Is Unlocking the Stellaris Tech Tree in Star Rail Really Okay? [341]

L-Gates are interconnected.

When one L-Gate is activated, its corresponding gate also enters operational status. However, if either of the paired gates is damaged, even if a spatial borehole is successfully formed, the passage cannot be established. Naturally, this means the L-Gate corridor cannot materialize.

Perhaps the designers had foreseen such scenarios, which is why they implemented this safety measure.

---

Seele, draped in her coat, sat coolly in the command chamber’s central seat. Her posture was straight, her sharp gaze fixed on the projected image of space outside the ship. With her hands clasped on the desk, she remained silent.

When she wasn’t speaking, she had an aura of effortless authority. The adjutant, monitoring the projected display of the operation, periodically updated Seele on the progress.

Before long—

Seele, who had been sitting properly, couldn’t keep up the act any longer. Unlike Bronya or Chen Lin, she couldn’t maintain a serious expression for extended periods. Soon enough, she lowered her head and started fiddling absentmindedly with her fingers.

She sighed. “Ugh… how much longer is this going to take?”

“Maybe a few more minutes.”

The adjutant was entirely unfazed. In her eyes, Commander Seele was always fast-paced and impulsive. Expecting her to maintain the rigid decorum of a fleet commander for long was a tall order.

“Hope it’s sooner. My hands are itching. No idea if there’s anything dumb enough to be on the other side of that gate.”

Seele muttered to herself.

As Belobog’s famed battle maniac, she had long grown sick of dull military drills. Thanks to her notorious reputation among the pirate factions, no raiders had dared venture into the Jarilo sector for quite some time.

According to rumors circulating on the extranet, pirates had given Seele numerous nicknames, the most infamous being “The Manager of the Belobog Grand Hotel.”

As part of her managerial duties, she frequently invited guests to stay at the Belobog Grand Hotel. Not a single visitor had ever left a bad review—mainly because, once they checked in, their feet seemed glued to the floor, never to step out again.

Unfortunately, the Rilu civilization had collapsed before she even got a chance to do anything. Left with no other outlets, Seele had turned her attention toward the L-Gates, hoping to break her boredom and make a name for herself.

As the first fleet commander of the Jarilo regime, Seele had yet to achieve any significant military feats. If things continued at this pace… how long would she have to wait before she could marry that man?!

Thus, she was fully prepared to go all in.

Screw those damn nanomachines… If it’s within firing range, there’s no danger to speak of!

But Seele also knew she couldn’t afford to be reckless. She had to keep her cool, wait for the right moment, and strike with precision.

Amid the tense waiting, time flew by.

Just as Seele was zoning out, she suddenly felt the ship’s gravity stabilizers activate. For a brief moment, everyone in the cabin held their breath—

They had crossed through!

“Combat division, quickly pinpoint our local coordinates! Slow the engines and wait for the others. Activate all sensors immediately—scan the entire star system at maximum efficiency. Project any anomalies! Weapons engineering, remain on standby—disable all safeties and prepare for battle!”

Seele’s eyes gleamed as she sprang from her seat, grabbing the terminal at her side and issuing commands in an orderly manner.

Per standard drill procedures, when Seele gave the order to prepare for combat, the adjutant would break down the instructions and relay them to the 36 subordinate divisions under the eight major departments, ensuring coordinated execution.

Under normal conditions, full operational response would be initiated within two minutes.

Which meant—on a fully staffed cruiser, 80,000 personnel would receive their next assignments and begin execution within just two minutes.

Looking at the numbers alone, this might seem slow. However, this response time was already incredibly fast.

Without the aid of psychic links, the reaction speed would be several times slower.

After all, cruisers were simply too big…

Even with extensive autonomous AI combat assistance, two minutes was currently the absolute limit of the Jarilo fleet’s response time. Improving upon that would be nearly impossible.

But what these massive ships lacked in agility, they made up for with overwhelming firepower, extreme range, and pinpoint accuracy. Ordinary enemies would be blasted to dust before they even got close to a cruiser—let alone a fleet composed of multiple ship types.

Individually, they might seem weak, but together, their power was undeniable.

While Seele continued issuing commands in an orderly fashion, the rest of the fleet successfully arrived at the L-Gate system.

After a brief confirmation, the adjutant reported, “Commander, the First Fleet has completed reformation. All vessels are at full combat readiness!”

“Good. Very good.”

Seele clapped her hands excitedly. “Now we just need Fia’s Second Fleet to—”

Beep! Beep!

Before she could finish her sentence, an alarm blared through the flagship’s command deck. Her brows furrowed instantly.

The adjutant was the first to react. After glancing at the sensor-synchronized star map, she swiftly reported:

“Coordinates (471.317, 164.925, 291.637) detect a large number of unidentified entities approaching us. Current count: 54. Movement speed: 3.74—? Relatively slow.”

“Get the Combat Intelligence Division to generate a visual!”

There was barely any need for Seele to give the order—an auxiliary AI had already begun rendering a 3D model. Within moments, a bizarre… creature materialized in the projection.

At the center of the terminal’s holographic display, a massive, oval-shaped head loomed, radiating an aura of ancient power, as though it had traversed from a distant era. It exuded an overwhelming sense of majesty and strength.

Its numerous eye-like cavities burned like raging flames, emitting a soul-piercing glow. The creature’s skin was both smooth and resilient, resembling bronze weathered by time, shimmering with a deep metallic sheen beneath the eerie blue firelight.

Its gaping maw opened and closed, revealing rows of sharp, pristine teeth. Deep within its terrifying throat, an intense radiance stirred restlessly—seemingly ready to devour anything that dared to challenge its dominance.

Surrounding it was a blazing inferno and surging steam, with blue flames flickering across its skin. Behind its head, translucent cicada-like wings pulsated rhythmically, each movement propelling it forward.

The entire scene radiated pure chaos and savagery, as though this entity could consume all life in its path!

Seele rubbed her eyes in disbelief. A wisp of psionic energy flashed across her forehead, forming a massive question mark floating above her head.

“…Huh? The hell is that?”

“Uh…”

The adjutant’s eyes widened as well, brows tightly knitted, frantically searching her mind for any records of similar spacefaring creatures.

Yet, no matter how hard she tried, nothing matched this monstrosity’s description.

Seele quickly regained her composure and shot the adjutant a look. “Order the entire First Fleet into battle-ready status. All weapons—aim at that thing!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

The adjutant swiftly relayed the orders, while Seele stroked her chin, studying the holographic projection. Along both sides of the display, a flood of estimated data scrolled rapidly.

“7.5216 × 10^11 m³… This thing’s almost the size of a Sky Fortress! What kind of monster is this?!”

Before she could even process the sheer scale of it, a shrill alarm blared through the ship. Amidst the blaring sirens, the combat AI’s voice echoed throughout the bridge:

“Warning! Warning! Attention: Psionic Cruiser A002 has been locked onto by hostile energy weapons. Unidentified Entity #1 has been classified as an enemy… Activating Psionic Shields!”

Seele’s expression froze. Then, fury overtook her.

“That’s it—I’ve had enough!” she roared. “Advance at full speed! Maintain optimal range! Open fire at will on all hostiles within range!”

The grotesque creature was already within the laser weapons’ effective range. Following Seele’s command, the First Fleet surged forward.

At the same time, the cruiser’s laser turrets began charging. In an instant, countless beams of light tore through the pitch-black void—hurtling straight toward the monstrosity…

---

“Holy sh— That’s a lot of L-Drakes!!!”

Chen Lin abruptly shot up from his chair, completely stunned.

On the star map displayed before him, he could see Seele and Fia’s fleets arriving at the L-Gate’s exit—a location situated beyond the mapped edges of known space.

The L-Cluster was an anomaly, completely cut off from any navigable hyperspace routes. The entire region was surrounded by unstable, ever-expanding space, constantly inflating at an incomprehensible speed.

To put it simply…

Imagine the known universe as a rectangular paper box, continuously expanding. Its expansion rate was so absurdly fast that even numbers failed to properly describe it.

The Jarilo sector—along with countless other charted star systems—was collectively known as the Milky Way. The Milky Way existed on the "top surface" of this ever-expanding box.

Now, hypothetically speaking, if one wanted to travel from the top surface to the opposite side of the box, it wouldn’t seem too far in terms of spatial geometry.

But in reality? It was a death sentence.

The edges of the expanding space had such immense mass that anything venturing too close would be torn apart at the atomic level by the sheer expansion force!

And the L-Cluster? It existed precisely on the opposite side of the "box"—directly beneath the Milky Way!

On the star map, they might appear close. But in reality, no amount of conventional FTL travel could ever reach that place.

The only way to enter the L-Cluster was via point-to-point teleportation—and even that required the ability to shatter spacetime itself, then reconstruct it at the quantum level to perfectly align the origin and destination coordinates.

Even then… it was still a gamble.

Why?

Because if any external factor disrupted the jump calculations, even slightly, the ship would end up outside the L-Cluster—plunging straight into the expanding boundary.

At that point? Not even "dust to dust, ashes to ashes" would apply anymore.

The only fate awaiting them was instant obliteration—their atoms forcibly assimilated into the expanding universal matter cycle.

In short, star maps were merely simplified, two-dimensional projections of inherently chaotic, irregular spaces. Some locations, which visually seemed just three or four star systems apart, were actually completely unreachable through conventional means.

Of course, Chen Lin had learned all of this from the technology trees long ago. He wasn’t interested in the spatial anomalies of the L-Cluster right now.

His real concern?

The sheer number of L-Drakes filling the very first star system on the map!

Something felt off.

Why were there so many L-Drakes inside the L-Gate?

Watching as Seele’s fleet charged ahead, engaging the swarm of L-Drakes in battle, Chen Lin pulled up a detailed status list of the creatures—only to notice that their names differed from the original version.

The original juvenile L-Drakes…

…were now listed as mutated adult specimens.

Chen Lin’s gaze drifted toward the star map, where the battlefield was practically a blinding mass of laser fire. He murmured, “Something’s not right…”

“What’s wrong, my lord?”

“The enemies Seele’s fleet is facing… something’s off. They shouldn’t be attacking us on sight. Why is this happening…?”

L-Drakes, in the game, were a non-aggressive species—rare guests of the space zoo, and even collectible pets for players.

They had little to no combat capabilities. From the mid-game onward, they were so fragile that if you sent them into battle, they’d get melted instantly. Almost no one used them in fleet compositions.

Most players just kept them around their homeworld’s space station, like overgrown pets.

Chen Lin couldn’t remember their exact stats, but he was certain that an L-Drake—normally a glorified mascot—should not have 8.5 million hull points and 3.1 million armor.

Something that hundreds of capital-class gamma laser cannons could only bring down to two-thirds health—wasn’t that just plain ridiculous?!

Frowning, Chen Lin manifested his star map using psionic projection, creating a delayed but real-time visualization for Phantylia.

The projection lacked UI elements, had a monochrome palette, and was slightly blurry with a two-to-three-second delay—but otherwise, it was a one-to-one replica of Chen Lin’s actual star map.

“Oooh~?”

Phantylia hadn’t expected Chen Lin to be so thoughtful, letting her watch the battle unfold. The three-dimensional battlefield view gave her the exhilarating sensation of being in god mode.

“This version runs a few seconds slower than reality,” Chen Lin noted.

“My lord, you’re amazing~”

Phantylia clapped enthusiastically, her eyes glued to the fleet’s star system display.

When she saw that even concentrated fire from the entire cruiser and destroyer squadrons couldn’t instantly kill a single L-Drake, she gasped, “These monsters have insanely tough bodies!”

Phantylia was no stranger to fleet combat drills. She understood just how terrifyingly powerful ship-class weaponry could be.

Even she wouldn’t dare to tank a full salvo of ship-mounted lasers. At most, she could endure two blasts before her defenses broke down. If she were hit by ten at once, her body would quite literally split apart…

…And then she’d have to spend a few days regenerating.

Just from that comparison, it was clear how absurdly tanky the L-Drakes were.

Judging by the distances on the star map, it wouldn’t be long before the L-Drakes entered the frigates’ engagement range. When that happened, the frigates—using their agility and the carrier-module-equipped battleships—would engage in close-quarters combat with the dragons.

Chen Lin pondered for a few moments, then turned to Pela, who was busy coordinating with the frontline fleet.

“Have the engineering and science vessels remain on standby outside the L-Gate. Also, send five additional research ships into L-Gate orbit—but have them wait for further orders before entering.

Tell the frontline fleet: If they see anything in that star system, they are to shoot it on sight. No need to hold back.”

While he spoke, Phantylia was watching the battle with great interest—meanwhile, Chen Lin had already opened the colony management interface, adjusting workforce assignments.

After canceling all unnecessary alloy-consuming projects, he selected the Jarilo home system’s shipyard and initiated mass ship production.

If the first thing out of that gate is a horde of L-Drakes with stats like this…

I don’t even want to imagine what’s waiting deeper inside…

Keep building more ships!

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T/N: rawr uwu XD

This is a fan translation of 在星穹铁道点群星科技树真的没问题吗? by 杏雨诗韵 All rights to the original work belong to the creator. Please support them by exploring their original work or sharing it with others if you can. Thank you for reading and supporting my efforts to bring this story to a wider audience!