Chapter 548 - 538: Saving Ariel (Conclusion)

"I’m not trying to crush your dreams. I’m just afraid you’ll get obsessed and then, on a whim, actually go and get a spaceship." Moira pried her face out of Kai York’s hands.

Kai York couldn’t afford a spaceship now, but who knew what the future held.

Besides, it was hard for a regular person to buy a spaceship through official channels, but other channels were a different matter.

Otherwise, where did you think pirates got their spaceships?

"So, should we stay here, log out of the game, or go somewhere else?" Hugh Finch asked.

Moira checked on the battle situation. Sensing it was about to end, she said, "Let’s log out. There’s nothing left for us to do. Don’t forget to message Shane Rhodes."

With that, Moira pulled up her system panel and tapped ’Log Out’.

A second later, her body vanished.

Seeing this, Hugh Finch and Kai York also requested to log out of the game.

Meanwhile, the battle Shane Rhodes and the others were in was also drawing to a close.

Moira and Kai York had destroyed nearly all the spaceships, leaving the pirates with no escape. They had no choice but to fight the military forces that had arrived.

The earlier explosions had already inflicted heavy casualties on the pirates. Aside from Seafury and a few of his lieutenants who could still fight, the rest were nothing but cannon fodder.

Once Seafury was apprehended through the combined efforts of Blackmoon and the others, the mission completion notification finally chimed in Shane Rhodes’s ears.

Shane Rhodes breathed a sigh of relief. He quickly left the battlefield and tapped ’Log Out’.

What he didn’t know was that as he left the battlefield, a pair of gray eyes watched him in silence.

The person was clad in a gray robe and, despite being on the battlefield, had not participated in the fight.

He held a notebook, seemingly recording something.

If Shane Rhodes had seen its contents, he would have been stunned. The notebook contained his own information.

In the final evaluation section, written in large, blood-red characters, was the comment: *Suspected of complete awakening. Has broken free of system control. Destruction recommended!*

The gray-robed man set down his pen and flipped back through the notebook.

The previous pages, sure enough, contained information on Moira Lynch, Hugh Finch, and Kai York.

The final evaluation for each was exactly the same: *Suspected of complete awakening. Has broken free of system control. Destruction recommended!*

Moira Lynch’s page was even stamped with an "Extremely Dangerous" warning.

Just as the gray-robed man was about to turn and leave, a ball of light suddenly appeared, trying to snatch the notebook from his hands.

But the gray-robed man dodged it with ease.

Seeing its intent discovered, the ball of light let out a roar like that of a small beast. "Give that to me!"

The gray-robed man’s face was impassive, his eyes betraying no emotion.

His lips parted slightly. The words he spoke, though in a calm tone, were enough to send a chill down one’s spine.

"Their existence threatens the balance of the universe. They are anomalies and must be eliminated!"

"Bullshit!"

The ball of light cursed, "You’re an emotionless consciousness, what do you know? I worked my ass off to cultivate them! They’re my greatest masterpieces, and I absolutely will not let you destroy them!"

The ball of light was the System.

The so-called System was, in fact, a product of the Cosmic Consciousness.

Whenever a planet fell into peril, it would send out a distress signal in an attempt to save itself. This signal would resonate with the Cosmic Consciousness, which in turn would attract a System.

However, not all Systems were the same. They came in different types, depending on their individual personalities.

Examples included support-type Systems and the survival-type System Moira had encountered before.

A System’s mission was to save planets, but their methods varied.

The support-type System was considered the weakest of all, with no outstanding achievements to its name.

Now that a dark horse like Moira had finally emerged, how could it not cherish her? It was absolutely impossible for it to just stand by and watch her be destroyed.

...

Meanwhile, Moira had no idea she was already a target.

After the three of them returned to Veridian Prime, Shane Rhodes arrived shortly after.

Moira took out everything she had collected from the pirates’ private treasure vault, and the haul nearly filled the entire living room.

Kai York stared at the scene in shock. "There’s so much!"

Then he turned to Moira. "Seriously, Moira, how many Space Buttons do you have? How did you manage to bring all this back?"

If he remembered correctly, she had also taken a good number of Ariel Crystals from him before.

Facing Kai York’s suspicious gaze, Moira faltered. ’Crap, I got carried away!’

But she quickly composed herself and said, "I was just trying to be prepared so we could bring more back. You can never be too careful. See? It paid off."

It wasn’t exactly a lie. She really did have a lot of Space Buttons.

It was just that most of them spent their time collecting dust; she only ever used a few of them regularly.

Ignoring whether he believed her or not, Moira continued, "As we agreed, I’m taking half."

With that, Moira unceremoniously put half of the items away.

The once-cluttered living room instantly became half-empty and much more spacious.

Besides the items, the most plentiful things were all sorts of jewels.

Kai York picked out a few pieces as gifts for his family, then said to Moira, "You can use the rest to fund your jewelry store. Just give me a cut of the profits later."

’Jewelry store?’

’When did I ever say I was opening a jewelry store?’

Even so, Moira nodded.

Hugh Finch knew Moira was planning to open a shop, so he chimed in, "I’m a guy, I don’t have much use for all this. I’ll invest my share, too."

As the only one out of the loop, Shane Rhodes saw what was happening and followed his friends’ lead. "Same here."

With the jewels sorted out, it was time for the items.

It was no exaggeration to say that any item worthy of being in the treasure vault was hand-picked, a masterpiece among masterpieces.

"Moira, quick, come look at this item!"

She followed the sound of his voice and saw Kai York holding up a scrambled Rubik’s Cube.

"What’s so special about this cube?" Moira asked curiously.

On the outside, the item looked like a perfectly ordinary Rubik’s Cube.

Hearing her question, Kai York explained excitedly, "This item is called the Wonder Cube. If you can solve it, it will grant you one wish. The cube has different levels, too. The more difficult the puzzle, the more powerful the wish it can grant."