Next came purchasing ammunition.
The escort ship had three types of weapons: one P-Slot Point Defense Weapon, two autocannons, and three railguns, so three types of ammunition were needed.
The casing-shedding bullets for the P-Slot point defense cost 10 Star Credits each, with 100,000 rounds making up one base unit of ammunition.
Given the firing rate of this weapon, he would need at least five base units of casing-shedding bullets, which came to 5 million.
Then, the metal shells for the small railguns cost 1,500 Star Credits each.
All railguns, regardless of size, used 100 rounds as one base unit, totaling 150,000 per base unit.
He bought 50 base units—5,000 small metal shells in one go—for a total of 7.5 million Star Credits.
As for the autocannons, their casing-shedding shells cost 150 Star Credits each, with 5,000 rounds making up one base unit, totaling 750,000 per base unit.
Considering the autocannons’ firing frequency, he purchased 10 base units—50,000 autocannon casing-shedding shells in total—for 7.5 million.
5 million + 7.5 million + 7.5 million came to 20 million in total.
After that, an escort ship needed 50 clone crew members, specifically for manually controlling the various weapons and key systems on the warship.
They required no salary, with a buyout price of 200,000 each.
Three senior crew members were needed to assist the captain in commanding the ship’s crew, at a monthly salary of 100,000+.
One escort ship captain, at a monthly salary of 500,000+, could be skipped for now—but the captains for the mining ship and the industrial ship could not be skipped, since he could only pilot one ship himself and had no way to be in two places at once.
Senior crew recruitment required one month’s salary paid in advance, so right from the start he had to spend 300,000 on senior crew wages plus 500,000 × 2 = 1 million for the captains’ wages, totaling 1.3 million Star Credits.
The clones were a buyout: 50 × 200,000 came to 10 million Star Credits.
With all this done, the money that needed to be spent was basically spent, leaving 40.64 million in reserve, mainly for monthly wages and death benefits.
Bought-out clones were expendable—if they died, they died.
But senior crew members were natural persons who not only required wages but also substantial death benefits if they fell in battle.
Next came waiting for the merchants to slowly deliver the ordered goods.
The Jinmen Star System was the capital of Jinmen Province and its trade center, with the headquarters of nearly all the major merchant guilds located there, so delivery was extremely fast.
In less than an hour, communications started coming in one after another, and all the ordered goods were delivered one by one, all loaded into the industrial ship.
As the planet slowly rotated to another angle and the star’s light no longer shone directly upon it, night gradually fell.
The vast planet lit up with neon lights one district at a time, and the enormous starport radiated dazzling brilliance.
The Yu Clan, rulers of Jinmen Province, resided on Colony Planet No. 2.
On this ocean planet, 92% of whose surface was covered by water, a massive island of over 100,000 square kilometers belonged entirely to the Yu Clan.
At dusk, a small aircraft came to personally pick up Li Qing and take him to Colony Planet No. 2.
After entering the atmosphere, it flew straight toward the island known as the Magnificent Jewel.
Although the entire planet was open to outsiders—this world had always been famous for its culture and tourism—no outsider could enter the Isle of Splendor without the Yu Clan’s permission.
A complex of buildings stretched for dozens of kilometers, with no towering skyscrapers, only exquisite small buildings and courtyards nestled among natural mountains and waters, all in ancient Chinese style.
Ordinary families loved skyscrapers.
Wealthy families preferred this closeness to nature.
The aircraft came to a stop among a cluster of buildings, where quite a few other aircraft had already landed.
From them emerged one distinguished-looking young man and young woman after another.
These youths sized each other up, and Li Qing smiled and nodded in greeting.
Servants led him to a three-story building that was presumably where the Yu Clan entertained guests.
From the outside it occupied an enormous area, and the interior of the first floor seemed even more spacious.
Many young people were already inside, chatting in twos and threes.
The vast majority were strangers to him, but they nodded to him one by one as well.
The Yu Clan’s invitations this time were not limited to the Li family; there were also many scions of great families from across the United Empire.
Since they didn’t know one another, they naturally wouldn’t look down on him the way the Li family’s own members did.
Come to think of it, Li Qing was rather puzzled.
This year, the scions of great families appearing in Jinmen Province seemed far more numerous than he had expected, which made him wonder—was the Empire about to make some major move?
Although he wasn’t highly regarded within the Li family, he had never lacked the proper aristocratic elite education.
Before, when his subconscious avatar was in control, his performance had been mediocre, but now that Li Qing’s main consciousness was dominant, his powerful Innate Attributes immediately revealed their extraordinariness.
His superb Memory allowed him to clearly recall the contents of the many aristocratic elite courses he had taken, and combined with his equally powerful Perception, he keenly detected a hint of something unusual.
He remembered that in the past, the pioneering efforts of the young scions of the Empire’s great families had mostly gone to the Faust Sector, further north of the Empire’s home star region, where they had been entangled for thousands of years with a powerful alien civilization called the Bruwan Union.
The main direction of advance had always been there, and each year the young descendants of the great Warlord Clans mostly went that way to win glory and achievements.
But this time, it looked like the main force had come to Jinmen Province, which was somewhat unusual.
Of course, Li Qing didn’t dare be too certain—perhaps this year simply happened to have more people.
The banquet was being held on the second floor, but it was still early.
Some of the Yu Clan’s younger members had already arrived, though not a single elder.
The young people had gathered into small circles to chat.
Li Qing had no interest in such circles and couldn’t fit into them anyway, so he stood alone at the edge with a plate of pastries and food, eating.
At a high-society cocktail party this would have been impolite, but at a young people’s gathering like this it was perfectly normal—plenty of socially awkward youths were eating just like him.
For him, this was really just going through the motions, showing respect to the local hosts of the Yu Clan.
After all, he would be operating on their turf, and for a long time to come—some people even spent ten years of pioneering entirely in this region.
He might need their help someday, so getting familiar now would spare him awkwardness later.
Before long, having eaten only three pastries, he suddenly heard a commotion at the entrance.
He looked up toward the door and saw a group of handsome young men and beautiful young women escorting two middle-aged men and a mature noblewoman into the hall.
Li Qing and the others who were eating quickly put down their food, wiped their hands, and stood up.
The food could wait—continuing to eat when the host arrived would be a breach of etiquette.
You could lie flat and slack off, but you couldn’t disgrace the family.
Unless, ten years from now, you performed poorly and were expelled from the family—at that point, whatever you did would have nothing to do with the family.
As the crowd gathered at the center of the hall, a handsome middle-aged man among them raised a hand in a gentle pressing gesture, and the hall immediately fell silent.
He said in a deep voice:
“I am Yu Lizhi. On behalf of the Yu Clan, I welcome the elites from the Empire to this banquet. The main purpose of this banquet is for everyone to get acquainted and exchange ideas. There is another purpose as well: some time ago, the Clan Leader spent 10 Civilization Points to establish a channel exclusive to the pioneering elites. I now invite all of you to join this channel.”
As his words fell, everyone showed some surprise, and Li Qing’s face likewise revealed astonishment.
At the same time, his Perception, far beyond that of ordinary people, keenly sensed that this year’s pioneering expedition was indeed different from previous years.
Civilization Points could only be obtained through wars between different player civilizations—either by dealing a massive blow to a hostile civilization or by accomplishing something beneficial to one’s entire civilization.
As for the so-called channel, that needed no explanation—those who understood, understood.
In the beginning, each region had only one Regional Channel.
To add a new Regional Channel, one needed to use Civilization Points to communicate with the mysterious system.
“System” was just a general term.
It was called that because the rules of the new universe had been Datafied—everything in the entire universe had been Datafied like a game.
If you were in a xianxia world, it could be called the Heavenly Dao; in a xuanhuan world, it could be called Gaia Consciousness, and so on.
The names differed, but the meaning they represented was the same.
Take Jinmen Province, for example.
At first there was only one Regional Channel, and later second through a dozen or more Regional Channels were added—all added by the Yu Clan, the rulers of Jinmen Province, by spending Civilization Points.
Of course, individual players could also add channels.
For example, every legion necessarily had an internal legion channel.
Here was the key point: the more Civilization Points spent to establish a channel, the more people it could hold, the wider its coverage, and the higher its level of encryption.
An ordinary private channel like a legion’s could be established with just one Civilization Point, but this newly created channel had cost a full ten Civilization Points—that was extraordinary.
Civilization Points were extremely valuable to major powers, and they were extremely difficult to obtain.
Normally, spending one point to establish a channel would be more than enough.
Now they had spent ten points to create one, and were personally inviting them into it—there was definitely something behind this.
Li Qing’s mind raced, searching his Memory, cross-referencing the information he had seen to deduce the answer.
He quickly reached a conclusion:
“Either the Yu Clan is planning some major move, or the Empire has some major move planned for the Tianjin Star Sector.”
“Wait—could it be some major move targeting the Third Zutal Sector, which lies between the Fourth Empire’s home Imperial Throne Sector and the Second Tianjin Star Sector?”
He stroked his chin and pondered for a moment, feeling that his guess was very close to the truth.
The Zutal Sector, located between the Empire’s headquarters and the overseas province of Jinmen, was roughly 12,000 light-years wide, about 7,000 light-years long, and up to 3,600 light-years thick.
Most of its area was covered by an enormous nebula rich in micro-electronics and strange radioactive dust.
This nebula had a severe impact on warship electronic systems, and the deeper one went, the greater the effect—it could even interfere with a warship’s navigation.
Precisely because of this radiation nebula covering more than eighty percent of the Zutal Sector, even though it bordered the United Empire’s home territory, the Empire had never conquered it.
Instead, it had pushed north to clash head-on with the Bruwan Union civilization of the Fifth Faust Sector for thousands of years, with neither side able to gain the upper hand.
Li Qing speculated that the Imperial Senate might have concluded that since they could never defeat the Bruwan Union civilization, they might as well change their strategic direction and push south, opening a passage through the Zutal Sector.
Once a stable corridor could be punched through the dust nebula, Jinmen Province—currently isolated overseas—would no longer be an Overseas Province.
The Empire’s armies could pass directly through the Zutal Sector into Jinmen Province, and using it as a springboard, conquer the Second Tianjin Star Sector, bringing that vast star sector under Imperial rule.
Such a vast star sector would surely give birth to more Military Lords, and perhaps even a new Starsea Lord.
With the United Empire of Humanity growing stronger, it might even be able to overpower the Bruwan Union civilization.
This route would certainly be very difficult to open—otherwise they would have tried long ago—but pushing north against the Bruwan Union was even harder.
They had already fought for thousands of years, consuming countless resources and losing untold numbers of warships, forcing the lords of the Senate to change strategy and revisit the previously abandoned plan.
The more Li Qing thought about it, the more he felt his guess was close to the truth.
After awakening the Child of the Stars Innate Talent, all his Innate Attributes had increased by 20 points—a boost of two full orders of magnitude.
His reaction speed, memory, and logical thinking had all undergone a qualitative transformation.
With just a little information, he could combine it with his existing knowledge to deduce how the situation was developing.
The more information he had, the closer his deductions came to the truth.
Perhaps he couldn’t compare to those legendary strategists and famous ministers whose wisdom bordered on the demonic—that was true talent.
His ability came from powerful Innate Attributes combined with various pieces of information, essentially making him a human computer: strong in reasoning and logic, but lacking the flashes of inspiration those legendary ministers often had.
That was something Innate Attributes couldn’t achieve.
Even so, it was still very impressive, since such legendary ministers were far too rare.
In the future, when he established his own territory, he would need talent of all kinds.
He hoped he would have the chance to find a truly powerful strategist.
Speculation aside, no matter what the truth was, this didn’t really concern Li Qing—at least not in the early stages.
He didn’t have the resources of those direct-line descendants.
What he needed to do early on was keep his head down and make money.
Yu Lizhi didn’t stay long.
After announcing the news, he lingered briefly, introduced a few members of the Yu clan to them, and then left.
“Tch, Dad told me that pearl of the Yu clan had arrived, but not only did she not show up, those prodigies rumored to possess Purple Epic-grade Innate Talents didn’t come either.”
Li Qing heard someone complaining beside his ear.
Turning his head, he saw a white-haired youth looking his way, greeting him:
“Cousin Li Qing!”
Li Qing asked in surprise:
“You are…?”
“Li Lie.”
The white-haired youth added another line:
“My father is Li Lun.”
“So you’re Second Uncle’s son. Want to walk together?”
“Let’s go. That great beauty from the Yu family didn’t come, so there’s nothing worth seeing.”
Li Qing asked casually:
“What great beauty from the Yu family?”
Li Lie showed a look of surprise:
“You’ve never heard of the Yu family’s pearl? They say she’s not only stunningly beautiful, but she’s also awakened a Purple Epic-grade Innate Talent, born with a Legacy Treasure Companion. The moment she was born, the Yu family head named her the heir to the next generation of family leadership—a true born noblewoman!”
“Uh, really never heard of her.”
Having lived eighteen years in the Li family since his subconscious reincarnation, Li Qing was quite surprised that he’d never heard of her.
“You could give it a try!”
Li Lie said with a smile:
“This noblewoman of the Yu family is the next clan leader’s heir, so she definitely won’t marry out. There’s a high chance she’ll take a husband into the family instead, and the husband she takes can’t be too powerful either. You don’t have many opportunities in the family anyway—why not try getting close to her?”