21: fool

After entering the depths of the room, a distortion suddenly appeared in space, and Ketela returned to his spaceship.

He slumped into the soft seat and casually tossed the data to the AI. "Search it and see what's going on."

The AI flickered with a deep blue light, rapidly processing the data.

"A conclusion cannot be drawn based on existing data. The events on the target planet do not match any known cases in the database."

"To obtain more detailed information about the will of the stars, please submit an application to the Civilization Grand Database," the AI's mechanical voice said without any inflection.

"Application? Application my ass!" Ketela stood up abruptly and paced back and forth in the room.

Ketela scratched his head irritably.

Submit an application?

What a joke!

If he could contact the Civilization Grand Database, would he still be living this hard life here?

You should know that Ketela is a genuine citizen of a seventh-level civilization. If it weren't for special circumstances, would he be playing in the mud with these low-level civilizations?!

Speaking of which, Ketela's situation must be mentioned. He is a genuine citizen of a seventh-level civilization, but he was a loafer among them. However, he couldn't help having good parents.

His parents were the capable sort in the entire civilization, earning a large fortune, which led to him starting his retirement life at a young age.

Seeing their son so idle, what could his parents do? They certainly weren't willing, so they gave him some 'education of love.' But after feeling his parents' 'love,' this fellow still refused to change his ways.

This led his parents to believe he was beyond saving, so they prepared to start a new account.

But because they were afraid the new account would be ruined by this 'main account,' they gave Ketela a huge amount of resources, calling it travel funds under the guise of sending him out.

Fortunately, Ketela was just lazy, not stupid. Knowing what his parents meant, he chicly took the money and left to enjoy his life.

By chance, he learned of a very interesting game—'Civilization Cricket Fighting.'

The rules of this game are to find a civilization with a low level of development and contact it as a god, an alien, or by disguising oneself as a local native. They guide the civilization's development, and once it reaches a certain level, they pit it against other guided civilizations in war. Finally, they come out to harvest them, satisfying their twisted sense of humor.

Occasionally, these low-level civilizations could even provide some surprises and drop a bunch of gold coins.

After playing once, Ketela became obsessed with this game, often finding like-minded bad influences to compete against.

But as they say, if you walk in the dark long enough, you're bound to run into a ghost; unfortunately, Ketela ran into that very ghost.

During another multi-civilization melee, an accident occurred. One of the many civilizations had a being who, many years ago, had accidentally entered an extremely high-level Transcendent Civilization.

He successfully started from scratch and built a successful career in that Transcendent Civilization, eventually acquiring a bit of wealth.

After securing a good life for himself, that being wanted to give his hometown a boost, and then he ran into Ketela and his gang.

When that being saw his hometown being treated as a plaything, he was furious and prepared to kill Ketela and his group. Ketela and the others, relying on the backing of their powerful civilization, were not afraid either, and the two sides went straight to war.

Unfortunately, ideals are full, but reality is skinny. In just one encounter, over ninety percent of Ketela's group was killed.

In the moment of life and death, the insurance specifically set by Ketela's parents to prevent their precious son from being killed while away was activated.

With a loud boom in the sky, a Mecha made a grand entrance, successfully saving Ketela's worthless life. However, that being's goal was to kill everyone, and combined with the general contempt Transcendent Civilizations have for technological civilizations, the summary in one word was: fight.

Could the Mecha back down in this situation? Certainly not. The two sides began a passionate brawl, which was miserable for Ketela, as he was just a small fry. He couldn't withstand the shockwaves of the battle, but fortunately, the Mecha didn't forget its mission and remembered to pull him out amidst the fighting.

With a powerful throw, it tossed Ketela into the depths of the Universe. After successfully escaping danger, Ketela prepared to contact his parents to pick him up, but because the ship was severely damaged, it went directly into offline mode.

Ketela could only wait anxiously for the Mecha's victory to come and pick him up, but ultimately, he received news of the Mecha's destruction. However, there was some good news: according to the Mecha's final message, that being was also heavily wounded by the Mecha and had no energy to worry about him.

Left with no choice, Ketela had to save himself. He had the ship find a suitable planet on its own so he could find Materials for limited repairs—at least enough to start the ship's automatic repair System. Ultimately, the ship chose this place.

After arriving here, Ketela discovered the planet still had natives, so he came up with the idea of cultivating a civilization to help him search for the resources he needed.

Because he often played 'Civilization Cricket Fighting,' Ketela had practically maxed out his stats in diplomacy, and he naturally achieved his goals.

But recently, according to the AI's analysis, the will of the stars has begun to coalesce. He originally wanted to take advantage of this to get some benefits, but with the current chaos and the AI's inability to analyze the situation, Ketela felt he might not be able to handle things.

Thinking about how the will of the stars would be a terrifying existence of Lv. 200 or higher (Self-Star) upon birth made him tremble slightly. Furthermore, the native gods it appointed would be at least Lv. 150 (Starry Sky Traveler) fellows.

Ketela felt that a waste like himself, who had only reached Lv. 88 (stellar calamity) through gene injections, was simply not enough.

Thinking of this, Ketela felt it was time to run away, so he immediately asked, "AI, what is the repair status of the ship?"

The AI immediately responded: "Due to a shortage of repair resources, only short-distance interstellar navigation is currently possible."

"If I get a batch of dungang?"

"The range can be increased by 2 to 3 times."

Hearing the answer, Ketela thought for a moment, then turned and walked out.

Tap! Tap!

As the sound of footsteps approached, the President's gaze turned toward the front.

Ketela walked over with a face full of smiles and said to the President, "Your Excellency, the cause has been found."

"That's great, Your Excellency Ketela. Please tell me the cause," the President replied, also smiling.

"According to my research, this is a normal situation. My previous analysis had a slight deviation. What is occurring here is an extremely special case, the 'Contest of the Stars.' As the name suggests, this is the will of the stars giving a small portion of its power to multiple individuals to have them compete against each other to select the most suitable vessel. The final victor will become the true One and Only God."

"So that's how it is." Hearing the answer, the President clearly breathed a sigh of relief, but then his expression became worried again.

Seeing the President's worried expression, Ketela said, "Your Excellency, do you have any other questions?"

The President replied with a bitter smile, "Your Excellency Ketela, according to what you said, this entire planet is to become a dueling ground for those so-called gods. Although some people around me can take refuge on other Terraformed Planets, this is only a minority after all. The vast majority of the people cannot escape this disaster. My heart aches!"

Ketela pondered for a moment and said, "Your Excellency, I can help you manufacture some weapons to restrict the actions of those gods. However, manufacturing these weapons requires some special resources..."

Hearing this, the President was about to refuse—after all, it was common sense not to let aliens possess weapons—but Ketela spoke first: "Of course, I understand your concerns. But Your Excellency, if I may be blunt, even with your civilization's strongest weapons, though you might kill these gods, what use would it be? They are ultimately just Puppets. If you kill them, the will of the stars will just pick another batch, unless you blow up the entire planet, which is simply impossible."

"But if you don't do this, then the next person to come looking for me might not be Your Excellency."

The President's prepared speech got stuck in his throat, his eyes flickering.

After a long while, a dry voice sounded, "Then, I wonder what Your Excellency Ketela needs?"

Hearing this, Ketela smiled and handed him a list. Upon seeing the list, the President's pupils contracted. "Your Excellency Ketela, this is far too much."

Ketela did not reply but instead handed another prepared document to the President. "Your Excellency, this document contains all the information on what I will manufacture using the Materials. If you decide, send the items over. But I will only wait for one month. After one month, I will no longer interfere in these matters."

"Alright, I'm tired. Your Excellency, please leave." Having said that, Ketela turned and returned to the depths of the room.

The President watched Ketela disappear into the depths of the room and immediately turned to leave.

After returning, the President immediately summoned his Confidants for a meeting. Three days later, the President visited Ketela again and had a secret discussion with him for a day, then left with a face full of smiles.

A day later, a notice was sent to the gods and leaders of various religious factions, stating that another meeting would be held to announce some information obtained from that citizen of a seventh-level civilization regarding the current gods.

The meeting was held a day later. No one knew what happened during the meeting, only that the religious leaders and gods returned, and a decree was issued ordering all people in the Western Hemisphere to migrate to the Eastern Hemisphere and allowing each religion to form its own private armed forces to conduct a so-called holy war for the gods. The battlefield would be the entire Western Hemisphere.

With the issuance of the order, each religion began to frantically expand its armaments and declared war on all other religions. Subsequently, they actively assisted the government with the migration work.

A week later, the President issued another decree, stating that the civilization was once again facing an unprecedented major change and needed to seize the opportunity to rise. He prepared to establish a Research Institute gathering all scientific research talents of the civilization, requiring the civilization to mobilize various resources to push forward scientific research with full force.

After the order was given, a steady stream of resources was sent to the Research Institute. Various technological achievements were produced one after another, but the only thing people criticized was the excessive waste of resources.

According to statistics, the emergence of each technological achievement came at the cost of a hundred years' worth of normal resource consumption.