Chapter 299: Go Your Separate Ways!
"What exactly are these bad rumors?"
"All sorts of guesses—"
Lao Yu shrugged.
"That place is called Chichen Star. It was originally a relatively large mining base. The Human Exploration Federation spent a lot of money to hire a security team there and built a superluminal communication base station."
"So, you see, if it was just attacked by pirates or other unknown forces, the base would have had plenty of time to send out a distress signal, but they didn't. Isn't that a bit strange?"
"So, the rumors started spreading," Old Jia continued, "In the time since I regained my freedom, I've heard everything from a sudden volcanic eruption beneath the base, alien virulent plague, digging up an anti-matter warhead from the doomsday catastrophe and accidentally detonating it, and so on and so forth, each one more bizarre than the last—"
Lu Yuan nodded.
Honestly, these weren't so bad; at worst, it would just be a wasted trip.
Human hearts are often more terrifying than natural disasters.
"Did the Human Exploration Federation not send rescue forces?"
"They did," Lao Yu said, "But the Federation's expansion, how should I put it, is rather scattered and arbitrary. Chichen Star is very far from their home territory, plus the Empire recently designated a large no-fly zone for rescue missions. I estimate they're still on their way!"
"If the superluminal communication base station there is damaged, it would objectively be beneficial for us," Prairie said to Lu Yuan.
This meant that even if the mining colony had cooperation with the Empire, they wouldn't be able to immediately spread the news of an external fleet visiting the area.
Lu Yuan: "How long will it take to get there?"
Lao Yu: "At our current warp speed, it will take at least 12 days. However, that's not a dead end; we can still head to the ghost ship-infested waters, but we'll need to re-plan the route, and—it will be more dangerous along the way."
Lu Yuan: "Roughly how long will it delay us?"
Lao Yu: "I really can't say for sure, at least four or five days! The sea conditions there are very complex. If we encounter a strong gravity storm, I'm afraid—."
Lu Yuan: "Understood, thank you. Let me think about it."
He returned to the captain's cabin, called Black Smoke and Xian Yu, discussed it, and then initiated a fleet-wide player vote.
The result was an overwhelming majority chose to go.
The word "danger" seemed to hold a unique charm for the players; the mysterious disappearance on the colony further stirred their intense curiosity.
This player mentality largely overlapped with humanity's golden spirit of exploration and expansion.
Well, at least morale was still high.
As long as everyone was motivated, everything was fine.
"Notify the Navigator, reset the route, target Chichen Star!"
"Yes!"
Ten minutes later, the route was changed.
Over the next three days, the fleet continuously passed through seven star systems, reducing the possibility of the Imperial fleet choosing the correct path and catching up to less than one in a thousand.
They could finally be considered shaken off.
Lu Yuan woke up in bed and saw the system prompt message refresh again in the upper right corner of his vision.
【Achieved military victory, gained 100 exchange points】
Hooray!
Although this time they only incapacitated and boarded two light cruisers, the gains were more than when they defeated the Joint Punitive Fleet, and less than when they annihilated Dark Sun and captured deep sea.
From this, it seems that the amount of system reward mainly depends on the enemy's technological level, and then on the overall difficulty of winning.
The number of enemy ships sunk in the battle was just a subtle reference factor.
This prevented the loophole of earning a lot of points by bullying weaklings.
Surprisingly, from the perspective of "game fairness," it was quite reasonable.
In short, the total exchange points reached 298, plan successful!
After receiving Jubian's request, Lu Yuan had resisted adding a large 3D printer on Ruins Star to speed up the construction of deep sea's warp engine.
The purpose was to wait and see if he could gather 350 points in the short term.
350 points was the price of a giant 3D printer.
If he could find a sufficiently rich resource point on this journey and purchase a set of giant 3D printers on the spot, he could immediately produce many equipment and materials, which would be equivalent to setting up a sub-base along the way.
The benefits brought by this would definitely be no less than the timely addition of deep sea!
Currently, he still needed 52 points!
Are there any other ways to earn money?
Lu Yuan opened the enterprise rating panel, his gaze fixed on the 【Prestige】 column.
Since Anya publicly announced that Cangyuan had become the second largest shareholder of New Hope and would establish security forces on the space station to ensure everyone's safe travel, nearly 60%, totaling over 4 million citizens, expressed approval and welcomed Cangyuan's entry.
This number was quite large, more than eight times the current total population of Li Star, causing the enterprise's prestige to soar from 19000+ to 62000+.
Afterward, the Emperor claimed that cangyuan one belonged to the Super Democratic Empire, and due to Cangyuan's failure to respond officially in time, its prestige dropped back to 56000+.
As long as prestige breaks through 100,000, rising by an order of magnitude, he would receive another points reward, and it would definitely be no less than the previous 150 points!
Thinking of this, Lu Yuan connected to Prairie.
"Notify the New Hope branch to provide all the footage of us defeating the Empire to Anya, and quickly assist North Star TV Station in launching a new program. Also, I need to publicly declare ownership of cangyuan one in the program, directly responding to the Empire."
"Okay!"
While the branch personnel went to communicate with North Star TV Station, a total of 40 elite Paradise Island squad members arrived at the dock area and met with the merchant ship owner Carter, who was their contact.
Carter often cooperated with an interstellar enterprise called Zela Technology.
This enterprise was two-thirds the size of Apollo, headquartered in the Star Union Space on one side of Paradise Island, and had not yet entered Cangyuan's procurement cooperation list. Therefore, it was less likely to arouse suspicion from Paradise Island.
Anya had considered everything very thoroughly.
"Hello, everyone from Cangyuan!"
"Hello, hello!"
Ye Xing stepped forward and actively shook Captain Carter's hand.
Carter had a very good first impression of Ye Xing. This young man was of medium build, handsome, looked very talkative, and had a great sense of affinity!
As for the woman behind him, who was nearly 190 cm tall and incredibly beautiful even without makeup, but that aura, that excitement hidden behind a faint smile, and those seemingly gentle yet inexplicably eerie eyes—
Carter had been sailing between New Hope and Paradise Island for over 30 years and had long since developed the ability to size people up at a glance.
At this moment, he seemed to see countless flashes of swords, seas of corpses behind this woman—
An illusion?!
He gently shook his head.
Could this be the "Scarlet Witch" from the recent rumors?!
The legendary powerful warrior who only used close-combat weapons and left no survivors! Most battles were completed in one strike, and the victims' appearances were extremely gruesome, the kind that would make a ten-year veteran forensic doctor gag after seeing them!
Regardless of whether it was true or not, his survival instinct told him that the other party was extremely dangerous, and he had to serve them well on this trip.
"Uncle, are there really gladiatorial arenas on Paradise Island?" Guo Li Cheng asked.
"This is my cousin, Guo Li Cheng," Ye Xing introduced to Carter.
"Hello, Miss Cheng, yes!"
Carter unconsciously bowed.
"Are you interested in gladiatorial sports? They are indeed very exciting and thrilling. Every time I finish a trade run, I can't help but go watch one or two matches!"
"Haha, then you might become my first fan~"
"As long as you step onto the stage, I will definitely not miss it!"
Carter desperately flattered, thinking that Paradise Island was about to witness a good show.
Thump, thump, thump!
Suddenly, urgent, unusually heavy footsteps sounded.
"Oh, hey, sorry everyone, I went to buy equipment just now and was delayed a bit."
"Hurry up, we're waiting for you!"
Male God was the last to arrive.
Holy cow—
What kind of monster is this?!
Seeing this figure nearly 3.5 meters tall, with horns on his head, pointed teeth, and constantly apologizing to his teammates, Carter's mind stalled, losing his ability to speak for a moment, and not daring to go up and greet him.
—Correction!
Not a good show, but a bloody storm!