After a few hours of meetings Andrew was exhausted, and the worst part was that the number of small territories that wished to be annexed by the empire was still increasing.
He understood the mentality, as nobody wanted to die or become a slave, but he was not ready for such a crowd of beings to come to him.
Many other territories were going through the same thing and some of them were way less prepared to deal with this situation.
With things as they stood there was no way for his people to deal with every application to join the empire before their time was up, not to mention that they still had to prepare and advance the newly joined territories to their technological level, which would also take a massive amount of time.
-There are simply too many of them to deal with.
Tarina said to him as they rested for a few minutes between the meetings.
-What's worse, it's the same scenario over and over again, with minimal differences for each applicant.
She added.
Andrew knew she was not complaining, this was her work and she loved it, but even she was already tired of repeating the same thing over and over again.
-Do we need to meet with every applicant's envoy one at a time?
The human suddenly asked after a moment of thinking about this problem.
-Not necessarily, but this shows that we are treating them all seriously, why do you ask?
The diplomat looked at him strangely.
She knew him well enough to recognize when he had an idea, or was at least starting to formulate one.
-Well, in normal circumstances, this would be alright, but the circumstances at the moment are anything but normal and we have limited time to annex them and upgrade their technology to our level.
Andrew started to explain.
-Since the time is scarce, I think they will understand that we simply cannot talk with all of them individually.
-You mean to make it a group meeting?
Tarina asked.
-That's the only way to do this in any reasonable time frame that would allow for some time to upgrade everyone's technology and boost their defenses as much as possible.
Or at least the only way I figured out so far.
-Let's try it, we have nothing to lose at this point and if it works, we might get ahead of this mess by tomorrow.
The diplomat said, eager to try this idea out.
During the next three hours she alone managed to go through the talks with over thirty territory leaders who wished to join the empire.
The meetings lasted a few minutes longer but like Andrew said, most of the envoys understood the reason for a group meeting once she explained it briefly.
Many even applauded the Idea as it saved time which could be better used on preparing for the transition to the Battle-Verse.
As soon as all imperial diplomats switched to this way of meeting with the envoys, the number of applications started to rapidly shrink, while the Empire's territory grew at an alarming rate.
This also released many people who had other things to do, besides having meetings all day long.
After a few hours of rest Andrew found Aeliuta and Nairin in the command center.
Their expressions were far from optimistic as they read through the data on the engineering console.
-What's up ladies?
Andrew asked, approaching them.
-Can I help in any way?
-There is nothing to help with, we simply don't have enough time to prepare everything.
Aelita said while pointing at the screen.
-With the amount of territories that are joining us, there is no way to upgrade them all to our standards, the same goes for their fleets, and before you even ask, there is no way that throwing credits at the problem can help us in any way.
Nairin added.
-What are we looking at, if we use our whole industrial power?
He asked, realizing how serious the problem the two of them tried to solve.
-At best we will be able to upgrade about 40% of the territories to our standard, before the time is up, the rest will differ depending on their own industrial capacity.
As for the fleet, then besides ours, we might be able to upgrade or switch out about 10%, and that's if we are lucky.
Aelita explained.
-To bring everything to the imperial standards, we would need at least three months.
She added.
-We can always hope that no one will attack us before we are ready, but I would not count on that.
Andrew responded.
-Since we can't upgrade everything, focus on upgrading the defenses of the systems.
That way even if we can't hold them all, the enemy will need to pay a price for taking them over.
-I was thinking the same thing, but I don't think that our new subordinates will appreciate being turned into a shield for the empire.
Aelita said.
-There is nothing more that we can do at the moment.
Besides, it's better to become a shield than get wiped out the moment we get to the other side.
The human reminded her.
After some time discussing the issues with the two of them Andrew went to the merchant office, to see what was going on at the market.
-You finally showed up.
Tanera greeted him grumpily.
-You seem to be in a great mood.
Andrew said, with a slight smile.
-The market is in chaos right now, there are so many deals popping up that it's impossible to go through them all.
Ships, slaves, food, medical tech, armors, weapons, you name it, it's for sale or someone is looking to buy them.
The slave market is especially crowded right now, since the moment this universe enters the battleverse, there will be a flood of slaves on the market and the prices will go down significantly.
-What about the limits?
Andrew asked.
He knew that despite having a level 5 access, he could not buy as many people as he wanted.
-The limits are temporarily suspended.
As long as you have the funds you can buy everything you want and how much of it you want.
Additionally, the items you told me to list are being bought left and right, especially food and medicine.
Even some of the gunships you told me to list were bought out and the buyer didn't even haggle for them, just bought them all at once.
The merchant said.
-What about the message to Alex?
Andrew asked, as this was the most important thing for him at the moment.
-It was delivered yesterday.
Tanera showed him the confirmation that the package was received.
-Thank you, it was important for me that she received it.
Andrew heaved a sigh of relief.
-There is nothing to be thankful about, this should have been done months ago.
The elf said apologetically.
With this out of the way Andrew took a look at the market, and what he saw amazed him.
Not only were there billions of new slaves for sale, some of which came from their universe.
-Since there are no limits for the time being, let's focus on buying as many humans as possible.
He said and started looking for the people that he was interested in.
His main focus was on soldiers, scientists, doctors, farmers, engineers, and he didn't forget to look for some veterinarians as well.