"That's true," Gray Mist said, "Even though this high-brightness environment could be explained as intentionally made to add unfavorable conditions for the players, it matches the decoration and design here very well. It feels like a cohesive system, not thrown together on a whim."
"Since they've downloaded someone else's blueprint and assembled all those detailed devices inside the spaceship, it's impossible not to mold the engine. As long as there's an engine, it can definitely be started."
Greed looked at the operation panel and said, "But to prevent players like me who are little smart ghosts, they won't let players operate the spaceship. If someone really managed to start the weapon system, how would other players continue playing?"
"What do you plan to do then?"
"As I said before: since they've recreated someone else's spaceship, the operating system must be included as well. And the simplest way to keep players from accessing the actual operating system is to write a new program over it, which is this choice interface we're seeing now."
Greed looked down at the operation panel that resembles a human keyboard, but the letters on it were also fuzzy. He said, "Any spaceship's operating system has a safety mode. If something virtually invades it, or the program temporarily malfunctions, the spaceship would become inoperative, and this race would have been exterminated long ago. So, there must be a way to enter safe mode in emergencies."
"I know how to enter safe mode on a computer; it's just a matter of holding down a key during startup. Would it be the same for a spaceship?"
"Probably similar," Greed said, "Let's look at this keyboard. If there's a keyboard, it implies their terminal limbs are not too different from the human race, maybe with a few extra fingers, but the general structure is similar. Moreover, this keyboard layout indicates they use a letter-based language, and the arrangement of those letters follows certain patterns, just like the human English keyboard."
Greed looked down at the keyboard and said, "These 12 keys in the middle must be their most commonly used letters. They definitely wouldn't place shutdown or startup keys here. The six over here should be the consonant letters, on the reachable side for their fingers; and these six on the other side as well."
"Humans use a decimal system because they have ten fingers. Most civilizations in interstellar society develop numeral systems related to the body parts they use for counting. Considering this, the aliens who designed this spaceship might have six fingers per hand, which means their numeral system could be base-12 with the first 12 numbers being unique."
"And the row of keys below is offset from the letters above, conveniently having 12 keys from left to right, possibly representing their numerals. The three rows by four columns form 12 keys as well, which should be their numeric keypad."
"The remaining five keys must be the function keys. Six fingers, while more than humans by one, aren't significantly more. And since they placed the consonant keys next to the most commonly used letters, it indicates their finger length is limited; otherwise, they could be placed anywhere."
"In that case, the button to launch safe mode is likely one or a pair from these five keys. A combination of three is unlikely, as finger length limits reach; brute force is the key."
"You claim to be smart, yet you pressed wrong buttons on the elevator before?"
"I wasn't paying attention then!" Greed said with some embarrassment, "And who would've thought that stupid race's numerals were in reverse order!"
Greed's fingers flew, starting with individual keys and then trying combinations. Approaching the final combination, there was still no response. Gray Mist said, "Your reasoning sounds plausible, but what if they don't play by the rules?"
"If this doesn't work, I'll release the monsters downstairs; it'll just delay us a bit. But if it does succeed..."
Just as he said so, the final key combination worked. Greed immediately beamed with a big smile and said, "Someone won't be getting much sleep tonight."
"I feel like Lucifer is watching us," Gray Mist said.
"That's also their mistake in program design, being lazy and replacing the program on the surface. If only they'd put a little more thought into completely deleting the original operating program, this wouldn't happen."
The operation panel's screen brightened, then dimmed, entering a completely different style from before, displaying legible text.
Greed couldn't read this language either, and without time to decipher each letter, he quickly scanned and began exploring the options, clicking each option and eventually discovering one named "Restart Engine."
Soon, there was an unexpected scene: the engine, which shouldn't have been operational, restarted in safe mode.
The operations became straightforward as the spaceship's panel has both a steering wheel and throttle rod. Greed tried each and finally figured out how to lift-off the spaceship.
The spaceship began rising from the ground; Greed quickly ran to the window and jumped out before it ascended too high.
"I have a question," Gray Mist said, "Even if the spaceship's operating system and hardware were crafted according to blueprints downloaded online, what about the energy source? Surely they wouldn't fill an inherently non-operational spaceship with energy out of sheer goodwill?"
"Haven't you realized?" Greed said, "The energy driving this race's spaceship is the same as ours."
"What?"
"Light."
Greed continued, "Most civilizations starting in space use the same energy source. After moving away from chemical fuels, the most convenient energy to replenish in the cosmos is light, specifically the thermal energy produced by stars."
"From the spaceship's decorative style, this race clearly exhibits star worship, or light worship, which explains why their ship is designed to be shiny, with reflective components everywhere. It's even possible their race itself exists directly within light, much like spiders hidden in light."
"That makes sense. But when the replica was initialized, it only had such a short time; could it really have charged by sunlight?"
"Sunbathing under our sun wouldn't suffice, but don't forget, when fighting the monsters earlier, someone directly summoned a sun."
Gray Mist realized with sudden clarity.