Minos and his group watched as the test spaceship hovered a few meters above the ground before the entrance to a large wormhole manipulated by the surrounding Demigods opened.
At the appropriate moment, the spaceship activated its engines. It moved forward at high speed, entering the wormhole in a matter of seconds.
While the people in the wormhole port watched, the ship's crew collectively controlled the appropriate parts of the ship as it moved through the wormhole's space tunnel.
This ship was completely different from the ships of years ago when the Minos people began to evolve their techs.
As the empire's spiritual experts' understanding of enemy technologies increased, they were able to create new mechanisms and technologies that were more similar to what one would find in alien objects.
But this ship was still very different from the ship the empire had brought from the North Sea to study, and even though this unit was not ship-like, it had parts of its control with ship-like functions.
For example, ships always had people in charge of navigation, people who would take care of the route between the ship's starting point and its destination. This ship also had people responsible for that, who had to use their own powers to determine the path to take.
A wormhole wasn't like a straight tunnel leading from one point to another.
Space wasn't that simple!
Some points in space had different energy densities and other properties that made it more or less difficult to form natural or artificial wormholes.
Because of this difference, wormholes could take on unimaginable shapes even if they were created by conscious beings such as cultivators.
In most cases, these space tunnels would be curved. As such, someone flying through them would have to make special movements to avoid touching the walls of the space tunnel, which could destroy the bodies of practically all kinds of beings.
While the spaceship's navigators were taking care of the path, a group of operators were making it turn, while others were slowing down and speeding up it according to the path ahead.
At the same time, people were standing by to control the vehicle's laser and plasma cannons, which wouldn't be useful in this part of the test but always had to be ready for use.
They were heading for the central area of the South Sea, so they had to be aware of the possibility of an attack, which was not zero.
So, in addition to the gunners, there were people there to activate the ship's defenses, which basically had three levels, the first of which was the body of the vehicle itself, which was a large piece of resistant armor. The second level consisted of an electronic barrier capable of degrading attacks and reducing the offensive power of things or attacks that were between the ship's armor and up to 10 meters away from it.
The third and final level was a large barrier supported by special arrays that stood 10 meters away from the ship's armor and were capable of withstanding attacks from even mid-level Demigods.
"Get ready! We're about to reach the domain of the Sky Whales!" The ship's commander shouted as he saw the end of this wormhole coming closer and closer.
The 40 or so crew members of this spaceship prepared to exit the wormhole, a dangerous moment as they traveled through a space tunnel that had just been created.
They weren't traveling through a tunnel the empire had built within its territories but one that had been built for a trip.
Moreover, they were going to the middle of the ocean, an uninteresting place for wormhole travel since battles, extreme natural phenomena, and other things could happen where the wormhole exit opens.
However, the testing of this ship had to be extreme enough for them to take the risk since the empire's plan was to use such a ship in the future to travel to the Mechanic Empire.
The ship's defenses and weapons needed to be tested after all, so if anything happened when they arrived at their destination, it would be a good opportunity!
With everyone eager to get to the South Sea, they passed through the end of the space tunnel, leaving that dark and frightening area to reach a sea area that seemed to have no end, where it was sunny, and the sky was cloudless that day.
By the time they reached the place, the crew had the ship ready to defend itself, with its defenses activated and its weapons ready for use.
However, there were no strange phenomena at the place of their arrival, let alone any battles or beings displaying their powers there.
As the ship slowed down to fly more cautiously over the area, the crew smiled as they breathed more easily, seeing that the test flight through the wormhole had been successful. They had managed to reach this place without any problems.
"Navigators, where exactly are we? How do we accomplish His Majesty's mission?" The commander asked the people sitting on the right side of this ship's command area.
The empire's first wormhole-capable spaceship had about 500 square meters of floor space, with bathrooms, a training and cultivation area, as well as dormitories, a mess hall, the command area, a detention area, and the engine area.
The space on this ship was very well utilized. It had a total of four levels, with the middle two being the living areas, the top being the command area, and the bottom being the engine area.
Then, someone answered, giving directions to the group responsible for controlling the ship. "We are about 800 kilometers from one of the underwater cities in the territory of the Sky Whales. We should be able to complete His Majesty's mission there."
"Then let's go there." The commander said, just before the ship started moving again at high speed, following the directions of the navigators.
By now, it was flying at over 7,000 kilometers per hour, so fast that it could make continental voyages in a few days, even without using wormholes!
Ordinary grade-4 ships would take months to make the shortest ocean voyage in the world!
So, in less than 10 minutes, this crew would be over the area where this small underwater city was located, where they would soon be identified as they began to move toward the bottom of the sea!
