Is Unlocking the Stellaris Tech Tree in Star Rail Really Okay? [208]

The figure was no joke—a humanoid winter incarnate.

The Xianzhou didn’t have seasons as such; its daily climate shifts still fell within a range comfortable for its inhabitants and most living beings. But the Artisanship Commission was gripped by bitter winds. Wherever the blindfolded woman went, the area froze into an eerie stillness, life snuffed out, everything locked in ice.

Watching her through the surveillance feed of the Zroni Nexus, Chen Lin lightly tapped his forehead in frustration. He couldn’t make sense of her actions. Eventually, she began manipulating the Commission’s equipment with ease, her practiced movements betraying a familiarity with its machinery.

Soon, a pristine astral craft emerged near the docks. The woman leaped gracefully onto its deck, clasped her hands behind her back, and piloted it forward.

Her destination?

Not the Alchemy Commission, nor any densely populated commercial district, but instead a location Chen Lin was vaguely familiar with: the Astral Cargo Port.

He stared at the feed for a moment before shifting his focus. Activating the spatial transition capability of the Zroni Nexus for the first time, Chen Lin teleported to the initial coordinates he had marked for Phantylia.

The transition, however, wasn’t perfect. His ankles materialized within a layer of frozen ground, the pressure of the ice causing immediate discomfort.

“Ah, damn it!” Chen Lin winced, quickly freeing himself. His sturdy body prevented serious harm, and the partially melted ice softened the blow. His boots, however, were ruined.

Rubbing his bare feet, he muttered, “So this can happen… Great.”

Once the initial sting subsided, Chen Lin took stock of his surroundings.

The frozen ground told a story: the woman had passed through here. The corpses of Yin-transformed beings, defeated by the Astral Express crew, lay stiffly on the icy floor. Thick sheets of ice covered the area, with some beginning to crack and melt, creating puddles of icy water.

“Huh. Even this is melting,” Chen Lin murmured, crouching to examine the ice. “Not as potent as March’s Six-Phase Ice. That stuff wouldn’t even start melting without her say-so.”

Unlike March 7th’s almost supernatural Six-Phase Ice, the woman’s freezing abilities seemed rooted in natural physics. It was pure cold, without any mystical intricacies.

Chen Lin wasn’t analyzing this out of idle curiosity. He needed to gather as much information as possible before facing her. Charging in blindly wasn’t bravery—it was stupidity.

What unsettled him most was the eerie feeling she had given him, especially when she had turned her head toward his surveillance feed. It felt like she had pierced through the dimensional barrier, her gaze meeting his directly.

From the moment she appeared until now, Chen Lin hadn’t witnessed her engage in direct combat. She had relied solely on her freezing abilities to dispatch enemies effortlessly. Her ease of movement through a hostile Artisanship Commission only reinforced his assessment: this woman was far from ordinary.

The universe is vast and merciless, and for the sake of my promises, I have to keep planning, no matter how much I dislike it.

Sighing, Chen Lin stood up.

“All this trouble just to get you the body you wanted… This better be worth it.”

Shaking his head, he rechecked her trajectory toward the cargo port. Then, he began walking toward the exit of the Artisanship Commission’s sanctum. He needed to find an astral craft at the docks and someone to pilot it.

Teleporting directly to the cargo port was out of the question. His earlier mishap had taught him that unless he could guarantee an unobstructed landing or had precise coordinates, using the Nexus’ spatial capabilities was risky. Ending up embedded in a wall wasn’t just embarrassing—it’d be painful.

For safety’s sake, he’d take the craft.

---

Meanwhile, at the bustling Astral Cargo Port, stacked high with containers, Kafka leaned casually against a railing, gazing out at the Xianzhou’s unique sea of clouds.

Behind her, a swift figure leaped from a wall over ten meters tall, landing silently on the ground.

Kafka’s hair swayed gently in the wind, her mature and alluring smile as composed as ever.

“Blade, is everything set up?” she asked, her tone light. “Don’t forget, in Elio’s script, this is the ‘crossroads of fate.’”

“Tch.” Blade’s expression remained stoic. “What’s the next step?”

His voice was flat, mechanical, devoid of emotion. It was as if nothing could rattle his composure.

Kafka chuckled softly. Blade’s tone confirmed that he hadn’t deviated from the script and had completed all his tasks.

At least he’s more reliable than that lazy scatterbrain who’s always messing things up.

Smoothing out a wrinkle on her glove, Kafka lowered her gaze briefly.

“There’s still time. What do you say we stay and watch the show for a bit? Let’s see how it all plays out.”

“…”

Blade’s lip twitched ever so slightly. “We need to leave. If I see her, I might not be able to stop myself from demanding what she owes me.”

“That so-called ‘debt’ is useless to you,” Kafka sighed.

“I know! But she still owes me a strike of my blade!”

“Well, now’s not the time. Even though we have some leeway, making a move now could ruin everything we’ve worked for.”

With that, Kafka moved ahead, and Blade followed in silence.

They hadn’t gone far when Kafka’s communicator buzzed to life on its own. Without needing to guess, she already knew who was calling.

Sure enough, an unenthusiastic voice came through.

“Hey, are you busy? If you are, I can call back later.”

“Not particularly. Let me guess—you’ve been pulling all-nighters trying to finish that new game you bought. Shouldn’t you be asleep by now?”

“You’re spot on! Kafka, you’re too spot on!”

The voice on the other end grew animated. “If that were true, I wouldn’t have been woken up at the crack of dawn and shoved into overtime work!”

Kafka halted, raising a hand to stop Blade as her smile vanished. “What do you mean?”

“There’s been a change in the script. Elio sent me a new one. Want me to recite it, or should I send a copy? Oh wait—Xianzhou’s communication network might intercept it. Better if I just tell you instead…”

Silver Wolf began to lethargically relay the updates. Kafka listened attentively, but her grin grew wider the more she heard. Blade, arms crossed, stood silently beside her, committing the details to memory.

Kafka suppressed a laugh. “So, while planting backdoors in Jarilo-VI’s planetary defense system, you almost got tracked down again?”

“I wasn’t ‘attacking’ anything!” Silver Wolf snapped. “I was setting up a backdoor! And that piece of junk robot left a graffiti of a little girl flipping me off on the spot I was working on! Infuriating! How did a thousand-year-old heap of scrap even detect me? This has to be that rogue thing’s doing! If I ever get the chance, I’m recording it taking a bath and uploading it to the interstellar network. No—wait! Not enough! I’ll make it my digital pet first, then post the video!”

“Alright, alright, don’t throw a tantrum like a child,” Kafka said with a dismissive chuckle. “Just focus on your task. Let’s hope you solve this problem before we finish this script—you wouldn’t want to delay the next one.”

What she didn’t say out loud: And don’t let Chen Lin catch you again, opening loot boxes on the spot.

“Who are you calling a child—”

Kafka cut the line before Silver Wolf could finish. Blade gave her a curt nod, signaling that he had memorized the updates.

Kafka gazed upward, her eyes eventually settling on the tightly shut gates of the Yujing Terrace. Her smile deepened, laced with intrigue.

“Interesting. A week ago, there was nothing here. Let’s go meet the Arbiter-General… and perhaps the Elders of the Vidyadhara Clan.”

---

As Chen Lin neared the gates of the Artisanship Commission, someone called out to him sharply.

“Hey! Who are you? This place is dangerous! Get out of here immediately!”

A Cloud Knight, her uniform splattered with blood and a large sword in hand, scowled at him. “Seriously… Is there no one guarding the perimeter anymore?”

The blade of her sword bore faint traces of dried blood, and her disheveled appearance suggested she had recently been in battle.

Beside her stood another girl, this one short-haired and expressionless. She stared intently at Chen Lin without saying a word.

Chen Lin recognized the first girl’s Cloud Knight uniform. He had spotted her before when confirming if the Astral Express crew had made their way to the Alchemy Commission. Back then, she had been accompanied by the same short-haired girl. Since they weren’t the ones he was looking for, he had paid them no mind, assuming they were clearing out remnants of the Abundance’s spawn and rescuing trapped citizens.

Before he could explain himself, the short-haired girl spoke up. “May I ask… Are you Lord Chen Lin?”

“It really is him! No wonder he seemed so familiar!” exclaimed the first girl.

“That’s me. You both know who I am?”

“Apologies,” said the short-haired girl. “I am Xueyi, a puppet adjudicator of the Ten-Lords Commission. General Jing Yuan has widely distributed your portrait across the Six Commissions. Your efforts to aid the Xianzhou have earned you great respect, so I memorized your likeness as instructed.”

“The Ten-Lords Commission?” Chen Lin raised an eyebrow. “Are you here to deal with the mara struck?”

Xueyi shook her head. “Lord Chen Lin knows much, but no. I am not here for that matter. My mission is to apprehend the Stellaron Hunter. This individual is highly skilled with a blade, wields a divine weapon, and is extremely dangerous. Furthermore, I have urgent matters to report to the Ten-Lords Commission.”

At this, the first girl gasped. “So you’re the one the silent guy was talking about?!”

“Show respect,” Xueyi reprimanded her with a sharp glare.

The girl quickly straightened up, looking embarrassed. “Ah, apologies, my lord! I’m Li Sushang of the Cloud Knights. Recently transferred from Youqing to the Changle Cloud Knights Division. I was present at the drill grounds during the operation to capture the Abundance remnants. You can just call me Sushang!”

Chen Lin paid little mind to formalities, but the mention of a “silent guy” piqued his interest. It reminded him of a certain stoic “little green dragon.”

“Wait. Sushang, this ‘silent guy’—who is he?”

Sushang nodded eagerly. “Oh! So I was sent here to help evacuate civilians, right? And I ran into a merchant and this guy who accidentally wandered in. He barely talked, so I nicknamed him ‘the Silent One.’”

She quickly recounted the events, and Chen Lin’s heart sank. That sounds like Dan Heng.

“He’s called Dan Heng, isn’t he?” Chen Lin asked.

Sushang’s eyes lit up. “Yes! So you know him! But after the adjudicator issued assistance orders, we tried to leave the Artisanship Commission, only to find the paths blocked. Some areas were mysteriously frozen, and shortcuts we relied on became inaccessible. We wasted hours… And then all these weird enemies showed up. The Silent One and the merchant stayed behind to cover us, but when we went back to look for them, we couldn’t find anything—not even ice sculptures. They’re just… gone.”

“They’ll be fine,” Chen Lin assured her. “Dan Heng can handle this level of threat—unless…”

His mind flicked to the icy woman he had seen earlier.

No… That can’t be it.

If she could commandeer the construction of an astral craft and successfully depart from the Artisanship Commission, then Dan Heng and the merchant could have done the same.

Exiting the Commission’s gates, Chen Lin was surprised to see so many people gathered outside.

Most wore matching uniforms, but a few had distinctive embroidered designs on their clothing. From afar, Chen Lin could hear snippets of their conversations, largely concerning the Arbor and speculative “scientific theories” that Fu Xuan would likely find blasphemous.

“Who goes there?!” A guard at the gate turned sharply at the sound of footsteps, only to freeze upon recognizing Chen Lin’s face. “Lord Chen Lin?!”

“Never mind that…” Chen Lin muttered. Why does everyone know me? I’m not some Xianzhou boy band idol.

Pointing at Xueyi, he continued, “This is an adjudicator from the Ten-Lords Commission. Prepare an astral craft to take her back. Also, get one ready for me. I have business elsewhere.”

“At once!”

The guard arranged for two crafts but hesitated. “Do the lords know how to pilot these? There are only two of us here on duty, so we can’t leave to assist…”

“No need. I can manage,” Xueyi said, boarding her craft. She nodded toward Chen Lin. “Farewell, Lord Chen Lin.”

As she departed, Chen Lin considered his next move. He glanced at Sushang, who was discussing plans to return to the Alchemy Commission with the guards.

He tapped her on the shoulder. “Sushang, can you pilot an astral craft?”

“Of course!” Sushang said proudly. “It’s a mandatory skill for Cloud Knights. Why do you—uh, Lord Chen Lin, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Good. You’re coming with me. I need a pilot.”

“But… my captain said—”

Before she could finish, Chen Lin pressed a jade token into her hands—a command seal. Her eyes widened in shock.

“Do you recognize this?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Whose orders take precedence, your captain’s or mine?”

“Yours, by a long shot!”

“Good. The Alchemy Commission is handling things just fine. You’d only be resting there. You’re coming with me. Since you’re already here, don’t waste time. Focus on piloting and ensure we’re not delayed.”

“…Understood, sir!”

---

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!