Gu Yechen and Porport sat facing each other on the sofas. Ruhua was also merrily watching two jars of aged wine being brought into the command cabin, loudly demanding that Lily push a sofa out for him.

The attentive Ruhua quickly procured three large blue-and-white porcelain bowls, poured half a bowl of the thick, pale yellow wine-paste from one jar, and then topped it up with the pale cyan aged wine from the other. A heady aroma of the wine immediately permeated the area. Ducart, frantically striking keys at the operations console, couldn't help but swallow hard and glare over at them several times.

However, having spent so much time with Gu Yechen and Ruhua, Ducart knew exactly what sort of characters these two were. These two jars of aged wine must be strange. Ducart was unwilling to risk his life for mere gustatory pleasure. Yet, the wine was overwhelmingly fragrant—so fragrant it was almost sinister, as if it were trying to entice one's very soul out.

Gu Yechen raised his wine bowl, smiled at Porport, and said, "Please!" He was the first to drain the liquid in his bowl in one gulp.

The moment the wine entered his mouth, Gu Yechen silently cursed Ruhua's entire ancestral line inside his stomach. This ruthless fellow had actually mixed 'Kangyang Grass' into the wine—grass that grew in the bottomless abyss beneath the Wushan Palace. As the name suggested, there was no need to explain what Kangyang Grass was. Bored disciples of the Nine Nether Sect once used captured silicon-based monsters for experiments; a single stalk of Kangyang Grass had caused a powerful silicon-based monster to explode from pure Yang energy and perish.

If it were only Kangyang Grass, Porport’s current strength could withstand its medicinal power; he would just need a few Roman women to endure the intense effects. But Ruhua probably found Porport displeasing, so in addition to the Kangyang Grass, he had added 'Longyan Vine.'

Longyan Vine was a malicious growth nurtured by the saliva of the ancient zombie divine dragon that guarded the mountain of the Nine Nether Sect. Zombies are creatures of Yin, yet the old divine dragon was a supreme Yang divine dragon in life. The Yin and Yang energies, struggling against and intertwining within the zombie old dragon's saliva, gave birth to the Longyan Vine, one of the rarest substances in heaven and earth. The malevolence of the Longyan Vine lay in its bizarre efficacy: it possessed the grotesque power to invert heaven and earth, reversing Yin and Yang. If one could not withstand its medicinal force, men would turn into women, and women into men—truly marvelous.

'Miss Porport.' The thought of this strange address sent goosebumps crawling all over Gu Yechen.

Fortunately, upon meeting the Corpse Emperor this time, because Gu Yechen had already reached the Void Realm cultivation, the Corpse Emperor formally inducted him as a registered disciple of the Nine Nether Sect and imprinted the entirety of the sect's canonical texts into a Yunshi Jian (Consciousness Imprint Slip) for him without reservation. This was why Gu Yechen knew what Kangyang Grass and Longyan Vine were.

Imagine if Porport truly transformed into a woman, yet his internal Yang energy remained excessively agitated with no outlet—there would be no choice but to explode.

Fortunately, for both these strange toxins, if one possessed sufficient cultivation, one could refine them with true fire before the medicinal effects took hold, thus escaping harm. Instead, one could even leverage the Yin and Yang energies within to enhance one's vital essence—truly elixirs that nourished the body's origin. The reason the Zombie Cultivators and Ghost Cultivators of the Nine Nether Sect appeared no different from living people was that they constantly consumed these two spiritual medicines to immensely supplement their vital energy, ensuring their internal Yang energy was overwhelmingly abundant, making them look exactly like living individuals.

While chatting and laughing, a stream of Grand Yin Dazzling Flame surged out from within Gu Yechen, instantly converting the medicinal powers of the Kangyang Grass and Longyan Vine into intensely pure spiritual energy. Gu Yechen’s complexion flushed with health, and beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. Gu Yechen laughed heartily and emptied his large bowl: "Porport, this is a rare good wine! Come, try some!"

Ruhua also lifted his large bowl, his face beaming as he drank down the fragrant liquid.

Porport hesitantly picked up his large bowl. He sniffed the wine, which smelled somewhat wickedly enticing, and frowned, glancing between Gu Yechen and Ruhua. He abruptly recited an incantation, sending a beam of white light from his fingertip to shine upon the wine. The holy light magic unique to the Holy See was used to detect toxins—a technique Porport had learned from the Archangel.

Under the strange gazes of Gu Yechen and Ruhua, Porport was stunned to find absolutely nothing unusual in the wine.

Ruhua exploded in anger: "We kindly invite you for a drink, and you still resort to toxin detection? If we truly wanted you dead, we'd just kill you! Why bother with poison?"

The twelve Golden Armored Puppets surrounding them rumbled and stomped their feet forcefully.

Porport laughed awkwardly, hurriedly raising his bowl and draining it in one gulp. He reasoned that it made sense; if Gu Yechen and Ruhua wanted to kill him, why use poisoning? Roman people often poisoned their own kin, viewing it as an elegant and clean method of killing. But Porport knew that Earthlings rarely chose such methods against enemies; they preferred putting a bullet in the target's head.

Smiling self-deprecatingly, Porport quickly raised his right hand and spread his five fingers: "Fifty Super Dreadnoughts, in exchange for two thousand Nantianmen-class heavy battleships produced by the Haduowo Defense Corporation and thirty thousand Beitianmen-class battleships. Fifty perfectly intact Roman Super Dreadnoughts for only this much—you are getting a huge bargain!"

Gu Yechen froze, Ruhua was dumbfounded, and even Ducart shot up from his seat, staring at Porport with the look one reserves for an idiot.

"Fifty Super Dreadnoughts?" Gu Yechen reached out to hold back Porport, who was about to grab his bowl for another drink. "Fifty, in exchange for so little?"

Ducart growled in a low voice: "A single Super Dreadnought operating at full capacity could wipe out all the battleships you just offered in exchange!"

With a deep sigh, Porport said helplessly, "I know this trade is unfavorable. But rather than hoarding a pile of useless Super Dreadnoughts to scare people, I prefer something more tangible."

"Oh?" Gu Yechen, Ducart, and Ruhua all exclaimed in surprise, matching expressions of doubt and confusion simultaneously crossing their faces.

Porport blinked, glanced at the bewildered Ducart, and suddenly sighed deeply, "Ducart, you've been corrupted by them. You never used to have such a colorful range of expressions."

Ducart's face flushed red, and he turned back to the light screens, striking the console keys with even greater force. Porport muttered a few words, then sneered at Gu Yechen, "Aren't you the same? No matter how advanced the technology of the ancient Romans was, after long preservation, it has only barely maintained integrity. To unleash its designed combat power requires immense resources and time for repair and reinforcement. It's been so long—the Roman ancestors who designed those storage vaults could never have imagined we'd only be opening the emergency depots after so many years."

Gu Yechen's expression didn't shift at all. The Super Dreadnoughts Porport had obtained were aged? Well, that was likely true. The colossal resources needed to repair fifty Super Dreadnoughts were probably beyond what Porport could currently afford. Trading fifty battleships that couldn't achieve full combat strength for a smaller number of powerful vessels was Porport's best option.

Looking at it this way, the Super Dreadnoughts held by the Heishangsuo Jin brothers must face the same issue. No wonder the Romans only made a lot of noise with little follow-up after their initial bluster.

Thinking this, Gu Yechen couldn't help but glance at Xiao again. This young man was truly excellent; the Dreadnoughts Gu Yechen received were all brand-new ships manufactured by him over the past few centuries.

Porport sneered again, "Setting aside the aging of the vessels, let's discuss the control personnel. Such enormous Dreadnoughts require millions of standard operational and piloting personnel. To exert the true strategic deterrence of a Super Dreadnought, each ship needs to carry over twenty million highly trained specialists."

"Hundreds of experienced department commanders, thousands of elite senior military advisors, tens of thousands of administrative and logistical management personnel, combat crews, operators, logistics staff, maintenance teams, skilled interstellar navigators, and various professional research institutions. Every Super Dreadnought is a mobile, armed city."

Porport shook his head repeatedly with a hint of frustration: "A Super Dreadnought three hundred kilometers long requires too many professional personnel, an overwhelmingly large number. Frankly, neither of our two Roman Kingdoms has enough qualified crews. The First Roman Kingdom, my father's realm, is lucky if it can keep one Dreadnought operational."

Gu Yechen managed a dry laugh: "Didn't you bring back many excellent warriors?"

Porport roared in fury: "Rely on those so-called excellent warriors? Yes, their individual abilities are strong, and they are fiercely loyal to us Romans—they are the best soldiers. However, ninety-seven percent of their races are still in the age of cold weapons, seventy percent still use bronze implements inherited from their ancestors, three point nine percent are in matrilineal clan societies, and three point five percent of the most extreme races... those sons of bitches, they don't even know how to use fire!"

Viciously jabbing the bottom of his wine bowl with his finger, Porport howled in extreme anger: "You expect me to use them to operate a Super Dreadnought that has almost reached the pinnacle of technological civilization? Do you think I think with my posterior? I'm not afraid of your mockery—do you know what I've been doing recently? I’ve been busy having people clean the warships I brought back! Those bastards were urinating and defecating everywhere on the ships! The hallway of my flagship had to be flushed of over thirty thousand tons of excrement!"

"Uh," Gu Yechen put down his wine bowl and let out a nervous laugh.

Ducart turned around and mockingly gave Porport a thumbs-up: "I recall that you used to require your clothes to be fumigated before you would wear them. You must have smelled fragrant the entire journey!"

Gu Yechen fell silent. Ruhua suddenly crushed the bowl in his hand and collapsed onto the floor, clutching his stomach and roaring with laughter.

Porport sullenly poured himself another large bowl of strong liquor and sneered, "Don't mock me. Your Earth Federation has billions of inhabitants, but how many qualified operators can you find? Never mind other things, I ask you just one question: can the Earth Federation find anyone who understands the operating principles of a high-dimensional subspace fixed-point navigator?"

Gu Yechen was silent, Ruhua was silent. They looked at each other and simultaneously shook their heads: "Sorry, not a single one. Besides Xiao, no one in the entire Earth Federation understands that."

Porport sneered, "The high-dimensional subspace fixed-point navigator is standard equipment on the Dreadnoughts. Therefore, your Earth Federation can only manage to start the Dreadnoughts up, barely controlling them to conduct firepower saturation attacks based on average coordinate maps. Beyond that, you have zero combat effectiveness!"

After a long silence, Gu Yechen nodded: "Give us thirty years, and Earthlings can digest everything on board."

Porport lifted his head: "You need thirty years to assimilate such vastly advanced technology... However, I doubt you can succeed."

Gu Yechen scoffed: "Don't underestimate the learning ability of Earthlings."

Porport frowned: "I am more impressed by your replication capabilities, especially those of you descendants of the Ancient Huaguo people. But whether this marvelous talent is useful in learning advanced technology—I shall wait and see." He sighed, shaking his head: "Let's get serious. We have both revealed our trump cards. Are you going to make this trade or not?"

After a moment of silence, Gu Yechen nodded: "For those fifty Super Dreadnoughts, I require that all high-energy cannons be at least functional. I have no demands regarding the main structural integrity of the hulls. I don't care if you dismantle the hulls into pieces; I want the high-energy cannons on them."

Porport extended his hand: "Deal. I can gather a sufficient number of intact high-energy cannons for you."

Gu Yechen nodded: "Give us the fifty Super Dreadnoughts first. Given our current production capacity, I will provide you with two thousand Nantianmen-class heavy battleships within six months."

Porport was surprised: "Six months? That's astonishing efficiency, but don't try to fool me with 'knock-offs'!" He growled through gritted teeth: "You are descendants of the Ancient Huaguo people. I once did business with a Huaguo person from the Earth Federation; all those so-called imperial antique treasures he sold me turned out to be high-quality counterfeits!"

Slapping his chest forcefully, Gu Yechen laughed: "A guarantee of credit—you need not doubt us on that point."

Porport nodded with slight hesitation, frowning as he mumbled: "Then, after the transaction is complete, I hope to purchase 'quality-approved' warships from the Earth Federation at a preferential price. I won't hide it from you; all our resources must be dedicated to repairing those Super Dreadnoughts."

Gu Yechen stared hard at Porport: "You are very confident. If you give us those fifty Super Dreadnoughts, aren't you worried that..."

Porport raised his head confidently and stated: "Do you think we Romans are inferior to you Earthlings? Those are warships left by our ancestors; we will gain complete control of them before you do!"

Gu Yechen extended his hand: "Then, it's a deal. I hope to be able to return with the Super Dreadnoughts you promised after this visit concludes."

Porport nodded: "Preferential prices, qualified quality!" He emphasized: "There must be no backdoor programs hidden within the main control super-brain. I don't want to become the second unfortunate Unicorn!"

"Uh," Gu Yechen let out a few dry laughs. He grasped Porport's hand and shook it vigorously: "Then, it's a deal!"