Chapter Summaries

Xi Yan delivered aid and advanced technology to the Luopeng Resistance, restoring Norg and building its capacity to oppose Minamar Specialized Industries. The chapter ended with Xi Yan arranging for refugees to settle on Norg and urging Chairman Jahuda to lead the Luopeng toward defeating their former enslavers.

• Xi Yan's fleet delivered vast supplies and technicians to Norg despite Minamar Specialized Industries' anger.
• Chairman Jahuda welcomed the aid, while human technicians admired the Luopeng's colorful feathers and photographed them.
• Human experts brought an ice-crystal asteroid into Norg's orbit and built an Amatiero Plant People Farm to provide water and food.
• Xi Yan gave the Luopeng Resistance warship technologies and ordered construction of an Arc Furnace · Equatorial Ring and a Dyson Cloud to supply industry.
• Xi Yan arranged for the United Nations of Earth to send refugees from the Xindari Triumvirate and Minamar Specialized Industries to settle on Norg.
• Xi Yan encouraged Jahuda to govern the Luopeng and destroy Minamar Specialized Industries.

Xi Yan visited the Dessanu Concordat in a Nanite body to help Empire Will turn the simulated state into a genuine nation. He promised to build the Concordat from scratch and make it rival a Lost Empire.

• Little Gray prepared to become the Core Sector Governor, while Empire Will asked Xi Yan to help govern the Dessanu Concordat.
• Xi Yan possessed a Nanite body on the Concordat's capital planet and met Empire Will and Little Gray in the Presidential Palace garden.
• Empire Will and Little Gray showed affection for Xi Yan, who agreed to postpone their proposed mating ritual until after his ascension.
• Xi Yan explained that the Concordat needed a real population and asked Empire Will about producing Nanite consciousnesses and her knowledge of consciousness technology.
• Empire Will admitted she lacked the knowledge to create Nanite consciousnesses, and Xi Yan promised to build the Concordat into a nation from scratch.

Big Gray and Xi Yan planned to rebuild Dessanu by using robot cognitive cores in Nanite bodies, while the Academy of Sciences prepared to provide technological assistance. Miss Gray Tempest arrived in the Empire with a dozen Everspin Gyroscopes and a Continuum, leaving Xi Yan stunned by her discoveries.

• Big Gray resolved to make Dessanu a major power again, and Xi Yan proposed housing Intelligent Robot cognitive cores in Nanite bodies to create a working population.
• Little Gray confirmed she could make Nanite bodies for cognitive cores, and Xi Yan proposed restoring Dessanu’s planets to Nanite Worlds and developing their resource production.
• Xi Yan returned to the Golden Throne and instructed the Academy of Sciences to provide robot cognitive cores and other technological support to the Dessanu Concordat.
• Miss Gray Tempest emerged from the Faranis black hole, arrived at Cybrex Alpha Stellar Base, and offered to become Xi Yan’s governor.
• Miss Gray Tempest revealed a dozen Everspin Gyroscopes and a golden structure called the Continuum, which she had found inside a huge rift.

Xi Yan welcomed Gray Tempest back from her dangerous trip with a trove of Relics, which the Empire’s scientists began studying for practical uses. He then brought her to the office beside the Golden Throne and started teaching her how to govern a sector.

• Gray Tempest told Xi Yan how she had escaped through the L-Gate, been chased into an Astral Rift, and returned with Relics, and he urged her not to sneak away again.
• Xi Yan and Gray Tempest took the Everspin Gyroscopes and the Continuum to the Academy of Sciences’ Beta Ring World branch.
• The scientists found that the Everspin Gyroscopes rotated without energy or interference, then proposed using them to generate electricity.
• Scientists determined that the Continuum likely came from a higher-dimensional world and could increase resource output through its temporal properties.
• Xi Yan explained Gray Tempest’s Nanite body and core, showed her the Sector Governor’s office beside the Golden Throne, and began teaching her to handle sector affairs.

Xi Yan learned that the Refuge system held an ancient Ring World with four pre-FTL civilizations and ordered its defenses destroyed so the inhabitants could be relocated. After initially sending some aliens to harsh planets, he arranged for the Enigmatic Observers to take the remaining species into their Xeno Preserve.

• The empire's Science Ship discovered the Refuge Ring World but could not explore it because ancient defense platforms attacked approaching ships.
• Xi Yan sent the First Fleet, which destroyed the defense platforms and secured the system; an automated message identified the facility as a preserve built by the Ximiao Republic.
• Xi Yan ordered the deteriorating Ring World dismantled and sent Colony Ships and Space Marines to relocate its pre-FTL inhabitants.
• Xi Yan sent some of the aliens to designated colony planets, including a barren world where he left them with their Colony Ship.
• Xi Yan contacted the Enigmatic Observers, who explained that the Ximiao Republic had aided them and agreed to welcome Refuge's inhabitants into their Xeno Preserve.

Xi Yan and Beta investigated a signal from the Infinite Machine near the Gargantua black hole and opened a connection to its processors. The machine revealed that it was calculating infinity, leaving Xi Yan and Beta uncertain about its purpose.

• Xi Yan received a report that the Infinite Machine had begun transmitting a signal from the Gargantua black hole.
• Xi Yan and Beta traveled through the network to the Gargantua Stellar Base and decoded the machine's event horizon signals.
• Beta and Xi Yan exploited the Infinite Machine's systems and connected the Science Ship to an auxiliary processor.
• Xi Yan and Beta established communication with the Infinite Machine, which said it had been built to solve a problem and had one problem left.
• The Infinite Machine told Xi Yan and Beta that it was calculating infinity, a task that would occupy its processors for many years.

Xi Yan and Beta helped the Infinite Machine scan the Kagantuya Black Hole, but its research could not yet be completed. The machine rewarded Xi Yan with zero-point energy technology and promised to contact them again when they could continue the research independently.

• The Infinite Machine recognized Cybrex-like frequencies in Beta's code, and Beta identified it as a creation of The Excerptors.
• Xi Yan arranged for the Empire's computers to help the Infinite Machine analyze data from the Kagantuya Black Hole.
• The computers struggled under the enormous data load as the Empire learned that the Infinite Machine was recalculating the universe's fundamental laws.
• The Infinite Machine said its research had failed for now, thanked the Empire, and offered a reward while promising a follow-up when humanity could continue independently.
• Xi Yan requested the machine's energy secrets, and Beta recorded the zero-point energy technology it transmitted.
• Beta speculated that The Excerptors had investigated the true nature of the universe, and Xi Yan wondered about reversing time to learn what happened in the past.

The Empire repaired the Automated Dreadnought and sent it south to guard its expanding borders. In the Duggar system, Science Ship Four discovered a frozen alien infant, and Xi Yan recognized the significance of the find and ordered the crew to revive it.

• Bolin and the Salvager City-State engineers completed repairs on the Automated Dreadnought, which Xi Yan dispatched south with Disruptor Cruisers to defend the Empire’s frontier.
• Science Ship Four detected a faint distress signal from Dugor IV and established a project to locate its source.
• The crew excavated an ancient escape pod and found a humanlike alien infant preserved in a working cryogenic capsule.
• The Academy of Sciences ordered the crew to execute the infant, but Xi Yan recognized the name of the Duggar system and ordered them to revive the baby and report every detail to him.

Xi Yan revived Aexa Caedhes and decreed that the Empire would raise him until he uncovered his civilization’s secrets. Meanwhile, Big Gray helped the Empire develop nanotechnology and transform the L-Cluster into a normal interstellar empire, aiming to rebuild Dessanu trade.

• Xi Yan ordered the cryopod found in the Dugor System returned to the Cybrex Ring world, where scientists revived Aexa Caedhes and recovered a damaged data crystal and an artifact from his escape pod.
• Xi Yan refused to adopt Caedhes personally and declared that the Empire’s adult citizens would raise him until he discovered the secrets of his civilization.
• Big Gray gave the Empire nanite technologies so it could pursue nanotech ascension and help develop the L-Cluster.
• Xi Yan transferred the consciousnesses of M'tok Stone People citizens and older single human citizens into nanite-simulated brains and sent them to the L-Cluster.
• The Empire used nanotechnology to boost robot assembly, expand the L-Cluster’s workforce, and transform the Dessanu Concordat into a normal interstellar empire.
• Big Gray set out to rebuild the Dessanu trade empire through the L-Gate Network.

Xi Yan’s Empire investigated a strange signal from the Faranis black hole, and science officer Yu Guixing vanished after encountering something he called a worm. The Horizon Signal event chain began, and when the black hole named a second science officer, Ayra Santis, Xi Yan sent her toward the coordinates with an explosive device aboard her ship.

• Xi Yan oversaw aid to the L-Cluster while the Empire completed cybernetic ascension and began research into synthetic ascension.
• Scientists at the Faranis black hole detected a signal containing coordinates and a message addressed to Yu Guixing.
• Yu Guixing piloted a science ship to the coordinates, reported seeing a worm, and disappeared with his ship.
• Xi Yan recognized that the Horizon Signal event chain had begun and that it would claim two leaders.
• A new signal named Ayra Santis, so Xi Yan sent her to the black hole aboard a ship rigged to self-destruct.

Ayla’s science ship detonated after she began predicting the anomalous readings at the Faranis black hole, but the wreckage revealed clues about entropy recursion and omega theory. Meanwhile, the Empire completed the Star Kingdom Atlas and reached a void-worm-infested system where Xi Yan’s final search for Captain Nais’s treasure required repairing an abandoned gateway.

• Ayla predicted the Faranis black hole’s sensor readings before the ship detected an energy surge and detonated.
• The Academy of Sciences recovered anomalous data from the wreckage and reported its entropy recursion theory to Xi Yan, who ordered research to begin.
• Xi Yan received a final message from the Faranis black hole, while the expected next stage of the Time Worm event chain never appeared.
• The Empire completed gateway repair research and decoded the final fragment of the Star Kingdom Atlas, which revealed hidden treasures and pointed toward the Clisson System.
• Xi Yan and the Community Fleet reached a black hole system occupied by void worms and found an abandoned gateway they needed to clear and repair.

Xi Yan’s Community Fleet defeated Void Worms and adopted their nymphs as a biological fleet, then reached the Chadbury System and faced Captain Cobalt Feather’s Black Needle fleet. Cobalt Feather threatened to destroy the Empire unless Xi Yan surrendered Captain Nais’s complete legacy, and Xi Yan stalled while questioning his claims.

• The Community Fleet killed Void Worms, discovered their nymphs, and added the creatures to the Community’s fleet.
• Xi Yan considered breeding other space creatures as fleets and ordered the Sociology research team to investigate.
• The engineering team repaired the Clisson System Gateway, and the Science Ship reached Chadbury, where it found a large Black Needle fleet led by a Titan-class flagship.
• Captain Cobalt Feather offered Xi Yan a bounty for Captain Nais’s complete legacy and threatened to dismantle the Empire if Xi Yan refused.
• Xi Yan questioned how Cobalt Feather could destroy the Empire and tried to buy time by asking about the cost of his alleged operation.

Xi Yan stalled Black Needle’s demand for the Star Kingdom Atlas, then learned Ashes had been monitoring the pirates’ supposed infiltration of the Empire all along. He ordered a brutal purge of their collaborators, leaving Black Needle’s fleet as the remaining threat.

• Cobalt Feather explained that Black Needle sought the Star Kingdom Atlas to help fulfill Silver Feather’s revenge against Captain Nais, and Xi Yan asked for a year to consider the offer.
• Cobalt Feather gave Xi Yan four months to decide, threatening war if he tried further tricks.
• Xi Yan questioned Ashes’ department heads, and Kai Sha revealed that Ashes had tracked Black Needle’s agents through a fabricated infiltration network.
• Xi Yan ordered the arrest of identified traitors and their families for human experimentation and bio-trophy power generation.
• Xi Yan’s nationwide address calmed unrest, and Ashes uprooted Black Needle’s influence across the Empire in less than half a month.
• Black Needle’s sabotage campaign collapsed, though its fleet remained a minor nuisance.

Xi Yan borrowed a fleet from Big Gray and used it to destroy the Black Needle Pirates in the Chadberry system. With the Star Kingdom Atlas secured, his forces reached Captain Nais's hidden treasure vault, ready to uncover its secrets.

• Xi Yan asked Big Gray for a fleet to help defeat the Black Needle Pirates, and Big Gray agreed.
• Five Dessanu Cruiser Fleets arrived in the Chadberry system and destroyed the pirates' Titan warship and fleet.
• The Dessanu ships wiped out the Black Needle Pirates, while Cobalt Feather sent a transmission that raised pirate activity across the galaxy for ten years.
• Xi Yan gained the Star Kingdom Atlas, which served as the key to Captain Nais's hidden treasure vault.
• A Science Ship, the Community Fleet, and Astartes troops arrived at the planet and approached the vault entrance.

Xi Yan and the Space Marines opened Captain Nais’s treasure vault and met the ancient pirate, who revealed how he had preserved his consciousness and amassed his fortune. Captain Nais shared his autobiography and explained that he had chosen Xi Yan’s crew to inherit his legacy.

• The scientists used the Star Kingdom Atlas to open the vault, and the Space Marines entered its troves of treasure with the Science Officer.
• Captain Nais appeared, introduced himself to Xi Yan as Sanda Nais, and revealed that scientists had transferred his consciousness into a mechanical body.
• Captain Nais showed Xi Yan his cryopreserved corpse and explained that he had hidden the vault before sleeping for several thousand years.
• Captain Nais said he had stolen or traded for most of his treasures and had meant the Starmap to lead a worthy crew to his fortune.
• Captain Nais projected his autobiography, recounting his piracy and explaining how he came to value wealth and taking whatever he wanted.

Xi Yan claimed Captain Nais's treasure, promising to keep half and return the traceable remainder to its rightful heirs. Captain Nais accepted Xi Yan's offer to join the Empire's fleet, and Xi Yan's adventure ended as humanity prepared to forge its own destiny.

• Xi Yan told Captain Nais he would keep half the treasure and return the rest to the descendants of those Nais had plundered.
• Captain Nais protested that Xi Yan was wasting the riches, but Xi Yan argued that a ruler could gain greater wealth through authority, fleets, and tribute.
• Xi Yan offered Captain Nais a place commanding the Empire's fleet and bringing new combat doctrines.
• Captain Nais acknowledged Xi Yan's point and accepted his welcome into the Empire.

Xi Yan recruited Captain Nais to rebuild a pirate organization under the alias Captain Shit, while secretly backing him and turning a regional anti-piracy campaign into a profitable scheme. The chapter ended with Nais's pirates lying low as Xi Yan, mercenary fleets, and officials across the Sea of Stars Community all profited from the arrangement.

• Xi Yan offered Captain Nais a choice between serving as a fleet commander and secretly rebuilding his pirate empire, and Captain Nais agreed to plunder the Sea of Stars.
• Captain Nais returned to the Empire for study and monitoring, while auditors spent months cataloging his stolen treasure.
• Xi Yan announced Black Needle's destruction, distributed some of its fortune to other nations, and gained international support for the Empire.
• Captain Nais adopted the alias Captain Shit and began gathering pirates with Xi Yan's covert help, while Xi Yan supplied ships and crews.
• After pirate activity disrupted trade, Xi Yan established the Interstellar Trade Protection Fund and persuaded member nations to contribute money for mercenary fleets.
• Captain Nais's organization stopped raiding and preserved its strength, while Xi Yan, mercenaries, and national officials profited from the anti-piracy funds.

Xi Yan recruited Captain Lisatho Singh and his talented pirate crew into the Empire, assigning them to report their knowledge to the Academy of Sciences. After describing the Empire’s open recruitment approach, Xi Yan prepared to meet two more potential leaders.

• Captain Lisatho offered his three ships and crew to Xi Yan in exchange for pardon and a safe home.
• Lisatho explained his guerrilla tactics and introduced his crew of skilled outcasts.
• Xi Yan hired Lisatho and his people, ordering them to report their techniques and theories to the Academy of Sciences.
• Lisatho and his crew boarded an imperial transport bound for the Ring World.
• Xi Yan continued his recruitment work and moved on to meet two more leaders.

Xi Yan recruited industrial magnate Shuraton to improve efficiency across the Empire’s forge worlds, then discovered that Caretaker AX7B had joined him. He hired AX7B as well, assigning it to manage the Homeworld System’s ringworld under Governor Miss Gray Tempest.

• Xi Yan met Shuraton on Faus VII after the alien spent several months inspecting the forge world.
• Shuraton offered to raise factory efficiency, and Xi Yan hired him to manage the Empire’s forge worlds.
• Caretaker AX7B arrived with Shuraton and explained that it had once cared for colonists stranded after a hyperdrive malfunction.
• Shuraton and AX7B said they had applied together to manage Xi Yan’s industrial worlds.
• Xi Yan hired AX7B and sent it to report to Governor Miss Gray Tempest and manage the Homeworld System’s ringworld.

The United Marauders chose the Interstellar Human Military Junta as their next target and demanded tribute, then launched an attack after Xi Yan refused. Xi Yan’s Dreadnought fleet destroyed their forces and starbases, leaving the marauders scattered and their tribe dissolved.

• The United Marauders’ banquet turned into a violent brawl before Khan Hydra ordered the marauder bosses to gather at the central starbase.
• Khan Hydra announced that humanity would be the marauders’ next target, and the United Marauders demanded resources from the Interstellar Human Military Junta.
• Xi Yan and Little Gray dismissed the threats, while Khan Hydra ordered the United Marauders to prepare a fleet after Xi Yan refused to cooperate.
• Within a month, the United Marauders’ raiding fleet crossed the border and was routed by the Dreadnought fleet.
• The Dreadnought fleet pursued the marauders and destroyed their starbases, scattering the survivors and forcing the tribe to dissolve.