Is Unlocking the Stellaris Tech Tree in Star Rail Really Okay? [357]

Every command Chen Lin issued was executed flawlessly by the L-Drake.

However, within the Stellaris star map UI, the dragon remained orange, still classified as a neutral entity rather than a friendly unit under his control.

Yet, it was undeniably following his psionic signals to the letter—as if it could truly understand him.

In the blink of an eye, the progress bar in the Intel Log had already reached 50%. Several notification events had popped up describing the L-Drake’s status, but the choices available were the usual Paradox Interactive trifecta—"Nice," "Very Good," and "Excellent."

There were no apparent material benefits to choosing any of them, but Chen Lin was still having fun with the L-Drake. From its behavior alone, it really did seem like a giant pet—even the way it bounced around gave off the impression of an overgrown creature begging for attention.

He was this close to running outside and giving it a pat.

…Did he have a problem?

Because for some bizarre reason, watching this massive, terrifying-looking dragon perform all these ridiculous, obedient movements was triggering a powerful gap moe reaction in him.

The contrast between its fearsome appearance and its goofy antics was… kind of adorable.

Chen Lin was enjoying himself immensely—it was like playing Pokémon in Stellaris.

Beside him, Seele gradually lowered her guard. She had also come to realize that this L-Drake genuinely had no hostility toward them. In fact, whenever it moved, it actively avoided doing any damage to the transport ship.

It was just that those random backflips… were getting really hard to take seriously.

Too ridiculous.

After a while, even Li Sushang had visibly relaxed.

A thought flickered across her mind.

She sidled up to Seele and whispered, "Shimu, do you think Shifu is… taming it?"

Seele nodded. "I wouldn’t rule it out. Otherwise, this whole situation makes no sense. I’ve been stationed on the frontlines for months now, and I’ve seen at least a hundred L-Drakes. Only two of them were… different."

Then, she frowned slightly. "Honestly, I’m starting to suspect this one might be connected to the one I saw near the Pulsar System. Maybe they’re even… family? Otherwise, this level of docility is just unreal."

"Wait—you’ve encountered something like this before? Tell me, tell me!" Li Sushang urged.

"It was in a neighboring system," Seele began, recounting her past experience.

She described how they had once entered the Pulsar System and come across a swarm of wildly darting L-Drakes. At the time, the fleet had been on high alert, fearing an attack.

But then, they had witnessed something bizarre—one particular L-Drake chasing down and fighting other L-Drakes.

The entire fleet had just sat there, watching with utter confusion.

The complete lack of logic, paired with the absence of intel, had caused Seele’s second-in-command to start speculating wildly.

They had even begun to wonder if L-Drakes had their own version of human civil wars—with high-level strategic power struggles akin to "A great draconic coup d'état is underway! The conspiracy grows ever more urgent!"

Of course, the internal conflicts of the L-Drakes remained utterly incomprehensible to Seele.

After a few seconds of thought, Li Sushang hesitated, then asked, "Shimu, could that dragon you saw… be this one?"

"No."

Seele denied it without hesitation.

After a brief pause, she explained, "The L-Drake we saw in the Pulsar System never came close to us, but I could sense that its intelligence was different from the others. It was as if it knew what we were there to do. That gaze… I still remember it clearly."

The L-Drake in front of them, while unique and incredibly obedient, had a completely different presence.

It was like comparing a preschooler to a corporate employee—the complexity of their thought processes was worlds apart.

The dragon before her now was clearly…

Dumber.

The sheer goofiness was overwhelming.

A prime example of "A meme tree bearing meme fruit, with you and me standing beneath it."

Li Sushang hummed in acknowledgment and fell silent, quietly observing her master as he continued his bizarre, incomprehensible method of communication with the dragon.

She had personally experienced Chen Lin’s physical version of "enlightenment by force."

Combined with Pela’s relentless academic training, she had only just begun to stabilize her emerging psionic potential—barely stepping through the first threshold of psionic power.

Her memory and comprehension had improved significantly, but she still couldn’t perceive much about psionic interactions.

Naturally, she had zero clue how her master was managing to communicate without saying or doing anything—just standing there, motionless, yet somehow talking to the L-Drake.

…Then again, Chen Lin himself wasn’t exactly sure how this worked either.

It honestly felt more like feeding a stray cat and sneaking in a few pets while it was distracted.

The whole experience bizarrely reminded him of his college days, when he’d hang out on campus playing with the stray cats and dogs on the lawn.

It didn’t matter what was being said or done. It didn’t matter why any of it worked.

The only thing that mattered was—

Was the communication successful or not?

---

While Chen Lin was happily playing with his oversized Pokémon in the L-Cluster, back on Belobog, Silver Wolf was absolutely losing her mind.

Under the blazing heat of late spring turning to summer, Silver Wolf, with Kafka’s help, had applied some light disguise makeup to alter her usual appearance.

Clutching a narrow slip of paper, she wandered the bustling streets of Belobog, her mood gloomy beyond words.

She was so distracted that she passed by the arcade three times without entering.

She even walked by a claw machine four times—without once stopping to play.

She just wasn’t in the mood.

Two figures stopped in front of a street corner trash bin.

This area wasn’t as crowded as the main streets, but there were still plenty of passersby throwing them appreciative glances—as if to say that these two off-world visitors had excellent taste.

And the reason was simple.

This was no ordinary trash bin.

Instead of serving its usual waste disposal function, it had been placed on a display pedestal, signifying its historical significance.

A metal plaque was mounted below it, bearing the inscription:

"A favorite trash bin of the Trailblazers during the pre-Belobog era."

…What kind of insanity was this?!

Suppressing the urge to rant, Silver Wolf hesitated and glanced at Kafka.

The woman stood with her arms crossed, watching with an amused smile but making zero move to intervene.

"I mean… that bastard is obviously messing with us. Why are we even listening to her and embarrassing ourselves like this?!"

Silver Wolf grumbled in frustration.

"And another thing—if we just yank this highly conspicuous trash bin off its pedestal, are you seriously telling me the psionic cops won't arrest us on the spot?!"

As absurd as it was for Belobog’s government to turn a literal garbage bin into a historical landmark, the fact remained that it was officially sanctioned.

Wouldn’t removing it be considered a crime?

Their real identities absolutely couldn’t withstand any investigation.

And since this was Chen Lin’s turf, they couldn’t afford to start killing people and making an enemy out of him.

Following Sparkle’s instructions meant handing over the initiative.

Between waiting a little longer to restore her appearance and publicly looting a display case, Silver Wolf would rather wait.

Because if word got out that she, a dignified Stellaron Hunter, had been caught digging through a trash bin—

Her reputation in the galactic underworld would be ruined.

This was peak humiliation.

Kafka, however, simply shook her head and shrugged.

"Hard to say. But my guess? They probably will."

Silver Wolf’s eyes lit up as she latched onto the excuse like a lifeline.

"Then why don’t we just go back and rethink our plan? Sounds good, right?"

Kafka just kept smiling.

And made no move to leave.

Seeing this, Silver Wolf deflated instantly, like a plant left out in the frost.

"Fine, fine—this was in Elio’s script, huh? I’ll do it, I’ll do it! Happy now?!"

A Stellaron Hunter, being led around by a Masked Fool…

And worse—being forced to rummage through a trash bin.

Even though this bin was spotless, practically sterile, the very concept of it made Silver Wolf’s skin crawl.

With visible reluctance, she raised a hand, her pale fingers dancing across the air as if typing on an invisible console.

She might not be able to hack into the heavily secured Jarilo-VI network, but if a simple security pedestal was enough to stop her…

She might as well start spelling "Silver Wolf" backwards.

Within seconds—

All sensor alarms linked to the display were disabled.

The transparent psionic barrier flickered a few times, then vanished completely.

At the same time, Kafka worked her magic, casting a subtle mental suggestion over the surrounding pedestrians.

She didn’t need to say anything aloud—her word-weaving wasn’t limited to verbal speech.

And since not everyone in Belobog possessed the kind of psionic resistance that the Guardian Legion did…

As expected—

The moment the suggestion took effect, the bystanders—who had previously been whispering and pointing—suddenly lost interest.

As if they had seen nothing at all, they turned away and went about their day.

"Hup—!"

Silver Wolf yanked the trash bin off its pedestal without hesitation, flipped open the lid, and immediately spotted something inside.

"Huh? No way."

Kafka tilted her head. "Oh? What did you find?"

Silver Wolf reached in, feeling most of her upper body sink into the bin, and pulled out a short dagger—its sheath still attached.

She unsheathed it, revealing a blade stained with dark, murky residue.

Clicking her tongue, she turned it over in her hands, studying it.

"It’s just a plain-looking dagger. Nothing special."

She frowned.

"And this grime… seriously, what’s her angle here?"

Kafka smiled.

"What’s next on the list?"

Kafka ignored Silver Wolf’s complaints and simply followed the script, proceeding with the next step.

Silver Wolf put away the dagger and pulled out the numbered slip of paper.

She read aloud, "After retrieving the item from the trash bin at Sperina Street No. 62 in the Industrial Zone, please proceed to the Administrative District’s Perloika Drink House, Table No. 14. Enjoy two cups of Sokol coffee until sunset. I’ve already paid for them, and you can grab anything else you like on the house. …This is a trap. Absolutely a trap!"

The moment she finished reading, Silver Wolf immediately jumped to her conclusion.

At this point, she had developed PTSD toward accepting free drinks from strangers—especially since she’d just been played by that Masked Fool not long ago.

Even an idiot would learn their lesson after that.

And Silver Wolf was far from an idiot.

If she had a tail, it would have puffed up like a frightened cat by now.

This was a trap. No doubt about it.

"Oh?"

Kafka raised an elegant eyebrow, her lips curling into a playful smile—as if she hadn’t heard Silver Wolf’s suspicions at all.

"A chance to sit back and relax? Sounds good to me. Let’s go."

"You’re really going?!"

"Yes."

"Fine, whatever…"

Silver Wolf huffed, pouting in frustration as she followed along.

Getting scammed by Sparkle was already a humiliating stain on her record.

Now, on top of that, she had rummaged through a trash bin.

She knew she was walking into a trap, but she still had to go through with it.

Originally, she had thought that, with no script binding her, she could enjoy this trip freely—eating what she wanted, playing games, doing whatever she liked.

But instead?

Instead, the restrictions were even worse now.

...

After arriving at the designated location, Silver Wolf and Kafka took their assigned seats at Table No. 14.

Before either of them could even order, the waiter arrived with their coffee—as if already expecting them.

At first, Silver Wolf was highly suspicious—wondering if the coffee had been tampered with.

She was just about to run some tests when—

Kafka, without a word or a second thought, took a sip.

Silver Wolf froze.

Right… she didn’t have a script.

But Kafka did.

Like an actor on stage, Kafka knew what she was supposed to do, when she was supposed to do it, and what the final outcome would be.

Since both the process and the result were already set in stone, there was no real danger.

Which meant—

Silver Wolf didn’t need to bother checking.

With zero hesitation, she started sipping through her straw—small, slow sips—her cheeks hollowing slightly as she slumped against the table, clearly still sulking.

Kafka found her expression amusing.

Resting her cheek against her palm, she reached out and poked Silver Wolf’s face with a finger.

"Still mad?"

Having spent so much time together, Kafka knew that whenever Silver Wolf got angry, she would always make this exact same sulky expression.

And honestly?

It made sense.

When they had left earlier, Silver Wolf had spotted a claw machine and had really wanted one of the chibi figures inside.

Unfortunately, the script was too tight—there was no time to let her play.

Silver Wolf mumbled around her straw. "If this were happening to you, you’d be pissed too. The worst part is not knowing what comes next—I hate feeling unprepared."

Kafka smiled.

"It’s fine. I’m here, aren’t I? Everything is still going according to Elio’s script."

"That doesn’t make me feel any better…"

"Then what would make you feel better?"

Silver Wolf shot up from her seat, suddenly full of energy, and pointed toward the front entrance.

"Grabbing a prize from the claw machine, obviously! There are two of them right outside!"

Kafka considered it for a moment, then smiled.

"Sure."

"…Huh? For real?!"

Silver Wolf had fully expected to be shut down.

She was genuinely surprised that Kafka agreed so easily.

Then again…

She hadn’t had any proper entertainment for an entire month now.

If she didn’t get to play something soon, she was seriously starting to fear contracting the most common disease among Punklorde citizens—

Digital Dysfunction.

The thought alone terrified her.

Losing all interest in video games?

Becoming a lifeless husk with no drive to do anything?

Unacceptable.

After Kafka handed her two coins, Silver Wolf practically skipped toward the claw machines at the café entrance, eager to recharge her mental energy.

Kafka watched her go, then finished off her coffee in one swift motion.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, she smiled.

"They’re here."

At the claw machines, Silver Wolf was laser-focused on the metal claw, her entire body tensed in concentration.

Kafka had specifically told her not to use Aether Editing while in Jarilo-VI.

Not that she needed it.

She wasn’t here to farm prizes—just to scratch the itch.

"Come on, come on… this one’s gotta land!"

She was completely absorbed in the moment, her eyes glued to the machine—

When suddenly—

A hand reached from behind and landed firmly on her shoulder.

---

T/N: hmmm this is a nice spot for a cliffy

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!