New Technology, G9 Gun Family

33 points of Grace, this was the largest sum Gu Hang had obtained to date.

He planned to keep three points to train three more companies.

As for the remaining thirty points, he pondered the directions in which he could spend them.

First, he opened the [Hero] interface, where his own personal information panel remained stuck on the prompt that he lacked sufficient experience to level up.

Experience was gained through war; beyond that, Gu Hang did not know if there were other ways, such as whether handling administrative affairs would grant experience. Gu Hang felt it should, but he had not verified it and remained unsure.

In any case, the war he had just won was not enough to reach the threshold for him to level up.

Instead, he saw a new name here.

[New Hero available for activation: Yan Fangxu, requires 10 points of Grace to activate]

Hmm?

Now Gu Hang was in a bit of a dilemma.

Should he activate Yan Fangxu as a hero? After becoming a hero, he could accumulate experience, add stat points to level up, and acquire talents... That guy did not seem to have any psychic talent, so he would likely just be a soldier template once activated.

Moreover, if he really put effort into cultivating him, Yelicia's starship would fly away in two years, and Yan Fangxu, this naval lieutenant, would likely leave with it. By then, all the investment in him would have gone down the drain.

Gu Hang did not distrust him just because he was in the naval sequence, but putting in the effort to invest and cultivate him was another matter entirely.

Putting that aside for now, Gu Hang opened the [Technology] panel.

He tested it by first investing 10 points of Grace.

[Invest 10 points of Grace to unlock a new basic-level technology, 70% probability. Confirm investment?]

No, no, no, no, no!

Gu Hang was somewhat astonished.

This probability could actually drop?

Previously, ten points of Grace had directly exchanged for a basic-level technology. He had thought that every exchange would only require ten points to get two Black Box Fabricators, but now it turned out the probability would drop?

A 70% probability was not low, but Gu Hang could not help but worry that it would continue to fall later on!

Does every successful technology unlock cause the success rate of the next one to decrease?

Gu Hang made a guess about the system's technology function panel.

A heavy blow.

He had thought that since he had such a massive cheat, he could easily become invincible later on; after all, technology was the primary productive force. Even if the Imperial tax really pressed him hard later, if he sold a Black Box Fabricator, wouldn't those Imperial merchant guilds, the Imperial Mechanicus, and the like come begging to send him money? There would be no need to worry about paying taxes at all.

As a result, this issue of the probability decreasing dealt him a direct blow to the head.

"Still have to do things the honest way," Gu Hang thought helplessly.

Fortunately, he had not truly treated selling technology as his only lifeline. If he could resolve the tax issue normally, he would do so; these black boxes, including those accumulated from future technology unlocks, were the capital for him to continue growing stronger.

In this position as governor, he did not hold the mindset of just toughing it out for a few years and then trying to find a way to transfer.

A planetary governor was a very special position. Someone like the governor of Nuxiao Planet was naturally not highly regarded; but if it were a planet with top-tier productivity and military capabilities, the governor's influence would be immense. Peidesi, the sector head of the Pegasus Sector, was able to secure his current position primarily because his younger brother was the governor of the sector capital, Feiyi Planet. Its population of ten billion and massive, stable productivity were his most solid backing.

Technology was the primary force for development. Unless absolutely necessary, Gu Hang would certainly not sell the Black Box Fabricator.

Right now, the success rate of the [Technology] function had decreased, but it didn't matter; the remaining 70% was still a decent probability. He still had over thirty points of Grace in his hands, so he would surely be able to successfully exchange for something.

[Invest 10 points of Grace to unlock a new basic-level technology, 70% probability. Confirm investment?]

Taking a breath, this time he clicked yes.

[Basic-level technology: G9 Gun Family]

[A new generation of kinetic rifle family developed by the Imperial Mechanicus to meet the order requirements of the Astra Militarum. On the premise of lower overall costs compared to the previous generation, it continues to push for lightweight and modular design. Through different accessories, it can be simply modified into firearms with different functions such as machine guns, automatic rifles, precision rifles, and submachine guns, and is further adapted for Alloy Plasteel bayonets.]

A smile appeared on the corner of Gu Hang's mouth, and then he couldn't help but laugh even more happily.

A treasure!

He didn't know about other places, but at least in the Pegasus Sector, whether it was the main force of the Imperial Guard Astra Militarum or the main force of the Naval Marines, the firearms used were still primarily the G7 type, also known as the 'Assaulter' rifle.

Previously, in Gu Hang's memories, there was indeed news about the G8 rifle gradually being issued, but at least until now, the scale of the replacement was not large, and the production capacity was insufficient.

And now, he had directly obtained the even more advanced G9 type!

Another great weapon.

If Gu Hang could integrate the entire planet, the production of the G9 rifle alone could bring in a massive amount of orders. The Astra Militarum, the Navy, and even the local defense forces of various planets in the Pegasus Sector wouldn't need to bother replacing them with G8s; they could just go straight to the 9s and be done with it.

Eating up those orders would be enough to pay off the Imperial tax in full.

Of course, this was just wishful thinking. For one, it was very difficult to explode with such massive production capacity; for another, if he really made such a big stir, the source of the technology would be impossible to explain.

Unlike Alloy Plasteel, which was a truly basic and widely used material production process, the G9 Gun Family was still very rare. If he made too much of a stir, he wouldn't be afraid of other things, but would those oil-heads from the Mechanicus come knocking?

And if he really couldn't explain where this stuff came from... the Inquisition might even show up. Suddenly mastering knowledge of an unknown source was a form of manifestation of Chaos corruption.

Of course, Gu Hang would not stop eating for fear of choking.

He should still use it when he needed to.

At the very least, equipping his own troops on a small scale was certainly not a problem.

He had been pondering how to make use of the weapons and equipment seized from those mercenaries, but now it seemed there was no great need for that.

Gu Hang, full of enthusiasm, tapped on the [Technology] interface once again.

[Invest 10 points of Grace to light up a new basic-level technology? Success probability: 40%. Confirm investment?]

As expected, it had dropped again.

A single successful technology unlock causes a 30% drop in success rate? Wouldn't it hit zero after just two more tries?

Absurd! Who would be willing to keep pumping points in at this rate?

Gu Hang cursed under his breath.

Then, he pumped in another ten points.

What else could he do? The things this Technology System provided were just too tempting.

[Unlock failed.]

Gu Hang's face fell, his blood boiled, and he threw the remaining ten points in as well.

Yan Fangxu would have to wait; gacha was more important right now.

[Unlock failed.]

No, seriously, a 40% probability, and it failed twice in a row—what is the meaning of this?

In truth, Gu Hang quite disliked these probability-based draws; he loathed failure. But for now, he could only afford the 10-point Grace tier; the next tier required 100 Grace points per draw.

Looking at it this way, the prize pool for each tier in the [Technology] panel was actually limited. If you draw too much, the probability keeps dropping, so you either upgrade to a higher tier to draw better items, or pay an even steeper price to gamble on low probabilities.

Under this concept, there was likely a hidden mechanism: you had to get the good stuff while the probability was still high, otherwise, once the good items fell into the low-probability bracket, it would be a massive loss.