Afterward, the captain went to select those willing to remain on Water Blue Star. He returned shortly afterward to report to Li Qinwu that there were simply too many people who wanted to stay—more than 8,000!
There were only a little over 70,000 personnel across Li Qinwu's two ships combined. Having so many people leave at once would be detrimental to stability aboard the warships.
Li Qinwu asked the captain, "Why are so many people willing to leave? That's nearly one-eighth of us!"
The captain said:
"Think about where the crew aboard your ships came from.
Either that rural backwater on Planet 496B, or the wastelands of an Industrial World.
A planet like Water Blue Star, with both industry and agriculture as well as such a good environment, is extremely habitable. Countless people would want to settle on a world like this!
But we can't let so many leave at once. Injecting one-eighth of the crew with fresh blood all at once would be bad for internal stability aboard the warships.
2,000 people. Let 2,000 leave this time. That's a more reasonable number."
Li Qinwu considered it. A full 8,000 people wanted to leave, but there were only 2,000 slots. That made those slots quite valuable!
Perfect. He could use them to reward merit. Whoever had contributed the most would get to leave first.
Afterward, Li Qinwu gathered everyone in the fleet and rewarded them according to their merits.
He first rewarded his core group of aides: Little Joel, Rudosen, Parson, Little Knife, and Les.
The five of them formed Li Qinwu's core military command, and he appointed them the Five Tiger Generals.
He had the factory manufacture five Mastercrafted Power Swords, extravagantly decorated, and gave one to each of them.
He then had Father Anthony perform customized life-extension surgeries