"Speaking of which, Yanqing, do you want to head back to the Xianzhou first? After all, this little detour to the Herta Space Station isn't exactly part of your official mission, is it?"
Julian leaned against the bulkhead of the starskiff, looking at the young swordsman. He knew this trip was going to take some time. If his instincts were right and the main story was about to kick off, he would have to find a way to follow the trailblazers straight to Jarilo-VI. The Stellaron on that frozen planet was by far his easiest target; there was almost zero chance of him getting his hands on the ones hidden inside the space station, the Xianzhou fleet, or Penacony.
With all that traveling ahead, Julian was genuinely worried he might be holding the boy back from his actual duties.
"My current orders are to escort you safely back to the Xianzhou," Yanqing replied, pouting slightly. "Until we touch down on home soil, I am not leaving your side."
Besides, he still hadn't found any leverage to get back at this developer. How could he possibly return so early? The mere thought of his childhood photos falling into General Jing Yuan's hands made his future look bleak. He could easily picture his master laughing heartily, patting his shoulder, and probably sharing those embarrassing snapshots with every single official he knew. Before he could even think about going back, he had to find a way to delete those photos from Julian's device.
On top of that, traveling with Julian didn't disrupt his daily training. As a young man who had spent most of his life within the fleet, he was naturally curious to see what the wider universe looked like. Most of his assignments as a Cloud Knight involved high-stakes combat, leaving him with absolutely zero leisure time to simply sit back and enjoy foreign worlds.
Seeing the determination in the boy's eyes, Julian dropped the subject. After sharing a warm farewell with Robin—who looked genuinely sad to see him go—and enduring a polite but firm urging from Sunday to hurry along, Julian stepped back on board his starskiff and set coordinates for the blue planet.
The interstellar journey was filled with the usual warp jumps and quiet hours. It took about half a day of full-speed travel before the starskiff finally dropped out of hyperspace near the space station.
Though this ship is incredibly fast, I still miss the Trailblaze anchors, Julian grumbled to himself. It's so much easier when you can just teleport exactly where you want to go.
Because the ship was pushing its engines to the absolute limit, the heavy shielding cut off most external communication networks. If they had traveled at a more relaxed pace, he could have easily spent the hours playing games or checking the forums. But time was a precious commodity right now. With the galaxy's main story hanging on a hair-trigger, he didn't want to miss the opening scene by a single minute.
From the viewport, the Herta Space Station looked like a colossal silver crown orbiting a beautiful, azure planet. It was an image he had seen dozens of times on his flat gaming monitors back in his past life, but seeing the real structure floating in the void was breathtaking. It was massive—easily spanning a quarter the size of a small planet.
After their ship cleared the automated docking protocols and glided into the spaceport, Julian stepped onto the platform to find Asta and Arlan waiting to receive him.
Given his current standing, Julian wasn't surprised by the formal welcome. Between his official cultural title from the Xianzhou and his close partnership with Stephen, he was a high-value guest. In fact, if this hadn't been a quiet, private business trip, the reception committee would have been twice as large.
"It is wonderful to see you both again," Julian greeted them warmly, stepping off the ramp. "I trust Miss Asta and Mr. Arlan are still managing to find time for Pokémon?"
"Mr. Julian, the honor is entirely ours," Asta replied with a polite, professional smile. "Pokémon is an absolute masterpiece of a game, so of course we are still playing. Arlan even whispered to his team the other day that he's going to win the next Champion title no matter what."
Though she managed a light joke to soften the mood, anyone with a sharp eye could tell her posture was still a little stiff. The heavy assignments dropped onto her lap by the eccentric genius Stephen were clearly weighing on her mind. Or perhaps it was just the looming dread of being sent back to her family's corporate empire to inherit their real estate dynasty if she failed.
Before Julian could answer, Arlan's face flushed a deep crimson. If they weren't standing in the middle of a formal docking bay, he would have immediately turned to ask Asta how on earth she had overheard him. He remembered speaking those words quietly to his digital team in the privacy of his own room. What the security chief didn't realize was that Asta hadn't eavesdropped at all; she had simply deduced his goals from his incredibly dedicated training habits and protective nature. Her observational skills were just that sharp.
"There's no need for such formal titles, Asta. Just call me Julian," he chuckled, looking around the platform. "By the way, where is that kid Stephen hiding? He practically begged me to fly over here, yet he doesn't even show up to greet his business partner in person?"
Julian was genuinely curious about the boy's real-world appearance. He couldn't help but wonder if the genius would stubbornly hide behind his digital anime avatar even during a physical meeting on the station. But no matter where he looked, the platform was empty of any third party, save for the uniformed security guards standing at attention near the doors.
"Uh... well," Asta began, looking slightly embarrassed. "Mr. Stephen mentioned that he is completely lost in researching the new co-op gameplay mechanics you just uploaded, and his schedule is too tight to clear. He requested that I escort you directly to the storage vaults to inspect the newly finalized hardware."
"Heh, typical," Julian shook his head in amusement. "Remind me to lock his account out the next time we launch an early beta access expansion. Don't worry about it, Asta, it's not your fault. Since he left you in charge of the tour, I'll happily follow your lead."
"Right this way, please," Asta said, gesturing toward the main corridor while Arlan fell into a quiet protective stance a single pace behind them.
"Is Madame Herta currently residing on the station?" Julian asked casually as they passed a beautifully crafted porcelain puppet resting near an archival terminal.
"Madame Herta has cleared her schedule to manage some distant cosmic affairs, so her biological self is currently away," Asta explained, pointing to the elegant doll. "However, she occasionally projects her active consciousness into these puppets to audit our research data or check on the vaults."
Julian nodded slowly. It was a minor shame; he had been hoping to strike up a conversation with the master of the house to see if they could share some creative synergy. But her absence fit his predictions perfectly. With Herta away from her desk, the opening act of the space station's crisis was almost certainly guaranteed to trigger. He didn't bother asking about Ruan Mei or Screwllum either; his memory files verified neither of them would be present when the antimatter legion breached the gates.
The group stepped inside a high-speed quantum elevator, rapidly descending into the depths of the Storage Zone. Given the sheer, planetary scale of the facility, trying to navigate the separate sectors on foot like a video game character would have siphoned months out of his calendar.
The Blueprints of Evolution
Reaching their designated coordinate, Asta led Julian into a secure, white-milled laboratory room where Stephen's newly manufactured hardware was neatly aligned on metal tables.
"Here are the complete engineering documents for the devices, and this is your master-tier security pass for the space station," Asta said, handing him a digital tablet and a smooth ID card. "Once the initial diagnostics clear, you can access any sector within the facility simply by validating this card at the elevator terminals."
"Thank you, Asta. If the setup is self-sustaining, please feel free to return to your primary command duties," Julian said gently. He could tell his high status was still causing her a bit of performance anxiety, so he chose to let her return to her comfort zone.
Once the doors slid shut and the two were left alone, Julian pulled up the technical files Stephen had compiled. The actual physical hardware the boy genius had engineered was remarkably clean. Aside from the high-density quantum matrices designed to safely store their advanced AI core data, the tables hosted a series of massive backup server towers dedicated exclusively to handling the Pokémon network traffic.
As for the various corporate patents Topaz had unlatched from the IPC's vaults, a handful of the lighter communication algorithms had already been seamlessly woven into this new third-generation tech. The heavier, reality-shaping frameworks, however, would have to wait for the fourth or fifth-generation server expansions before they could be fully deployed. The limitation wasn't a flaw in the code; their current hardware simply lacked the processing bandwidth to handle that much raw cosmic data at once.
Stephen had even taken the time to map out a clear roadmap for their upcoming server upgrades, complete with an itemized budget report. Compared to the astronomical costs required to refine a self-aware digital AI, upgrading their physical processing clusters was an incredibly cheap transaction—demanding a mere ten billion credits to clear the queue. With the ocean of cash currently flooding Arceus Studio's bank accounts daily, that amount was a drop in the ocean.
After validating the structural data on his screen, Julian turned to his silent companion with a bright smile.
"Alright, Yanqing," he said, unclipping his haptic visor. "Let's slide into the testing chairs and see what this new generation actually feels like."
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