In just this short while, four to five hundred people had already gathered in the hall, twice as many as before.
And this was only right after the news had spread—many people were still out and hadn’t returned yet.
Once everyone arrived, there would probably be two to three thousand.
The two heads of the family’s Jinmen branch had both arrived by now.
Li Lun, Li Lie’s father, still wore that same Zhongshan suit, leaning on an ornate golden sandalwood cane.
Under everyone’s gaze, he said in a deep voice:
“You should all already know why I’ve gathered you here today, so I won’t waste words. The Clan Head has established a Pioneer Fund of fifty trillion Star Credits to support your development. Anyone who meets the conditions may apply for development funds. The specific application details will be sent to you shortly.”
“I don’t need to explain—everyone knows what eight Life Planets means. The Empire hasn’t discovered a new Life Planet in fifty years. Right now, the eyes of the entire Empire are fixed on this place, and the competitive pressure is enormous. But if you can successfully claim even one Life Planet, the foundation for establishing a new Warlord Clan will be in place.”
At this point, a trace of envy appeared on Li Lun’s face, and he said with a bitter smile:
“If the Noble Senate hadn’t passed a resolution barring descendants of Warlord Clans established more than ten years ago from entering, you wouldn’t have had this opportunity at all.”
Li Lun didn’t speak for long before leaving, but the crowd didn’t disperse, nor did they make any noise.
Everyone quietly reviewed the more detailed information Li Lun had sent them about the news, as well as the application requirements for the Pioneer Fund.
Just like Li Lie had said, they skimmed through it once and focused their attention entirely on the more detailed data.
According to the data, the three civilizations didn’t have known names yet and were temporarily designated A, B, and C.
Of the eight Life Planets, seven belonged to these three alien civilizations: A held three, B held two, and C also held two.
The remaining one lay at the junction of the three civilizations and was currently being contested by all three.
The data showed that the three civilizations had similar levels of technology, between the third and fourth generations.
They had already produced Flagship-class Super Dreadnoughts, though no Titan Super-Flagships had been observed yet.
Their technological level was inferior to humanity’s, and the most advanced weapons they used were only fifth generation—the upper limit of conventional weapons.
Fifth generation was indeed considerably stronger than fourth, but it hadn’t produced a qualitative change.
Moreover, the territory of any one of the three civilizations was several times larger than Jinmen Province, and any single civilization’s overall strength exceeded that of Jinmen Province.
For these few waves of pioneers alone, conquering even one of these three civilizations would not be easy.
But nothing in this world is easy.
Eight Life Planets—it was only natural that they would be hard to claim.
Besides, compared to their predecessors, they were far luckier.
Eight Life Planets to fight over—just think of the founders of other Warlord Clans in the past, with countless players fighting over a single Life Planet.
That was real competition.
That was exactly why Li Lun had sighed and told them this was a once-in-a-millennium opportunity.
As everyone finished reading the data one after another, they exchanged glances, their eyes flickering.
Li Qing received Li Lie’s message and arrived at Room 32, the same one as before.
Upon entering this time, he found that besides Li Lie there were seven other people, including two women with rather refined looks.
Only one of them seemed somewhat familiar—he thought he’d seen her before, but didn’t know her name.
He had always been too low-key in the past.
After Li Lie repeated the same words as before, he looked at everyone and said:
“Now let’s decide—are we forming this team or not?”
Everyone looked at each other.
After a few of them lowered their heads to whisper among themselves, a handsome man with permed, instant-noodle-style hair stood up and said:
“We have no objection to forming a team, but not just anyone can join. I’m familiar with most of the people here, and I have a good sense of their strength. But this Brother Li Qing—as far as I know, he not only has just an ordinary Innate Talent, his academic performance was mediocre as well, and he has no Matrilineal Support. I have doubts about his strength.”
“Of course, I’m not targeting you specifically. But since we’re forming a team, our strengths need to be roughly comparable. If you can prove yourself with your abilities, I’ll have nothing more to say.”
Everyone’s eyes focused on Li Qing.
His expression unchanged, he looked up and said:
“What kind of strength do you think I need to prove myself?”
Li Qing felt a bit annoyed, but he knew this was only human nature.
No normal person wanted a dead weight dragging down their team.
After all, this wasn’t child’s play.
The loss of even a single Escort Ship meant tens of millions down the drain, and a fully-equipped Destroyer cost at least five or six hundred million—a Cruiser was even more.
Even he himself would have the same thoughts.
The instant-noodle-haired man immediately said:
“Never mind future support—for right now, you’d need at least two Cruisers, three or more Destroyers, and twenty or more Escort Ships.” This story is hosted at g.com.
Li Lie frowned slightly and was about to speak when the voice of the instant-noodle-haired man, Li Qi, sounded in his ear:
“I know this requirement is rather harsh, but he has a Blank Innate Talent and no Matrilineal Support. His potential is virtually nonexistent. If he wants to join our team, he needs to have far greater strength.”
Li Lie immediately replied:
“You know he has a Blank Innate Talent and no Matrilineal Support, so how could he have built a fleet of this scale in less than two years?”
“Luck!”
Li Qi answered:
“When you have nothing else, all you can rely on is luck. With enough luck, you can offset most of your shortcomings. But if you have nothing and lack even luck, then you’re truly worthless.”
Li Lie said nothing.
Although he quite favored Li Qing and felt his mindset was good, with the possibility of him making something of himself, Li Qi’s words weren’t wrong either, and he couldn’t refute them.
Everyone looked at Li Qing.
He simply shook his head and said:
“I don’t have that many ships. Right now I have just one fully-equipped Hurricane-class Destroyer and one fully-equipped Swift-class Escort Ship.”
“That’s a shame!”
Li Qi shook his head and said:
“Given your circumstances, earning a fully-equipped Hurricane-class Destroyer in just two years is actually quite impressive—I won’t deny that. In fact, I rather admire you for it. But this team formation is extremely important, and we only want powerful teammates. I’m sorry!”
Li Qing smiled:
“No matter. I’d do the same in your position. Well then, you all carry on. I’ll head out first.”
He waved his hand and pushed open the door to leave.
As he stepped out, Li Lie’s voice sounded in his ear:
“Sorry, the team’s already full, and I’m not the captain yet, so I can’t help you.”
Li Qing replied:
“No worries, I’m really not upset. Everything he said was true.”
That was no lie—they hadn’t said anything wrong, and their reasoning was sound.
It wasn’t baseless contempt.
Then again, this was actually a good thing for Li Qing.
He had never been that interested in teaming up in the first place, preferring to keep a low profile.
He’d been hesitating over how to refuse Li Lie, and now the excuse was right there, ready-made.
It wasn’t that he opposed teaming up—it was mainly that if he applied for the team fund, he would have to enter Zuta within a year, and he hadn’t yet decided to go there right away.
The eight Life Planets were certainly tempting, but they were currently in the hands of three alien civilizations, and they would have to be taken by force.
In the meantime, Jinmen Province, being the closest, would surely send its fleet over to join forces with the players and crush the three alien civilizations.
It was predictable that this would be a protracted war—one that could easily drag on for a decade or two.
The early phase would essentially be reconnaissance and warfare, and the fight for those eight Life Planets was still a long way off.
Going now would be useless, not to mention dangerous.
Better to stay in the Tianjin Sector for a few more years, earn some money, and improve his strength before heading over.
This was basically the biggest event of late, and the entire Jinmen Star System was buzzing.
Countless players were eagerly discussing it—even in Li Qing’s classes, it was what the instructors talked about most.
After that family meeting, he had returned to his usual routine: classes or the library by day, and checking on the Destroyer’s construction progress at night.
As time passed, more and more Pioneers from different families returned, and teams of all sizes were formed.
Li Qing, meanwhile, remained alone, busy with his studies.
In addition, the personal Pioneer Fund he had applied for long ago finally came through—but it was only one hundred million.
Li Qing almost laughed, but considering how low-key he’d been—he hadn’t even told anyone about his Psionic Awakening—one hundred million wasn’t bad.
He didn’t even withdraw the money, transferring it directly to his second uncle to pay off the family debt.
The days passed one by one, and two months later, Li Qing’s various skills finally reached Lv5, meaning he could now build warships.
The first thing he did was order five Swift-class Escort Ship blueprints on the trading platform—two million each, ten million in total.
With his current shipbuilding skill level, he could only build standard Swift-class Escort Ships; the elite Raptor-Class was still beyond him.
Then he ordered a large batch of construction materials, worth around sixty million in total.
After that, he hired two senior shipbuilding engineers and thirty ordinary shipbuilding engineers.
Because they signed ten-year contracts and confidentiality agreements, and had to stay inside the Palm Universe without leaving, the senior shipbuilding engineers’ normal monthly salary was 200,000, or 300,000 for the premium rate, while ordinary shipbuilding engineers earned as much as 50,000 Star Credits a month—totaling 600,000 plus 1.5 million Star Credits in monthly wages.
He opened the Palm Universe’s entrance directly inside the shipyard, so the engineers and materials entered the shipyard’s warehouse directly.
The shipbuilding engineers had no idea where they actually were.
The High-Dimensional Fortress’s shipyard was extremely advanced.
Its structure could be freely reconfigured—divided into over two thousand workshops, each just large enough to hold a single Escort Ship, or combined into a single construction array capable of accommodating a Titan Super-Flagship over twenty kilometers long. Enjoying the story? Read on at novelping(.)com.
Building a Warship seemed quite complicated to outsiders, but to an engineer with construction capabilities, it wasn’t as difficult as one might imagine.
First, he—the Chief Shipbuilding Engineer overseeing the project—extracted the blueprints for the Escort Ships to be built from the chip, then sorted the blueprints for the various Modules and components into categories.
It was worth noting that a Warship’s blueprints referred to a single whole, but were in fact composed of countless component and Module blueprints combined together.
The blueprints for an Escort Ship numbered only a few hundred—not too complicated.
A Battleship’s blueprints, by contrast, numbered in the thousands.
All of these had to be extracted from the blueprint chip by the Chief Engineer and then assigned to the shipbuilding engineers under his command, which required a great deal of specialized knowledge.
To those who didn’t understand, it seemed very hard; to those who did, it was simple.
A total of 225 blueprints were handed down to his subordinates.
The massive shipyard sprang to life, with a steady stream of materials fed into it, processed into various components and Modules, then transported to the dry docks.
The High-Dimensional Fortress’s ultra-high-level dry docks and workshops not only greatly increased the production speed of components and Modules, but also dramatically improved their precision, which substantially raised the success rate of Warship construction.
Once all the components and Modules were manufactured, Li Qing, as Chief Engineer, then directed the equipment and mechanical arms in the dry dock to assemble all the Warship components and Modules according to the Escort Ship blueprints.
Looks simple, doesn’t it?
“Easy to understand at a glance, but a disaster the moment you try”—that’s exactly what this was.
Without professional knowledge and skills, you couldn’t do it well even with the blueprints in hand.
When all the components were assembled, a standard Swift-class Escort Ship stood before everyone.
No difficulties whatsoever, completed in one smooth go—as silky as the curve of a young girl’s hips and back.
The success on the first attempt gave Li Qing tremendous confidence.
After only a short rest, he hired another 8 Senior Shipbuilding Engineers and 120 ordinary Shipbuilding Engineers in one go, and began construction of the second through fifth Escort Ships.
No additional Chief Engineers needed to be recruited—with only five construction groups, he could handle it all himself.
Generally speaking, one Chief Engineer could simultaneously oversee the construction of ten Escort Ships, or five Destroyers, two Cruisers, or one Battleship.
An Escort Ship typically took about 60 days—two months—to build.
But the production workshops inside the High-Dimensional Fortress’s dry docks worked extremely fast, and the dock equipment and machinery were powerful.
Combined, this saved a great deal of time: an Escort Ship could roll out of the docks in just one month.
By the time Li Qing had exhausted all his materials and built five Escort Ships, only two months had passed.
With the five Escort Ships completed, all of his shipbuilding skills had leveled up by one.
He didn’t keep the five bare hulls—he sold them all, at 20 million apiece, for a total of 100 million.
But after deducting 10 million for the blueprints, 60 million for materials, and 10.5 million in monthly salaries for the 10 Senior Engineers and 150 ordinary Engineers, he was left with 19.5 million.
“Making nearly twenty million a month—that’s quite a profitable deal!”
And that was just five ships.
With ten ships, that would be forty million in income.
If the scale expanded to a hundred ships, wouldn’t that be four hundred million a month?
And what if it grew ten times beyond that?
Four billion?
Li Qing suddenly grew excited.
But after the excitement, careful thought revealed several problems that still needed solving.
First was the capital issue—whether hiring employees or purchasing shipbuilding materials, everything required money.
Of course, that wasn’t a big problem.
He could take it slow.
He would start by hiring a batch of employees and buying a batch of materials within his current means, then expand production once he earned more money.
No need to rush.
At the end of the day, he first needed to earn some starting capital.
Unfortunately, an individual application wouldn’t get him any money.
Revealing his Psionic Awakening would let him apply for a large sum, but it would also bring a pile of messy complications that would disrupt his plans.
The key issue was that the money granted for revealing psionic power wouldn’t solve his problems in one go.
The Pioneer Fund for individual applications had its limits—it was impossible for them to hand over tens of billions at once and be done with it.
At most, it would be a few billion.
And such a large sum wouldn’t be handed out as casually as a hundred million; it came with conditions—he would have to go to the battlefield at Zutar once he was ready.
With just one Destroyer, or at most one Cruiser with the fund, he would easily die on the spot in a battlefield between civilizations.