>> You have chosen the ‘Pulsar Beam Saber’ for the Day 1 daily login bonus <<

The PBS materialized out of the screen and landed in my hands. It’s a decent weight, and when I turned it on a yellow-coloured beam extended around a meter off of it.

From the information provided with the item, it seems to be a common reliable weapon, as long as you have the energy to power it.

I stored it in my inventory and set off in a random direction.

The process of gathering minerals was straightforward, just me randomly picking up rocks or digging out deposits that I come across. The system tells me which ones are useful and I quickly racked up the materials I need.

There were also quite a few small wrecks around the landscape as I continued my journey, what seemed to be like broken rovers or spacecrafts similar to what NASA would make in real life.

I was able to salvage quite a few parts from them, which I turned into more materials. I even got a working radio transmitter from a well-preserved construct.

“…It is currently 7:51 AM Standardized Time…”

Other than that message, all I got from it was static. Looks like I have to be near civilization to get a proper signal.

Climbing a hill, I saw a forest in the distance. It looked like the pine forests I know, except that the bark and leaves were both dark red in colour.

I made my way over and entered the forest, planning to cut down a few trees and see what they’re made of.

The PBS really helped me chop down the trees, which felt like steel to the touch. I would have only gotten some small branches without it.

The lumber I got from the red trees were called Armatine Redwood. There is a moderate amount of isotopic activity in them, making them a decent source of energy. Uzzu told me they make pretty good starting power cells, so I quickly refined a third of my stock into them.

A notification popped up on my HUD.

System: ‘Armatine Redwood Forest (Medium)’ recorded southwest of Syrtis Major.

System: Academium Prestige has increased by 1.

I see, coming across interesting things on my own counts as research, huh.

There didn’t seem to be anything more to these woods, so I left them and continued to gather.

---

I arrived at the city with a full inventory.

There was a limit to what I could craft on my own, and the city had the tech and manpower I needed to finish my repairs.

It was a rather sizable city, with numerous skyscrapers jutting up into the sky in various shapes and sizes. The architecture uses a lot of white, which gave the buildings a nice contrast against the red landscape of the planet.

There were many drones and transporters running around, but the streets didn’t really feel crowded.

I headed into the market and sold some of my excess materials to earn some credits. The interaction with the shopkeeper, a hardened middle-aged man, felt indistinguishable from reality; I almost fooled myself thinking he wasn’t an NPC.

That’s not to say humans are the only residents in this city: I saw my share of alien looking people among the citizens and travelers myself.

In the parts repair shop, while I’m waiting for the person in charge to finish forging my spares,

“I haven’t asked around yet, but where am I? …Seems like I lost track of direction on my way here.”

The shopkeeper, a young woman with red hair and grease on her face, turned to answer my question.

“Syrtis Eo Alpha. You’re in the Second Commercial District, where a lot of repair shops like ours operate.” She replied with a grin.

“…And where is that? Sorry for asking such a stupid question.” I had a look of embarrassment on my face.

“That bad, huh.” She pondered, “Syrtis Eo is a cluster of three cities famous for its trade and export of iron, at least in the Solar System. We’re in Alpha, the oldest of them.”

“If you’re looking to see the early life and evolution of civilization here on Mars, the living history of this city won’t disappoint you!”

“I see, thank you.”

Mars, huh? Our own Solar System exists in HF as well. I wonder what Earth looks like in this game.

Soon after, I paid for the spare parts and left. Since they were mostly low-grade tech, and I provided them the materials, the repair costs weren’t that much.

“Thanks for your patronage, customer! If you come by our shop again, make sure to ask for Liz!”

She sent me off cheerfully.

---

“Here we go.”

Making sure that the ers were stabilized, I adjusted the course and trajectory of my ship to leave Mars.

Everything seemed to be in good condition after the broken parts were replaced. The handiwork in Liz’s shop was quite reliable.

The g-force from the initial launch was quite hard on my body, but it quickly subsided as my shuttle broke through the atmosphere. Looks like the devs implemented the physics of the takeoff process well, whether I liked it or not.

Soon after, I escaped the gravity of the planet and entered into the darkness of outer space, glittered by the shining stars.

My current ship, ‘Wandering 14’, drifted aimlessly in zero gravity. The localized gravity was active inside the crew quarters, so I didn’t float around in it.

“Oh, right, gotta activate my comms.”

The communication plugin was repaired along with everything else when I was on the ground, but I was too busy controlling the ship to turn it on earlier. It’s tied to the chat function, so it’s pretty important to me as a player.

The conversation window appeared before me.

You: Hey, hey~ Anyone here?

Exy: Looks like KC is with us as well 🙋

KC was the nickname I used with WJSN. The letters were my initials anyway, so I was quickly set on it.

Eunseo: Welcome to the chat, friend ;)

You: Hello~ So who else is on here?

Yeonjung: Me 🙋

Xuanyi: here

Yeoreum: It was hard, but here I am.

Counting the roll call, it looks like 10 out of the 14 members were online.

Seola, Soobin, Dawon and Dayoung haven’t gotten around to fixing their own comms plugins, apparently.

You: So how was your start, girls? Are you in space now?

Bona: If only you knew how huge the trees in my rainforest was! Fortunately the jungle experience got me out without a lot of problems…

Luda: At least you didn’t spawn in a gas planet, unnie. The storms I had to deal with 😤

You: A gas planet? How did you even survive?

Luda: There were floating islands here and there. Not very realistic but this is a Sci-Fi game after all.

That makes sense, space in real life isn’t very fun to explore.

Exy: I think most of us have repaired our spacecrafts, KC. Counting out the four not yet with us, only Eunseo and Yeoreum is still on a planet?

Xuanyi: The Chinese members are all going to the nearest space station we can find. We think that we’ll be able to work out the route to meet up there.

Chengxiao: The one I’m going to looks really pretty, like the neon metropolis cities we see so much in futuristic movies.

Eunseo: Heheh, I’m busy doing a little something here on my planet… Chao, was it?

Yeoreum: I don’t quite know where I am, either. There’s a lot of frost and ice where I’m at, and vision isn’t really good.

Bona: Seems like everyone’s in a weird place, huh?

You: Not me, I was on Mars before I left.

Bona: Mars? So our own solar system is in this game as well?

Yeonjung: Seems like it… I think I was on the Moon.

You: The Moon? What does the Earth look like, Yeonjung?

Yeonjung: I can’t quite see it from here.

---

The discussion continued with everyone in the chat recounting their experience fixing their ship and tech with the resources they found. Luda and Yeoreum also told us how they fought some rather nasty extraterrestrial beasts trying to survive, and Bona had to fend off some living plants as well. Their stories sent chills down my spine.

As for the daily login bonus, it looks like everyone got something good for themselves.

You: So what are you planning to do? According to Uzzu’s explanation, there are those four major classes we can take, right?

Bona: Not ‘classes’, but yeah. I’m thinking of going the Academium route, but not sure yet.

Luda: Industrion sounds pretty awesome to me, directing construction and development of entirely new colonies…

Exy: I’m thinking of becoming a trader, of sorts? Space business looks cool to get into.

You: I see… You do you, Exy.

Exy: What about it 😤

Some of the members already had certain goals in mind, while others weren’t so sure yet.

I can tell they’re just as curious as I am as to how many things this game can do, though. That’s good.

---

I myself don’t really have a particular goal in mind, especially with so little information to go on.

No one else has played Hyperspace Frontier to my knowledge, so I can’t really pull up a guide or wiki to tell me what to do.

Looks like I’ll have to keep learning as I go, just like Uzzu said.

I input a keyword into my ship navigation, to see where a good networking hub was.

It surprisingly pointed me to a location not far from here… A major site of archives, on Earth.

The city looked like a giant institution of records, a massive library of sorts on my screen.

The information says that this is the largest base of human knowledge built in the history of their exploration in space. It’s definitely a good place to start if I’m going to learn something.

On the other hand, some of the things piqued my interest from the girls’ discussions, especially to the two people still stuck on the ground.

Knowing Eunseo, I can tell that whatever she’s up to is something interesting. And even if it isn’t, she looks fun to have around and can be quite reliable when it matters.

The cold planet Yeoreum is at seems dangerous, but I think I have enough to fend myself off for a while. At worst I can just pick her up and fly the hell out of there.

Decisions, decisions.

A) Leave them to their devices and seek knowledge on Earth.

B) Get involved with Eunseo and whatever she’s dealing with.

C) Go to Yeoreum and try to keep her safe.