Gripped by a joyous anxiety, and aided by Mo Liqing, Xin Jia, and others, the group spent ten full days and nights loading every mineral from the three star systems into their spatial immortal artifacts. Gu Xichen filled seven of the ten Azure Lotus Rings he possessed, reserving the rarest and most scarce metal ingots for seven of those rings.
“Happiness is also suffering!” Gu Xichen murmured to himself. “The greatest suffering is, how many eons will it take before we can exhaust this immense quantity of refined metal?”
In the remaining two star systems, the slightly smaller one housed ten super-dreadnought production lines, each stretching approximately one hundred thousand kilometers long. Only such colossal, space-faring structures could manufacture the three-hundred-kilometer-long super-dreadnoughts—vessels that transcended the scope of conventional warships, truly becoming metallic, fabricated cities adrift in space!
These production lines were even more advanced than the original Roman prototypes, yielding warships with superior performance, a testament to Xiao Xiao’s continuous five centuries of iterative improvements.
Two more Azure Lotus Rings were filled to the brim with these ten production lines and all their associated auxiliary facilities.
The final star system was Xiao Xiao’s testing ground—a hazardous junkyard where all manner of bizarre and wildly imaginative theories were put to the test. It was littered with the wreckage of destroyed or self-destructed warships, dreadnoughts, and strange instruments spinning aimlessly in the void. The very fabric of spacetime here was subtly warped, thanks to three peculiar, co-existing twin-triple black holes at the system’s core. Their immense gravitational pull twisted time, space, light, energy lines—everything.
Xiao Xiao proudly extended his metallic arm, pointing toward the three singularities, and chuckled, “To experiment with the subspace shielding, I conducted over two thousand large-scale tests within three centuries. About four hundred times, I accidentally pierced the membrane between subspace and normal space, leaving behind these three uncontainable nuisances.”
He sighed, almost humanly, and grumbled, “Luckily, these black holes exist on the boundary membrane between the two spaces, so their effect on normal space isn’t too drastic. According to my calculations, the space’s self-restoration mechanism should repair them in about two hundred and thirty years. Ah, the laws of space are not so easily broken!”
Gu Xichen regarded Xiao Xiao with the look one reserves for a marvel, and he asked in a deep voice, “The material you used to construct those bizarre, triangular warships?”
Xiao Xiao looked at Gu Xichen with surprise. “Aha! You mean the Ghost Triangle Ships I built? Old Gu, you are remarkably sharp. The material I used to forge them was extracted from the ejections of these three black holes.”
Gu Xichen remained silent, staring blankly at the three singularities.
When his divine sense had swept over the black holes earlier, he had detected their peculiar state—their mode of existence mirrored that of the triangular warships: projecting an image into normal space. Furthermore, the core of each black hole constantly spewed forth matter and energy traveling far faster than light. Some of this ejected material and energy possessed an extremely terrifying magnetic force. Immediately upon escaping the intense pressure and extreme heat of the black holes, they began to attract and entangle one another, gradually forming a wondrous substance devoid of color or scent, occasionally emitting only faint halos.
True Magnetic Dual-Light—this was the substance required to forge the True Magnetic Dual-Light Splitting Sword! Once tempered by Primordial Fire, it could indeed be refined into that weapon!
Compared to this incomparably strange and rare True Magnetic Dual-Light, the super-dreadnoughts and warships floating in this debris field, treated by Xiao Xiao as mere toys, were insignificant. Although there were over three hundred of Xiao Xiao’s Roman super-dreadnoughts, constantly upgraded and refined over five centuries, and more than one hundred thousand massive warships of varying sizes, the overwhelming problem remained: Gu Xichen lacked the manpower to pilot these vessels, let alone the requisite energy to power them!
A standard Roman super-dreadnought required a crew of three hundred thousand, with an additional two and a half million personnel needed to fully manifest its combat potential.
In other words, even if every citizen of the Yafeike Kingdom were conscripted into service, the population would still be insufficient to man the more than three hundred super-dreadnoughts before them.
Xiao Xiao could control them, but he was merely a half-baked researcher—a master of conducting scientific experiments with immense destructive power. Forcing him to pilot warships in combat was entirely out of the question. Moreover, these three hundred-plus super-warships could never be deployed simultaneously in a single engagement; they were destined to be dispersed for future use, and Xiao Xiao certainly could not cross distances of billions or tens of billions of light-years to command them.
“People! I need to recruit soldiers and expand the army!” Gu Xichen roared.
Holmes and Linghu’s eyes gleamed sharply. They rapidly calculated the manpower required to unlock the full combat potential of this colossal fleet.
The result of their calculation made their heads spin. If the Hardwood Defense Company truly assembled such a massive fleet, the only immediate outcome would be bankruptcy after paying the first day’s salaries. They exchanged a glance and simultaneously snapped their books shut.
Fuya, Ming, and Jin also looked rather grim. After listening to Xiao Xiao’s description of the warships, they exchanged worried glances, unable to speak. Even if their combined power were multiplied tenfold, it would still be insufficient to fully operate these vessels, let alone utilize their combat effectiveness!
Finally, and perhaps most crucially: Xiao Xiao possessed an absolute innate talent for mechanical manufacturing. Because he was responsible for managing an integrated mining complex, he constantly needed to repair damaged machinery and ships. Thus, the Romans had uploaded vast amounts of data related to mechanical fabrication into his memory banks, but conspicuously omitted sufficient research data on energy development.
This meant that Xiao Xiao’s sprawling mining territory relied solely on extracting natural energy resources; he had failed to develop any new type of power engine. All the warship engines he manufactured were standard Roman units powered by specialized, high-efficiency energy blocks.
One hundred and thirty-five years prior, the mining area's last remaining high-efficiency energy block production line collapsed during one of Little Gu’s mad experiments. The inventory of energy blocks dwindled, leaving Xiao Xiao’s mining zone capable of operating only ten of the super-dreadnoughts. Now, lacking sufficient specialized energy blocks, these warships and dreadnoughts remained immobile.
“We must retrofit the engines of these warships and dreadnoughts,” Fuya-Ming stated with a furrowed brow. “The Star Alliance once excavated high-efficiency energy blocks used by the Ancient Demons. A consortium of a dozen six-star civilizations analyzed these blocks but never grasped the manufacturing principles or the precise methods of their use.”
Gu Xichen nodded. Since Fuya-Ming possessed relevant information, he saw no need to interfere further. Professional matters were best left to the professionals; his role was simply to keep everyone unified.
Gazing far toward the three black holes spewing forth the True Magnetic Dual-Light, Gu Xichen raised his right hand in that direction.
The jade bowl, specially refined by the Great Unlearned Hermit for storing True Magnetic Dual-Light, flew from his grasp, enveloping the three black holes in a continuous wash of pale green light.
Instantly, the black and white bizarre light surged, and an infinite amount of it spewed forth from the singularities, pouring relentlessly into the jade bowl.
The entire space was agitated by the marvelous black and white radiance. A strange magnetic force instantaneously enveloped every damaged warship and piece of scrap metal in the area. All metallic objects began to spin wildly at a dizzying speed, hurtling toward the three black holes in the blink of an eye.
Fortunately, Gu Xichen acted quickly. He threw out his final Azure Lotus Ring, drawing all the super-dreadnoughts and warships into the artifact.
The black holes’ ejection continued for a quarter of an hour. Gu Xichen estimated it was enough and hastily retrieved the jade bowl. It had been feather-light before, weightless, but now, filled with True Magnetic Dual-Light, it was as heavy as Mount Tai. Even with Gu Xichen’s current cultivation, the bowl nearly wrenched his wrist out of its socket.
Crack. A crisp sound of dislocation erupted from Gu Xichen’s wrist. Alarmed, he jammed the jade bowl into an Azure Lotus Ring and forcefully reset his wrist.
With a wry smile, he circulated his true essence to soothe the slightly sprained joint, then nodded reassuringly to a worried Fuya-Ming. “It’s nothing. I misjudged the weight of that thing!”
Stowing away the three black holes, Gu Xichen shook his head with a tinge of regret. This endless torrent of True Magnetic Dual-Light—if the Great Unlearned Hermit saw such a wonder, he would surely go mad with joy? The Celestial Artifact Compendium recorded that the Hermit had spent several millennia searching for the True Magnetic Dual-Light just to forge that single set of three True Magnetic Dual-Light Splitting Swords.
And here, infinite quantities of it were ejected every moment!
“What a pity, what a profound pity!”
With a light sigh, Gu Xichen stated gravely, “All the good things have been collected. Let’s return! Fuya, we have been away for too long. If we delay any longer, turmoil might erupt again in the Yafeike Kingdom.”
Fuya-Ming had just grasped the royal authority over Yafeike and conquered the Duoke Star. Her power was still tenuous, and for this operation, Gu Xichen had diverted all the Hardwood mercenaries. Returning too late risked genuine internal strife within Yafeike.
He released one Roman super-dreadnought and several massive warships over ten thousand meters long, stuffing the last remnants of Xiao Xiao’s energy blocks into the engine cores of these titans. A few thousand personnel were crammed onto each vessel to barely maintain basic control, and following a massive jump point navigated by Xiao Xiao, the group returned directly to the Spiral Star System.
The Roman base was hidden deep within the savage star-sea surrounding the Spiral Star System. The exit point of this jump happened to be near the Yafeike Kingdom.
As the fleet entered the Spiral Star System, the Light of Yafeike immediately received a communication from the homeland: a rebel faction, collaborating with the Bloodfang Psion Group, was attacking the Yafeike National Laboratory Base. A special envoy from the Lei Wu Kingdom had taken up residence in the Yafeike Royal Palace, and their intentions seemed far from benevolent.
Gu Xichen watched Fuya-Ming’s expression snap tight, instantly transforming into one of intense excitement, even tinged with mania.
“Go straight to the Yafeike National Laboratory and eliminate them!”
Fuya-Ming looked to Gu Xichen, who responded with a slight nod and a smile.
“Fuya is absolutely right. Eliminate them!”