Battlefield of Alien Civilizations

The engines activated, and the Cangqiong began rapidly weaving through the silent Star Sea. This time, the drop location was still terrible. The Sky-Patrol Radar detected no celestial bodies within its range.

After wandering around like a headless fly for several hours without finding anything else, Song Chi's heart nearly sank to the bottom.

To prepare for this exploration, he had specifically bought another Raging Tiger I Floating Land Mining Vehicle of the same model, along with two vehicle-mounted prospecting instruments. It had cost him a full four hundred strands of Zero-Rank Floating Continent Essence, all to greatly improve mining efficiency.

Now, aside from that batch of temporary emergency resources, he only had three hundred strands of Zero-Rank Floating Continent Essence left.

If this expedition failed to yield enough, the profits from the Market Ruins opening afterward would inevitably be greatly reduced.

Just as he was growing anxious, the Sky-Patrol Radar suddenly began blaring an urgent alarm.

A dense cluster of red dots gathered in the upper-left corner of the radar display. Two massive fleets of warships were fiercely engaged in battle.

At some point, the Cangqiong had entered a starry battlefield between two alien civilizations.

The Cangqiong slowed to its minimum speed, doing its utmost to conceal its trail, while Song Chi silently observed this not-insignificant war from the edge of the battlefield.

Both sides had more than ten thousand warships. Judging from the energy fluctuations unleashed by their naval cannons, most of these vessels were Zero-Rank, interspersed with around a hundred First-Rank ships. Overall, this was the lowest-intensity kind of civilization war on an interstellar battlefield.

That said, it was still a conflict between civilizations. To Song Chi, a battlefield of this scale was extraordinarily dangerous, and he had no intention of getting involved.

The Dark Matter Energy Shield was certainly impressive, but on a battlefield with over ten thousand warships, where a single misstep could draw concentrated fire, it was far from enough.

Moreover, the Cangqiong's current firepower was rather weak. At best, it had a thicker health bar. The chances of profiting from the chaos were practically zero.

He continued drifting around the edge of the battlefield for over ten minutes. Only after locking onto an alien warship that had largely disengaged from the fight did Song Chi seize his chance and strike swiftly. The already heavily damaged alien vessel was easily destroyed.

Since he had decided not to take part in the war yet continued to linger near the battlefield, he naturally was not there to watch the excitement. His goal was the star charts aboard those warships.

He knew nothing about this completely unfamiliar starfield, but that did not mean the local civilizations were equally ignorant. Rather than blindly charging around like a headless fly, wouldn't it be better to spend a dozen minutes obtaining a star chart?

With the star chart in hand, Song Chi immediately piloted the Cangqiong away without a trace of hesitation.

A few minutes later, far from the battlefield, the Cangqiong turned sharply and sped toward the nearest small debris belt marked on the star chart.

In truth, the star chart covered a vast stretch of starfield. Not only were there small debris belts, but there were also three Star Sea Floating Continents. One of them was even a Level 2 resource floating continent, rich in all kinds of resources, with more than one or two medium-to-large metal ore veins.

Unfortunately, it was too far away. A distance of twelve light-years was simply beyond reach for the Cangqiong, which had yet to install a "Warp Device." Only that debris belt could be reached within a short time, making it the only choice.

More than an hour later, the Cangqiong finally arrived at the target debris belt.

Compared to the one he had encountered during his previous exploration, the debris belt before him was clearly much smaller in diameter. Song Chi did not mind. Conservatively speaking, there were over several hundred thousand celestial bodies in this debris belt, while less than twenty hours remained. He would likely only be able to survey a few hundredths of the debris belt, not even counting the time needed for mining.

Knowing there was no time to waste, Song Chi entered the Market Ruins and brought out a Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle. Then, the Cangqiong plunged straight into the debris belt.

Time passed, and the vehicle intelligence aboard the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle continued issuing alerts.

"Ten kilograms of adamantine. Skip."

"Gas ore. Unfortunately, only a few hundred kilograms. Skip."

"Astral Cold Iron. Fifty tons. Mining will take half an hour."

Mining time always passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, another five hours had gone by. There had been some gains during that time, but none in significant quantities. There was still no opportunity to deploy the second mining vehicle.

After all, if the deposit was too small, it could be mined in around half an hour. Going back and forth would only be troublesome.

The Cangqiong continued wandering aimlessly. In any case, the debris belt was large enough that there was no need for any survey plan.

The surprise came suddenly. Just a few minutes later, Song Chi discovered a fragment containing more than a thousand tons of adamantine.

"Radiation response from 'adamantine ore' detected on the fragment at coordinates xxxxx ahead. Preliminary estimate exceeds 'one thousand tons.'"

Song Chi carefully parked the Cangqiong on the target fragment, then lowered the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle from the shuttle. He assigned three First-Rank Fire Sunflower Soldiers to guard it, then brought out the second mining vehicle from the Market Ruins and piloted the Cangqiong onward to continue surveying.

A thousand tons of adamantine would take at least several hours to mine, enough time for the Cangqiong to survey a sizable area.

"Damn it, this place is cursed. The fragments are way too densely packed."

After a violent shudder, the Cangqiong narrowly passed through a gap between several tightly packed fragments. The shuttle, which had only been repaired a few days ago, suffered a few more minor scrapes. They were not serious, but Song Chi still cursed under his breath.

If the prospecting instrument had not detected unusual radiation fluctuations within this cluster of fragments, only a fool would have ventured into such an area.

But then again, even the prospecting instrument could not determine the exact result. It had only detected a layer of unusual energy fluctuations. Song Chi was quite curious about it, otherwise he would not have rushed in after releasing only two general-purpose drones and preliminarily confirming that there was no danger.

Song Chi swept his gaze around and frowned slightly. At a rough glance, there was nothing unusual in the area beyond the dense fragments. The vehicle intelligence behind him still gave the same prompt: "Unknown energy fluctuation. Further exploration required."

Looking at the dozen or so fragments ahead, each at least ten meters long and wide, Song Chi felt a headache coming on.

If he wanted to manually inspect them one by one, it would clearly take several hours.

With no other choice, Song Chi could only bring the Cangqiong closer and have the prospecting instrument determine exactly which fragment was emitting the energy fluctuations.

More than ten minutes later, after eliminating over half of them, Song Chi deployed the mining vehicle and had it conduct a thorough excavation of the remaining five fragments one by one.

An hour quickly passed. The first, second, and third fragments were eliminated in succession, and the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle began work on the fourth fragment.