Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 148

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 148. Galaxy Martial God Hall – School Trip (2)

I packed whatever I needed into my bag.
Since the school trip lasted five nights and six days, I had quite a lot to fit into my suitcase.
Clothes, towels, toothpaste, toothbrush, snacks, and so on.
I had an Inventory and a Pocket Dimension Cube, so honestly I didn’t need a bothersome bag like this, but if I didn’t bring one, everyone would think it strange, so there was no getting around it.
I wasn’t going to open this suitcase during the trip, but I still had to pack it.
In truth, I was like a moving company walking around with not just all manner of daily necessities—food and clothes and the like—but furniture enough to furnish a small mansion.
The furniture was, naturally, things I’d bought to use on Tower Floor 1.
As for how I’d bought expensive things like furniture with pocket money barely worth mentioning—the answer was that I didn’t buy them with pocket money at all, but through the school’s Point Mall.
The dormitory came equipped with basic desks, chairs, and beds, but if you wanted, you could return the default furniture and purchase whatever you preferred.
Of course, you couldn’t just bring in any random furniture—only items obtained through the Point Mall were permitted.
The Point Mall was a carrot used to control students; if outside goods were allowed, the Point Mall would lose its purpose, and besides, economic disparity could create friction among the student body.
By the way, when you bought from the Point Mall, you could enter a delivery address, and I’d set the club room as my default destination, so Siu had no idea I was splurging like this.
You might ask—wouldn’t Teacher Kim Do-hwa say something if I kept buying things indiscriminately?
But Teacher Kim Do-hwa rarely came to the club room except during club hours.
As a result, the club room had long since become my and the club members’ after-school safe house.
Besides, it was common for students to pool points and decorate their club rooms, so when sofas, a refrigerator, and carpets appeared in the club room, no one said much about it.
Though I did get scolded when I bought a bed, asking if this was a dormitory, and had to move it to Tower Floor 1.
Most of the things in the club room were purchased with my personal points, so I was planning to take them all with me to middle school.
Once I get to middle school, I’ll start an Elixir Club and turn that space into a safe house too.
After packing my travel luggage, I rode in the car driven by Siu, alongside Cheon So-yeon, heading to school.
“Have a safe trip.”
I accepted Siu’s send-off and entered through the school’s front gate.
Several buses lined up at the gate, ready to transport the entire sixth-year class.
I went to the classroom, confirmed attendance, listened to a brief scolding from Teacher Kim Do-hwa, and then boarded a bus heading to the Space Airport.
In the current era, most airports are space airports with spacecraft to venture into space.
Pure aircraft as planetary transportation have been replaced by floating automobiles and the inter-continental Levitation High-way using autonomous driving integrated systems.
Put simply, aircraft disappeared because they weren’t profitable.
Still, modern spacecraft don’t use the rocket fuel propulsion of antiquity; they use gravity regulation devices based on superconductors and reverse-gravity equations, employing levitation methods, so they’re fully capable of serving an airplane’s role.
Even if capable, no airline in the Great Space Age uses spacecraft as mere airplanes.
“Wow! This is my first time seeing a spacecraft!”
Cheon So-yeon, catching sight of the distant airport, was buzzing with excitement.
Since the usually composed Cheon So-yeon was this thrilled, the others chattered away happily too.
The class split into two camps—those who’d ridden spacecraft and those who hadn’t—and made a noisy fuss, some bragging and exaggerating, others dismissing spacecraft experience as no big deal.
Watching them boast about anything they’d done once more, I was reminded that children were children, after all.
Since everyone trained martial arts daily, they were all lively as beagles, no exception.
Many students at school had come from other planets, moons, or colonies to enroll, so plenty had ridden spacecraft, and a minority like me who hadn’t stuck out.
The funny thing was that those who hadn’t ridden spacecraft were mostly children born and raised on the capital planet, so they were mostly from wealthy families.
Space travel wasn’t recommended for young children due to cosmic radiation, and with the competitive school schedule, there was no time to play during breaks—so it was inevitable that some hadn’t ridden a spacecraft.
“But will we be okay going out into space?”
Cheon Gong-hu, sitting behind me, despite his growing frame, asked nervously, clearly anxious about venturing into space.
I expected to hear Cheon Ga-ryeong’s usual voice telling him not to be scared, that it’d be fine—but there was silence.
Turning around, I saw Cheon Ga-ryeong rolling her eyes, clearly scared herself.
I let out a soft laugh and spoke.
“It’s fine. Space aviation technology has been established for three thousand years—what could possibly go wrong at this point? Deaths from spacecraft accidents are fewer than deaths from heart attacks.”
I didn’t say fewer than car accidents because the autonomous driving system was too well-developed; accidents simply didn’t happen unless you deliberately sabotaged the system.
And in this era, personal spacecraft are widely distributed.
Yet Cheon Ga-ryeong remained anxious despite my words.
“But cosmic radiation is supposed to be so bad for your body. They say space travel isn’t recommended for children under fourteen.”
“Spacecraft are designed to block most radiation. And the warning about children under fourteen not being recommended for space travel applies only if they haven’t trained martial arts. At 3rd Rank Cultivation alone, you can sufficiently block the trace radiation inside a spacecraft.”
It wasn’t for nothing that martial artists led the way in the space exploration era.
They were living, breathing machines of space development.
Students who’d spent six years at this school, even the lower ranks, had all reached 3rd Rank Cultivation.
While the top students were pushing past 2nd Rank toward 1st Rank Cultivation, the lower ranks reached the tail end of 3rd Rank and peeked at 2nd Rank—so as long as you didn’t step outside the spacecraft naked, there was no real danger from cosmic radiation.
“You’re nearly at 1st Rank yourself, Ga-ryeong. Why are you so scared?”
Though she hadn’t crossed the threshold yet, with effort she might even reach 1st Rank before graduation.
In response to my question, it wasn’t Cheon Ga-ryeong but Cheon Gong-hu who answered with a laugh.
“I watched a documentary about cosmic radiation not too long ago.”
“Oh, that one. I saw it too—it’s entertaining, but they really oversell it for the sake of drama. They go on about these cases that happen to maybe one person in tens of millions as though cosmic radiation were some earth-shattering truth. Honestly, unless you’re phenomenally unlucky, you won’t end up like that even if you wanted to. And if you’ve trained in the martial arts, even less so.”
Still, thinking back on how genuinely horrific the person in the footage looked, I understood why Cheon Ga-ryeong was frightened.
Perhaps venturing into space itself
was the kind of experience and education worth trying at least once.
If you had no intention of landing a desk job in the inner halls of the Cheon Family Estate or work as a security officer after university, then as someone active in the Galaxy Martial Arts World, your sphere of activity would span the entire galaxy—meaning you had to grow accustomed to leaving Earth.
Once we arrived at the Space Airport, we went through the boarding procedures to board the spacecraft.
“Wow! A spacecraft!”
The spacecraft’s form was nothing like the streamlined shape people commonly imagined.
The streamlined form people typically envisioned was a shape that had evolved to account for air resistance and reduce it.
Like how a fish swims with a streamlined body to cut through water, or how automobiles developed curves in their chassis to reduce air resistance.
But space was fundamentally a vacuum—there was no air resistance to contend with when moving forward.
So passenger spacecraft were shaped close to perfect rectangles.
If the spacecraft’s form was unrestricted, the most efficient shape was inevitably rectangular.
Any curves would necessarily waste space, so from an industrial standpoint, the rectangle was most efficient.
It was the same principle as private cars having curves for fuel efficiency, while buses that carry maximum passengers are rectangular.
You might think such a shape wouldn’t be efficient inside the atmosphere, and you’d be right.
With that form, fuel efficiency drops significantly within the atmosphere.
That’s why private spacecraft are built in streamlined form even within the atmosphere to optimize fuel efficiency.
But since moving quickly to break through the atmosphere causes intense vibration and gravitational overload regardless, you can only go slowly—and at slow speeds, streamlined or rectangular shapes show no meaningful difference in fuel efficiency.
Once we boarded the spacecraft, the interior came into view.
The spacecraft’s interior wasn’t drastically different from the airplanes I knew well.
The only differences were that, befitting the rectangular shape, the seating was divided across multiple levels, and the seats had more legroom.
Once everyone was seated, the flight attendants explained how to fasten seatbelts and the emergency evacuation procedures.
Before long, a voice came from the captain piloting the spacecraft.

—We thank all passengers for choosing Huashan Express Space Airlines. From this moment, our spacecraft will begin its journey toward the PG-9 Asteroid Belt and the Blue Prize Snow Resort Asteroid. We inform you that you may experience significant shaking and a 20 percent gravitational acceleration as we break through the atmosphere. Passengers who find the gravitational acceleration difficult to endure may call a staff member to activate the decompression device. Thank you.

As the captain’s announcement ended, the spacecraft trembled slightly, accompanied by a gradual sensation of lifting.
Then came a sensation of pressure pressing down on the body, growing bit by bit.
It was far more intense than the sensation of increased weight you feel in an elevator.
“Wow! It feels like the air is crushing my whole body!”
Cheon So-yeon’s eyes shone with genuine wonder as she laughed.
True to the captain’s warning, the sensation of being pressed down by roughly 20 percent of body weight continued for several tens of minutes before, at a sudden moment, I felt the body lift.
“Please do not unfasten your seatbelts!”
The flight attendants shouted urgently, blocking the children as they tried to unbuckle.

—As of this moment, we have exited the atmosphere and fully entered space. We will now activate the Artificial Gravity Device aboard. Passengers may feel a sudden heaviness, but you will grow accustomed quickly, so please do not be alarmed. You may unfasten your seatbelts once the device is operational.

The moment the captain finished speaking, gravity returned, and bodies pressed back against seats.
Coming from weightlessness to feeling gravity again made the body feel suddenly heavy—though in reality, we were far lighter than usual.
“So the artificial gravity is satellite-level at best.”
If Earth gravity was 1G, the artificial gravity inside the spacecraft was roughly 0.2G.
The Artificial Gravity Device was the most crucial equipment in Terraforming Colonies of satellite-grade or below, which couldn’t hold an atmosphere.
The Artificial Gravity Device served to hold in place the atmosphere where life could breathe.
“Wow! It feels like we’re floating!”
“Do not jump high inside the ship!”
As the reckless children unbuckled their seatbelts and tried to run around the spacecraft, Teacher Kim Do-hwa rose from her seat, emanating a fierce pressure as she surveyed the cabin.
“We’ll reach the destination in three hours, so sit quietly.”
Under Teacher Kim Do-hwa’s pressure, the students settled into their seats and even fastened their seatbelts, becoming as silent as mice.
Teacher Kim Do-hwa is genuinely scary.
Not long after Teacher Kim Do-hwa sat down, the students glanced around cautiously before starting to chatter noisily again—though they didn’t jump around in the spacecraft.
Once the rowdy atmosphere resumed, Cheon Ha-sung, sitting in the left-side aisle seat next to me, asked me a question.
“But even traveling at light speed to the outer edge of a star system takes over five hours, doesn’t it? Is this spacecraft faster than light?”

(To be continued)

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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