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Night fell.
Sol lay on the brand-new, soft bed, gazing at the sea of stars outside the window, unable to help feeling moved by the vastness of the universe.
How small was a person?
Even the power of a star-system destroyer was insignificant on a cosmic scale.
"Well then, it's gacha time."
Sol smiled faintly and opened the system.
[FGO Gacha System 1.0, at your service!]
[Host: Sol Mercer]
[Age: 22]
[Tier: VIII—Demigod Stage (from this point onward, every step crosses the abyss between human and god)]
[Personal Space:Favonius Greatsword ×3, Beastslayer Blood Spear, Spirit Sword, Imperial Thunder Blade, Emperor Armor, Sword of Transcendence, Judgement of Shamash, Teyvat Fried Egg ×14…]
[Essence:Demigod Soul Lv.8, Demigod Body Lv.8, Electromagnetic Mastery Lv.8, Thermodynamic Mastery Lv.7, Dominion Over All Laws Lv.7, Wisdom of the Stars Lv.7, Life Link Lv.7, Type-III Perpetual Motion Engine–Stellar Particle]
[Knowledge-Type Skills: Unlimited Blade Works, Reality Marble, Emperor Armor Construction Principles, Lightning-Shadow Hand, Unshakable Vajra Body, Rune Script, Runes of the Æsir…]
[Conceptual Skills:Four Conceptual Fragments of Yàn Shuāngyīng]
[Total Dennies:Ð13,670,777,420.69]
The deliberately saved 13 billion Dennies—just enough to test his luck in the Star Rail Universe.
"No conversion to Credits?"
Sol looked at the display before him without much surprise.
He awakened this system back in New Eridu, so binding Dennies to it was completely normal.
He had even tried to materialize Dennies for gacha draws, but naturally, fake currency couldn't replace the real thing. Dennies was more of a form of credit money than an equivalent commodity like gold.
But he wasn't planning on abandoning New Eridu and wandering forever; this didn't affect him. When he returned, Belobog Heavy Industries would have to pay tribute again.
And Nicole would come to exchange for supplies. If New Eridu's government had any sense, they'd bring money as well. He would never run out of Dennies.
At the same time, drawing something that could break through the ninth-tier barrier truly required luck.
In the gold card pool, those items were extremely rare; the drop rate was absolutely worthy of the system's name: [FGO Gacha System].
These days, the system's items served mostly as entertainment.
After letting his imagination wander, Sol opened the gacha interface and began.
It was still that familiar star-ocean interface—each tiny star a single item, their number infinite, in the truest sense of infinity.
A total of 13 billion Dennies, with a 1:10M ratio can be converted into 1,300 draws.
Sol didn't even blink and went all-in at once.
The cosmic sea flashed wildly—white, green, blue, purple, and gold alternating over a thousand times in an instant. The "choose-your-gold" quota was also added immediately.
White, green, blue, and purple were ignored, leaving fifty random gold cards.
After sweeping through them, he set twenty-six item cards aside.
They are roughly: [Doraemon's 4D Pocket], [Weather Rubik's Cube], [TRN-666 Mjölnir]… plus some revival items—nothing special.
Only the [Kamen Rider Kabuto Transformation Belt] and the [Armor Hero Transformation Belt] were somewhat interesting.
Interesting, but not enough—on a galactic scale, they were insignificant.
As for non-equipment gold cards, most weren't notable, but a few were unexpectedly good.
[Statue of Tiga:A discarded shell left behind by the Giant of Light, containing the power of light he prepared for one fated successor.(No conditions required—transformation possible via Sparklence, can transform into a toy, charge with the presence of light, arbitrary scaling)]
"A corpse from the body-dumping maniac?"
Sol examined the [Statue of Tiga] card with great interest.
Although only a statue with limited light energy, Tiga had no habit of setting backdoors; as long as sunlight existed, he could be summoned freely. Once enough conditions were met, any form could be activated.
Which meant that with Sol's infinite energy supply, he would immediately have an endlessly sustained Tiga, firing beams nonstop.
Moreover, Tiga's light was extremely neutral—possessing Dark Form, the three Base Forms, Shining Form, and more.
This meant it could react with Sol's various abilities to produce new forms.
Even better—the power of light could be linked with Sol's newly-achieved [Million-Star Emperor].
The power of light naturally resonated with stellar radiance.
The [Emperor Armor] drew power from stars.
Stacking the two could potentially amplify the power of a million stars into the power of a galactic trillion stars.
It might even be possible to use the light to pierce the imaginary barrier between galaxies and trigger resonance across all stars in the Star Rail Universe.
Achieving: Galactic Emperor or Galactic Ultraman.
Or perhaps pushing electromagnetic control to the scale of the universal magnetic field—equally immeasurable.
In terms of energy level, stars made up most of the universe's mass. A Galactic Emperor resonating with all stars would be roughly half a step into the ninth tier.
Meaning: without external interference, the Galactic Emperor would be a solitary entity bonded with the entire cosmos.
Of course, in a world like Star Rail—filled with multiple Aeons—this was unlikely. Regardless of raw power, an Aeon could likely sever the light before the Galactic Emperor took form.
Just after thinking through all of this, Sol became certain it was feasible—the intuition of a Trailblazer of the Stars.
Naturally, to achieve it he would need abundant research funding—and preferably several brilliant geniuses.
Even the [Stellar-Grade Cognitive Computer: "Artemis"] would struggle visibly with such calculations.
In fact, during simulations of the [Million-Star Emperor], it had already run into computational shortages. Fortunately, the jump from one to three stars was qualitative, and from three to a million only quantitative—so the research barely succeeded.
Perhaps the Simulated Universe—with its immense computational power from the Herta Space station—would be a suitable place.
Sol took a deep breath and murmured in awe, "Still underestimated you."
Just earlier he'd thought the system's rewards were nearing uselessness.
He hadn't expected a random gold to give him such a massive surprise.
His thoughts suddenly opened up.
In the Ultraman universe, Statues of Tiga weren't rare, nor were they so overwhelmingly strong.
Even Shining Tiga (Daigo) only destroyed an evil god on Earth.
Compared to resonating with a trillion stars across the universe, its energy level wasn't even close.
But mixing different systems had sparked entirely new inspiration within Sol.
Tiga's origins were enormous—as the First Light of Orion—and he was an absolute powerhouse in the entire Ultra universe.
A single ray of his light wasn't much, but its quality revealed the essence of an entirely different universe.
Likewise, the [Emperor Armor] possessed the same high-level essence.
Both contained the core informational structure of their respective universes.
Sol felt he understood something—perhaps Nous, the Aeon of Erudition, looked at him with this sort of perception.
Only, Nous had only seen his surface, requiring Sol to reveal more through great achievements.
But with the remnant light of Tiga, Sol now had the chance to observe in depth.