Global Crossing: Empire of Stars

"No!" Liu Manyun answered firmly. "As long as you're not stupid enough to pocket all the profits yourself."

"Of course not. I'm prepared to give up 60 percent of the shares, at most 80 percent!" Lin Zhichen replied.

"Sixty percent is enough. The Federation won't simply take everything from you; it'll give you some compensation. It'll be far less than what it's actually worth, but still enough to make you rich for now—and it'll keep quite a few greedy eyes off you."

Liu Manyun breathed a sigh of relief. What she feared was him acting recklessly. Laws and order were nothing more than a fig leaf when necessary, and could be torn away at any time:

"Once you're strong enough, you may be able to reclaim what you lost."

"Even 20 percent would be enough to make me rich." Lin Zhichen smiled. "If I asked for a cartographer, would that be possible..."

"Don't even think about it. Once NZT-50 appears, getting strategic talent like that will be much harder than it is now." Liu Manyun shook her head.

Liu Manyun continued, "Because by then, even an idiot will know your goal is to establish a nation. No one likes a competitor. The Federation itself might not intervene, but families within the Federation that have ambitions of their own certainly won't let you get your way. You have to understand, the star systems that are relatively easy to conquer have long been watched by multiple major players. They don't want another competitor!"

"I see." Lin Zhichen understood. It seemed the situation within the Federation was far more complicated than he'd imagined.

"Don't worry about finding a cartographer. To be blunt, you're still a long way from that. What you should be thinking about is how to survive the greedy people eyeing you." Liu Manyun continued:

"You don't need to worry too much about the Solar System's safety. Earth has only just joined the Federation, and this is a critical period. No one would dare make a major move right now. With your strength, you can weather any dangers that arise in the open.

The problem is that you'll be in danger once you leave the Federation. You'll inevitably be attacked behind the scenes.

You need to think this through. You have plenty of time to grow at your own pace; there's no need to walk a tightrope. Give it a few decades, and you'll be able to lead Meteor onto the path of becoming a military force!"

"Do you know what my regiment is called?" Lin Zhichen asked.

From the very beginning, he'd never considered backing down.

Life was short, so he seized the day. Even awakening Psionics and gaining a lifespan of hundreds or even thousands of years hadn't changed his outlook.

"I want a batch." Liu Manyun composed herself. "At a price of one Energy Coin per pill."

That was a high price, considering the effect lasted only 24 hours. It could advance a skill by roughly one level, and was most useful when breaking through.

"Fine, but they're for your personal use only, and you can't reveal them for a while." Lin Zhichen agreed. "I want to use them to give my regiment a boost."

"Will that work? You only get one pill a month?" Liu Manyun looked at him doubtfully. As she understood it, NZT-50 worked best when taken over a long period. How much could a skill advance in a single day?

Lin Zhichen smiled without answering. The pills were the same, but how he used them was his business.

He gave her a couple of playful squeezes, drawing a soft gasp from the beauty. "Enough of this mood-killing talk. Let's get in a little morning exercise first!"

Three hours later, Lin Zhichen and Liu Manyun stood in the lab, looking at the glass bottle in Dr. Li Ping's hand. It was filled with transparent pills, each about a centimeter in diameter.

"It's truly amazing, sir. They're made from nothing but ordinary herbs, yet this special process produces such a remarkable medicine. It's hard to believe!" Dr. Li Ping was visibly excited.

"I've already tested it, and its effects are exactly as described!"

"Since it worked, start setting up the Production Line as soon as possible." Lin Zhichen nodded. "Produce a batch first. I have a use for it."

"I understand, sir." The doctor nodded at once. He went to discuss it with Xu Wen, the manager of the industrial department. Bringing a product to market required close cooperation between the two departments.

Carrying out a box of pills, Liu Manyun suddenly said, "I'm leaving."

"So soon? Won't you stay for a couple of days?" Lin Zhichen asked, surprised.

"What, you can't bear to see me go?" Liu Manyun gave him a seductive smile. Lin Zhichen felt his heart itch, and reached out to grab her, but she slipped away, leaving a string of laughter behind.

"I'd originally planned to recruit you into the Mercenary Group. Since you already have one of your own, I won't say any more.

"NZT-50 is extremely valuable, so be careful. If things become impossible, given your strength and talent, you can always take a step back. What's lost can always be regained someday."

"Have a safe trip." He smiled calmly, though a faint melancholy lingered in his heart.

The sensations of touch and taste were completely different from those in the Virtual World. No wonder people said not to get addicted to the internet—you could easily miss out on so many wonderful things.

In the sky, a gemstone-red flying car shot upward like a phoenix rising into the heavens.

People of the Jianghu took separations and reunions in stride.

At the Meteor Mercenary Group's headquarters, over a hundred selected NPCs were practicing martial arts in the enclosed training ground. They moved like bears and stretched like birds, their motions relaxed yet powerful.

A healthy body was essential for Refining Essence into Qi. Here, health meant more than strength or resistance to illness; it meant mastering one's breathing.

The Zhuangzi, in the chapter "Deliberate Effort," from the Warring States period: "Blow out and breathe in, expel the stale and draw in the fresh, stretch like a bear and extend like a bird—this is all for longevity."

Through specific movements, one made one's vital energy flow through the meridians. In the process, the essence latent within the body was drawn out and strengthened.

The process of strengthening the body's vital energy was Refining Essence into Qi.

It looked easy, but the key lay in coordinating the whole body's movements with one's breathing. Even the slightest misstep could affect one's progress. A serious mistake could disrupt the flow of energy and cause injury—the condition commonly known as cultivation deviation.

Even someone with good aptitude would need a year or two to master the movements in coordination with the breathing method. Yet this group of NPCs, who had trained for only a few hours, was already performing them smoothly.

"Not bad, not bad!"

The effects of NZT-50 exceeded even his expectations. Lin Zhichen had demonstrated the movements only once and corrected a few mistakes, yet the NPCs had already learned them accurately and begun the process of Refining Essence into Qi.

Of course, he knew this was the power of an overclocked brain. Once the effect wore off tomorrow, their training would likely become much less effective, and their movements might even grow crooked and awkward.

But all he needed was for them to get started. At that moment, the personal panels of all the NPCs in this trial group showed that they had reached the initial stage of Refining Essence into Qi. As they continued practicing, their progress was still increasing rapidly.

Under normal circumstances, squeezing one's vital energy like this was a recipe for death. The human body could generate only a limited amount of vital energy each day, and exhausting it through overexertion led to a shortened lifespan or even sudden death. Throughout history, countless cultivators had died young after chasing faster results. Their fates served as warnings.

But these weren't normal circumstances. In a corner of the training room stood stacks of boxes.

Some had already been opened, revealing rows of azure-blue vials inside.

Psionic potions, specially made to accelerate Psionicists' cultivation. They were prepared by extracting and blending the essence of Psionic Plants.

Every so often, the NPCs would pause their practice, walk over to the boxes, drink a vial, then sit down to regulate their breathing and recover.

Lin Zhichen had already realized that, in his previous world, the Psionic Plants of this world would have been considered immortal mushrooms and herbs. Even cultivators at the Yang God level would benefit greatly from taking them; they could be called elixirs.

That was because the Psionic energy here was of a higher grade. Based on his research, its level was comparable to the power of immortals. In the Psionic Realm of his previous world, this place would have been the legendary Immortal Realm.

Even more valuable was that Psionic potions worked well without overwhelming the body. If the body couldn't absorb them, their effects naturally dissipated. That was an extremely important quality in a medicine. As Lin Zhichen saw it, even with the lowest-quality Apprentice-level potions on the market,

the NPCs could absorb only about one-tenth of their effects. Most of the rest went to waste, dissipating into the air and slowly raising the Psionic energy concentration in the area.

Psionic potions were highly effective for cultivation. Refining Essence into Qi had originally been limited to three cycles, relying on the body's natural recovery. Now, the NPCs could manage as many as twenty-seven cycles—a full ninefold increase!

Even better, after a few rounds of practice, Refining Essence into Qi had become a skill, etched into the NPCs' personal panels.

Even after NZT-50 wore off tomorrow, the process of Refining Essence into Qi would still progress rapidly, thanks to Lin Zhichen's talent and the replenishment provided by the Psionic potions.

By his estimate, at most three months would be enough for this group of NPCs to reach the Qi Refining to Godhood stage and condense their Yin Gods.

Within a year at the earliest, and three years at the latest, the Meteor Mercenary Group would have more than a hundred Psionicists!

"If I'd had these conditions in my previous life, what would a dynasty have meant to me? A hundred or a thousand Yang Gods could have risen up. Even a unified empire would have been thrown into chaos, and the world remade!"

Lin Zhichen sighed, yet his heart was full of hope for the future.

The experiment had succeeded. As long as the Meteor Mercenary Group continued to grow, its future would be limitless!

Twenty days later, the twenty-three pirate ships escorted by Wei Peng and the others finally reached port. Earth, which had already settled down, was thrown into an uproar once again. Countless people pointed high-definition electronic telescopes into space, recording the scene and sharing it online.

It was the first—and only—time in the three years since their arrival in the New Universe that anyone had captured pirate NPCs. Netizens went wild.

"I saw it online before and thought it was a promotional video. Now it's confirmed."

"666, the boss is amazing!"

"A Sublight Assault! A big name is about to emerge from Earth!"

"Even if he becomes famous, it has nothing to do with you."

"Where's the livestream? What happened to the one at the Pirate Base? Why did it stop?"

"Look it up online. The Rockefeller Corporation sent a large force to attack a half-crippled base, but they took a serious beating."

"They died horribly. An entire regiment of Army Soldiers was wiped out, including their commander. The whole force was annihilated!"

"That's not all. The family fleet sent to hold the base in check also lost several Frigates. Now they've had to retreat beyond radar range to regroup."

"Useless corporation! Leave the Solar System in peace!"

Inside the flying car, Wei Peng looked at the messages on StarNet and sneered. "What a bunch of useless fools. We've already cleared out all the pirate ships on the perimeter, and they still couldn't take an empty city!"

"To be fair, suppressing the base's firepower with a fleet was asking too much. Even if Ake and I had gone in, we wouldn't have done much better than those captains. Not every captain can attack accurately at Sublight speeds." Wu Tianyi shook his head, his tone serious.

He'd watched the footage of the Rockefeller Family's attack. The asteroid where the Pirate Base was located had almost no gravity. Even the slightest exertion by the attacking Army Soldiers could send them past the asteroid's escape velocity, shooting them straight into space.

Under those unusual combat conditions, the attacking force was severely hampered. They couldn't bring even half of their strength to bear before the base's automated drone force struck them down. Their losses had been total in an instant.

"If they can't take it, what happens to our spoils?" Link asked.

Wu Tianyi shook his head. "That depends on how the Rockefeller Family organizes its second attack."

The flying car was passing through the atmosphere. Seen from below, the sky looked as if it were raining meteors. More than a dozen cars streaked by, trailing lines of fire.

The convoy had been dispatched by the Meteor Mercenary Group to welcome back the returning crew.

"They're back." As Wu Tianyi and the others stepped out of their car in the parking lot, they saw Lin Zhichen waiting to greet them.

"Big brother!" They greeted him, then headed toward the training room. Before long, they saw groups of NPCs practicing body cultivation.