Then let the witch offer her loyalty

The so-called psionic energy extraction device is somewhat similar to the MRI machine that Chen Moxin had seen in the real world.

The person was laid down and moved into the cabin. The energy lines next to them lit up in an orderly fashion. About half an hour later, the person was wheeled out.

The whole process was very simple and unpretentious, with no visual impact, just like a routine medical examination.

In reality, the spiritual energy has been extracted through this device and stored in a special storage medium, just like charging an electric battery.

Moreover, judging from Anies's obviously tired appearance, this kind of spiritual energy absorption, even if it does not cause serious harm to the body, is a great challenge to a person's physical and mental strength.

"That's about it. I'll show Chen Moxin and the others around a bit more. Chief Engineer Deng, your time is precious. Go back to work. Remember to send me the data records and summary from the last experiment. I need to organize them and send them to Gaia's home planet."

"Okay, please get some rest when you get back. We will do our best to live up to your trust and guidance."

Next, Annie led Chen Moxin and the others on a tour of the experimental base.

Judging from their appearance, the work intensity here is extremely high. Whether they are researchers or technicians, their eyes are bloodshot and they even have dark circles, which means they often stay up late.

In terms of living conditions, the treatment here is very good. Each person has a comfortable single dormitory. The canteen does not serve factory-made food, but various fresh meats, eggs, milk and vegetables, all of which come from the few plantations and ranches in the entire colony.

It's no exaggeration to say that these living conditions are better than those of Bianice herself.

This shows how much Anies valued the Stargate Project; she was even willing to lower her own living standards to create better living conditions for the scientists.

It is precisely because of this respectful treatment of talent that the staff here are very grateful to Anies, and they spontaneously unite as one, devoting themselves wholeheartedly to their work.

Many people don't even go back to their dormitories to sleep; instead, they set up a folding bed next to their workstation, just to save even a little bit of time.

Anies gazed intently at these strivers through the window, as if talking to herself, or perhaps to Chen Moxin: "The Stargate Project has been around for 112 years since its inception, spanning several generations."

"From the beginning, it carried the hopes of all mankind. Now it is being questioned. Those who are still willing to stay here are people of faith."

"If I fail to win this election and allow the spaceships led by Charles to be stationed at the Governor's Mansion, they will definitely make a lot of fuss about Gaia's home planet, requesting cuts to the Stargate Project's funding, or even shutting it down completely."

"So I can't lose. In order for humanity to conquer the stars and the sea, and to be worthy of these fighters, I absolutely cannot lose!"

After showing Chen Moxin and the others around the Stargate Project base, Annies did not stay long and led them back.

On the return journey, the levitation vehicle convoy passed through a large square, which was densely packed with people. Various banners and slogans were held up in the air above the crowd, and someone was giving a speech on the central stage.

Annies also noticed this scene. She quickly discerned the nature of the rally and muttered under her breath, "Damn it, it's Charles's gang. They're doing an election roadshow."

"Can we land closer to take a look?" Chen Moxin suddenly asked.

Annie was puzzled: "Why should we go and join in their roadshow?"

Chen Moxin smiled meaningfully and said, "If an election is a war, then a roadshow is one of the battles. There's a saying on our home planet, the East: 'Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated.'"

Anies nodded thoughtfully: "Then let's go take a look, but don't get into any conflict with them, after all, this is their home turf."

"Driver, find a place to land."

...

"The Stargate Project is the most ridiculous joke in human history!"

Charles, one of the candidates for Governor of the Planet Cicero, stood on the stage and was giving his speech to the voters present.

"Admittedly, the original intention of the Stargate project was to enable humanity to venture into the universe, but our ancestors were overconfident in technology, which led to some unrealistic fantasies."

"For 112 years, countless human and resource contributions have been poured into the Stargate Project. We could have built Cicero into a beautiful world, but now the mountains have been razed to the ground, the rivers have been drained, and people can only survive on industrial starch every day!"

"And what did we get in the end? We got nothing but that giant 'donut' to the north!"

Although Charles was overweight, his voice was melodious and rhythmic, and coupled with his expressive body language, he was very emotionally engaging.

The voters at the scene were quickly stirred up, and they began to chime in with their own opinions.

"Well said! The Stargate Project is a complete scam!"

"The fact that this kind of project can continue for over a hundred years is simply a sign that our government's oversight system has failed!"

"Only by building interstellar spaceships with a down-to-earth approach can humanity explore the universe, instead of relying on the fantasies of those with wild imaginations!"

Charles pulled his hands back, silencing the commotion, and raised his voice a few decibels.

"The Stargate Project may have its historical significance, but as times change, I want to say—it's time to end! Humanity can no longer live in fantasy!"

"If I were to become the governor of Cicero, the first thing I would do is request the plan to shut down the stargate from our home planet Gaia!"

"My focus during my subsequent term will shift to interstellar spacecraft projects that require fewer resources and are more practical! Furthermore, I will dedicate myself to improving people's lives..."

As he was talking, he suddenly noticed something, pointed ahead, and said with a hint of teasing, "Oh~ look who's here, an unrealistic dreamer."

The voters at the scene looked back and saw the floating convoy that had landed at the edge of the square, and they could see the family insignia on it.

Annie, sitting in the back seat, had the car window open and was silently watching Charles on the stage.

As a seasoned politician, Charles keenly recognized that this was a good opportunity to damage the image of his competitors.

Holding the microphone, he called out in a deliberately enthusiastic tone, "Hey, Miss Anies, just got back from the Stargate Base? Why don't you tell us how many precious psionic cores you wasted this time?"

Inside the car, Annie shook her head helplessly and said to Chen Moxin, "We've seen it all, let's go. This is their home turf, there's no need to pay attention to their provocations."

But to everyone's surprise, Chen Moxin opened the car door and got out.

"...List?"

Chen Moxin closed the car door, leaned against the window and smiled slightly at Annie: "Everyone's jumping in our faces, running away now would be a laughing stock."

As soon as he finished speaking, his figure vanished in a wisp of eerie mist, only to reappear on the stage like a ghost, eliciting gasps from the voters present, who kept calling him "psychic" or "given."

Charles, himself a recipient of the Gift, was not surprised, but he was puzzled.

He knew all the recipients of the Gifts on the planet Cicero, so where did this guy come from?

Chen Moxin stood next to Charles and beckoned to him with her finger: "Give it to me."

Charles, confused, asked, "What do you mean, 'bring me'?"

"Didn't you invite us to the stage? Here you go." Chen Moxin snatched the microphone from Charles's hand without any politeness, and with a quick push of her butt, she squeezed herself to the center of the podium.

Charles's face darkened, but he couldn't say anything, since it was indeed he who had "invited" him first.

He just didn't expect that the other party would actually dare to go on stage in his home arena.

He was plotting in his mind how to embarrass this hothead.

But to everyone's surprise, Chen Moxin suddenly pointed at Charles and said, "Some people in the spaceship faction became mentally challenged later, while Charles was born mentally challenged."

Chapter 141 Mo Xin Out

The moment Chen Moxin uttered these words, the entire room fell into a deathly silence.

The voters below the stage were stunned. Charles stared wide-eyed in disbelief. Even Annais in the car had her mouth slightly agape, her eyes filled with disbelief.

No one expected that in such a formal roadshow setting, in front of so many voters and media, Chen Moxin would launch a personal attack without hesitation.

After a brief silence, a commotion erupted in the room.

"How dare you swear at me? That's incredibly rude!"

"You call us spaceship faction idiots? And who are you to say that?!"

"Is anyone going to go up and beat him up? Give him a good beating! Let him stop being so arrogant!"

As voters were filled with fervor, the happiest people were undoubtedly the media reporters present. They carried cameras or operated drones, filming the scene back and forth and sending this firsthand information back to headquarters.

It is foreseeable that, regardless of how this matter ends, "Charles was born mentally challenged" will become a popular meme spreading online.

Charles snapped out of his daze, took another microphone from his companion, and said seriously, "It seems this young man lacks the most basic manners."

Chen Moxin raised an eyebrow: "Oh? Since when has telling the truth become considered a lack of manners?"

"In my opinion, only those who are born mentally challenged would denigrate the greatness of the Stargate Project."

Charles immediately showed a "I knew it" expression and said to the voters below the stage with a mocking tone: "Oh~ I knew it, no wonder you started cursing as soon as you came up, it turns out to be another ridiculous Star Sect."

"Besides praising so-called greatness and that unrealistic idealism, what else can you offer? Do you even know what pragmatism means?"

Chen Moxin countered, "Then tell me, what exactly does 'pragmatism' mean?"

Charles, with a proud expression, said in a measured tone, "Being pragmatic means producing results. Let me tell you what our spaceship faction has accomplished over the years."

"I led the team to build and maintain the largest starport on Cicero, with annual mineral exports to the home planet and other planetary colonies reaching more than 8000 billion United Credits."

"Our spacecraft factory production line has provided employment for at least 50 people, greatly alleviating unemployment."

"Thanks to our tireless efforts this year, a brand-new model of interstellar spacecraft will be completed this week, at which point it will be ready to fly to the stars!"

Chen Moxin suddenly asked, "Have you ever been on a spaceship?"

Charles choked for a moment. He was a local, born and raised on the planetary colony of Cicero, and had never experienced interstellar travel.

This was a question he couldn't lie about, so he could only answer truthfully, "No."

Chen Moxin chuckled and looked at the voters with a mocking expression, saying, "A person who claims to support interstellar spaceships has never actually been on one. That's the funniest joke I've ever heard."

Charles quickly retorted with a popular internet phrase: "Do I need to know how to make a refrigerator to judge its quality?"

Chen Moxin raised her voice and said emphatically, "Yes, you must! Because you are not an outsider, you are the leader of the spaceship faction! You control the resources and the development direction of the entire team, so you must know everything about it!"

"Why do I say that most people who support spaceships are mentally unstable? Because you are supporting something you don't even understand."

"Once you've ever been on a spaceship and spent decades in that enclosed metal shell, facing only an opaque metal deck and dark portholes every day, you'll know how ridiculous the spaceship proponents' ideology is."

“There is no romance to speak of in conventional interstellar travel; it is extremely brutal. Many of those who have traveled on interstellar spaceships have developed serious mental illnesses in the confined space.”

“Take the shortest interplanetary journey to date—between the home planet and Cicero—as an example. Even under the best circumstances, a journey would take at least 15 years.”

"I would like to ask you, if I were to lock any one of you in a closed cabin, where you could not see the sunrise or sunset, where there were no flowers, birds, or plants, where you could only breathe industrially filtered air every day, and where even the water you drank was filtered from recycled urine, and this kind of life were to continue for 15 years, how many of you could endure it?"

Charles interrupted, refuting him: "These shortcomings in living conditions that you mentioned are only temporary technological limitations. The final form of our envisioned interstellar spaceship is a space fortress."

"This space fortress will be thousands of times larger than existing spaceships, with artificial gardens, a variety of entertainment facilities, holographic simulations of sunrise and sunset, and various seasonal changes."

"It's like a city floating in space, capable of accommodating hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, with living environments comparable to those on the surface of a planet."

"To put it another way, while we are developing spacecraft technology, we are also researching hibernation technology. No matter how far the journey is, as long as you lie in the hibernation pod and sleep, the journey of hundreds or thousands of years will be over in the blink of an eye. We don't need to worry about the problem you mentioned at all."

Like a hunter who has spotted a flaw, Chen Moxin asked an extremely pointed question: "Distance is not a problem, but what about time?"

Modern science has confirmed that the speed of light cannot be exceeded.

"Even if one day all your predictions about interstellar spaceships come true, there will be one thing that will become an eternal shackle on humanity's exploration of the universe—time."

"The universe is so vast that the distance between planets is often tens or hundreds of light-years, and the distance between galaxies can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of light-years."

"On this timescale, boarding an interstellar spaceship means leaving one's homeland for life and never being able to return home again."

"And when you lie down in the hibernation pod and wake up, the world outside has changed drastically. Your parents have passed away long ago, your children have also passed away, and your children's children are old men with white hair, lying in hospital beds with oxygen tubes, calling you 'Grandpa' in a weak voice... If you experienced this scene firsthand, who could imagine how tragic it would be?"

"Time is the most deadly thing, and none of the spaceship proponents' ideas can avoid this!"

Before they knew it, the voters at the scene had become engrossed in Chen Moxin's impassioned speech, and the noise had disappeared as everyone listened attentively.

Chen Moxin raised her hand and pointed to the towering stargate base to the north: "But the stargate can conquer time!"

"Whether it's hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of light-years, it's all just a blink of an eye for spatial jumps!"

"You can vacation on a foreign planet tens of thousands of light-years away today, and bring back local specialties to your parents back on Gaia tomorrow."

"Every human being can set foot on the stars and the sea of ​​stars in their lifetime. Any star that we looked up at as children can be approached and its mysteries can be explored!"

"We must conquer time; that is the greatest aspect of the Stargate Project!"

"Some people say that the Stargate Project is too difficult, requires too much effort, and involves too much sacrifice."

"Everyone, you must understand one thing: with struggle comes sacrifice, and sacrifice is inevitable."

"But when we think about the future of the human community, about the vision of countless people who look up at the universe, any form of sacrifice will have its value!"

Chen Moxin's impassioned speech was very inspiring, and the previously chaotic scene fell completely silent.

Whether they were supporters of the spaceship faction, supporters of the star gate faction, or even those bystanders whose stances were wavering, everyone opened their eyes wide and listened attentively to Chen Moxin's words.

Yes, time.

This enemy is too powerful.

Even though the technology of the human community is now very advanced, life extension technology can enable a person to live healthily for two hundred years.

But what is a human being with a lifespan of only two hundred years compared to the vast universe spanning billions of light-years?

Life is too short, and the starry sky is too far away.

Charles, a seasoned political leader, still wore an expression of disdain and mockery, but he was already aware of the crisis.