Wow! The item-dropping rate is really high!-Chapter 852: Cage of Curvature 610

Under circumstances no one had anticipated, the battle-scarred starship returned to the planet's command center once again.

The massive starship's landing immediately drew the attention of nearly everyone on the planet.

The people who arrived upon hearing the news felt an overwhelming sense of astonishment. "Why did it return so soon?"

According to the plan, even if they found nothing at the destination, the round-trip timeframe would likely require two years.

Yet now, it seems only a year has passed, and this familiar starship has already returned, bearing scars all over its body.

What exactly happened on their journey?

...

During the year-plus they were gone, the planet itself hadn't undergone any major changes.

For the sake of this starship, the entire planet had been living through difficult times, tightening belts to conserve resources.

After the starship departed, the planet experienced no apparent crises; what they needed most was to recuperate and rebuild.

Upon receiving global monitoring alerts about the starship's return, Helen and others rushed to the wide-open plains where the starship landed.

Looking at the vessel, its surface scorched from passing through the atmosphere and areas of damage emitting trails of white steam, Helen gazed curiously at Bai E, who calmly walked out through the opened starship doors. "What happened during your journey?"

Bai E, his face weary, gestured behind him. "They will tell you."

After speaking, he continued walking forward before everything went black and, with a loud "thud," collapsed to the ground.

A dark shadow darted forward instantly, catching his body before he could fully hit the ground.

"What happened to him?" Helen asked worriedly.

In her memory, she had never seen Bai E display this level of exhaustion before.

Could it be that they encountered some formidable enemy on their mission?

Although they managed to hard-fought victory under Bai E's leadership, were they forced to retreat?

Helen's mind instantly filled in the blanks with her own imagined sequence of events.

However, Yue Ying, who had caught Bai E's body, simply shook her head. "He's fine."

She could sense Bai E's current state of mental exhaustion — the telltale signs of Spiritual Energy overuse were far from unfamiliar in her lifetime.

"He's merely burned through too much Spiritual Energy and is temporarily depleted. He'll recover fully with some time to rest."

"Alright." Helen nodded, then turned her attention towards the group walking off the ship following Bai E. Her sharp, alluring gaze quickly locked onto the mission manager among them. "What exactly happened?"

The manager wore a bitter expression. "We neglected a crucial factor... space curvature! After leaving the planet's proximity, the starship disintegrated. It was only thanks to Bai E enveloping the ship with Spiritual Energy all the way that we were able to return safely."

"Space curvature?" Helen furrowed her brows, her sharp mind quickly processing the information.

Zhou Wenjie, who followed behind the manager, eagerly chimed in with an explanation. "Our planet is most likely within the influence range of a massive black hole, which means the space curvature here is vastly different from that of flat, normal spacetime. A starship designed with our local rules cannot function across the universe. To venture outward again, we must redesign our starship!"

For some reason, Wen Jie felt that the scientific knowledge found in game simulations might even surpass that of reality.

But with this problem now before them, how would they solve such a critical dilemma?

For now, their spaceship was bound to operate only within the limited area of influence by the black hole. This world… was truly dark and uninspiring.

Wen Jie's brief explanation instantly made Helen realize the crux of the predicament.

The black hole had warped space.

Within the vast cosmic region defined by a circular ring encompassing the black hole and their planet, the space curvature remained relatively uniform. Their starship, as currently built, could navigate freely within this ring without the risk of catastrophic disintegration.

Yet, closer to the black hole, spatial distortions would intensify.

Conversely, farther from the black hole, space would resemble its normal state again.

The mass of an ordinary planet lacked the capacity to warp space so dramatically as this black hole does.

So, did that mean a realm existing within the black hole's influence could never step out to explore the larger universe beyond?

Could this be the very reason their planet, since the Golden Age and even earlier, had never encountered other intelligent lifeforms?

The universe within the black hole's radius and the universe outside its influence were fundamentally isolated worlds.

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Only alien species such as the Bug Race or Orcs, whose resilience bordered on the absurd, could breach the barriers of the universe to arrive on this planet.

Helen narrowed her eyes as her brain worked at lightning speed.

The newly unveiled challenge instantly ignited all of her passionate fervor; confronting challenges had always been the lifelong destiny of scientists like her.

...

"Is he going to be alright?"

Watching the unconscious man lying on the bed who had been in a coma for days, Yue Ying asked worriedly.

During her extensive life experience, she had certainly witnessed other Spiritual Energy users experience depletion before, and indeed, recovery times varied wildly. Some regained consciousness in half a day or a single day, while others remained comatose for ten days, half a month, or even as long as a year.

But… this was Bai E!

From start to finish, he had always seemed invincible, like an unyielding superhuman.

Now, two days had already passed, and he still hadn't awakened?

It was precisely out of such concern that the Blackwater City residents, whose relations with the elves had grown deeply intertwined in the last two years, entrusted Bai E to the care of the Elf Prophet.