When the Stardust Train landed on Spirit Soil Planet in the Orion arm, Arui stepped across the white salt crust covering the ground, hearing the crisp sound of root systems snapping beneath her. Once celebrated as the "Cosmic Garden," this planet now featured a surface cracked like a spiderweb, with its once-dense Star-Vein Trees reduced to withered black trunks, their roots tangled in black parasites known as "Entropy Mycelium." Ice Drip's scanner projected a fluorescent Spectrum into the soil: "Symbiotic microbial communities have declined by 97.32%, and soil Numinous frequency has dropped below the critical threshold."
The farming elder at the village entrance cupped a handful of grayish-white soil, the sand grains slipping between his fingers flashing with a faint metallic luster: "In the past, Spirit Soil could breathe. The roots of the Star-Vein Trees and the microbial communities would dance the 'Symbiotic Ballad'." The elder poked the ground with his cane, dark red liquid oozing out from beneath the salt crust. "Now they are pickled by 'Entropy Salt,' just like the saline-alkali land of Earth, incapable of growing any hope."
Arui squatted down, her fingertips touching the withered roots of a Star-Vein Tree, and the symbiotic mark in her palm suddenly glowed with an earth-yellow halo—the black mycelium on the roots reacted with the mark, repelling it, yet revealing tiny golden buds deep within. "They are still resisting," Arui said softly, recalling the teachings of …
Chapter 312