"I know Blue Planet! Oh my god! Am I actually on the same Navigator Colossus as them?"

"Blue Planet is an extremely advanced civilization. I heard their diplomat is named Yujin. His derivative writings caused a huge sensation in our Pangshi Galaxy. Ahhh, what are the coordinates of his ship? I want to discuss the theories in Flying Over the Pyramid with him!"

"I'm different. I just want an autograph."

"Derivative writings? That's an exaggeration."

"Blue Planet's civilization level is that high?"

"It's not an exaggeration. I'm telling you, the reading difficulty of his derivative writings has already reached level 4. The philosophical ideas in them become more terrifying the more you think about them... He supposedly chose to stop writing voluntarily, and it must have been out of necessity..."

"This is getting more ridiculous. I'll check the network when I reach my stop."

"Wait, isn't the author of the latest high-level derivative text Jung? She's even an official novelist."

"As I said, Blue Planet is an advanced civilization. They obviously have more than one excellent novelist."

Xi Yujin had been staring at this temporary chatroom the whole time.

He wasn't getting carried away by the flattery. Instead, it made him more cautious. Only when he saw the beings unanimously assuming that Blue Planet was an advanced civilization did he breathe a small sigh of relief.

Perception is heavily influenced by information from others. For example, many Asians have never been to Australia, but they can interact with Australians online and hear reviews from travelers who've visited. As a result, they do not doubt that Australia exists. Now that the chatroom was spreading rumors that Blue Planet was a formidable advanced civilization, even if he made a mistake later, other beings would automatically fill in the logic for him. The Blue Planet literary world he had carefully cultivated had finally become his fortress of illusions.

Knock knock.

A tapping sound came from outside the ship.

"It's the diplomat from Ctulrt," Gano said. He had already investigated the backgrounds of all passing beings and was carefully eliminating any threats to Yujinno's safety.

Xi Yujin quickly tidied his appearance and welcomed his new friend inside. Ctulrt noticed that walking on the ship didn't corrode the cabin and nodded approvingly. This was actually thanks to a new anti-corrosion coating from the Flying Duck Chamber of Commerce that Xi Yujin had just applied. When Ctulrt entered the reception room, it immediately noticed the large calligraphy characters Xi Yujin had written himself. The style was different from the fonts in diplomatic texts, and it gave Ctulrt a deeper sense of Blue Planet's rich cultural heritage.

"Hello, Mr. Yujin! Could you introduce me to Ms. Jung? I really want to give her a big hug!" Ctulrt raised its long tentacles. The eyeballs on its tentacles squinted into happy crescents, with thin green veins visible on the eyelids.

Xi Yujin gave a professional smile. "She's working right now. It's not convenient at the moment."

"What a shame..." Ctulrt stepped aside to let its fellow species member carry in a large box. "These are books from our species, presented to the wandering child of the Blue Planet. Please accept them."

The box was at least two meters tall, and it landed on the floor with a heavy thud.

"So many?" Xi Yujin asked.

"We used our race's traditional script to create these," Ctulrt explained. "We hope they can make up for the time our two civilizations had never met. Our traditional symbols are quite large, so the books ended up being very thick. We hope you'll accept them."

Xi Yujin was genuinely touched by the sincerity.

After putting away the diplomatic gifts, Ctulrt finally revealed its true purpose for visiting.

"Esteemed diplomat of Blue Planet, we very much hope to collaborate with you on the deeper development of The Investigator Files." Ctulrt bowed. "We would also like to introduce you to a technical specialist. This is Youyu, from the Noon Fire Galaxy."

Youyu entered. It was shaped somewhat like a flattened humanoid, with skin that was a pinkish ochre color. When it opened its mouth to speak, the tentacles inside waved around chaotically like an escaping octopus, and its speech had a watery, gurgling accent.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, esteemed Blue Planet diplomat Yujin," Youyu said. "Ms. Jung's work is truly wonderful. I believe the framework she has built could be perfected even further."

"We hope to incorporate stories from our Civilization Contact period into The Investigator Files tabletop game... and spread this history under our official name."

Neither the Ctulrt nor Youyu's species had particularly outstanding official novelists.

Their official organizations had recently unearthed some stories from the Civilization Contact period through archaeology. They wanted to express certain attitudes on behalf of their entire species. However, publicly releasing the archaeological materials to recruit freelance novelists would be problematic. The content was so shocking that it could cause irreversible psychological damage to their citizens. Seeking outside help also came with various complications.

That is, until they discovered Blue Planet and learned about the tabletop game The Investigator Files.

The game format reduced the impact of the archaeological materials while making them enjoyable. It could help more citizens learn the truth about their history.

"I'll record your materials and let Jung process them afterward," Xi Yujin said.

And so, the four species began a literary discussion around the table. Xi Yujin listened while jotting down keywords. Transforming stories into game text required clearer layers, more defined maps, and various prop settings that could trigger plot events.

The second game setting for The Investigator Files was completed. It was called A Fish's Seven-Second Memory, which was based on Ctulrt's history.

In this game, players would create a Ctulrt character of any profession and explore a city, with seven days of free activity.

At the end of Day 7, the city would be struck by a bizarre electronic sphere attack that reduced everything to ashes. When the player woke up, they would find themselves back on Day 1, and their friends and family would still be alive. The player could move freely for another seven days, but during this time, they would notice their loved ones were slightly different from the previous cycle. At the end of Day 7, the electronic attack would happen again. The player could then start a third cycle... and so on. The ultimate goal was to investigate the truth behind the species' apocalypse.

After each cycle ended, players would notice their friends and family looked increasingly different. In some cycles, everyone would have two extra short tentacles. In others, everyone would have grown fangs. By the seventh cycle, their loved ones would be completely unrecognizable. The player, now looking too different, would be taken and burned by the God Descended from the Sky, which serves as the end of the game.

If players investigated the biotech company in the city and discovered the entire river had been contaminated with genetic pollutants, causing everyone to change, the investigation progress would reach 25%.

If players investigated the evil rituals in the city, they would discover that Ctulrt followers were being brainwashed to worship the God Descended from the Sky as the supreme being of the universe. The followers taught that they must offer everything to this god... yet the god didn't care about them and would only send electronic sphere attacks to reset the world... This information fills the investigation progress to 50%.

If players shut down the biotech company and destroyed the evil rituals, they would find that the apocalypse still came. But this time, the God Descended from the Sky would speak: "This experimental result is strange." Players would realize that God was speaking the same language as them. Investigation progress: 75%.

If players escaped the city and conversed with the God Descended from the Sky, they would discover it wasn't an advanced civilization at all. Their consciousness should have belonged to the same species as the god, but their bodies weren't their original bodies.

It turned out that the original advanced Ctulrt civilization had once invaded a lower civilization and accidentally exterminated it. But the advanced civilization desperately needed slaves to develop new star systems, so they used genetic technology to resurrect the lower civilization's bodies, attempting to recreate that civilization.

But civilization is a delicate thing. Even a tiny error can cause its collapse. No matter how advanced the genetic technology, it could only create shells without consciousness. So the advanced civilization turned to its own people for resources. They sentenced the soldiers from the original invasion, stuffed their consciousness into the lower civilization's bodies, and attempted to replicate a new civilization to accelerate its development. They also used evil rituals to promote reverence for the God Descended from the Sky. Every extinction of the species happened because the advanced civilization was unsatisfied with the results and had to restart the experiment.

"Look at your tiny, ugly bodies. How dare you claim to be the same species as us? We will never acknowledge you." The God Descended from the Sky took the little Ctulrt and burned it, pondering which criminal's consciousness it would use to fill the vacancy.

Investigation progress: 100%.

"In reality, our cycle wasn't just seven days. It was seven hundred stellar days, so it was much harder to discover the truth... Eventually, our original civilization faced mass extinction. We, in our lower civilization bodies, survived because of our strong adaptability... We ended our cycle and officially restarted our civilization on a new planet..."

Ctulrt covered its face with its tentacles.

"We never imagined that the beginning of our evolution was so ugly... No wonder we could never find any culture from our Isolated Planet period, no matter how much archaeology we did. It's because we were born from petri dishes!"

"I'm so sorry, my old friend," Youyu sighed.

The third game setting for The Investigator Files was the story of Youyu's species during their Civilization Contact period.

This story was much more absurd. Youyu's species was also considered a lower civilization by others. One day, their race received an unexpected windfall. A God bestowed upon them numerous technologies, helping them develop rapidly, and delivered a divine decree: "Hurry and come to God's side."

They worked hard to upgrade their technology and finally reached God's location, only to discover that God's species had already gone extinct. Before dying, they had recorded many mysterious, strange tales, and players would take on the role of investigators at the ruins of the Gods.

As players investigated, they would learn about this advanced civilization's technological level. Comparing it to their own inferior technology would fill them with awe, and they would feel even more fear toward the higher beings that had destroyed the gods. Players would also encounter projections from an even more advanced civilization. But when they tested their sanity, they realized that it didn't collapse.

If players discovered the god's final letter, they would understand everything: the true cause of the god's extinction was themselves! The advanced civilization's technology was indeed superior to the lower civilization's, but not advanced enough to achieve full control. They could only detect lower civilizations. To gain control over them, the advanced civilization disguised itself, delivered divine decrees, and implemented a cultural deception. The lower civilization was indeed grateful, like humble dogs.

What they hadn't anticipated was that the lower civilization's environment was completely different from the advanced civilization's. When the lower civilization broke through technological barriers and arrived, they also brought terrible viruses that infected the advanced civilization. The advanced civilization's individuals were extremely small and went extinct almost immediately. All those previous strange tales from the advanced civilization were actually just projections of the physically massive lower civilization.

This story was called God Eater.

This was the Civilization Contact period of this universe.

Xi Yujin revised the stories into game scripts. The scripts no longer had much of the Cthulhu flavor, but creating new stories while face-to-face with two different species made him feel that this was the true fusion of Blue Planet civilization with others.

This was his own Civilization Contact.

After the game scripts were completed, Youyu demonstrated its technical expertise by creating an online version of the game.

In the online version, tools would automatically record each investigator's movements and the Keeper's responses. After each session ended, players could freely polish and save their story, then share it on The Investigator Files website.

Players could also use the same character for different scenarios, and the final collection of stories would form that investigator's legendary life.

"There's also a scenario submission feature, so different species can submit their Civilization Contact stories..." Youyu grew more excited as it spoke. "Of course, the decision-making power rests with Blue Planet. Also, this feature should only work after connecting to StarNet. But we can do a trial run on the ship's internal network for now."

"We hope to have a terminal connection within our species' territory," Ctulrt said.

Xi Yujin agreed readily and was eager to try it himself. This way, he could safely and openly explore different species' histories on his own Blue Planet network.

Moreover, the more civilizations willing to interact with Blue Planet, the stronger his allied forces would become. And the more real the Blue Planet's lies would seem.

He also contributed some ores to improve the physical game props, giving them to Youyu as a token of friendship.

Youyu accepted gratefully, though it had one concern: "Can the initial version of The Investigator Files really run on Blue Planet's network? If there are too many players, I'm worried the server load will be too heavy."

Xi Yujin thought of the black box hidden in his possession. It could handle traffic from nearly an entire galaxy, so handling passengers on a Navigator Colossus would be more than enough. He immediately said it wouldn't be a problem.

Now, Blue Planet's technology seemed unfathomably deep to Youyu as well.

When Xi Yujin asked to watch how Youyu built the website, Youyu agreed. It was convinced that Yujin wasn't there to steal techniques but to supervise...

—

In the temporary chatroom, The Investigator Files was trending again.

"Everyone, search for EARTH:Ctulrt. You can play the game without facing an actual Ctulrt! And it's a version that works on the ship's internal network!"

"What kind of race brings a server while travelling?"

"Blue Planet, obviously."

"No more talking. I'm going to try this game."

"They added a lot of new story backgrounds. I like The Sound from the Seabed. Does anyone want to play with me?"

"Thanks to the friendship between Blue Planet and Ctulrt, this trip finally isn't boring anymore... It's so fun! It satisfies my dream of being a temporary novelist without actually writing!"

"Looking for a Keeper who knows how to build good backgrounds. Other players just keep going off track."

In the Peace Hall, Ctulrt's diplomat was showing off their friendship with Blue Planet, subtly hinting that after connecting to StarNet, The Investigator Files would also run on their species' servers with even more special scenario versions.

One diplomat scoffed: "How dare you package that bloody history as a game! Are you beautifying that history and refusing to call it by its true name? It's called Violent Colonization."

Ctulrt replied:

"In that history, we were the game.

In every era, lower civilizations are the game."

—

Xi Yujin was researching information about the period of Civilization Contact in the virtual library, while entrusting Gano to translate it.

He was beginning to sense that this universe was more cruel and merciless than he had imagined. The assassination attempts he'd faced in the Pangshi Galaxy were just the tip of the iceberg, and the past held an even bloodier history.

Just then, an unexpected visitor arrived: a crew member from the Navigator Colossus.

It handed over an invitation containing:

"Esteemed representative of Blue Planet civilization, we sincerely apologize for previously overlooking you in our invitations.

We are deeply embarrassed and meant absolutely no disrespect to an advanced civilization. As an apology, this is a special black market invitation for this voyage.

If you're interested, please proceed to the ship marked 345, 68, 99..."