"Hurry, tally up exactly how much we've acquired." Irina became exceptionally cheerful after escaping the Katon Fleet's star system, constantly urging Igor to compile the statistics.
Liu Hai sipped his tea while casting a disdainful glance at her. "As a well-bred lady—though not of Xia ethnicity, you're at least mixed-blood—couldn't you exhibit some of the Xia people's finer qualities?"
Irina retorted irritably, "Of course I have fine qualities! But this is our first real haul in years since we set out. Can't I be a little excited?"
In the projection, Igor, who was busy inventorying their spoils, smiled reassuringly. "Rest easy, you big bosses. I've poured decades of skill into this plunder. Anything useful and portable, I took. The value is definitely substantial."
"We're all waiting for your good news, Igor. After so much investment, we're finally seeing returns." Irina had truly suffered. Liu Hai assumed that as the direct descendant of a family's ruling branch, she wouldn't lack funds—but that was only relative. Compared to military expenses that routinely ran into hundreds of millions, she had practically spent her future dowry.
Li Yali and Elena huddled together, discussing various academic subjects related to command—dry and tedious. After just a few minutes, Liu Hai found himself unable to keep up. It wasn't for lack of knowledge, but his adaptability fell short, leaving him mercilessly excluded by the two women.
Half an hour later, the fleet warped again, this time targeting the void between two star systems. Optical system data indicated the presence of artificial objects in these systems, prompting Liu Hai to investigate further.
After completing the warp, the fleet activated its Optic Electromagnetic Composite Shielding Field—though such equipment was useless against peer fleets within one light-hour.
A single corvette engaged its warp drive and entered the star system to scout the suspected artificial satellite.
Back in the fleet, Igor had finished compiling the spoils. The several-hour delay was entirely due to how thoroughly he had looted. Hundreds of landing craft and corvettes had used force field nets to haul in massive quantities of materials. While the core antimatter storage tanks were carefully stored in the warship's energy reserves, everything else was loaded onto nearby vessels, filling most available space to capacity.
Igor tossed each of them a report detailing their haul. The Pyramid Core, in particular, had absorbed most of the remaining materials due to insufficient warship storage—a point Igor had specially noted.
"Fifteen kilograms of antimatter reserves?" Liu Hai was first astonished by the antimatter haul, then immediately pretended not to notice the nearly five kilograms his Pyramid Core had absorbed.
"Wow! Over twelve thousand cubic meters of fusion material too? Impressive!"
Here, "fusion" didn't refer to traditional nuclear fusion materials—those were worthless and could be obtained from any random planet.
This fusion material was specially synthesized for powering warp drives and space warps—essentially a deluxe upgrade of energy blocks. Its energy output and reaction efficiency surpassed traditional fusion reactor materials by over thirty times.
Most of these reaction furnaces are used in space stations or civilian spacecraft energy systems because, compared to antimatter, they're cheaper, easier to synthesize, offer higher output power, and are more stable with fewer malfunctions—just not as good as warships.
"Over ten thousand cubic meters, at 130,000 Credit Points per cubic meter, that's 1.3 billion Credit Points. Antimatter costs 500,000 Credit Points per gram, so thirteen kilograms would be 6.5 billion Credit Points." Irina counted on her fingers: "According to our agreement, I take 40%, roughly over 3 billion. Why does it still feel like a loss?"
Liu Hai shook his head as he watched Irina pout and complain about the loss. The various Katun Civilization equipment here was hard to appraise since most of it couldn't be used by humans—only reverse-engineered for technical data before being tossed into the recycling furnace for material recovery.
This time, Igor had scavenged tens of thousands of cubic meters of finished metal materials alone. Transporting it all was impossible, so they had to take only the most valuable items, and even then, they had to stuff the transport ship to capacity without compromising the deployment of fighter jets.
"Total haul is worth about 10 billion. You take the antimatter—I don't need it as much as you do." Liu Hai generously converted the most valuable antimatter for Irina.
Irina studied Liu Hai for a long moment before nodding. She had the most warships, but her energy reserves were nowhere near as absurdly stocked as Liu Hai's. Over the years, her antimatter had been depleted by more than half. If she kept warping like this, she'd have to find a star system to build her own energy station for conversion and replenishment.
In the interstellar era, energy was cheap in some ways. Nuclear fusion alone had light and heavy classifications, and stars provided endless, inexhaustible power.
But for fleets drifting in space, energy was a major issue. Fleet energy demands were high, with output power pushed to the limit. While they could convert local resources, that took time—a lot of it. Warships were energy hogs; even a conventional propulsion engine consumed a year's worth of a household's energy in a single second.
So, in interstellar warfare, the most basic competition was technological advancement, followed closely by energy acquisition and output capacity.
The mightiest warship was useless without the energy output to match. No one would even glance at it if given away.
For Irina, Liu Hai's choice to pay her in antimatter was far more practical than a pile of random goods.
With Irina's agreement, Igor immediately arranged for her share to be delivered. However, due to antimatter's volatility, every ten grams had to be stored in a specially designed container. Though the antimatter wasn't much in quantity, it took up considerable space, and the transport took most of the day to complete.
After dividing the spoils, the group began discussing their next course of action. But before they could settle on a plan, the corvettes sent to scout the star system relayed shocking news.
"Traces of a third-tier civilization's space station?"
Liu Hai and the others synced with the corvettes' detection radar and quickly turned their attention to the wreckage of the third-tier civilization's space station.
In the orbit of the second planet of the star system, a circular space station over three hundred meters in diameter was slowly rotating, providing a gravity living zone through its spin.
However, the space station was currently in poor condition. Its outer ring had been shattered by meteor impacts, and its internal power supply seemed to have failed. Only a few flickering lights were visible, and even the navigation lights had gone out.