Trainee Lord

After the 23rd century, due to the advancement of artificial intelligence, multiple recyclable energy technologies were realized. Coupled with population control under the Earth Federation's planning, resources were not strained, and humanity's enthusiasm for outer space exploration waned.

As a result, the Mars bases of various nations were often left unmanned for long periods. Map exploration became passive and lax, and unnoticed, a base quietly set itself up in a certain location on Mars.

Inside the base, a cold mechanical voice sounded: "Reporting to host. Energy conversion device installed. Probe vehicle assembled. Essence extractor installed. All that's needed now is a batch of trained miners to begin organizing the extraction of Fire Ant Ore!"

The only living being in the base, a tall and handsome lord, sat on the ground with a helpless expression: "Where am I supposed to get workers? Where are the endless subjects I was promised?"

"Please calm down, host. According to human market organization regulations, game review requires forty-eight hours. Even after review and market entry, it takes time to ferment."

"Is this plan really reliable?" the lord asked skeptically.

"Given the host's meager conditions, this intelligence has calculated no other feasible methods!"

The lord's handsome face twitched slightly at that, but he couldn't muster a single word of rebuttal...

Meager conditions were indeed his most pressing problem right now.

His name was Xi Ye Aierdia, an intern lord who graduated from the Celestial Group Academy of the Great Universe Federation. Though he had successfully graduated through his own efforts and mastered the Celestial Bloodline, earning the qualification to become an interstellar lord under Federation law, his limited resources made it extremely difficult to compete with other intern lords who graduated alongside him!

Others either had financial backing or powerful connections, giving them immense appeal when recruiting interstellar subjects. And him? He had nearly exhausted all his family's resources for his own evolution. After graduation, he couldn't even afford a low-grade Ninth-Grade Planet, making the task of recruiting underlings exceptionally difficult!

After all, the worse the planet's environment, the lower the probability of attracting quality subjects. The Federation's subject employment was a two-way selection system—why would anyone choose to work on a rundown planet when better conditions were available?

A Ninth-Grade Planet was a wretched place even the lowliest Black Goblin wouldn't want to stay. Xi Ye had once inquired: to recruit a single Black Goblin on a Ninth-Grade Planet, he'd need a monthly salary of at least thirty God Coins... Was that a joke? His monthly living expenses during school were only thirty God Coins!!

Even for such a garbage planet, he could only rely on his Celestial Group identity to take out a loan for purchase. But few institutions were willing to lend to an intern, and even those that did charged terrifying interest rates. With no other choice, Xi Ye could only buy a Space Battleship and resort to the most common method for poor lords: exploring to find new Life Star Systems!

This was almost the least reliable method. Any lord with even a shred of wealth wouldn't do it. The universe was vast and boundless, but star systems capable of forming life belts were pitifully rare. Many lords who took this path drifted through the cosmos until they died of old age without ever finding a single Life Star System.

But he was lucky. After drifting for less than ten thousand years, he stumbled upon the Milky Way Galaxy during a wormhole jump and discovered Planet D, this azure blue planet!

A perfect structure. Whether it was the atmospheric composition, terrain, moisture, or other aspects, it was all excellent. By grading standards, it was at least a Level 7 Star.

Level 7! In their Universal Federation, the price of a Level 7 Star was a hundred times that of a Ninth-Grade Planet, and it was a seller's market. Even offering two hundred Ninth-Grade Planets on the Black Market, no one would likely take that deal!

Not only that, but the planets orbiting this solar system, after his detection, all had extremely high development value. With proper development, they could at least become Eighth-Grade Life Star Systems!

This was practically a perfect start!!!

After discovering this place, his first thought was to conquer Planet D!

According to Universal Federation law, interstellar lords had the right to conquer and colonize externally, with life-and-death authority over civilizations not yet part of the Federation. This law was designed to encourage the Federation's overflowing Celestial Group members to explore outer domains. In essence, it was a trick to coax them, the poor bastards, into venturing out!

But after calming down, Xi Ye realized a problem!

It seemed...

He didn't have the ability to conquer this planet...

When he bought the Space Battleship, he had spent all his money on infrastructure: a foldable Base Vehicle, various production and extraction instruments, high-quality biological specimens, and some basic materials. For weapons, he had only installed the cheapest Compression Cannon!

Because from the start, he had never imagined finding a planet with a fully developed civilization. His best estimate was finding a Ninth-Grade Planet near a natural star, then using the ship's basic materials to slowly transform the environment, introduce biological specimens, gradually form a complete biological chain, and then slowly guide some high-quality organisms to evolve, aiming to develop high-intelligence life within a hundred thousand years...

That was his original best-case scenario. But he never expected to be so lucky as to stumble upon a fully mature Life Star System, complete with billions of intelligent life forms!

He had never dreamed of encountering such a natural treasure. It seemed all that goblin shit he stepped on at the nursery planet wasn't for nothing!!

But now the awkward part was, he was staring at this massive treasure trove with no way to get his hands on it!

This civilization leaned toward materialism and had a complete anti-air missile system. With just this single Space Battleship equipped with a Compression Cannon and his rudimentary divine power, there was no way he could conquer and rule this planet alone!

Not being able to beat it was really awkward...

After three months of observation, he and the intelligent system gifted with the ship had calculated over seventeen million methods of invasion, including infiltrating the internal political structure to control humanity. But none yielded a success probability higher than twenty percent...

Should he send a signal and hand this planet over to the Federation in exchange for resources?

Though the planet's quality would net him plenty of resources, he was unwilling. Unwilling to let such an obvious opportunity for a rise slip away!

Just as he was burning with anxiety, the ship's intelligence proposed a method with a relatively higher success rate!

It was named the Star Sea Mode. The idea was to trick humans into providing labor, quietly developing his own power right under the nose of Planet D's Federation government!

And the trick was to use this newly emerging virtual reality game on Planet D!

"Attention, host. Teleportation Device detected as activated. Three life forms are currently being teleported!"

Xi Ye's spirits lifted at that. He quickly stood up, put on his helmet, and shouted solemnly at the humans just arriving through the teleportation gate: "Welcome to Star Sea, brave explorers! Come, sign the contract and become subjects under the great Lord Xi Ye!"