Discovery

Most importantly, Rowan has found a way to truly make him stronger. As the first production base of the Swarm's Rat-folk Intellect, the Skaven civilization has the bloodline of Swarm nodes and has provided the Swarm with a large number of Intellect for many years.

In the past, only the best of the best were selected; not just any character could be made into Intellect. Many spiritual entities that found a way were rejected.

Rowan now realized that this was a huge waste. Regardless of the quality of a spiritual body, they all have the purest and most essential parts, only differing in quantity. Even those spiritual bodies that were not qualified to become Intellect, Rowan could simply absorb these essences to strengthen himself. This operation was very simple for him; it was merely a matter of breaking down the production process of Intellect and only performing the first half.

In addition, his growth process by absorbing energy from the universe can also be enhanced.

Rowan discovered that as the Swarm's influence, the number of Swarm Node Unit and territories increased, and the coverage area of Swarm Network expanded, the speed at which he drew energy from this universe accelerated. Although the increase was minuscule, it was indeed an increase, and as the Swarm continued to expand, this speed was bound to continue to increase.

Rowan had a premonition that as he grew further and the Swarm Network reached a certain extent, he would be able to interfere more with this universe in terms of dimensions, and might even be able to shake its rules.

However, that will probably be a long, long time from now. Right now, Rowan must focus on the present and get through the immediate crisis first.

Although since he gained a deeper understanding of himself, he felt that even if the entire Swarm in his universe were wiped out, he would not die, because his true self was outside the universe. However, the extinction of the Swarm would cause him to lose his coordinates in this universe. Perhaps at that time, he would be lost in the dimensional turbulence and fall into a deep sleep, which, for Rowan, would be no different from death.

--

The construction of the trading city of the Riken Civilization went very smoothly, without any unexpected problems. The two Epoch Clan spaceships remained docked in near-Earth orbit around the Riken Mother Planet. Perhaps due to the special circumstances here, the Epoch Clan had not entered hibernation. However, passing the time like this was still quite boring.

With the permission of the Riken Race, some Epoch Clan used equipment to access the Riken Race's internal network. Here, they immersed themselves in the ocean of different cultures, and they shared a lot in common when it came to appreciating art.

As for the language barrier? For a civilization of the Epoch Clan's caliber, learning things that only require rote memorization is a simple matter. After all, if a child in a civilization needs to spend a lot of time memorizing past knowledge, the time they can use for thinking and innovation will inevitably decrease. How can a civilization progress under such circumstances?

A special reinforcement learning device stimulates the brain to achieve the purpose of forced memorization. In just a few hours, Epoch Clan theoretically mastered the language and writing of Ricken. All that was left was to combine it with practice to apply what he had learned.

Since the war ended, restrictions on speech among the Riken Race have been relaxed, and with the elimination of huge military expenditures, the living standards of the people have improved considerably. They have more leisure time and have begun to pursue spiritual fulfillment.

The Riken Race's intranet is their cheapest way to satisfy their spiritual needs. It offers a wide variety of variety shows, movies, and TV dramas, which the Epoch Clan members watch with great interest. On the trending topics list, most of the top ten are related to joining the Star Sea Alliance.

"The thinking of these Riken Race is quite strange," a member of the Epoch Clan remarked.

No wonder he thought that way; in his mind, invited nations all harbored hatred towards the inviting nation. But the Riken Race's perception of the Swarm was very strange; they had almost no resistance to being invited by the Swarm to join the Star Sea Alliance.

There are three main reasons for this phenomenon. First, the Riken Race have been fighting the Swarm for many years, and apart from one victory on Laze Planet, they have always been suppressed by the Swarm. Even that one victory was later suspected to be intentional on the Swarm. This has put the Riken Race at a psychological disadvantage, especially since they were ultimately defeated by the Swarm without a fight. They were quite convinced of this, as it was a sign of respect for the strong.

Secondly, after the Swarm's victory, they didn't make any excessive demands. Many members of the Riken Race realized that even if they were in the Swarm's position, they would find it difficult to achieve what the Swarm had done. They greatly admired this.

The third point is the Intellect who disguised themselves as high-ranking Riken Race and their years of public opinion manipulation.

Strictly speaking, there is a fourth point: after joining the Star Sea Alliance, the Swarm did not plunder the Riken Race's wealth and people like other civilizations. This made the Recon grateful after learning some of the Alliance's inner workings.

Moreover, the inside stories of those the Alliance made the Riken Civilization realize that, no matter where you are, it's a dog-eat-dog world. Given the size of the Riken Race, without a powerful backer, wouldn't they be easily manipulated by established civilizations?

They could choose to join some small organizations, but whether those organizations would be useful in a critical moment is another matter, as they would collect a lot of protection money in ordinary times.

On the contrary, the Swarm are powerful and gentle, making them a true asset. Moreover, a close neighbor is better than a distant relative, and given the Swarm's previous good character and reputation, the Riken Race trust the Swarm more than those the Alliance members they don't know.

However, the Epoch Clan members only made a few simple complaints about these things; the inner journey of a small rural clan was not worth their much attention.

"Huh, they actually have such good stuff?" The Epoch Clan who had just been complaining suddenly widened his eyes and said with some surprise. This Epoch Clan looked like Blue-Haired Monkey and was very similar to the security guard from before. If it weren't for the slight difference in voice, he would probably be mistaken for the same monkey.

It seems that the Blue-Haired Monkey might actually belong to a large race, with several members of the same race in a small formation.

"What good stuff?" The Blue-Haired Monkey's colleague turned his head to look. Recently, several colleagues in their room had often made this kind of noise, but it was usually just some kind of strange video. Although they came from different ethnic groups and had different aesthetic tastes, they shared the same understanding of certain things.

However, he had already seen the image displayed on the screen in front of the Blue-Haired Monkey, a combination of pictures and text, which seemed to be an introduction to some product. His colleague's curiosity subsided slightly; textual descriptions are usually not as intuitive as videos, but he still couldn't help but take a closer look to see what had caused the Blue-Haired Monkey to exclaim in surprise.

"XXX! Really? How could they have something like this!" A colleague's exclamation seemed to ignite something, and a large group of the Epoch Clan swarmed around them.

Thank you guwangjinlai for the 1500 Qidian coins reward.