With the Nipponese Underworld conquered, it was time for the Cathayan Underworld to focus solely on its own development.
No underworlds raised any objections to the Nipponese Underworld's transformation into a province of the Cathayan Underworld, and three days later, the Death God weapon was added to the treaty on the non-proliferation of forbidden arts. After that, the Cathayan Underworld was constantly urged to sign the treaty. After a month of constant nagging from the international community, Zhao Yun traveled to the Coalition of Underworlds in Qin Ye's stead to re-sign the treaty on the non-proliferation of forbidden arts.
The Cathayan Underworld was like an intricately constructed machine that was quickly returning to action after lying defunct for over a century. It was doing its best to adapt to its status as one of the four pillars, while also rapidly accumulating power so that it would be fitting of that title.
As one generation of university graduates after another transitioned to become public servants, Qin Ye found his own workload to have decreased slightly.
One day, he finally received the piece of news that he had been eagerly waiting for.
The newly appointed chief secretary, Secretary Yuan, made his way into Qin Ye's office, then reported, "Your Excellency, the super astronomical telescope has been assembled."
After serving Qin Ye for over 30 years, former Chief Secretary Jiang had become the vice-governor of Han River Province, while the former chief of staff of Westriver Province, Yuan Li, had been promoted to take Secretary Jiang's place.
Qin Ye raised his head before adjusting his own glasses. "Where's the data from the Sword Coral Research Institute?"
"The data hasn't arrived yet, but Vice-president Li Chun has come here in person," Secretary Yuan replied.
Qin Ye's eyes narrowed slightly upon hearing this.
Out of the Cathayan Underworld's two major projects, the space exploration project and the second-generation forbidden arts project, development on the latter had already been completed. At the moment, there were further experiments being conducted to see if the energy fluctuations of the second-generation forbidden arts could be used as a new energy resource. As for the space exploration project, that involved a series of major projects, so it stood to reason that it would take longer than the second-generation forbidden arts project to complete.
Due to government propaganda and favorable policies, physics and chemistry had become the most popular subjects in universities, and all graduates from those departments were extremely sought after by all major companies. It was also because of this that after around a decade of development, the Hou Yi Corporation of Cathay, the Central Starcloud Corporation, and Southwest Osmanthus Moon Technologies had arisen as three major corporations in the technology field, providing a large amount of resources for the Sword Coral Research Institute.
The Hou Yi Corporation specialized in the production of motors and internal combustion engines, while the Starcloud Corporation produced space shuttle casing, and Osmanthus Moon Technologies produced space exploration materials. However, in contrast with the Starcloud Corporation, they developed internal materials rather than external casings. With so much assistance available to them, those at the Sword Coral Research Institute were able to focus their attention on calculation and experimentation, which were of the utmost importance.
At the moment, the three corporations were all making losses. After all, the only buyer of their products was the Sword Coral Research Institute, and that wasn't enough for them to turn a profit. However, the central government was constantly reinforcing the propaganda that the nation's ultimate goal was space exploration.
If that goal could be successfully achieved, then the future potential for growth and development for the three corporations would be unfathomable!
Thus, even though their annual reports didn't make for good reading, all of the largest refined electronics corporations, television stations, and many materials corporations in the Cathayan Underworld were more than happy to invest in the trio of companies.
Qin Ye was aware that the most difficult initial stage of space exploration research and development had already been overcome. After the market opened up and a sufficient supply of skilled personnel was gathered, the research would perhaps be completed in a shorter timeframe than projected. By the time Qin Ye received the final report, it would mean that everything had already been tested and was successful.
This meant that they had already used the super astronomical telescope.
Thus, the standard procedure would be for visual and statistical data to be sent to him, so that he would be able to examine the outcomes, then announce them to the entire nation.
However, no data had been sent to him, but Vice-president Li Chun had come to visit.
Perhaps they saw something when they looked into space for the first time...
With that in mind, Qin Ye instructed, "Please tell Vice-president Li to wait momentarily, I'll be with him shortly."
Soon, Qin Ye was accompanied by a secretary to the guest hall that Li Chun was situated in.
At this point, the North Yin Pavilion had already expanded to several times its original size. Aside from the central buildings that had been present from the very beginning and hadn't been rebuilt since then, all of the new buildings were extremely spacious. This was to facilitate all of the new officials that were going to visit in the future, as well as for foreign guests visiting after the opening of the Array of the Nine Gods. At the moment, Li Chun was in one of those buildings.
The secretary opened the door, and Qin Ye made his way into the room with a wide smile before shaking Li Chun's hand. "Thank you for your hard work, Vice-president Li."
At the same time, he was observing Li Chun's expression, and he discovered that Li Chun was looking very excited, but buried deep beneath that excitement was a hint of fear.
They had to have seen something.
Qin Ye didn't immediately begin a conversation. Instead, he instructed everyone to vacate the room, leaving only Wang Chenghao to take notes, then sat down on a chair as he said with a smile, "I didn't think that you would complete development on the project so quickly. So? Have you already tested the telescope? What did you see?"
Li Chun took a deep breath, then replied in a trembling voice, "Your Excellency... There are other civilizations in space!"
Wang Chenghao almost dropped his pen upon hearing this, and he immediately raised his head to stare at Li Chun with an incredulous expression. In contrast, Qin Ye nodded calmly in response, then suddenly asked, "How many people were present during the observation?"
Li Chun didn't quite know what to make of that question. "There were several hundred people there. Your Excellency, what are your..."
"I'm going to issue an order to contain this information. Only those who sign non-disclosure agreements can return to work on the project," Qin Ye said in a calm manner. "This is a secret known only by the ruler death gods of the four pillars. Having said that, it'll be revealed to the entire world within a century, so it's not overly important."
The room fell completely silent.
Li Chun's mouth sprang open like a spluttering fish, and his brain was struggling to process what he had just heard.
He would never forget just how astonished everyone had been when they had seen those extraterrestrial beings through the telescope. The entire Sword Coral Research Institute had been shocked to the core, yet Qin Ye wasn't surprised nor flustered in the slightest.
"You... already knew?" he asked.
Qin Ye didn't answer that question. Instead, he made a gesture toward Wang Chenghao, and the latter immediately pulled out a remote control, while a display screen descended on the other side of the table.
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"Let's examine what you saw first." Qin Ye's calmness was rubbing off on Li Chun, allowing him to regain his composure and think about how to deal with these extraterrestrial civilizations. He nodded in response, then handed an optical disc over to Wang Chenghao.
Wang Chenghao departed from the room, and less than a minute later, the surrounding blinds slowly descended before closing, plunging the room into darkness. Meanwhile, the screen slowly lit up.
The footage had been edited so that no sound could be heard, but a dazzling starry sky could be seen.
The image was a little shaky, but it was very clear. Soon, the shakiness also abated, and it seemed that the adjustments of the recording device had been completed.
This wasn't the first time that Qin Ye had seen outer space, but on this occasion, he was far more relaxed, allowing him to more carefully observe what he was seeing in greater detail.
He could see that the stars were larger and greater in number in the space of the underworld than that of the mortal realm. Just as the second King Yanluo had said, the distance between realms was shorter, and they were more tightly packed together than in the mortal realm.
However, he couldn't see any extraterrestrial civilization.
Right at this moment, the image swiveled around toward another direction, immediately following which the recording device began to shake violently.
As the image stabilized, Qin Ye couldn't help but draw a sharp breath, even though he was already mentally prepared.
Outside the underworld plane, eight planes had linked themselves together in a series, and at the furthest point was a vast black hole!
The black hole was massive, comparable in size with the sun, and just as Qin Ye was carefully observing it, Li Chun explained in a grim voice, "This is a black hole, but also not a black hole. It has the appearance of a black hole, but it doesn't possess any characteristics of a black hole. Please direct your attention here."
He pressed the pause button before pointing at a certain spot on the image.
Qin Ye took a closer look to discover an asteroid belt around the black hole.
This was definitely not normal.
If this were a real black hole, then it would be impossible for an asteroid belt to exist around it! Nothing could remain in such close proximity to a black hole!
"We refer to it as the Eye of the North Star," Li Chun said.
Just as he was about to continue, Qin Ye raised a hand to cut him off. "There's no need to go into any technical explanations, just tell me what you think it is."
Li Chun was silent for a moment before replying, "We think it's a gate, but we don't know where it could lead to. There shouldn't be much difference between the spatial vectors and rate of passage of time between our side and the other side, and that's why this black-hole-like phenomenon exists. It shouldn't possess any suction force, but it's very difficult to say that for sure. We think that it's exactly because of the existence of this Eye of the North Star that this extremely rare phenomenon of nine connected stars has emerged. Also, this isn't the most important point."
He picked up the remote control and switched through several images. As the final image appeared, a hint of killing intent flashed through Qin Ye's eyes, and Li Chun's hands also began to tremble slightly.
There was a hovering rhomboid structure presented in the image!
It definitely wasn't a naturally forming structure. Its surface was extremely smooth and riddled with pits and bumps, all of which were clearly spaced out in an orderly fashion, so it was quite obvious that this was an artificial structure.
The structure was hovering above a plane, and it wasn't situated very high up, but what was certain was that it was already in space. Furthermore, there were countless weightless materials beneath it, and they seemed to have been strung up into a chain by an invisible rope, connected directly to the rhomboid structure from the plane down below.
Only after a full minute of silence did Qin Ye ask, "Is that the only one?"
Li Chun nodded in response. "At the moment, we've only discovered that one. Truth be told, the super astronomical telescope was already completed a week ago, but in order to verify this structure, we observed it from several dozen different angles at countless different points in time. As a result, we discovered that the structure has an estimated surface area of over two million square kilometers, and construction on it should be completed within the next 60 years!"
A grim look appeared on Qin Ye's face upon hearing this.
He wasn't stunned by the space exploration technology that he was witnessing. In reality, during his first observation of space through the telescope constructed from the body of the fifth sun god, he had already discovered that the extraterrestrial civilizations were only more advanced in their space exploration technology than the underworld plane was.
What was he stunned by was the fact that they had already begun attempting to assemble their space fortress after only several decades since then!
While it was true that Mictlantecutli and Mictetikasiwa also had a space fortress, their one had been constructed in the plane and was to be launched in the future, yet this space fortress was being directly constructed in space.
Even Qin Ye couldn't help but feel a little unsettled upon seeing this.
Prior to launching the Cathayan Underworld's space fortress, no one could be sure of whether it would actually be able to reach space, even if the inner demon's body were capable of warding off astral winds.
Was research in the underworld plane progressing in the wrong direction?
Otherwise, why would an extraterrestrial plane with more advanced space exploration technology choose to construct their space fortress in space instead?
Alternatively, could it be that their choice was the more correct one?
Another possibility was that the space fortresses being constructed by the two planes were simply different things entirely. After all, a space fortress with a surface area of several million square kilometers could already be referred to as a space station.
"Leave the data with me, and you can go back for now," Qin Ye finally said. "Don't make a fuss out of this, and make sure none of the people privy to this information spread it to the outside world. At the same time, tell them that we are already aware of the situation and have prepared countermeasures against it."
"Yes." Thus, Li Chun departed.
Qin Ye stared at the image of the rhomboid structure for a long while before finally heaving a faint sigh.
Immediately thereafter, he made a grabbing motion, and a black box appeared in his grasp before being placed onto the table with the utmost care.
"It's finally time for you to be opened..."