As for the Small Electromagnetic Radar, it was placed at the highest point on the edge of the ring-shaped crater.
The radar wasn’t big, so he simply piled some rocks around it as a crude disguise.
Finally, he placed the small water purification device and the medium-sized cold storage unit on the lowest level of the Main Core Module, storing all food and water in the cold storage.
Then he assigned the 50 Tier-1 Clones to various tasks around the base, and a small base took shape.
In total, it had taken him more than half a month.
Once the base was complete, he couldn’t wait to take his two ships toward the Asteroid Belt tens of millions of kilometers away to start mining.
The three ships dropped out of Sub-light Speed an hour later.
When the ships entered the Conventional Material Plane, Li Qing rose from his command chair and walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling glass at the front of the Bridge, a hint of surprise in his eyes.
He saw a dense belt of meteors stretching endlessly from left to right across the cold starry sky, but deep within a cluster of gray meteors not far away, there seemed to be an enormous artificial structure.
He had the Mining Ship and Industrial Ship stay in place while the Escort Ship slowly approached.
Just as it glided into the meteor belt, a strangely shaped ship flew out from behind the enormous artificial structure.
The Escort Ship weaved among the meteors for a full circle, observing from various angles through gaps between the meteors, and discovered several more of these oddly shaped, rather old-looking ships.
It wasn’t until he saw one of them using two welding torches spraying dazzling mining lasers to cut apart a meteor that he realized these were Wild Armed Mining Ships.
These were a type of Wild Mob that generally appeared inside Asteroid Belts.
They also mined, but possessed a small amount of force.
If destroyed, there was a chance of obtaining some of the Raw Ore they had collected.
Correspondingly, wherever Wild Armed Mining Ships appeared, there would always be a mining base and a fleet defending it, with the fleet’s size depending on the scale of the mining base.
It was worth noting that if such a mining base was left uncleared for a long time, its scale would gradually expand.
As the collected ore accumulated, the mining base would expand, producing more Armed Mining Ships and guard fleets, which would mine more ore and expand again.
This expansion was very slow—ignoring it for a year might only add a few more mining ships—but theoretically there was no limit to this expansion.
If left alone for several centuries, it could grow into an enormous base, and the guard fleet might even come to include Cruisers or even Battleships.
Large mining bases could never appear in High-Sec or Low-Sec Zones, not even in Low-Risk areas.
Only in places far from player activity zones, where no players had come for a long time, could these respawned Wild Mobs slowly grow.
After observing for a while, Li Qing confirmed that the guard fleet consisted of nearly twenty Escort Ships and one Destroyer, and gave up on the idea of attacking.
He returned, took the Mining Ship and Industrial Ship, turned around, and detoured to enter the meteor belt from the other side, ten thousand kilometers away.
With the Escort Ship guarding alongside, the Mining Ship’s captain piloted the Mining Ship into the meteor belt and began mining.
The Mining Ship’s captain was a very ordinary Blank Slate Captain.
Like ordinary players, he had five Neural Slots—in other words, five skill slots—and four of them were already filled.
They were: Mining Ship Operation lv3, Mining Robot Operation lv4, Space Geology lv2, Mineral Analysis lv2, and Mining Technology lv3.
This so-called Brain Implant was actually a skill slot.
All players started with five Universal Brain Interface slots, and each Advanced Basic Tuning or Deep Cybernetic Implantation would add one more Neural Slot.
Whether through High-level Genetic Adjustment or cybernetic implantation, the limit was five procedures, meaning one could only gain five additional Neural Slots.
Beyond that, if a player managed to achieve Genetic Ascension, Psionic Ascension, or Mechanical Ascension, a single success would add 5 Universal Brain Interface slots.
If, by great fortune, one achieved a second, higher Ascension on top of the first, another 10 Universal Brain Interface slots would be added.
This was what was known as First-Stage Ascension and Second-Stage Ascension.
Of course, the benefits of Ascension went far beyond this—here we’re only talking about Brain Implants.
Each additional Neural Slot allowed one to learn that many more skills simultaneously, but that didn’t mean a person could only ever learn that many skills.
You see, most skills existed in the form of Skill Chips.
Inserting a Skill Chip into a Brain Implant granted the corresponding skill—plug and play, so to speak.
If you no longer needed it, you could remove the chip and insert a different one.
Removed Skill Chips could be stored and reinserted later when needed, with the skill level remaining exactly as it was.
So theoretically, everyone could be a jack-of-all-trades, mastering every skill in existence.
The catch was having the energy to level up that many skills.
It was worth noting that, apart from basic skills, the vast majority of Skill Chips could be traded.
Skills like Mining Ship Operation, Mining Robot Operation, and Space Geology could all be bought and sold—if you didn’t want to spend the time and effort learning them, you could simply purchase these Skill Chips and use them directly.
However, directly purchased Skill Chips could not be leveled up further; whatever level you bought them at was the level they would remain forever. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
Li Qing himself had only five Brain Implants, but after awakening his Child of the Stars talent, his Neural Slots had been directly adjusted to 20—four times the norm.
Moreover, several months ago, before leaving the Jinmen Star System, he had spent several million early on to buy a large batch of level-zero, upgradeable Skill Chips, planning to use his tenfold experience bonus to grind skills whenever he had spare time.
He now had six Skill Chips loaded.
One of them was the Basic Naval Command Skill lv3—a basic skill that could not be traded.
The other five were Escort Ship Operation lv4, Space Geography lv3, Spatial Perception lv3, Signal Analysis lv3, and Evasive Maneuver Theory lv3.
These Skill Chips had been equipped long ago, and during the months of travel they had been steadily accumulating experience, now having risen to lv3.
And since he had been aboard an Escort Ship the whole time, the Escort Ship Operation skill had leveled up to lv4.
Basic Naval Command Skill: A foundational skill for naval commanders.
Attributes: Each level increases fleet speed by 5%, weapon fire rate by 3%, and weapon damage by 2%; base command capacity of 200, with +50 capacity per level.
Escort Ship Operation lv4: Each level increases the piloted Escort Ship’s speed by 5%, acceleration by 3%, and turning rate by 3%.
Unlike basic command skills, which affect the entire fleet under a commander’s control, Escort Ship Operation is a captain skill that only takes effect on the single ship commanded by the captain.
However, Li Qing was currently serving as the captain of this escort ship as well, so the effects of the two skills stacked, granting a full 35% speed bonus.
Combined with the 35% speed bonus from the Level 3 Plasma Thruster and the 10% bonus from the Afterburner Combustion Chamber, that was a total of 80% speed bonus, bringing the escort ship’s speed up to 216,000 kilometers per hour—faster than an ordinary destroyer.
The escort ship patrolled silently for about an hour.
When he visually spotted a mining ship find an ore-bearing asteroid and release drones to cut into it, Li Qing finally withdrew his gaze.
From among the many skill chips he had purchased earlier, he found several mining-related skill chips and equipped them into his Neural Slots, then piloted the escort ship along, examining the floating asteroids one by one.
Space Geology allowed players to analyze an asteroid’s condition by observing its surface; the higher the level, the more useful information obtained.
Meanwhile, the Innate Attribute Perception greatly increased the experience gained and effectiveness of this skill.
Mineral Analysis, on the other hand, used subtle clues on an asteroid’s surface to analyze and deduce whether there was ore inside, what kind of ore, and how much.
Likewise, the higher the level, the more accurate the analysis, and the Innate Attribute Perception also provided a bonus to this skill.
Even though he had only just learned them, with the extremely high Innate Attribute bonuses he quickly got the hang of them.
The tenfold experience gain rose rapidly, and in just one day they had already reached Lv1—effectively no worse than an ordinary Blank Slate Captain’s Lv2 or Lv3.
He could already preliminarily deduce from the mineral traces remaining on an asteroid’s surface whether it contained ore.
As long as there was ore, regardless of whether the concentration was high, he would open the Palm Universe and fire a single shell, using the impact force of the explosion to push the asteroid into the Palm Universe’s entrance.
Space is a vacuum environment, so once a several-hundred-meter asteroid was set in motion, it would keep drifting slowly forward.
He wasn’t in a hurry anyway—practicing his skills while collecting, killing two birds with one stone.
All the asteroids collected in the Palm Universe were tossed into a pile.
Although he could use the power within the Palm Universe to crush them all, he left them alone for now, planning to crush them all at once once he had collected enough.
The days of mining were extremely tedious.
The crew on the ship could play games to pass the time, but he had to stay on the Bridge constantly with no time to spare.
But if you wanted to make money, wanted to become strong, you had to endure the loneliness.
Fortunately, the tenfold experience plus his extremely high Innate Attributes made his skill progression incredibly fast.
Watching his skills level up one after another at astonishing speed, that sense of satisfaction filled some of the emptiness.
“Beep!”
A sudden, piercing alarm brought Li Qing back to his senses.
He quickly checked the mixed fleet command interface—the Industrial Ship parked behind had come under attack.
He checked the notification panel:
“Notification: Attacked by Pirate Gunboat Second-Generation Railgun (Medium), dealing 244 points of Kinetic Impact Damage to the Industrial Ship’s Energy Shield.”
“Notification: Attacked by Pirate Gunboat Second-Generation Railgun (Medium), dealing 248 points of Kinetic Impact Damage to the Industrial Ship’s Energy Shield.”
The escort ship immediately halted its glide and slowly turned to head outward, while ordering the Industrial Ship to move toward it.
Five minutes later, the Industrial Ship and the Escort Ship passed each other.
Through the huge floor-to-ceiling glass of the Bridge, two Pirate Gunboats could already be seen flying in among the meteors ahead.
“Why would there be Wild Mobs here?”
“All guns, prepare.”
The staff officer seated behind him immediately relayed the order to every gun position on the Escort Ship, and Li Qing soon heard the gunners reporting ready one after another.
The distance between the two sides closed rapidly, and they soon entered his firing range.
Without hesitation, Li Qing ordered the Warship to turn broadside, one side’s three Railguns aimed at the direction of the incoming enemy ships.
This Escort Ship had five small weapon slots, equipped with three Railguns and two Autocannons.
The third-generation Autocannons had a range of only 60 kilometers, while the third-generation Railguns had a range of up to 400 kilometers.
Waiting at ease, he opened fire first.
“Boom boom boom!”
Three distinct trails tore through the void, slamming hard into the Pirate Gunboat on the right.
A transparent membrane of light appeared out of thin air some distance from the hull, intercepting the shells and bursting into three balls of flame and three spreading ripples.
“Notice: Your third-generation Railgun hit the Pirate Gunboat, dealing 120 + 25% shield modifier = 150 points of Kinetic Impact Damage to the target’s Energy Shield.”
“Notice: Your third-generation Railgun hit the Pirate Gunboat, dealing 110 + 25% shield modifier = 138 points of Kinetic Impact Damage to the target’s Energy Shield.”
“Notice: Your third-generation Railgun hit the Pirate Gunboat, dealing 114 + 25% shield modifier = 143 points of Kinetic Impact Damage to the target’s Energy Shield.”
Three notices in a row—the Pirate Gunboat’s shield visibly rippled slightly.
At the same time, after dealing damage to the target, the Pirate Gunboat’s stats appeared before him.
Pirate Gunboat (Artillery Core-Modified): A common pirate Escort Ship.
Stats:
Base Hull: 1000
Base Armor: 500 + Ceramic-Gold Armor (Small) 400 × 3 = 1200 points of armor.
Base Shield: 500 + First-Generation Energy Shield (Small) 500 × 2 = 1000 points of shield.
Base Speed: kilometers/hour
Default Tactics: Swarm Tactics.
Fleet Slot Size: 1.
Artillery Core (Default)
Components: Power Core, FTL Component, Thrusters, Sensors, Combat Computer.
Weapon Slots: M1, S4.
Utility Slots: S5, A1.
All its weapons were second-generation Railguns, though one slot was a second-generation Railgun (Medium).
The moment he opened fire, the two Medium Railguns on the two Pirate Gunboats were already ready.
Two trails streaked across the void, and Li Qing clearly felt the Warship shudder twice in succession, its Energy Shield instantly dropping by nearly five hundred points.
However, his Escort Ship’s five utility slots were equipped with three third-generation Energy Shields, each adding an extra 1000 points of shield energy—3000 for the three, plus the ship’s base 1000, for a total of 4000 shield energy, enough to withstand eight or nine volleys.
But he was no fool; he wouldn’t just tank it head-on.
After one test volley, Li Qing immediately ordered:
“Tactical maneuver, close in on target one.”
The enemy was fully equipped with long-range Railguns.
In a long-range exchange, he would definitely lose with only three Railguns.
Only by charging into the Autocannons’ combat range could he use their extremely fast rate of fire to quickly destroy the enemy.
In open space, this tactic of Li Qing’s wouldn’t work well—wild mobs also have simple AI and know how to exploit their advantages.
But in an asteroid belt full of meteors, once a warship burrows into the meteor field, the enemy’s long-range railguns can’t get a lock, forcing them to chase him down and engage at close range.
Li Qing sat up straight, eyes glued to the radar scan.
Too many meteors blocked the signal, so the enemy ships flickered in and out on the radar display, but he could still pin down the approximate positions of the two pirate gunboats.
Moreover, his exceptionally high Perception, Mind, and Spirit allowed him to think calmly, simulating the terrain of the nearby battlefield in his head, directly modeling the situations he might encounter next, and then running combat simulations against each different scenario.
It was a remarkable state—normally only a Combat Computer could do this after gathering enough information, yet he could manage it with his brain alone.
Of course, this was only because the battle area was small.
In a large-scale battle with too many warships, or against players with too many variables, he wouldn’t be able to simulate it.
But this was already impressive—using it against wild mobs was complete overkill.