"I remember, she wasn't much older than you."
Once aboard the spaceship, Xingxi ran back to her small cabin and hid, disappearing to do who-knows-what. Li Xingkong, on the other hand, went to the command center with Shutra.
Ten thousand years had passed since they last met. In that time span, the age difference between Shutra and Xingxi was negligible.
But looking at the two of them now, Li Xingkong had the illusion that only Shutra was growing.
"Actually, after Xingxi returned to the mercenary group, she remained dormant for quite some time."
Shutra tapped his hand a few times, outlining a route, and stared at the star map in front of him, saying to Li Xingkong with some emotion.
"Although she was young at the time, Xingci's grudges shouldn't have fallen on her, after returning to the mercenary group, there were still disagreements about how to care for her as she grew up."
"After arguing for Heavenly Capital without reaching a consensus, they decided to freeze her in a hibernation pod. Who could have imagined that this freeze would last for thousands of years?"
"Thousands of years?"
This time span is far too long for a small child.
"Yes, the original plan was to revive her and raise her to adulthood after this matter was resolved, but things are unpredictable. Who knew that this Convention, which had been stable for so long, would be reopened at this very moment."
Shutra sighed.
"Mercenary groups naturally cannot remain uninvolved in the battles between the Convention. Over the years, the entire mercenary group has devoted nearly a third of its manpower to this war, but it seems that this is far from enough. The end of the war is nowhere in sight."
Don't worry, it's not far.
Li Xingkong might not know about other things, but Li Xingkong could be certain when the war would end.
It wasn't that he was acting out of a saintly heart and wanted to mediate; rather, Li Xingkong knew that soon, the mastermind behind the three major powers would be attacked by a petty and vengeful fellow.
At that point, it will be questionable whether they can even protect themselves, let alone continue this protracted war.
"Since you say so, that's wonderful."
Hearing Li Xingkong say that, Shutra's mental state improved significantly.
Even if they met again after ten thousand years, Li Xingkong's strength was still as insurmountable as a mountain in front of her. She believed that someone like Li Xingkong was absolutely capable of influencing the development of the situation.
If he says that, then peace might really be just around the corner.
"With the situation so turbulent, why unfreeze Xingxi at this particular time?"
Logically, given such a turbulent situation, she should have remained dormant.
"Originally, I thought that while the mercenary group still had some foundation, resources, and capabilities, I could let her grow up carefree, and incidentally, teach her some things. After all, if we dragged it out any longer, more and more people would participate in the war, and the mercenary group would only go downhill..."
"But with you here, sir, there's no need to worry about any of that!"
"Perfect timing! This is the mercenary group's trading star, and also the largest trading center among the thousands of star systems in the surrounding area. Shall we begin our tour here?"
During their casual conversation, the spaceship arrived at its first destination.
"OK."
Li Xingkong nodded. He couldn't quite remember when he last visited the market.
As soon as Li Xingkong stepped out of the spaceship, his Divine Sense had already subconsciously scanned the entire planet.
As the first stop on the tour, this trading planet was indeed quite prosperous, a sight Li Xingkong had only seen on Earth Star before.
Moreover, under the scan of his Divine Sense, Li Xingkong was not surprised to find that he was not the first Divine Land People to arrive here.
Just from the cultivators scanned by Divine Sense, there were already hundreds of them. Looking at their pure appearance and familiar accents, one can only say that the Divine Land People are truly everywhere.
"It feels like a large arms trading center."
Li Xingkong scanned the entire planet and found that about 80% of the goods were related to weapons. There were even several professional starship manufacturers selling warships on the trading planet.
"The life of a mercenary is inherently one of living on the edge of a knife; weapons are the most reliable thing, aren't they?"
Shutra took Li Xingkong stroll.
"Of course, there's another point. Before we met, I wondered what civilization Mr. Li came from, but after we met, I realized that his civilization is indeed extraordinary."
As he spoke, Shutra looked toward a large bio-modification shop not far away.
This is the first intergalactic enterprise established by the cultivators of Divine Land, specializing in providing body space transformation and subsequent maintenance services.
"Haha, that's how it is in Divine Land."
No matter how fast you go, you can't see the whole planet in a day. Shutra only showed Li Xingkong a few iconic sights before moving on to the next place.
"This is Dawn's core space dock, which, in addition to docking, is also responsible for the research and development and construction of new warships."
The second place that Shutra brought Li Xingkong to was a shipyard the size of a planet. Countless large and small mechanical arms were operating in an orderly manner, and thousands of spaceships came and went. There were also many half-built ships that were gravity-locked around the shipyard.
Li Xingkong sensed energy from the dock that shared the same origin as the magic within Shutra's body, indicating that they were also researching ways to synergize their own magic with technology.
"Perfect."
He had already been thinking about this since Li Xingkong Dawn at the location of Dawn.
How exactly should we calculate the cause and effect between him and Dawn?
He saved Dawn several times, but Albert also helped Li Xingkong a great deal.
Both emotionally and rationally, Li Xingkong felt that he still owed them some favors.
After all, when he and Albert participated in the time reset project, he suddenly disappeared without any news, and it was Albert who helped him a lot.
During the visit, Li Xingkong was already thinking about how he could help. After seeing the shipyard, Li Xingkong had an idea.
"What's just right?"
Shutra looked at Li Xingkong.
"I'll give you something as a gift."
Li Xingkong reached out and pinched, and a Divine Sense sense rune took shape. He then imprinted the rune onto a small plaque.
Shutra looked at the rune, and with just one glance, he felt as if countless pieces of knowledge were poured into his mind.
That's an endless array of warship construction modules, and a vast amount of design principles.
Li Xingkong stuffed all the warship blueprints and related technologies he had seen and read in the Primordial Universe into this single piece of text.
Since this thing is useless to him anyway, he might as well give it to Dawn as a gift.