Is Unlocking the Stellaris Tech Tree in Star Rail Really Okay? [251]

Pela Sergeyevna.

Since the earliest days Bronya could remember, this girl had always been by her side. Back then, no one knew why the successor to the Supreme Guardian suddenly had a new companion—only that this was a personnel decision made by the Supreme Guardian herself, Cocolia.

Even Bronya herself couldn't quite explain the reason. She only recalled that as she diligently studied within the palace, a playmate, a few years younger than her, had simply become a part of her daily life.

As they grew up together, Pela, under Cocolia's arrangement, joined Bronya’s studies. She proved herself exceptionally capable. When the time came for Bronya to undergo training in the Silvermane Guards, Pela followed without hesitation. As Bronya's adjutant, she worked tirelessly to train squad after squad of soldiers crucial to the army—an elite force known as the Intelligence Division.

It was during this time that Lynx, while accompanying an expedition team, encountered danger. Pela’s intelligence unit caught wind of the situation and immediately reported it. Thus, a grand rescue mission was set into motion.

Pela personally led the operation, successfully rescuing the endangered expedition team. It was then that she met Lynx, a girl around her own age. Pela quickly grew fond of Lynx’s courage, and the two became close friends. Lynx, in turn, became increasingly curious about Pela. However, whenever she asked the elders in her family about Pela’s origins, they would simply gesture toward the Glacial Survival Handbook, a staple among all expedition members, before sighing and shaking their heads.

As it turned out… Pela’s mother was none other than the greatest explorer of her time—the first to compile survival techniques for the frozen wasteland into a comprehensive manual—Penia Sergeyevna.

Her contributions saved countless explorers. The data she brought back from each expedition provided Belobog’s research departments with invaluable resources. In fact, when the research division suffered its great purge, it was precisely through Penia’s collected data that Svarog was able to deduce that the true culprit behind the Great Freeze was likely the Stellaron itself…

Beyond that, much of Belobog’s knowledge and technology came from the relentless efforts of explorers—those who braved frozen ruins, traversed long-buried cities, and retrieved lost artifacts.

When resources ran low, the expedition teams scoured the surrounding silent, abandoned cities for urgently needed supplies, organizing transport convoys to bring them back to Belobog.

For centuries, countless Belobogians had become explorers—countless explorers had, in turn, been buried beneath the snow.

They had only one goal: to uncover the cause of the Great Freeze and recover lost technology and materials, ensuring Belobog could endure for just a little longer.

From the moment they joined an expedition, they considered themselves already dead. Their own survival meant nothing compared to the future of their people.

The Silvermane Guards, limited by Belobog’s population constraints, had always struggled with recruitment. Even when they managed to train and assemble capable forces, the harsh military decrees from Qlipoth Fort often led to devastating casualties.

It was precisely because so many had sacrificed themselves for Belobog’s survival that Pela continuously petitioned Cocolia, pleading for her to rescind those orders. The Silvermane Guards were already struggling to hold back the Fragmentum creatures—sending them to die in vain was a mistake.

But by then, Cocolia had already been deeply corrupted by the Stellaron’s influence. Pela’s defiance was a direct hindrance to her plans. As a result, she was swiftly removed from the front lines, reassigned to Qlipoth Fort as a desk officer with no authority over the intelligence division she had built.

“That year, the Great Freeze was particularly severe. Even within Belobog, recorded temperatures dropped 7% lower than in previous years—it was an incredibly dire situation…”

Lynx sat in her chair, head lowered.

“Despite being pregnant at the time, despite my sister’s pleas, Lady Penia insisted on fulfilling her duty as the expedition team’s captain. She remained at the snowfield camp, collecting and analyzing critical research data. But that night, a sudden, unprecedented blizzard struck. The team was trapped for over a month.

By the time the storm let up, Lady Penia had already gone into labor. Unfortunately, the camp’s medical facilities were inadequate. She suffered fatal hypothermia during childbirth… and passed away.”

Lynx paused for a moment before continuing, her voice quieter.

“If there was any silver lining… it was that Pela was safely delivered. The team members did everything in their power to protect her, carrying her back to Belobog at all costs.”

She hesitated again before speaking.

“The surviving members of that expedition said that Lady Penia left behind a floppy disk and her terminal for Pela. But while trying to escort the newborn back to Belobog… they ran into danger. The floppy disk was lost.

I wanted to ask you, Governor… would it be possible to find Lady Penia’s belongings? Pela always pretends not to care, but I’ve caught her holding that terminal and crying more than once…”

Lynx clenched her fists.

“In just over a month, Pela will come of age. I… I don’t want her to face adulthood with regret…”

From the moment Chen Lin first met Lynx, he had noticed her reserved nature. For someone usually so taciturn, the fact that she had spoken at such length showed just how much this meant to her.

Her words also reminded Chen Lin of something.

Reality wasn’t like a game—everyone had their own past, their own unspoken sorrows. Pela may have devoted herself entirely to her work, never mentioning her origins, but deep down, she likely still longed to know what her mother had left her.

A mother she had never met. A lost relic of the past.

Just imagining it was painful enough—let alone for Pela, who had dedicated herself to duty for so long without ever asking for anything in return. If she had wanted to use her position to retrieve these things, she could have done so long ago. But she hadn’t. Chen Lin wouldn’t have even known about it if Lynx hadn’t come to him today.

Both sentimentally and logically, he wanted to help her fulfill this wish.

Would his psychic abilities allow him to retrieve the lost relic?

He tried at that very moment. But aside from a massive drain on his energy, nothing happened.

Then, he recalled the Matrix of Prescience Ultima in the Xianzhou Luofu. That massive, intricate quantum computing system was capable of predicting the future and guiding the Luofu away from danger during its voyages.

If given enough data, could it trace the lost item’s whereabouts?

“There might be another way,” Chen Lin mused. “Let me look into it.”

He turned to Lynx.

“Could you compile everything you know about the floppy disk? The more data, the better. I’ll see if I can get the Xianzhou to help with a projection.”

“Ah…!”

Lynx hadn’t expected this. She had simply come to ask the Governor if he could spare a small team to search for the missing relic. Now, another entire nation was involved?

Would Pela really want him to go this far? Wouldn’t she see it as an abuse of power?

As her best friend, Lynx knew that Pela never celebrated her own birthday. She was always too busy. Even when reminded, she would dismiss it, saying that with the Silvermane Guards still struggling on the front lines, she couldn’t indulge in personal matters. A safe city, a secure people—that was the best birthday gift she could ask for.

But times had changed. Jarilo-VI was no longer threatened by the Fragmentum or the cold. Life had flourished. And with Pela’s coming-of-age approaching, Lynx had decided—against Gepard’s warnings—that she would do this for her.

“N-No need to go that far, Governor…” Lynx waved her hands anxiously.

“A small search team is enough. It’s been over ten years… if we don’t find anything, I understand. I just wanted to try.”

“Try?” Chen Lin chuckled. “That’s fine. But keeping emotions bottled up only makes work harder. Let’s keep this between us for now—if I make progress, consider it my birthday gift to her.”

Lynx hesitated, then nodded shyly.

“…Alright.”

"Just call me big brother in private."

Chen Lin ruffled the young girl’s hair.

"You don’t need to announce yourself when you come in. Drop by more often to hang out with Pela, take her outside for a bit. She spends too much time cooped up in that office—it’s not good for her. Bronya told me that since the founding of the new government, Pela hasn’t taken a single day off. That’s not healthy."

...

Chen Lin couldn't help but resonate with Pela’s situation.

His own upbringing hadn’t been much better. His family had always struggled financially, and as the eldest son with twin younger sisters, his parents had taken on significant debt just to put him through high school.

He often envied his classmates who could focus entirely on their studies. But knowing his family's hardships, he had applied for special permission to skip evening self-study sessions, instead working part-time shifts at a fast-food restaurant to earn tuition money. The only condition was that he had to rank in the top ten of his year during every monthly exam.

His homeroom teacher—the one he respected the most—had supported him, even taking the brunt of the school administration’s complaints on his behalf.

Through sheer grit and relentless studying, Chen Lin maintained his academic standing, and by the time of his university entrance exams, he had secured the second-highest score in the city.

Because of his family's financial situation, he had never once celebrated his birthday, never tasted a birthday cake.

That changed when he entered university.

His clueless but well-meaning roommates had somehow found out. On the day he officially became an adult, he had trudged back to the dorms after an exhausting part-time shift—only to be greeted by a massive birthday cake, pooled together with money from his dormmates and even the guys across the hall.

"Old Chen, you only turn eighteen once—no regrets, man! We heard you love strawberries, so we picked this flavor for you. Look at those big, juicy ones on top—now hurry up and eat!"

That day, for the first time in his life, he had eaten his own birthday cake.

And the people who had made it happen weren’t even his childhood friends—they were a bunch of goofballs he had known for barely two months. Yet, they never looked down on him, even spending a small fortune just to give him a proper celebration.

Chen Lin had nothing to offer in return.

So, when he learned that they all wanted to pursue graduate school, he transformed into the strictest tutor imaginable—waking them up early, pushing them to study, helping them get into their dream programs.

Even after graduation, they stayed close, always getting together for gaming sessions—until the day he found himself in this world.

Now, everything was different.

Whether he could return or not was one thing—but even if he did, how much time would have passed?

Would they have assumed him dead by now?

Chen Lin’s face darkened.

...Damn it. Those bastards better not have set up a grave for me.

After seeing off Lynx, Chen Lin wasted no time in reaching out to the Luofu.

When Fu Xuan heard that her little brother wanted to use the Matrix of Prescience Ultima to track down a lost item from seventeen years ago, she fell silent.

It wasn’t that she was unwilling.

The problem was that the Luofu was too far from the Jarilo sector, and the available data was fragmented and incomplete. The sheer time gap would also make the calculations far less precise.

Belobog had changed too much.

An item lost back then could now be buried beneath a skyscraper, and environmental shifts might interfere with the array’s predictive accuracy.

Even so, Fu Xuan assured him that she would find a way to make it work. She asked Chen Lin to compile as much relevant data as possible and transmit it in the coming days.

She was at least 80% confident they could solve the problem.

When Chen Lin inquired about Jing Yuan, Fu Xuan told him that he was off attending a conference on another Xianzhou. Fortunately, thanks to the mineral and food supplies Chen Lin had provided, the Luofu had stabilized much faster than expected. Otherwise, the crisis would have cost her a significant amount of hair.

She also brought up diplomatic matters.

The first delegation from the Luofu consisted of a 275-person team, led by none other than his old friend and very chatty acquaintance—Qingque. They were carrying technical documentation and resources and were already approaching the Jarilo sector’s border outposts. Within a few days, they would officially enter Belobog’s territory and establish communication.

On the other hand, Natasha’s diplomatic efforts had been significantly faster. She had already arrived at the Luofu a week ago and had begun formal discussions. Fu Xuan hadn’t had time to review the details yet, but from what she heard, the Alchemy Commission held Natasha in very high regard.

At some point, Fu Xuan’s tone shifted into a playful grumble.

“Why do you never contact me unless you need something, huh? Do I not exist to you when you don’t have problems to solve?”

Realizing the danger, Chen Lin hurriedly reassured her.

"I’ve been busy assembling a new fleet for national defense! I’ll definitely keep in touch more from now on, promise!"

That seemed to appease Fu Xuan, and she finally ended the call.

Chen Lin exhaled in relief, rubbing his temples.

"Looks like this might actually work. The only question is whether we’ll make it in time."

A soft chuckle came from nearby.

"My lord, you really don’t hesitate to throw me into the spotlight, do you?"

Phantylia teased, her voice laced with amusement.

"The Master Diviner's gaze is getting rather… intense whenever I’m around. Aren’t you afraid I’ll slip up and expose myself?"

"It’s fine. You handled it well, didn’t you? Sooner or later, you’ll have to make a public appearance anyway. It’s better to let them get used to the idea now."

Before they could continue, a new message came in.

Serval had an urgent report.

A few minutes later, she walked into the room, arms full of documents, her usual carefree demeanor replaced by an unusual urgency.

"Chen, we’ve got a problem."

She dropped the stack of files onto the table.

"The new C-Zone in the Underworld was conducting deep geological scans when they picked up something… strange."

Serval took a breath before continuing.

"There’s an anomalous spatial region deep underground. It’s heavily encrypted with unknown etheric energy and some kind of weird technology. Our scanning teams have tried everything, but all they can make out are faint silhouettes of what look like buildings."

---

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!