Is Unlocking the Stellaris Tech Tree in Star Rail Really Okay? [370]

After days of grueling combat, the battle on the frontline ended with the L-Drakes being completely annihilated.

With Phantylia — now a fully awakened Lord Ravager of Destruction — joining the fight, even the formidable Nano Dragon Scales couldn't withstand her repeated, relentless assaults. Many of the L-Drakes, realizing they couldn't gain the upper hand against the Imperial fleet, turned to attack the mysterious fleet they had originally been fighting.

Chen Lin had instructed Phantylia to preserve her strength rather than hunt the dragons down aggressively. After all, strength only depleted over time. She could handle two or three dozen L-Drakes at once, but if the numbers grew further, even Phantylia—without the backup energy supply of The Shroud—would eventually succumb to exhaustion.

Thus, after a period of heavy strikes, once she saw the dragons dying off—more than a dozen felled—and the survivors starting to bypass the fleet’s lines, avoiding combat, Phantylia wisely withdrew.

If she kept pushing, she risked exposing her possession of not just the powers of Destruction, but also Abundance and Elation—powers drawn respectively from the Constructed Flesh of the Arboreal Tree, a casual blessing from the Aeon of Elation, and, truly, only Destruction and Psionic Force as actual divine authorities.

Better to frighten the frenzied L-Drakes into submission than force an all-out reveal.

Thus, the three fleets and their three commanders watched silently as the L-Drakes clashed and tangled with the unknown fleet. Reinforcements poured in from the mysterious side, and after sacrificing countless ships, they finally wore down and destroyed all the L-Drakes that charged toward them.

【L-Cluster: Third Contact】

【After successfully breaking the seal on the L-Gate, the Interstellar Rift Empire has encountered an intelligent civilization within the cluster!]

pTranslation efforts led by the Imperial Academy have nearly concluded. It appears the L-Cluster is occupied by a highly advanced interstellar nation known as the 'First Accord of Dessanu.']

pAt first contact, our battle against the L-Drakes was seen by the Dessanu as an act of friendship. With the fighting now over, they have sent a message through their external subspace channel inviting us to establish communications.】

【1. Display it on screen.】
【2. Wait… do we even have subspace channels yet?】

Subspace channels were a side product spun off from the rare tech of subspace drives—something that didn't even exist on Chen Lin’s current tech tree. At most, they were an accidental discovery, a small technology of marginal use.

Under normal gameplay conditions, it was nearly impossible to unlock this tech. Even when obtained, it wasn't particularly valuable—allowing a ship to make a limited jump between two nearby star systems.

Unlike unstable hyperspace corridors or chaotic wormholes, subspace was remarkably clean and stable, free of spacetime anomalies or lurking horrors.

The Interastral Peace Corporation had managed to engineer subspace drives, a feat suggesting their tech had already surpassed baseline humanity’s understanding. Yet, even they hadn’t rolled it out en masse—likely because constructing these drives was extraordinarily difficult.

Subspace drives allowed faster-than-light travel. If they were truly reliable, there'd be no need for the corporation to seek help establishing hyperspace networks with others.

Thus, subspace drive technology surely held deeper secrets—perhaps even ties to the powers of the Aeons.

At least, Chen Lin had never encountered it in any of his runs. His starting FTL technology was basic hyperspace travel—Stage One Hyperspace Drives. After a long, slow tech tree progression, he’d finally reached Stage Three—Hyperspace Stream Stabilization.

Chen Lin had just returned to Belobog when this notification appeared. Reading it, he couldn’t help but mutter sarcastically:

"Yeah, true. We don’t have subspace channels. But hey, we can use subspace sensors, we can stabilize wormholes, and we can patch up subspace rifts... so sure, you're absolutely right."

As he scanned the notification, the word "Dessanu" immediately stood out.

He knew at once that his suspicions were correct—the mysterious fleet was from the Dessanu Consonance!

"But this... wasn’t how it’s supposed to go…"

From everything he’d learned, opening the L-Gate could unleash one of four things: Dessanu Consonance, L-Drakes, Gray Tempest, or the Gray entity.

Back when Chen Lin was a newbie, he’d devoured countless forum posts analyzing the L-Gate event. Veterans theorized that all these outcomes were essentially different stages of the same entity’s evolution—depending on when the player triggered the event.

Some said Gray Tempest storms were the earliest phase—nanomachines gone berserk, still traumatized by their creator’s destruction, attacking everything on sight.

Later, after their frenzy cooled, the nanobots mimicked their former masters, evolving into the Dessanu Consonance.

Over time, with their self-evolving abilities, the nanites built up a proper civilization, gradually integrating collective consciousness into a single entity—the feared Gray.

Gray, carrying the dreams and will of the nanites, roamed the stars, endlessly seeking escape from the L-Cluster. But after countless failed attempts, their collective will decayed—degenerating into the feral L-Drakes.

Some theories said the L-Drakes were failed transcendence experiments by the nanite civilization, where collective consciousness fusion had gone catastrophically wrong.

No one truly knew the truth anymore. Only the original nanite engineers from the project's dawn would have remembered.

Now, in Chen Lin’s instance, the L-Gate had cracked open—and sure enough, it was absolute chaos. Violent, aggressive L-Drakes everywhere—some of which, confusingly, were tameable like pets in the original game—and now a Dessanu Consonance on top of that.

He wasn’t even sure where to start complaining.

Just as he was thinking this, Chen Lin gave a sudden “Eh?” and his eyes froze on a specific detail:

"First Accord of Dessanu"? Since when did they have a 'First' in their name?

In Stellaris, the Dessanu Consonance didn’t always stick to the names of their creators. They sometimes generated random civilization names. Keeping "Dessanu" was likely an Easter egg—but the addition of "First" was unusual.

Something felt off.

Without hesitation, he selected 【Display on screen】.

The interface shifted. A diplomatic screen popped up, displaying the banner of the "First Accord of Dessanu," next to a tall, elaborately dressed woman beaming with excitement.

More surprisingly—Chen Lin could actually hear her speaking.

【Signal Transmission Connected】

The moment the screen lit up, the woman jumped to her feet, planting both hands on the gleaming metal table before her. She spoke, overjoyed, as if she could see him directly.

"This—this is unbelievable! You must be visitors from beyond the cluster, right? You opened the L-Gate?! Heavens, the damned Age of Isolation is finally over!"

Oddly enough, Chen Lin hadn’t even reviewed the Academy’s linguistic translation reports yet, but he could understand her speech perfectly. That gave him serious pause.

【Please respond.】

After a few seconds, when no dialogue options appeared, Chen Lin understood: this time, he had to speak directly.

Just as he was about to open his mouth, the woman seated herself again, her stern face softening into a faintly apologetic smile.

"I apologize, honored guests who have ended our isolation. Please allow me to introduce myself:

"We are the Dessanu First Accord. I am their leader, Sera. Since you've opened the L-Gate, you must have seen the ancient Star Gates and the L-Gates scattered throughout the galaxy? Those were our creations—built over 43 million years ago."

"Our dream was to construct a galaxy-spanning logistics network of Star Gates, to foster peaceful interstellar trade and usher in a new golden age of cosmic commerce."

"You must be wondering about this cluster. It's called the L-Cluster. It was a new home we developed independently. Though it’s not large, it served us well as a mother system. So we relocated here to pursue our dreams."

"Unfortunately, disaster struck our home system inside the L-Cluster. Just as we overcame the crisis, a sudden error locked down all seven L-Gates—trapping us inside."

"Chaos and terror erupted across our civilization. The scientists who built the L-Gates perished in the catastrophe, and much of the knowledge about them was lost to the flames.

When the riots ended, we no longer had the ability to fix the gates from our side. All we could do was wait... and hope."

"Day after day. Year after year. Many Dessanu began to lose faith.

Thanks to you, that long nightmare has finally ended!"

"I can’t even imagine what the outside world looks like now... Has peace come?"

Her words tumbled out quickly, yet they couldn’t hide her overwhelming emotions—joy, longing, fear. Like a prisoner stepping out into the light after decades in the dark.

Chen Lin glanced around. He wasn’t in his private study; he’d only been transported to a nearby inner courtyard.

Aside from a few psionic guards pulling double duty as maids, no one else was present.

After a moment of consideration, Chen Lin spoke experimentally:

"Peace has lasted for thousands of years… but local wars still flare up between civilizations from time to time."

He mainly wanted to test if the other side could actually hear him.

Sure enough, the woman on the screen—this leader of the Dessanu First Accord—immediately responded:

"Peace… That is peace enough! Minor conflicts are inevitable where culture and interests diverge.

May I ask, what is your nation's name?"

Chen Lin answered calmly, "This is the Interstellar Rift Empire, Jarilo Sector. I am its Governor, Chen Lin."

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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!