"Well... you win."
"Oh, right, I'll stop talking to you now. I also want to learn about Academician Li Youwei's magnetic field line microscope technology. This technology, which can see energy structures, is truly amazing."
" Academician Gao, you flatter me. Let me explain it to you all. Please forgive me if I don't explain it well. The principle of this magnetic field microscope is as follows..."
"Hmm, that's certainly a wildly imaginative idea..."
"Excellent, excellent! How come we didn't think of that?"
"..."
"..."
" Academician Zhang, I'd like to learn more about your..."
" Academician Zhong, there's still something about this technology that I don't understand. Could you please explain it to me?"
" Academician Zhou, do you think my understanding of this place is correct? Let me explain it to you..."
"..."
"..."
The academicians were engaged in a passionate discussion, forgetting day and night, until the staff finished delivering dinner and late-night snacks and couldn't bear it any longer. They urged everyone to take a rest and continue tomorrow, only then realizing that they had been discussing for seventeen or eighteen hours.
The next day, it was the same...
On the third day, it continued...
From space technology to the production of a single screw, everything was the focus of discussion between the two sides. A month had passed, and there was still no sign of the discussions stopping. Seeing all this, Hu Yu and Luo Zhigao couldn't help but feel very gratified. With this technological exchange, both fleets would be at the stage of having one foot in the Small Star Sector Civilization.
" General Hu, what are your plans?" Luo Zhigao asked, taking a drag of his cigarette. Over the years, Luo Zhigao's smoking habit remained as strong as ever, and the fleet's doctors could only perform a lung cell replacement for Luo Zhigao every few years.
"Plans? Minister, now that we're finally united and our fleet strength has greatly increased, shouldn't we find a quiet planetary system to settle down in and focus all our efforts on breaking through to the Small Star Sector Civilization? That way, we can truly be considered a powerful civilization."
"You're not planning on breaking up?"
"Minister, do you mean we have to separate again? We finally managed to get together."
" Xiao Hu," Luo Zhigao took a deep drag on his lungs, "I have something to tell you."
About 1,000 years ago, when we had just reached the Stellar-Level Advanced Civilization, we had just fought a fierce battle and suffered heavy losses in our fleet. I led the fleet to a planetary system not far away to rest, replenish our fleet, and absorb the technology. We had previously observed three planets in that planetary system, and they should all be rocky planets, which would be very suitable for us.
So we sailed straight towards that planetary system, and when we arrived, we were stunned by what we saw. Countless swarms of insects were gathered on three planets, and most of them were high-level insects. On those planets, do you know what the insects eat?
"They are civilized beings."
How did you know?
Because I've seen it too.
You've seen it before?
"That's right. I not only saw it, but I also found the breeding bases of these civilized beings. Thousands of civilized planets were being kept in captivity, and the civilized beings were being fed to the Insect Race. The scene was horrific. Because of this, we attacked the civilization that was keeping other civilized beings in captivity. However, a series of changes later almost led to our complete annihilation."
"Other civilizations? No, what I saw wasn't other civilizations, it was humans!"
"Human? Could it be a leader?" Hu Yu's heart sank.
"No, no, we risked our lives to steal a few human bodies from the swarm. After testing, while the differences between them and us are very minor, they are definitely not members of the leader's fleet."
"Could it be that there are other humans in this Milky Way besides us?"
"I'm not entirely sure. Although I wasn't certain at the time that these swarms of insects were being fed, after various observations, I didn't find any signs of civilization on the three planets. These humans were most likely transported from elsewhere, and the civilization that could feed these swarms must have had a technological level far exceeding ours at the time. Staying there would definitely be extremely dangerous, so I fled immediately."
"Was any satellite equipment left for surveillance?"
"No, we don't have four-dimensional network communication technology. Even if the satellite captures the information, it can't transmit it to the fleet. Moreover, once the satellite is detected, we are very likely to be hunted down."
"Understood. It's a pity we didn't find the culprit."
"No, quite the opposite, we found it."
How did you find it?
"To be precise, we ran into that fleet that was delivering food during our escape—a fleet from a Late-Stage Star System-Level Civilization."
"You've been discovered?"
"Yes, we had just left that planetary system less than 20 light-years away. Even a fool could guess that we knew the secret of the Zerg swarm's existence, so the fleet of that Star System-Level Civilization immediately opened fire on us. We only had a little over three million warships left, and in just a few minutes, they were all wiped out, leaving only the rear residential ships and other functional vessels. After destroying our warships, that fleet immediately rushed towards our residential ships. Just when I thought my life was over, a mysterious figure appeared. He looked like an old human man, and his spaceship was also very strange, like a bull."
"It's Mr. Daozi!!!"
(For reasons everyone understands, the editor has changed this character to Daozi. The preceding chapters have also been modified, but this will not affect reading. The plot remains unchanged; only the character's name has changed.)
"You've seen it?"
"Yes, not only have I met him, but Mr. Daozi also spent a whole day with our fleet."
"Wasn't Mr. Daozi a figure from the Warring States period? How could he appear in modern times?"
"I'm not entirely sure about this either. Although Mr. Daozi gave us an explanation at the time, it now seems completely untenable."
"This is no simple matter. It's a pity that Mr. Daozi didn't meet with us; we didn't even get a proper look at him."
"Minister, please continue."
"That was the end of it. Mr. Daozi's bull-shaped spaceship emitted streaks of blue light, and when we came to our senses, the fleet had already arrived in an unfamiliar planetary system, and Mr. Daozi had disappeared."
"This old man is indeed strange. What is his purpose? Why does he help us again and again? Is it really just because, as he says, we are his juniors?"
"He helped you too?"
"It can't be said that he helped us; he caused the trouble himself. But looking back now, it's more like a test. The civilization that caused us trouble back then was the one that later kept other civilizations in captivity, called the Wind Star Civilization. It was also a Late Phase of the Star System Level. At the time, we suspected that Mr. Daozi didn't really provoke the Wind Star Civilization, but rather wanted to give us an opportunity to improve our strength, because he guided us to a four-dimensional space bubble, where we learned a lot."
" General Hu, I feel that the old gentleman definitely possesses the strength of Great Star Region Civilization; otherwise, it would be impossible for him to transfer hundreds of thousands of our civilian ships and functional ships thousands of light-years at once."