"Impossible, don't even think about it."
Simon waved his hand. "Go on, stay in Winterhold properly."
Dilo stared with wide, ox-like eyes. "Don't, Teacher! Jona can't do without me!" Informal and unrefined, his face was covered in a bushy beard, and he smelled strongly of machine oil and rust.
Simon frowned. "You kid should go take a bath."
"Oh, please, don't, Sir! Someone has to repair such a huge spaceship of yours, right?"
"I'm not lacking in repairmen."
Dilo's burly frame shuddered, and he suddenly threw himself at Simon's legs, wailing and shouting.
"Scram, scram, scram! Get away from me." Simon couldn't shake the guy off. "This isn't a leisure trip; I don't have the spare energy to look after you. You're better off staying in Nirn to wait for Jonas's return."
Dilo cried loudly, "I'm afraid I'll forget again!"
"What would you forget?"
"Forgetting all of you—Jona, Sir, my parents and relatives, my friends in Winterhold. I'm just afraid that one day I'll wake up and you'll all be gone, and I'll be all alone and not know anything, happily dazed, only able to stare at the things you left behind. I'd wake up from that nightmare in a cold sweat!"
Simon just smiled. "A grown man—even if you were the only one left in the world, living among beasts, what of it? You live how you must live. Since past lives and events cannot be traced back, then don't chase them. If they can be chased, then do your best. One must never live in fear of the future."
Dilo stood up and wiped the dirty tear stains off his face. "You're right. I'll wait for Jona to come back. When the time comes, we'll ride our bikes together to find his mother and go to his hometown. I am his friend; his kin are my kin, and his grudges are half mine. I'm going to High Rock to find his home and seek revenge for him."
Simon advised him, "A person cannot forget the roots of their origin. Skyrim is falling into the flames of war; you should also make your own choice, at least to save those innocent people."
Dilo shouted, "Yes! Exactly!" He completely opened his heart, laughing loudly as he leaped onto his motorbike and sped away like a bolt of lightning. His voice drifted back from afar, "Teacher, take care—!"
Simon stared blankly at his receding back and suddenly felt a sense of emotion: Illusion magic is really useful... No, wait, it's that this kid has grown up.
It was truly delightful that one Junior had found his own goal to strive for. Yet another Junior was trapped in the prison of time, and Simon knew he had to go save him; this was the responsibility of an elder.
After having dinner at the Wolf Pack's resting place, Simon practiced his punches in the clearing for a while before returning to the stone hut. This place had now become the entrance to a cavern. To obtain the raw materials for building the spaceship, he had been continuously excavating rock and soil over the past decade, subsequently transmuting them into metallic ores.
Ever since the Pure Land swallowed the Shivering Isles, Simon had become a true god within the Pure Land, possessing the authority of the second layer, though lacking the Realm of the second layer. This was already enough.
The design of the spaceship had taken a lot of Simon's effort. From the initial 'beggar version' to the current 'emperor version,' he had revised it over a thousand times.
The construction of a magical spaceship was much simpler compared to a technological one. The first generation was even just a skiff; a raw soul stone ore served as the energy hub, and the power System was stuffed into a shuttle-shaped enchanted iron barrel. It looked like a cigar and was hideously ugly, but it truly had the capability to send someone out of Nirn's atmosphere—though it was a one-way ticket.
By the second generation, the energy System was still soul stones, used to activate a flight field, but the appearance was much more normal. It looked like a rocket—a long cylinder surrounded by four short cylinders, all of which were thrusters, making it faster.
Research on the third generation took two years. To solve the stability issues of the flight field, an intelligent control System was added.
By the fourth generation, the ship was a behemoth. It was shaped like a flying saucer, forty feet high with a cross-sectional radius of fifty-one feet. The main body was made of Ebony, incredibly sturdy and highly maneuverable, capable of circumnavigating Nirn in a single day. The interior utilized a dual power source of soul stones and steam, and even contained a small ecosphere with functioning air and water cycles and gravity consistent with Nirn, enough for humans to survive within for three to five years.
Simon had originally designed a fifth generation, which would have been a cosmic fortress, but he really didn't want to wait any longer. Although he built things quickly, translating a blueprint into reality involved countless details and was too time-consuming.
Simon entered the cabin from the lift in the center of the saucer. This was the control center, cylindrical and located right in the middle of the saucer. The soft white paint made everything look clean and fresh, while the ring surrounding it was the ecological zone.
The control center was the core of the saucer, and the intelligent pillar was the center of the control room. This was an array of light blue crystal cabinets standing at the edge of the circular wall, totaling one hundred and thirty-six units, wrapped in a circle with only four openings for personnel access.
Coming out of the lift, the innermost ring was the pilot's station. Virtual floating screens created by illusion magic displayed views of the outside world as well as various ship parameters.
Sheogorath stood at the pilot's station, wearing a bulky, orange-red spacesuit with a nameplate on his chest that read 'Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin'. He turned and saluted Simon, speaking solemnly in an awkward, Russian-accented English, "Comrade Captain, all dead men of the Leviathan are ready, awaiting instructions!"
Simon ignored him and asked aloud, "Leviathan, initiate self-diagnostic program."
The ring of crystal arrays on the control room walls flickered as a steady mechanical voice responded, "Command confirmed. Level one commander authorization confirmed. Self-diagnosis initiated. Estimated time: three hundred and twenty beats. Completed. Self-diagnosis complete. No anomalies detected."
This was Leviathan, a high-level aggregation of all spiritual entities except for the numbered undead. It possessed powerful intelligence, complete Chaos calculation functions, and an energy control capability comparable to a third-tier spellcaster.
Seeing that Simon was ignoring him, Sheogorath started playing around on his own. "Houston, this is Vostok 1. I am pilot Gagarin-Armstrong. Please respond if you receive this."
Hearing this erroneous nonsense, Simon suppressed the urge to complain.
The door to the control room opened, and a group of Flesh-armored Liches entered, surrounding Serana. She was wearing blue-green robes and a fluffy woven wreath of greenery on her head, carrying a wooden basket filled with fruits and vegetables gathered from the ecosphere.
As she walked, she held a plump tomato and took a large bite, the rich red vegetable juice staining her lips. Serana walked to the pilot's station, placed the basket on an iron shelf, then leaned in and kissed Simon on the cheek, leaving a sticky, tomato-scented lip print.
"When do you plan to set off?" She pulled up a rolling chair and sat down, spinning around freely.
Sheogorath was still muttering strange things.
Looking at this domestic scene, the vague unease and anxiety in Simon's heart vanished instantly. The future journey was full of variables, but now it seemed like nothing more than an ordinary adventure.
"Let's set off."
Blue-green magical light flickered across the saucer's Ebony hull. A massive force field tore through the Tundra ground, and the enormous flying saucer soared into the sky, kicking up a gale that blew in all directions. From deep within the clouds, a thunderous roar echoed.
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