Liu Hai remained skeptical about Li Yali's claims.
Intuition was something highly subjective.
The Federation had never published any significant research findings in this area, nor had similar records been found in the Seed Ship's data.
Therefore, Li Yali's intuition remained solely her own and couldn't serve as justification to convince Liu Hai to let her explore unknown star regions. If a commander acted like this in other fleets, they would have been dismissed long ago—it was tantamount to treating fleet safety as child's play.
After several rounds of back-and-forth, Li Yali decided to return to Zhurong Star to discuss the matter with Liu Hai in person.
Even if Liu Hai still refused, she could always wait until she established her own fleet to explore later. But she needed to clarify with Liu Hai first—ownership of that star region would belong to him, while whatever attracted her there would be hers.
Oh, and because Li Yali received a three percent dividend from exploration discoveries, she had now become a veritable young heiress. The swelling of her wallet was enough to impress even her own family, as what she possessed was liquid cash rather than fixed assets.
After negotiations with Liu Hai, 15% of the Shade Beast profits were converted into other dividends to be paid to her. For Li Yali, who was already overjoyed, cash was far preferable to planetary assets, so she gladly accepted.
As time marched forward, Liu Hai remained focused on construction in the Gemini Star Region, paying no heed to external conflicts. Apart from occasional assistance from the advisory group, he didn't contribute so much as a single screw to outside affairs.
After hastily sending Li Yali away, within half a month, the orbital space station around Zhurong Star was preliminarily completed. With five space elevators to transport goods and resources, space construction accelerated once again.
One month later, the first space smelting plant was completed, capable of producing 50,000 tons of high-energy alloy daily. Though the output wasn't high, it was more than sufficient for the current phase of construction.
Thanks to the completion and operation of the space smelting plant, two months later, the first batch of five fully automated unmanned mining ships rolled off the production line. These mining ships were technologically rudimentary, equipped only with 10x warp drive capability and a cargo capacity of 30,000 cubic meters—small mining barges intended as stopgap measures for Liu Hai.
From the moment they were completed, the five mining ships headed straight for the asteroid belt to begin mining operations. At 10x warp speed, a round trip took a full month, but Liu Hai had no intention of having them shuttle back and forth—that would be far too inefficient.
Instead, Liu Hai constructed a compact space station merely 300 meters in diameter and deployed it to the asteroid belt. The mining ships would deposit harvested materials there for initial processing and smelting, after which transport ships would ferry the refined resources back to the space smelting plant for casting into various components.
Within just half a year, numerous factory-type space stations were operating freely throughout the star system. The two stars gained another layer of more efficient energy collection equipment, with absorbed energy continuously transported to the Seed Ship for storage, ready to be converted into urgently needed resources when necessary.
During these six months, the Seed Ship's energy and resources remained consistently abundant. Apart from occasional production of core components that other factories couldn't manufacture, all other time was devoted to crafting the various core equipment for the Angel-series warships.
Within half a year, a newly constructed space shipyard began manufacturing the hull structures of the Angel-series warships. However, due to the extensive processing required to convert raw materials into qualified casting materials, progress was slow. By now, not even the hull of a single Corvette had been completed.
It wasn't until a year after Liu Hai arrived in the Pisces Star Region, when resources from neighboring star systems began to be utilized, that he finally witnessed the completion of his first independently built Angel-series Corvette.
Name: Angel-series
Class: Corvette
Energy Level: Fifth-tier civilization technology
Energy Core: Antimatter Core (instantaneous output power of 800 degrees)
Hull: Height—400 meters, width—90 meters, length—40 meters, wingspan—300 meters.
Armor: Fifth-tier high-energy alloy (capable of withstanding energy strikes below 100 degrees, self-repairing)
Armament:
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Four Superluminal Energy Cannons (1,500-degree damage, Wing Force Field can enhance energy concentration by 10% to 20%)
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Eight Light-Speed Neutron Cannons (high-energy particle cannons with dual energy and kinetic damage, Wing Force Field enhances energy concentration by 5% to 30%)
Engines:
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Space Jump Engine (100-light-year range, immune to spatial disturbances within ±15%)
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Warp Drive (200 times light speed, immune to spatial interference within ±20%)
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Conventional propulsion engines (maximum acceleration up to 60% sublight speed, standard cruising speed at 10% sublight speed)
Shields:
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Energy Shield (5,000-degree capacity, recovers 2% energy per second)
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Force Field Shield (effective against physical strikes, withstands instantaneous impacts up to 3,500 degrees, recovers 3% energy per second)
"Even a fifth-tier interstellar civilization's warship is this powerful. What would a sixth-tier civilization be like?"
Upon reviewing his warship's data, Liu Hai couldn't help but ponder deeply. This was merely a Corvette, yet it was already comparable to—if not superior in many aspects—the Federation's Cruisers. A single Superluminal Energy Cannon alone could kite and destroy a Cruiser without taking any damage.
"Indeed, each tier exists for a reason. Advancement isn't just about achieving one or two technologies—it's about the civilization's overall leap forward, not just partial progress."
Liu Hai's thoughts raced, suppressing his initial idea of working in isolation for a century before reemerging. It wasn't that he didn't want to, but the reality didn't permit complete inaction.
Over the past year, the Hera Star System had remained seemingly calm, like a serene, sunlit lake.
However, the truth was that both sides had detected traces of each other's intelligence, realizing that both were vigorously preparing for war. Though neither civilization's regular military forces had made any overt moves, both understood that the absence of activity didn't mean nothing was happening—it simply meant they weren't aware of it.
It was also around this time that Liu Hai discovered an entire regular military force hidden not far from the Brolly Star System. He had only uncovered this intelligence by deploying tens of thousands of near-sixth-tier civilization detection satellites, produced by Seed Ships, around the star systems under his control.
It was at this moment that Liu Hai finally understood why, during this period, apart from a few neighboring star systems around the Brolly Star System, there were numerous civilian exploration ships from the Federation flying around haphazardly in other star regions.
Originally, Liu Hai had thought these were ships sent by Irina's family to search for Star Behemoth Biological Tissue. Now, it seemed they were likely dispatched by the military. What puzzled him, however, was why the military hadn't contacted him or entered his sphere of influence, instead quietly staying in a star system over fifty light-years away from the Brolly Star System.