On Planet Three Kings, two individuals were walking down an alley.

One of them was Madison, and the other was a high official of the Modo Civilization who was Madison’s leader.

Both of them walked and chatted at the same time.

“You are in charge of the plan to make use of the natives and can report to the three Kings directly. This is a good opportunity,” the high official said with his arms behind his back. “Madison, I have always believed in your abilities, but can you ensure that the dynasty will never discover the truth? The three Kings will definitely remember you if something goes wrong, and your future will be over.”

“Ah, I’ve said this many times, but it will be impossible for the dynasty to discover us,” Madison said coldly but confidently. “I got rid of any traces many years ago. The serial number of that spaceship has been cleaned up, and I also washed the spaceship in magic many times to prevent prophecies. The dynasty won’t be able to find any clues from the spaceship, and what other clues can they find?

“Even if the dynasty manages to find the spaceship factory, I got an intelligence officer to clean up all our transactions with the factory, so the dynasty won’t be able to find anything. That intelligence officer is now living under a disguise, and everyone will think that he is dead. His personal file has also been temporarily deleted from the database, and he has been sent away. No one will be able to find him.

“Furthermore, we weren’t the ones to purchase the spaceship. It was purchased by a civilian financial group, and the spaceship changed hands many times. It was even robbed by galactic pirates. This spaceship was only secretly acquired by us many years after it went missing. Not a single trace was left behind. The dynasty won’t be able to find us if they try to track us through the spaceship.

“I also made some other arrangements along the way, and if the dynasty attempts to investigate this matter, they will only be misled to believe that the culprit is another Super Star Cluster Civilization.”

It had been many years since he sent the spaceship to the Kunde Race, and he had already begun cleaning up all traces a few years ago. As such, he was confident that the dynasty would not be able to find anything.

Upon hearing that, the high official nodded. “I feel assured if that’s the case.”

…

A silverish-blue planet was slowly moving in the universe like a gemstone floating in the darkness. Light was reflected off the surface of the planet and onto the smooth silver armor of a Lord avatar. A group of black mechanical soldiers were following behind the avatar silently.

This was a manufacturing planet of the Primeval Star River, and many different financial groups had operations on this planet.

The clue that he had found from [Bold Explorer] pointed to a factory located on this planet.

This factory produced only ordinary spaceships in large quantities without modifying them at all.

There was a certain market for such spaceships in the universe, and the other high-grade factories would not invest a large amount of resources to produce such spaceships without any core competencies.

Before sending out his mechanical soldiers, Han Xiao had already checked the background of the factory. They were a small business and did not have any backing.

“The mastermind will have erased all traces by now.”

Although he knew that this would most likely be the case, he still had to verify the matter.

Entering the quantum network, the entire planet before him suddenly became translucent with only their quantum network nodes being left behind.

Locking onto the quantum network node of the factory, Han Xiao infiltrated it immediately. The firewall of a small company like this would not pose any difficulty to him.

In an instant, Han Xiao had already obtained all the information in the factory’s database.

He first opened the production journal and sales record. He then realized that the earliest record was only three years ago, but it was impossible for this factory to be so young.

“Indeed, the mastermind cleaned up all traces.”

He checked the other records, and the records indicated an unexpected explosion three years ago.

There was an issue with the power supply during production, which resulted in the entire factory exploding. The main system was fried, resulting in the loss of all past records. All the hard copy files were also destroyed in the explosion, and even the surrounding factories were somewhat affected.

An investigation of the matter later found it to be due to a natural malfunction, but Han Xiao did not believe that. It was definitely a man-made disaster to destroy all evidence.

If he was the mastermind, he would clear up the factory’s records and ensure that the spaceship had changed hands many times before going missing. This would be the best way to ensure that all tracks leading to him were destroyed.

“Without any records, I won’t be able to find out the serial number of the spaceship, and this clue won’t be too useful…”

Han Xiao’s eyes gleamed.

“However, there’s still some payoff.”

At the very least, this clue revealed the production location to be in the Primeval Star River.

This meant that the four Super Star Cluster Civilizations running the Primeval Star River were the most suspicious. The scope of his investigation had already been narrowed greatly.

Of course, it was possible that a civilization from another Star Fields had intentionally purchased the spaceship from the Primeval Star River to frame someone else. However, Han Xiao would first analyze the suspects with the highest possibilities.

Although he did not have any clues currently, he knew that the dynasty also met with another event similar to the Kunde Race war during the later parts of the exploration phase in his previous life. After experiencing the Kunde Race war, the dynasty was better prepared and managed to find some suspicious characters.

The most suspicious civilization in the Primeval Star River was the Modo Civilization!

Their shoes would definitely be wet if they walked by the side of the river. The dynasty was not easily trifled with.

The mastermind would be able to clean up all the clues of the past, but they would not be able to clean up the clues of the ‘future’ in Han Xiao’s memories!

This was akin to saying, ‘Although you haven’t committed a crime yet, I know that you will in the future.’

He did not know if the Kunde Race incident was done by the Modo Civilization, but since the other party had a ‘past record’, they would be the most suspicious.

Because his clue had led to a dead end, Han Xiao had two ideas.

Since the accident at the factory was deliberate, he could attempt to check the entry records of the planet three years ago and try to find the culprit behind the accident.

It would be extremely easy to tamper with the database of a small factory, but it would be far more difficult to do so for the surveillance system of an entire planet. If the other party was capable of doing so, this path would be cut off as well.

The second method would be to make use of an elimination method. There were only a few possible culprits within the Primeval Star River, and Han Xiao could choose to investigate them individually, starting with the most suspicious Modo Civilization.

He preferred to have different methods up his sleeves and immediately infiltrated the surveillance system of the planet.

With his powerful calculation abilities, he came to a conclusion quickly. There were no suspicious characters who approached the factory on the day of the accident.

“It wasn’t done by an outsider? There are two possibilities. First, the mastermind altered the records of the entire surveillance system. Second, it was an inside job.”

He would be helpless if it was the former, and Han Xiao could only attempt to investigate the latter.

If it was not done by an outsider, it could only be an inside job.

“If I was the culprit and was ordered by my superior to infiltrate into the factory, there would be no need for me to remain in the factory after completing my mission. Thus, I’d need an excuse to leave. If that’s the case…”

Han Xiao searched the list of workers who had died in the accident three years ago.

After the accident, all the workers that were still alive went through a strict check, and many of them resigned. However, Han Xiao was certain that there was a higher possibility of a spy pretending to die. It was a much ‘cleaner’ way of cleaning up their presence. After all, an outstanding intelligence officer would definitely have different identities, and dying would be akin to destroying the identity.

As such, it was likely that the culprit was on the list of workers who died.

It would not be difficult for Han Xiao to check the resumes of these individuals, but it would be impossible for him to find anything strange in their resumes.

Instead, he needed to confirm if any of their resumes had signs of being forged.

It was easy to forge a resume, but checking it was not too difficult either. It was just a little troublesome. One only had to follow the resume to ask the previous organizations and relatives of the individual if such a person existed.

If there were traces of forgery on any of the resumes, it would mean that the individual was suspicious. Then, he just needed to make use of the elimination method by comparing the resumes of the individuals to the files of the intelligence officers of the Modo Civilization and other Super Star Cluster civilizations.

If the culprit had snuck into the factory, they must have used a false identity, and even their appearance might be fake. However, this was not a dead end.

The factory’s data was destroyed, but the planet’s surveillance record was still around. Han Xiao would be able to write an algorithm to analyze the footage and compare them with the intelligence officers of the various organizations.

This way, he would be able to match the culprit to the right organization.

The next problem would be… just how could Han Xiao obtain the files of these intelligence officers.

The Black Star Army did not have any organizations in the Primeval Star River.

Han Xiao scratched his alloy head.

He did not know about the rest, but a possessive jerk like Manison would definitely have plenty of information on the various Super Star Cluster Civilizations.

Even the Federation of Light had to guard against the Mechanic Emperor’s Virtual Intrusion, so he had probably done so before. If that was the case, how could the Super Star Cluster Civilizations be safe?

“Alright then, it seems like I’ll have to go and meet the Mechanic Emperor.”