Global Crossing: Empire of Stars

The thirty-round salvo ended. At this point, the surviving pirate ships finally reached the range of one Light-second, barely able to scan the Meteor Fleet. The pirates, forced into a passive defensive position, could no longer stand it and launched a counterattack against the enemy ships.

Of course, this method of firing just within radar detection range meant that unless one possessed Long-Range Artillery capabilities, shells fired from 30 kilometers away would be wildly off-target by the time they reached their destination.

Without any intention of dodging, the Meteor Fleet continued its barrage. After six rounds, their hit rate increased dramatically due to the closing distance. The pirate fleet was nearly annihilated, with only a heavily damaged pirate pursuit ship left half-dead and crippled in space.

Subsequently, two squadrons of space fighters moved in. Three consecutive rounds of beam rain finally destroyed it completely.

This rather lengthy battle finally came to a close. The Meteor Fleet, having fought two consecutive battles, achieved a complete victory.

At this moment, a thought crossed his mind, and he looked at his personal status panel.

Name: Lin Zhichen Elite Red
Gender: Male
Age: 21
Talent: Diligence Repays the Heavens Purple: Effect 1: Effort yields rewards; skill practice leads to improvement; Effect 2: Members within the faction enjoy the influence of this talent.
Gate of Time and Space Blue: Opens once a month, searching for temporal imprints to open temporary dungeons.
Psionicist Red: Effect 1: Awakens psionic energy; Effect 2: Skill learning speed +10%.
Profession: Captain Elite Red, Expert
Skills:
1 - Psionic Cultivation Red, Warrior 38.12%
- Fatal Strike Red, Novice 41.23%: Critical Hit +2%
- Fleet Command Red, Expert 1.03%: Fleet formation change speed +18%
Psionic Combat Skills:
1: Ship Command Elite Red: Effect 1: Ship Evasion +25%*10; Effect 2: Sublight Speed +25%*10 Psionic Cost: 50 Duration: 30min
- Sublight Assault Elite Red: Effect 1: Sublight Cannon Barrage Accuracy +25%*10; Effect 2: Sublight Cannon Barrage Damage +25%*10 Psionic Cost: 60 Duration: 30min
Psionics: 317
Evaluation: Behold, my Flying Immortal from Beyond the Heavens!

"I've already advanced to Expert level," Lin Zhichen said with a smile.

At this level of skill, he could begin the process of spiritualization. However, he was unwilling to convert before reaching the absolute peak, lest the resulting bonuses not be maximized.

"Big Brother, look at this." At this moment, Wu Tianyi sent a communication, transmitting a set of data. After decryption, it revealed a map of an asteroid belt.

"This is the data hard drive we salvaged from the battlefield. After conversion, it became this holographic map."

Data hard drives were common spoils of war, often containing valuable data. It could be a rare technology, the location of buried pirate treasure, or something else of value.

"Where is this?" he asked.

"I've already cross-referenced it. The target star system is within this asteroid belt," Wu Tianyi replied. "It looks like pirate treasure, but the estimated value is average, as it's just a white-light rarity."

Spoils of war could be roughly categorized by their light color: gray, white, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple. However, this wasn't absolute; sometimes, large-sized, low-light rarity items were no less valuable than colored ones.

"If it's on the way, let's go take a look," Lin Zhichen said casually.

After some comparison, the location of the pirate treasure was quickly determined: it was on a small asteroid about 11 Light-seconds ahead of the fleet's current course.

After collecting the spoils and a brief period of rest, the entire fleet set off once more.

With the support of the aircraft carrier's radar, the airspace within 5 Light-seconds was within its scanning range.

A squadron of space fighters flew around the advancing fleet. Their small size provided a distinct advantage here; the dense asteroid belt posed no obstacle as they weaved freely, guarding against potential enemies.

With the carrier's support, Lin Zhichen could finally relax a little, occasionally diverting his attention to adjust the fleet's formation to maintain optimal combat readiness.

The distance of a Light-second was negligible in space. Just one day later, they arrived at the target asteroid.

However, the fleet halted at this point because, according to radar and space fighter reconnaissance, there was a hidden space base on the target asteroid. Automated turrets were constantly operational, vigilantly scanning the surrounding star system.

Lin Zhichen ordered the space fighter squadron to probe the base. Dense beams and electromagnetic projectiles immediately locked onto the surrounding star system. If not for the fact that the NPC pilots' skills had reached Expert level, there would have been casualties this time.

"Dapeng, can you handle this?" Link asked deliberately.

Wei Peng rolled his eyes. "There's no gravity, how can ground troops fight effectively when they can't even stand steady?"

"Big Brother, I think we should just use space fighters. We can burn those turrets down with beam cannons," Wu Tianyi mused.

"Don't send anyone below Expert level. No more than 20 units at a time should be fine, as it's clearly automated turrets."

Automated turrets reacted faster than NPCs, but their drawback was their rigidity and single attack pattern. Once their weaknesses were discovered, they would truly become scrap metal.

"Send a small squad of elites to try," Lin Zhichen commanded.

Ultimately, space fighters were essentially cannon fodder, and pilot casualty rates were always high. In the military, Natural Person pilots were often tasked with commanding NPC pilots rather than charging into the front lines, similar to the situation with ground troops.

A squad of 12 fighters was immediately deployed, ordered to attack the fixed turrets.

These were carefully selected elite pilots, with individual skills generally reaching Expert level, making them the most skilled personnel in the fleet at the moment.

"Zzzzt~"

As soon as they approached the asteroid, the pirate turrets, guided by radar, immediately swiveled and opened fire on the approaching fighter group.

Hundreds of grams of metal projectiles rained down like a storm, suddenly covering a large area of space.

The targeted fighters rapidly accelerated, tracing winding arcs through space to evade the electromagnetic projectile attacks as much as possible.

Occasionally, yellow energy shields would flicker, blocking incoming electromagnetic projectiles, while the sturdy fighter's surface was dented by impacts.

If this were the Planetary Age, a plane that could be brought down by a bird strike would have seen its first ten space fighters wiped out. Fortunately, it was the Space Age; the energy shields attached to the fighters absorbed most of the attacks, and the remaining force was resisted by the fighter's outer armor. Without continuous fire, they could hold out for several more rounds.

Feeling a fatal crisis, the NPC pilots used all their learned skills to dodge the storm of projectiles. Meanwhile, their companions who had gained a moment of respite immediately unleashed beams of energy towards the pirate turrets.

Although energy shields had strong resistance against laser beams, the metal turrets gradually melted under the barrage from multiple aircraft.

Seconds after the battle began, an automated turret that had sustained continuous fire was finally destroyed by the high temperature, exploding in a burst of flames.

At this point, some space fighters, damaged by multiple shell impacts, had to retreat rapidly. Fighter craft that replaced them quickly moved forward to join the battle.

In just over ten seconds, the fighters present had already been rotated once, and the three pirate turrets were finally completely destroyed.

With the threat gone, over a dozen fighters swept back and forth, melting the alloy gate. After a brief cooldown, construction robots were dispatched to the asteroid to open the pirate treasure.

"Big Brother, it's a batch of precious cultural relics. According to the Star Net's estimation, the value is around 300 Energy Coins," Wu Tianyi quickly compared the data provided by the robots, reaching his conclusion.

There were no major surprises, but this was typical of most pirate treasures, likely the spoils of some past raid.

"A small gain," Lin Zhichen replied. He looked at the participating NPC pilots; three lucky individuals had been promoted to Master level during the brief and intense battle.

Pilots at this level were absolute aces, even within the Federation's military!

"According to some analyses in the military network, an ace pilot can easily defeat a hundred times their number of rookies!" Link also saw this, a slight smile appearing on his usually stoic face:

"Big Brother, your talent is truly heaven-defying."

After collecting the unexpectedly acquired gains, the fleet set sail once more, embarking on a journey around the solar system.

After consecutively destroying four pirate fleets, the Meteor Fleet, after nearly a month of continuous travel, finally encountered its first tough target: a newly refreshed small pirate base!

Classified by the scale of micro, small, and medium bases, this small pirate base was by no means small, still occupying more than half the volume of this five-kilometer-diameter asteroid.

Just the fleet patrolling around the base consisted of over a dozen pirate pursuit ships—space warships comparable to cruisers!

The number of pirate artillery and pirate raiders reached a staggering three hundred, the peak for a micro pirate base.

"This pirate base couldn't have been refreshed for more than half a month, otherwise, we'd be facing more than just this number of warships," Wu Tianyi judged based on the base's scale.

"According to information on the Star Net, some small pirate bases in peak condition have fleet sizes exceeding a thousand, with no less than fifty pirate pursuit ships alone!"

"Big Brother, this base is a bit strong. Should we consider it first?" Wei Peng advised. If they were to engage in a head-on fleet battle, the disparity in numbers would inevitably lead to heavy losses.

Lin Zhichen did not reply. He activated the Gate of Time and Space; after a month, this talent had refreshed once more.

"A new instance?" he thought with a jolt of joy, then looked closely and was shocked: "It's Transformers?!"

Without hesitation, he immediately activated the Transformers instance and quickly understood the plot.

This instance was similar to the movie: two factions of Transformers collectively came to Earth to find the artifact that created them, the AllSpark. Then, the Decepticons wanted to occupy Earth, and humans, cooperating with the Autobots, fought against the Decepticons.

Civilization Relic * AllSpark (Gold)

Passive Effect 1: Centered on the AllSpark, friendly mechanical units within a 1 light-second radius gain +30% to all attributes.
Passive Effect 2: Within the AllSpark's influence range, friendly mechanical units gain the "Mechanical Life" trait, with hull recovery +1%.

Active Effect: Consume 10-300 Energy Units to convert a designated mechanical creation into a controlled Transformer. Converted Transformers have a small chance of becoming Elite units, and a very small chance of becoming Hero units.

Energy Units: 300/300
Cooldown: 1 month

A metal cube with an edge length of one meter floated on the command cabin's deck, making the already cramped space, occupied by the Psionic Crystal, even more crowded.

Lin Zhichen looked at the mysterious cube before him, a genuine smile on his face. This was the first time he had obtained a gold-grade equipment.

Even the Psionic Crystal was only a red-grade equipment. According to the color-tier classification, there was still a yellow tier as a transition between them. This level of Civilization Relic was surely a precious treasure, even within the Federation.

Setting aside what Transformers were, the passive bonus effects alone from this relic could drastically increase the fleet's strength, with immediate and visible results.

"Big Brother, what did you do?" Wei Peng's voice boomed from the holographic projection. He had just been checking his fleet's ship attributes when they suddenly increased significantly.

After a careful inspection, he discovered that everything from firing range and accuracy to turret charging speed, and even radar detection range, had received a 30% boost.