Exchange

The exact number of the Epoch Clan's population is unknown, but with their "homeland" territory spanning over 200 star systems and nearly 200 Garrison Point, their population must be considerable. With so many people, the possibility of someone unwittingly becoming an elder is extremely slim.

Therefore, Rowan only believed 60% of what Humins said. However, Humins was a pretty good person; although Sarah kept cryptic and his mind was getting tired of him, he didn't lose his temper.

Therefore, Rowan said he was quite good and even gave him a gift: the Zerg's latest Biological Armor, bloodline-bound, instantly activated, and quickly donned, ensuring the host's biological functions could be maintained for more than seven days in outer space. It also came with a simple exoskeleton that could enhance the host's various functional indices, allowing him to climb five floors in one go without any effort.

Of course, there are also some hidden features, but they are not worth mentioning one by one.

Humins was full of praise for the gift from the Swarm.

During the several days of meetings, he also expressed the Epoch Clan's interest in the Swarm technology and hoped that the Swarm could exchange it for points.

"Hehe, the Epoch Clan knows us quite well." Looking at the exchange list that Humins took out, Rowan was hiding in the shadows, also chuckled.

Various Biological Weapon, portable Biological Armor, Primary Color Encryption Technology, Genetic Encryption Technology, etc., each followed by an extremely high score.

For example, the Primary Color Encryption is an encryption technology used in the Swarm's overt communication system. It uses more than 30 primary colors and their derivative colors to encrypt information, and no civilization has been able to crack it yet.

This seemingly unimportant skill alone can earn you a whopping 20 million points.

To put this in perspective, the 100,000 researchers of the Riken Race would only be paid 100,000 points, and the data related to life-extending technology would only be worth 10,000 points. The basic data on the warp drive would only require 50 million points.

Of course, a normal, native civilization would typically need tens of thousands of years to accumulate 50 million points. Even a civilization like the Duoqi Civilization might not have 20 million points in reserve right now.

Seeing these staggering numbers, Rowan's smile faded. While the Swarm's technologies were unique, they weren't essential for the Epoch Clan. Moreover, the mechanical and biological technology routes each had their advantages and disadvantages, and many things had substitutes. Under the same exchange rate, some technologies weren't worth that many points at all.

Although the Epoch Clan's points are worthless to them as the issuing unit, they are worth as much as they can be exchanged for useful items. However, since Epoch Clan points are now equivalent to the common currency for transactions among other races, the Epoch Clan must consider the stability of the Star Sea Alliance when formulating exchange rules and cannot act so recklessly.

But even under these circumstances, they still gave such an exaggerated figure. In Rowan's understanding, there are only two possibilities.

One reason is that they genuinely need Swarm technology; the other is that they are confident they can reclaim the over-issued points quickly enough to prevent them from entering the market and affecting the Alliance's stability.

If it's the first scenario, that's fine. But if it's the second, that's not good news for the Swarm.

Rowan frowned in thought; perhaps there was a third possibility.

Considering the previous speculation that the player needed not only a large quantity of Swarm but also high quality, perhaps it was some behind-the-scenes maneuver that allowed the Swarm to gain more points to improve their own performance.

Rowan calculated that if he redeemed all the technologies on the list, he could push the warp drive to at least five times the speed of light. But if he added the accompanying technologies such as weapons, radar, and materials, he could also upgrade the entire technology tree to more than three times the speed of light, almost four times.

Once this set of greatswords is completed, the Swarm's technological level will instantly surpass that of the established outer-circle power, the Telo Civilization. It will only be a matter of time before they surpass them overall.

The problem now is that perhaps Rowan has been hiding too well, and the mastermind behind the scenes has far underestimated the true level of the Swarm. Many of those things the Swarm has already achieved or even surpassed. Rowan is naturally unwilling to spend real materials to exchange for a bunch of outdated things.

Therefore, the points of the Epoch Clan are not very useful to the Swarm. Exchanging them for the theories that the Swarm currently needs is problematic because firstly, the points are insufficient, and secondly, the target is too large, which could easily trigger a chain reaction, and these reactions are generally unfriendly to the Swarm.

If the fruit ripens too quickly, it will face the fate of being picked at any time. Therefore, for whatever reason, Rowan wanted to slow down the process.

However, the Swarm's reaction was probably within the expectations of the mastermind, because with this series of combined attacks, some objectives were almost impossible to hide.

Therefore, it is normal for the Swarm, as an intelligent force, to take some countermeasures.

But the mastermind behind the scenes certainly won't give up easily. There are definitely other methods waiting for the Swarm force them to submit, but we don't have enough information to analyze them right now. We can only deal with them as they come.

In the days that followed, the Swarm exchanged some scraps of technology for the Epoch Clan according to the exchange list, with a total transaction amount of only tens of thousands of points. None of the technologies that the Epoch Clan had highlighted were exchanged, not even their prerequisite technologies or pre-prerequisite technologies.

As expected, the Swarm's passive attitude of indifference to high technology did not attract any overt targeting. It seems that the mastermind behind the scenes cannot ignore the rules of the Star Sea Alliance, or rather, they could ignore them, but the cost would be too high. In any case, Rowan has increased his vigilance to guard against any hidden forces.

To Rowan's surprise, everything seemed calm. After leaving the Swarm, Humins returned to the Riken Race territory and signed a formal alliance agreement with the Riken Race.

Several months later, an order was sent to the Swarm.

Because the Epoch Clan brought multiple research teams this time, they built a large number of laboratories around the Riken Race, and the consumption of experimental raw materials also increased day by day. The Riken Race's originally decent production suddenly became insufficient.

Therefore, the Epoch Clan thought of the Riken Race's nearest neighbor— the Swarm.

The Swarm's territory is where Life-Extending Plant were first discovered, so producing them wouldn't be a problem. Moreover, it's very likely that the plant itself was developed by the Swarm or is a byproduct of some kind of technology; this order might also be a test.

However, Rowan wanted to distance himself from anything related to Life-Extending Plant, so why would he become a supplier? But his refusal was so thorough that it seemed rather suspicious.

After much deliberation, the Swarm responded to the Epoch Clan. Unfortunately, although the Swarm could help produce some, it was far from meeting the Epoch Clan's requirements, because the Swarm did not have enough nuclear waste or enough Godzilla, so they could not cultivate it on a large scale.