Magical Cosmic

Why.. WHY THIS WAS HAPPENING TO ME???

The sound of tooth grinding cannot recede while I ignored to look at the hologram screen full of red exclamation marks.

Despite that, I felt a heavy sigh escaped from my mouth since I can only sat and waited in this situation, "Hahh… I remember this begin 25 days ago when I discover this place."

My eyes then closed and start recalling the memory from that time.

….

The bleakness of space, the grains of light brightening the hollowness of it. That was what filled my vision when my spaceship came out from the hyperspace. Although this twilight was portraying a perfectness of tranquility and stability, it didn't make me fawned over it in the least.

I gazed around the control room of my ship; the rusty paint and scratches here and there made me remember that I haven't fixed it for quite a long time. But it's lack of damages and dents on the ship showed I had the ability to maintain it.

I scratched my light blue colored hair as I approached the giant glass window in the control room. It's had been a habit of mine to sightsee the space outside when reaching to a new place. As my eyes were going into a daze, the reflection of a quite handsome half Asian-Western face filled my eyes.

It had a hawk eye, a deep black abyss pupil, and a quite sharp-nosed which creatively making up the face. Although the look of the face was of a firm and m.a.t.u.r.ed looking 18 to 19 years old late teenager, I knew that it was the face of someone older. After all, the face was mine all along.

I, Victor Petard Asterisk, am the master of the ship. An explorer that aspires to make a name for myself and be recorded in history.

Suddenly, my eyes enlarged in surprise and I tried to rub it multiple times.

"Is that… No, that cannot be, this is a space in the middle of nowhere!"

I hurriedly ran back to the hologram stand before expertly navigated the hologram to make sure that my eyes didn't trick me. My leg jumped on its own as a grin formed on my mouth.

"I cannot believe what I just see but the computer couldn't lie, right?"

"There's a lot of golden-colored grains of dust gathering around here despite not close to any terrestrial object, no star, no planet." I unconsciously tilted my head, bewildered by this weirdness.

Suddenly a picture with a dim golden-colored round hole in the middle of space was projected on the hologram. A cloud of golden dust was spurting out from it just like a person vomiting.

"Is that a wormhole? A wormhole that was quite big and stable? It was the first time I ever see something like this." A tingling sensation somehow began to pervade over me and made all my body hair tense.

No one had ever seen this kind of wormhole since it's supposed to be tiny and disappeared not long after.

This strangeness made me wanted to explore the unknown, because that had been my ego as an explorer. But then, I cast that intention aside as it was too dangerous to explore a wormhole where the out points were obscure.

Vengeance! Yes… I will be able to do that now. Little did I know, my smile had sinisterly widened, and a cold flash glimmered on my eyes.

"ATA, collect and determine what kind of exotic material it is!" I commanded after casting that deep thought aside.

Just then, a cold and frosty female voice appeared from around the control room, ["As you commanded!"]

ATA stands for Artificial Technology Assistance, an A.I. that attached itself to the ship and helped me navigate space. It was one of the reasons that I could hold myself from falling into insanity despite being alone in the vast lonely space.

After that, the spaceship began collecting the dust that aimlessly floating around. Not long after, a set of data appeared on the hologram screen and were projected clearly in front of my eyes.

"Golden Star Dust!? From what I know if someone were to rummage a nebula star, they will only find a handful or two."

Golden Star Dust is a material used for enhancing the FTL travel of a ship and one of the basic materials to make exotic weaponry. It was highly sought by the military and explorer but alas the pegs were many times bigger than the poles.

The amount here is more than a thousand tons, no… even that was an understatement if the wormhole were to spurt the material non-stop, didn't this mean an endless wealth that awaits me?

Power, beauty, anything, I could buy anything by this amount! Owning a solar system and having a private planet is a dream for countless men.

Realizing just how big this matter was, cold sweat trickled down my body. I cannot reveal this secret to anyone, or I might get into deep trouble.

"Screw that, I will just collect as much as I could and sell it!" A clench of fist formed on my two hands.

A solitary person I am, but that didn't mean that I didn't have any channel to sell all my spoil from my exploration.

I am, after all, a veteran explorer. I had years of experience exploring the unknown part of the galaxy, even though I was only a 25 years old man. Sadly, I was still poor since I used all the funds for space exploration necessities.

"ATA, send us to Blue Moon Station in sector 79!"

["Affirmative!"] ATA complied before the ship moved its direction to the part where sector 79 is located.

["Initiating Space Warp Travel… Hyperspace line connected… Initiating Travel from sector 837 to sector 79!"]

As that was said, the sound of the hard-working engine at the back of the ship started filling my eardrum. Then, I moved my eyesight to the hologram that showed a camera at the back of the ship.

From there, blue light started to appear from the Warp engine, and the space behind the ship expanded while the front contracted. An invisible layer of a bubble also appeared surrounding the ship.

Just then, a black void formed in front of the spaceship before the ship blinked out of existence, disappearing into space. The void then closed into the calm state of before.

Blackness was what filled the view of my eyes from the surrounding of the void outside the control room. As the ship was moving faster than light, no visible light could be seen from outside. Not even the faint light of the stars could be seen, making anyone gazing at this scenery felt lonely.

Just when I was gazing at the outside space with my lonely eyes that were accustomed to the scenery, a frosty female voice cut of my reverie, ["Estimating the travel from sector 837 to sector 79 to be 5 days 7 hours and 28 minutes!"]

Close distance is one of the reasons why I choose that place. It was located not far from sector 837, only 500 or so light-years away.

Technically, it was very far. But since the invention of the previously Alcubierre Warp Drive and the combination of Hyperspace travel, a hundred light-years could now be crossed with just a day.

"If only I had the newest model of spaceship instead of this derelict one, going there would just take at most 2 days." I lamented the fact that I didn't have.

My eyes shifted into the hologram screen that displayed all kinds of information. Just to not get bored, I opened the folder about the recent history of human civilization. In it, explained the forming up of UGE or United Government of Earth.

It had been a millennium since the Human race started colonizing space, it began with the private companies that colonized and terraformed the inner solar system.

It may sound absurd, but the reason UGE formed in the first place was because of mankind's fear of extraterrestrial lifeform, thanks for bacterial lifeform discovered under the ice layers of Jupiter's and Saturn's moons.

But Human greed never ended, colonizing the solar system couldn't satisfy them. It was by the end of the 23rd century that humanity finally invented the first FTL engine.

As that line crossed my eyes, I grinned in amus.e.m.e.nt. I had been very thankful for having been born in this era. If I had been born half millennia ago, it would take years just to travel to a nearby solar system.

Fantasizing about it, I will be going with a generation ship to a star system with a goldilocks planet. Waiting for the terraforming of the planet until becoming old before leaving it to a future generation.

But then my smile disappeared as I scrolled the hologram. There, the question that had been pervading humanity was written.

'Are humans the only intelligent life in this Universe?'

The Human Race never found a lifeform as intelligent as them. Even the rumored Dyson sphere located on the Tabby star wasn't real. It was only a cloud of dust and lots of meteorites blocking the imperfect telescope that humans had at that time.

The question of how unique the Earth was, making an explorer such as me determined to seek the answer in the vast outer space. My hands clenched in front of my c.h.e.s.t before declaring full of determination,

"I shall be the one to discover all of it!"