Li Qing remembered that when he used the Palm Universe to collect battleship wreckage before, the wreckage simply faded away and vanished, but when extracting stellar mass, it actually reignited the extinguished star—a clear difference.
He hadn’t noticed anything unusual before, but now it seemed that the key to being able to reignite an extinguished star so easily was probably the Instance World Origin he had extracted.
Normally, extracting stellar energy could also reignite an extinguished star, but it would never be this easy.
Li Qing didn’t dwell on it too much.
Whatever the case, he had gotten the benefit, and that was what mattered.
Besides, ordinary players could never get their hands on this thing—only seven had appeared in several hundred years, so whether the cooldown was five years or ten made no difference.
It was worth mentioning that some might think a hundred points doesn’t seem that hard to earn—you could just farm escort ships and destroyers instead of going after mainline warships like battleships.
But in reality, this was nearly impossible.
First of all, Li Qing’s point acquisition rate was determined by his strength—based on one destroyer and one escort ship.
Other players with the same configuration as him, without skills as powerful as a Psionic’s, would be even weaker than he was.
If their forces were stronger than his, the points gained from destroying enemy ships would be reduced.
If a player entered the Instance with a fully-equipped battleship, they would indeed be very powerful—soloing battleships would be no problem—but at that point, destroying an escort ship would yield no points at all, and even destroying a battleship head-on might only earn two or three points.
To accumulate a hundred points, they would probably need to destroy dozens of battleships.
While it might be possible to defeat multiple battleships by repeatedly dueling fully-equipped ones one-on-one, in reality battleships never appeared alone—they usually deployed as part of a small fleet.
If there were five or more battleships, there would be hundreds of escorting warships of various sizes.
A fully-equipped battleship could take on five third-generation-technology battleships at once, but it absolutely couldn’t beat battleships with that many escorts.
Additionally, farming small ships for points had a threshold—after reaching a certain number, point acquisition would drop sharply.
It was unlikely anyone could accumulate over a hundred points by farming thousands of escort ships.
This was the main reason why, in the several-hundred-year history of the Jinmen Naval Battle Instance, only seven players had ever successfully accumulated over a hundred points.
Li Qing had only gotten his two by cheating; under normal circumstances, there was no way he could have farmed over a hundred points on a chaotic battlefield.
Constantly walking by the river, how could one not get wet shoes?
Once his accumulated points grew high enough, it would mean he had destroyed too many enemy ships, and he would definitely be noticed by the enemy command.
Once the enemy prepared to hunt him down, it would be very hard for him to survive with just one ship.
The exchange was simple, but before exchanging, Li Qing first tapped the light-screen that popped up asking whether to remain anonymous, setting his name on the Instance leaderboard to anonymous.
Over three hundred points would definitely cause an enormous stir.
If he didn’t go anonymous, he’d be pestered to death later.
Then—
The two flagship blueprints were definitely exchanged first; that required no consideration.
With the remaining 172.8 points, he thought for a moment and decided to exchange them all for battleship blueprints.
Actually, he had wanted to exchange for a large batch of Escort Ship blueprints for his own use, saving himself the trouble of buying them on the trading market.
But after considering the price difference between Escort Ship blueprints and Battleship blueprints, exchanging directly for big-ship blueprints was clearly the better deal.
After all, a Swift-class Escort Ship blueprint cost only 2 million, while a Knight-class Battleship blueprint cost as much as 1 billion—one Battleship blueprint could be exchanged for 500 Escort Ship blueprints.
A Knight-class Battleship blueprint only required 30 points, an Elite Crusader-class Battleship required 40 points, and an Excellence Lord-class Battleship required 50 points.
The Lord-class Battleship required over 90 points to exchange for, while the other two required accumulating at least 80 points.
Li Qing had 172.8 points remaining.
After some thought, he spent 100 points to exchange for two Excellence Lord-class Battleship blueprints.
With the remaining 72.8 points, he exchanged for two Knight-class Battleship blueprints, spending 60 points in total.
With the remaining 12.8 points, he exchanged for six Excellence Black Hawk-class Corvettes, at 2 points each, requiring at least 50 points to exchange.
In the end, 0.8 points remained—not even one point, so nothing more could be exchanged.
The reason he exchanged the remaining points for Black Hawk Corvettes rather than Destroyers was that these things were simply too rare.
Warships came in three tiers: , Elite, and Excellence.
Template warships were very common, found everywhere out there.
Elite Templates were extremely rare, but they could be bought—as long as you were willing to pay enough.
Excellence Templates could be called rare; they simply weren’t sold anywhere outside.
Li Qing had considered that he would need several Escort Ships no matter what.
In the early stages, he could only command Destroyers and Escort Ships—his Naval Command Skill still needed to level up several more times before he could command Cruisers, and Battleships were even further out of reach.
Even if someone gave him a Battleship now, he couldn’t command it.
It was worth noting that this so-called “command” referred to the bonuses from one’s own skills taking effect on the commanded warship, not the act of physically operating the ship. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
If the Basic Naval Command Skill level was insufficient, one’s skill bonuses could not take effect on higher-tier warships.
For example, if Li Qing were given a Battleship right now, with enough crew and a captain it could be operated, but his Command Skill bonuses and Psionic skill bonuses would not take effect on the Battleship.
So, whether now or in the future even after his Command Skill leveled up, he would still need Escort Ships.
Besides, as a solo player, it was best to go the elite route.
A top-spec Black Hawk Corvette with enhanced modifications could take on a non-top-spec ordinary Destroyer one-on-one, and against ordinary Escort Ships, it could fight several at once.
While he was exchanging here, he had no idea that outside, things were already in an uproar.
The points leaderboard for the [Battle of Jinmen] Instance, which had remained fixed for decades, suddenly changed today—the original first place was knocked down to second.
If it were merely a change in ranking, it wouldn’t have caused much of a stir.
The key was that the new first place had a whopping 372.8 points—more than three times the original first place’s score, which was simply outrageous.
As Jinmen Province’s number one Instance and the source of a large portion of the province’s Warship Blueprints, countless players had entered it and knew just how absurd its difficulty was.
For someone to suddenly score more than three times the previous first place’s total—that was simply outrageous.
But while ordinary players were shocked about who this anonymous person was, the first reaction of the many major powers was the whereabouts of those three flagship-class warship blueprints.
Flagship-class warships belonged to the very top tier of warships in the Star Sea.
Aside from Titan Super-Flagships, and the utterly unattainable things like Mobile Fortresses or Mobile War Stars, they were the most top-tier warships players could possibly obtain.
Even for the various Warlord Clans, they were dream super warships—the kind you wanted as many as you could get, searching the whole world for them.
These things were absolute rarities, extremely few in number.
There was no hope of buying one on the trading market; such things would never be placed on the market.
They were either traded privately or put in auction houses, and usually as the finale item.
Countless teams wanted to get a flagship to anchor their forces, but none could buy one.
Now, with the possibility of three flagship blueprints appearing at once, everyone in Jinmen—from the ruling Yu Clan at the top down to ordinary teams—had practically gone mad.
When Li Qing finished exchanging his points, an announcement suddenly popped up before his eyes:
“The Yu Clan wishes to purchase a flagship Dreadnought Blueprint for the high price of 30 billion Star Credits, and a flagship Interstellar Carrier Blueprint for 35 billion Star Credits. If you have other conditions, as long as they can be met, we will satisfy them. If you wish to sell, please message Lady Yu Qing privately.”
“Holy cow!”
The Yu Clan had actually used their own privileges to send a message to every player in the entire Jinmen Province.
This was simply—
He opened the Regional Channel.
It seemed to lag for a moment, then was flooded with all kinds of shocked messages from onlookers.
Among the many messages, there were numerous purchase offers.
At the same time, pinned purchase offers appeared one after another on the various regional channels.
Many great families, Legions, and others in Jinmen Province were all seeking to buy from the anonymous person, and Li Qing saw a purchase offer from the Qinghe Li Clan among them.
“This is really—”
“So satisfying!”
Seeing so many purchase offers, all with very sincere prices—some even exceeding the Yu Clan’s offer.
In the Star Sea, everything from Escort Ships up to Battleships actually had a standard price, fluctuating slightly depending on location and various circumstances.
Except in special cases, under normal circumstances the price wouldn’t rise much—at most twenty percent.
But flagships were different.
Because of their terrifying combat power and scarcity, their price had only ever had a rough standard, no fixed one.
Generally speaking, a Dreadnought Flagship started at 250 billion Star Credits, and an Interstellar Carrier started at 300 billion Star Credits.
Bare hull, not including weapons and fittings.
Calculated at the standard rate of a blueprint being one-tenth the price of a finished warship, that would be 25 billion for a Dreadnought Blueprint and 30 billion for an Interstellar Carrier Blueprint.
But in reality, most transactions exceeded these figures.
Still, a premium as high as the Yu Clan’s was rare, and it was enough to prove their sincerity in wanting to buy.
And Li Qing indeed felt their sincerity, and decided to sell one.
Of the two flagship blueprints, he planned to keep one and sell the other.
Which one to sell had long been decided: sell the Interstellar Carrier Blueprint and keep the Dreadnought Flagship Blueprint.
Once his shipbuilding skill improved in the future, he could build a Dreadnought Flagship for himself. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
The reason for this was mainly that Interstellar Carriers were far more expensive.
The Interstellar Carrier, also called a mothership, derives its main combat power from the massive numbers of space fighters it carries.
An Interstellar Carrier has 1,000 carrier hangars, each hangar containing an aviation wing of 360 space fighters, meaning a single Interstellar Carrier can hold a total of 360,000 space fighters.
A Level 5 Wraith Fighter costs 1.5 million, so 360,000 of them comes to 540 billion Star Credits.
Add the carrier’s construction cost of 300 billion, and the total is 840 billion.
Then add the large number of other weapons, numerous Universal Slots, various Function Slots, and flagship-grade components.
If it were further modified and enhanced, the total cost of a fully-equipped Interstellar Carrier would definitely exceed one trillion Star Credits.
A Dreadnought Flagship, while also requiring a large number of top-tier weapons and components, is definitely not as expensive as a carrier.
Crucially, unlike a carrier, which loses space fighters in every battle and needs to replenish them, the Dreadnought is cheaper than the carrier in total price, attrition, and maintenance difficulty.
But correspondingly, in an ultra-large-scale war, an Interstellar Carrier would certainly be more useful than a Dreadnought Flagship.
It was only after weighing all these considerations that Li Qing decided to keep the Dreadnought Flagship Blueprint and sell the Interstellar Mothership Blueprint to get some money to arm himself.
This time, the Clan Exploration Fund had nothing to do with him anyway, but with these tens of billions in funds, his starting capital would be more than sufficient.
So now the question was: who should he sell the Blueprint to?
And how?
Selling it directly in a trade was out of the question—everyone would assume he had three Blueprints, and if he sold just one now, they would believe he still had two more and would pester him endlessly to buy.
If his identity were exposed, he would never know peace again.
“I need to find a way to sell it while hiding my identity.”
Li Qing had also considered selling it through an auction—an anonymous auction where the highest bidder would win.
But later, thinking of his family, he considered selling this Interstellar Mothership Blueprint to the Qinghe Li Clan.
It would be a way of repaying the clan for raising him for eighteen years, giving him noble status, the opportunity to receive an elite noble education, providing initial exploration funds, and so on.
His noble status might seem useless now, but in truth it had always been quietly working for him in countless small ways.
If he hadn’t been born into the Qinghe Li Clan, why would he have received an elite noble education?
Why would he have been given a ship and 100 million in starting capital right from the start?
Why would he have been able to borrow 100 million Star Credits without any collateral at all?
A commoner without collateral could never borrow that much.
In fact, if he were willing to demonstrate his current potential, he could instantly borrow over a billion without any collateral, or directly apply for several billion in exploration funds that he wouldn’t even have to repay.
Moreover, being born into the Qinghe Li Clan made outsiders regard him with extra respect.
If he ever needed it, he could draw on the clan’s influence and power at any time.
Borrowing that influence would come at a cost, but it was infinitely better than a commoner who never even had the chance to borrow it.
All of this came with his noble status.
It’s like how everyone hates capital, yet everyone wants to become capital.
Though he was torn, Li Qing wasn’t troubled by it.
In an anonymous state, no one would know the Flagship Blueprint was in his hands.
After leaving the Jinmen Naval Battle Instance, he didn’t rush into the next Instance, but instead first returned to Jinmen Star City.
By the time he returned to Star City, he had already made up his mind.
He sent a cross-star-domain message to his father through the Super Stargate in Star City.
Then it was a matter of waiting.
Only when Star City’s cross-star-domain Super Stargate opened would the various messages accumulated across different star domains be exchanged, and only then would his father receive his message.
Since he was going to contribute to the Qinghe Li Clan either way, why not contribute to his own biological father instead?
Although they weren’t particularly close, they were father and son by blood.
In the past, it had been his own poor performance.
With so many children, his father naturally couldn’t look after them all—the favored ones were always the most outstanding.
Put the other way, if he could prove himself outstanding, he would be favored too.
Moreover, having lived two lifetimes, he was no child.
Family affection was only one reason for this choice; the other was that by selling the Flagship Blueprint to his father, his father’s standing in the clan would rise dramatically, which would in turn benefit him all the more in the future.