A factory of minor apocalypses!

　　Li Yao’s words were like a deafening thunder that struck Professor Mo Xuan and the Fire Ant King speechless.

　　But the two of them were the top-tier experts with amazing computational ability after all. Enlightened by Li Yao, they quickly realized what was going on.

　　“It does make sense…” Professor Mo Xuan murmured. “In a super long-distance expedition covering millions of lightyears, projecting an army or a powerful weapon is not a sensible choice at all!

　　“The larger an army is, the more resources it will consume on the way, and the more losses there will be should any accident occur.

　　“The strategical weapons that are as strong as ‘apocalypses’, during their long voyage, are vulnerable to radiation and cosmic dust. Their strength will gradually be reduced to nothingness.

　　“It is needless to mention the precision. Millions of lightyears away from each other, after dozens of space jumps in a row, and the target is hit precisely? That is too incredible and completely surpasses the technology of our civilization and even the Pangu Clan’s. It is definitely unachievable!

　　“Also, the larger an army is and the stronger the ‘apocalyptic weapon’ is, the more difficult it will be for them to cruise the four-dimensional space. There will also be more unpredictable risks!

　　“Time and space are the solidest ‘walls’ in the universe. It is difficult to climb over or break them!”

　　With a grave face, the Fire Ant King remarked, “Therefore, instead of teleporting an army or an apocalyptic weapon to the target to be attacked, they might as well teleport a ‘factory’ or a ‘base’ that can manufacture armies and strategic magical equipment!

　　“Such a ‘base’ doesn’t have to be huge, and few Immortal Cultivators are required—just a couple of them are needed to supervise the situation at the critical moment while they are kept in the hibernation state when they are not needed.

　　“They don’t even need to carry too many Grand Illusionary Soldiers. As long as the safety and maintenance needs on the way are met, it will be enough.

　　“The most crucial thing is that the base must carry a mainframe crystal processor with an extremely high computational ability, a metal purification assembly line with a high compatibility, and a production line that can produce automatic magical equipment such as Grand Illusionary Soldiers and the beast puppets!

　　“Chances are that the designs of many other kinds of magical equipment are stored inside the mainframe crystal processor. With enough resources, countless pieces of automatic magical equipment can be manufactured incessantly!

　　“Such a base is like a swift dandelion that carries countless spores. When it is aimed at a certain direction and launched out, it will float on its own in the sea of stars.

　　“After it arrives in the vicinity of its destination, it will not explore or attack its destination directly but find a planet with abundant spiritual energy and minerals around first.

　　“Once it finds such a planet, it will land and release the Grand Illusionary Soldiers and beast puppets that it carries. They will be asked to collect resources, expand the base, and copy themselves. Gradually, more advanced buildings will be constructed, and more complicated Grand Illusionary Soldiers and beast puppets will be produced. Then, it is another circle. In such a spiral, more and more cutting-edge buildings and automatic facilities will be made, and what they really want will come out sooner or later!”

　　“It may be a magnificent star beacon system!” Li Yao’s voice was mixed with freezing coldness. “So magnificent that it is enough to lead the way for the army of the Imperium of True Human Beings and allow them to jump over instantly!

　　“It may also be a certain kind of mysterious magical equipment that can attack our planets directly, which will be incessant ‘minor apocalypses’!

　　“Or rather, the most straightforward approach may be building a swarm of Grand Illusionary Soldiers and a few starships to accommodate them. That way, we will be easily drowned!

　　“After all, this place is not far away from the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector. Not too many advanced starships are required to cover the journey!

　　“As for exactly which pattern is adopted, it will probably be decided by the development level of the civilization in the destination!

　　“If it is an immense force with a large army and many Core Formation Stage and Nascent Soul Stage experts, chances are that they will establish star beacons and summon the army of the Imperium for the attack.

　　“During the process, they will also build certain strategic magical equipment and harass the target force in the form of ‘minor apocalypses’. They will bleed the enemy until the army of the Imperium arrives.

　　“If they discover that the local civilization is not developed and does not have many experts, chances are that they will build a swarm of Grand Illusionary Soldiers and suppress the enemy on their away!”

　　The antennae on the Fire Ant King’s head and the tentacles around Professor Mo Xuan trembled.

　　“What a perfect mode of expansion!” The Fire Ant King gnashed his teeth. “Those sons of b*tches! This is even more sordid than throwing a ‘minor apocalypse’ at us!”

　　If a powerful minor apocalypse was really launched from the homeland of the Imperium of True Human Beings, covering the long journey in between, as the specialists of the three Sectors estimated, it would definitely be resolved as long as the methods of attack and the operation modes were figured out.

　　Even if the information was not figured out, the three Sectors were unlikely to be destroyed by one minor apocalypse.

　　However, with such a method, once the army of the Immortal Cultivators proliferated to a tipping point, they would expand faster and faster. Chances were that they would be able to produce more than ten types of strategic weapons of different categories that were similar to ‘minor apocalypses’ right there!

　　“We should’ve realized it earlier!” Li Yao smashed his head hard, his voice turning hoarse. “Expansion in the boundless universe certainly requires such a system that can automatically collect resources, reproduce, upgrade, command, and fight. Otherwise, if everything needed to be reported to the mother planet millions of years away while they waited for the instructions and reinforcements from their home, there would be no way to expand at all!

　　“The Fire Ant King is quite right. Such an expansion mode is truly impeccable and shameless!

　　“Think about it. Logically, the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Flying Star Sector, and the Blood Demon Sector could not have discovered Kunlun, which was hidden deep inside the crab nebula at all, right?

　　“Even if we had the Star Map of Kunlun from Senior Ba Yanzhi, we wouldn’t have found this place without the guidance of the Star Prier’s House!

　　“If it weren’t for the fortuitous collaboration of the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Flying Star Sector, and the Blood Demon Sector, we wouldn’t have known the first thing going on here. In that case, the ‘base’ of the Imperium of True Human Beings would have been able to develop unhurriedly. It wouldn’t have mattered if the process took three to five years. Eventually, an unparalleled force certainly would have been produced!

　　“By then, when millions of Grand Illusionary Soldiers appeared in our atmosphere with dozens of minor apocalypses, we would certainly be caught unprepared because we never would have dreamed that the ‘foreign intruders’ would crawl out from next door!”

　　Despite the lack of a nerve system, Professor Mo Xuan shuddered hard.

　　Looking at each other, he and the Fire Ant King both realized that the truce of the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector and the collaboration of the three Sectors came right in time!

　　If Li Yao had not stopped the war between the Heaven’s Origin Sector and the Blood Demon Sector, there would not have been a victor at all!

　　It was hilarious that the ‘patriots’ such as Lu Zui were fantasizing over enslaving the demons and sending them to the Flying Star Sector for mining. Before their great cause was pushed forward, an overwhelming army of the Imperium would have shown up in less than five years and annihilated the Heaven’s Origin Sector, the Blood Demon Sector, and the Flying Star Sector alike!

　　The Imperium of True Human Beings truly deserved to be a superpower that was the first to have united the center of the universe for a thousand years after the Star Ocean Imperium!

　　Although it was faced with the serious threat of the Covenant of the Holy Alliance, it was still not something that the Star Glory Federation could deal with.

　　“It must be stopped!” Professor Mo Xuan said resolutely. “Right now, it has only one ‘base’. The efficiency of resource collection and construction is not very high. But look, the eggshell-like buildings are obvious some sort of docks!

　　“Smaller bases will be produced inside the docks and send into every part of Kunlun!

　　“One growing into two, two into four, four into eight. The base’s efficiency will increase exponentially!”

　　“This is too unbelievable!” The Fire Ant King clicked his tongue in astonishment. “As long as such a base proliferates in the universe like a virus, wouldn’t the Imperium be invincible? I really can’t imagine what the Covenant Alliance can possibly be like now. With such a marvelous weapon, is the Imperium still on the losing side?”

　　“Not necessarily. From what I’ve seen, such a mode of expansion has a fatal shortcoming, too. We might be just unlucky.” Professor Mo Xuan recovered from his original shock. Activating all his computational ability, he replied with a bitter smile, “The collection and utilization of resources have their own restraints.

　　“It is true that metal minerals are distributed on many planets. However, it is one thing for mother lodes to be buried under the ground, and it is a whole different thing to develop the mother lodes, purify the minerals, and build them into magical equipment that can contribute to a battle. The process will consume a lot of ingredients and spiritual energy!

　　“Of all the ingredients, the most important one is water!

　　“By the experience of the federation, to produce a ton of ‘Hundred Wave Gold’, the most fundamental alloy for the compound armor, a hundred and twenty-two tons of water will be consumed!

　　“Take the most common MP Mystic Skeleton Battlesuit for example. In the production, not counting the cost of other materials, the water consumption alone will be around thirty-five tons on average!

　　“Of course, the industrial level of the Imperium of True Human Beings must be higher than that of the Star Glory Federation. But the water cost is unavoidable. Let’s say that their efficiency is two times better. Then, a Grand Illusionary Soldier, a beast puppet, or a crystal suit will still consume tons of water when then are produced.

　　“There are too many planets in the universe. Metal can be found everywhere, but they are mostly raw materials with tremendous impurities that are deeply buried to the underground!

　　“To purify such raw materials and turn them into alloys fit for the purpose of refining, astronomical water and spiritual energy will be consumed!

　　“Water is the invaluable treasure in the universe. You might not find one planet with a natural atmosphere and water from a million planets. Same goes for spiritual energy. Although the universe is filled with spiritual energy, it is extremely thin in most places and hardly exploitable.

　　“Therefore, few planets are apt for such ‘bases’ to unfold and upgrade. Even if they found any, the environment on the planets must be harsh, and the speed of the development would be low. Chances are that a resource collection system would not be built until a year and a half later, and there would be another three to five years of waiting before the first Grand Illusionary Soldiers walk out!”

　　Professor Mo Xuan sighed. “It is a pity that it is not an ordinary planet that they have found but ‘Kunlun’!”