gate meant, nor could she imagine the long journey it would take to travel from one planet to another—her comprehension of her hometown remained limited to golden waves of wheat, without involving the vast starry sky above.

But she was already trying hard to understand what was happening in her own way.

"Yes, find the planet called the 'Saint Realm,' and capturing it will definitely lead you to your home," Yu Sheng nodded, "The Council's fleet will sweep the entire star region, and the Feiyu Star Domain over there is also preparing—when the time comes, if those priests won't speak, I'll make their souls confess."

Luna slowly nodded: "Mm, okay."

"...But what about afterwards? Have you thought about it?" Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment but still spoke, "If you truly find and liberate your hometown, will you want to go back home and see it?"

Luna was silent for a few seconds, then lowered her head, looking at her hands made of starship armor alloy.

"I don't know."

"Yun Qingzi is researching ways to reconstruct the flesh body, but he said the technology used in Artificial Saintess is really too unconventional. The method of merging a human's soul with a Mechanical Soul is too wild, and he hasn't found a way to safely transfer your consciousness. Luo is considering the Black Dot Group's clone technology... but she encountered the same problem as Yun Qingzi, and she doesn't have your genetic sample there," Yu Sheng said slowly while thinking, "The Special Service Bureau—they are trying to find a solution through artificial human technology, relying on the Spiritual Fox Mysterious Iron skeleton to achieve biological adaptation to the 'Mechanical Soul,' but progress is bad.

"Moreover, Qianfeng Ling Mountain is also trying to find a way. They contacted the Ten Palaces' mechanism workshop, although I think it's unreliable, but it's also a backup plan. In addition, Erin... she posted in the Garden Network, inquiring if the nanoprinting pool of the living doll could be used on living people—don't say I said this, just pretend you don't know."

Luna suddenly raised her head when Yu Sheng was halfway, and that face made of living metal, usually with a fixed smile, for the first time showed such a complex and vivid expression. She looked at Yu Sheng in amazement, and after a long time, finally stammered out: "E-everyone..."

"Everyone is trying to find a way—even if it may not be a reliable way," Yu Sheng nodded, "And this is not just for you—it's also for the other 'Saintesses' and 'Knights' who are still savable. The Hidden Monastery's crimes are numerous, and those priests deserve to die, but those souls trapped in the machine shells are different."

He paused for two seconds, slowly adding: "The disbanding of such a large force, the finishing... is a huge project."

Luna said nothing, just remained standing there steadily.

"No rush, we still have a lot of time—and a lot to do," Yu Sheng smiled, turned around, and looked out into the dark deep space out the observation window, "Take your time thinking, even if that day really comes, you can think slowly—many things are like this. Before they happen, you ponder endlessly, but when the day arrives, perhaps everything will naturally come together."

Luna blinked, and after a while, she too slowly turned around and looked outside together with Yu Sheng.

"Mm, yes."

The long jump eventually comes to an end.

After an unknown time, accompanied by navigation system prompts, the FTL engines of the Otherworld Inn began to reduce power, a low hum reverberated throughout the ship—as the distant starlight penetrated the rift in the darkness, illuminating the porthole once more, the warped space receded, and the ship returned to the material universe.

By this time, Yu Sheng had already returned to the Control Hall, watching the starry light appear again outside the large arched observation window, his attention almost immediately fell on a nearby dim "Constant Star."

It was the only large celestial body in the visible range, a brown dwarf star that failed to ignite into a constant star due to mass below the critical value.

The fierce thermonuclear reaction ended before it even started, leaving only some dark red thermal spots floating over an "icy" (in relation to normal stars) hydrogen ocean, like a celestial tomb suspended alone in the universe.

And soon after, the ship's warning system issued a series of intense alerts, with the radar detecting a plethora of artificial signals within the local galaxy.

Yu Sheng's first reaction was to confirm whether the Otherworld Inn's cloaking system was functioning properly, and he breathed a slight sigh of relief after ensuring the Barrier was still up.

Then Hu Li began somewhat clumsily operating the ship's radar array, starting to determine the exact location of those signals and attempting to identify which one was the Hidden Monastery's illegal star gate.

Meanwhile, Yu Sheng controlled the ship, engaging the conventional engines under cloaked status, and slowly cruised away from this place at low speed, moving in the direction indicated by Hu Li.

"There's a 'big thing' on the side of this brown dwarf star," Hu Li looked up at Yu Sheng, her tail swaying, "I suspect it's the 'star gate'—there are many signal responses around, possibly the star gate's defense force."

"Slowly make our way over there, find a suitable position, and then contact Baili Qing..."