Chapter 1195 - 1061: Wealth Star

Chapter 1195: Chapter 1061: Wealth Star

After Qu Jianlei finished communicating with Nutrient Injection, he gathered everyone to discuss.

When everyone heard it, they were speechless again. Is this going to drag on forever?

But it really was just like Nutrient Injection said: nobody minds a strong enemy, but when the opponent is sticky and disgusting to deal with, everyone gets a headache.

However, Qu Jianlei didn’t want to go to the Maiden Star Realm, because he still hadn’t finished digesting the harvest from that auction two years ago.

He felt that if they raised their team’s abilities a bit more, it would not only be safer, but also help them seize more opportunities.

Naturally, no one had objections to the boss’s suggestion. In fact, everyone was currently studying the Mountain-Breaking Technique!

Paranoid was the first person to master the Mountain-Breaking Fist. At his Realm, learning Inner Breath application and Fist Technique was really fast.

He found a rocky hill, tried it a little, and happily discovered that this Fist Technique combined with Inner Breath was truly ridiculously powerful!

Once back at the base, he stated that he unconditionally supported the boss’s research on divine scripts—the various Magic Doors of application were just too amazing.

Previously, Qu Jianlei really had a lot on his plate, like purchasing materials, assembling computation units, and so on.

It’s not that he was unwilling to hand things over to his companions, the key was that their practical operation skills were too poor, and he also had confidentiality concerns.

Take Paranoid for example—he was indeed trustworthy, but he had almost zero interest in anything outside Cultivation!

Even if Qu Jianlei assigned him work, if this guy didn’t put his heart into the operations, Qu Jianlei would still have to step in to correct things.

Now that the other party was willing to fully unleash his subjective initiative, of course that was excellent.

They spent five days cleaning up all traces left behind, then Teleported onto the Omen Ship again.

Nutrient Injection came along as well, and as usual burrowed into the Life Support Pod.

This time, everyone’s navigation target was Qingyuan Star, which is relatively close to the Maiden Star Realm.

Qingyuan Star sits on the edge of the Inner Circle, with an extremely livable environment but low development—this kind of situation is quite rare.

But there are historical reasons: the fiefs here are numerous, and most of them belong to nobles.

So this planet is also called "Wealth Star."

Back when the Imperial government wanted to suppress the nobility, it cancelled many fiefs, but quite a few people had extremely high military merit, so there was no way to wipe them all out with one blow.

So the Imperial government relocated noble fiefs onto several planets, one of which was Qingyuan Star.

The most headache-inducing thing about nobles is that they form a privileged class, exerting discourse power and influence in every aspect.

Honestly, once they’re all gathered together, their influence actually decreases—no matter how capable you are, you’re all stuck tossing around on one planet.

Ideally, after living together long enough, nobles would start clashing over interests among themselves—and that was a scene the Imperial government was very happy to see.

And you know what, this kind of overt scheme really did work multiple times. On Qingyuan Star, there have been more than one noble war.

These nobles weren’t blind to the Imperial government’s strategy, but sometimes, when someone overdoes things, there’s just no way to talk about the bigger picture.

Everyone cares deeply about Glory—if they can’t live with dignity, they’d rather die!

Besides relocating nobles here, the Imperial government also tightly restricted immigration to Qingyuan Star, enforcing a "strict entry, loose exit" policy.

Anyway, it’s just this many people—shut your doors at home and play however you want.

Imperial citizens are very fertile, nobles especially so—life pressures are low, and they all shoulder the mission of "branching out the family line."

But once a clan has been passed down for a long time, there will naturally be distant and close branches; splintering off is completely normal.

This was basically the Imperial version of the "Edict of Enfeoffment"—split the family a few more times, and no matter how big the fief is, it won’t be enough...

So lots of noble descendants directly left Qingyuan Star to develop on their own, without even mentioning their noble bloodline.

In short, the emergence of Wealth Star was a brilliant move by the Imperial government that greatly fragmented and dissolved noble power.

And the occurrence of noble wars also forced some losers to leave Qingyuan Star.

Noble fiefs cannot be transferred, but this kind of thing... how to put it... let’s just say: "the higher-ups have policies, the lower-downs have countermeasures."

The reason they came to Qingyuan Star was a suggestion from Nutrient Injection—this place is not only close to the Maiden Star Realm, but usually few people bother you.

Though the prerequisite for not being disturbed is: you must possess a noble fief!

The Imperial laws state that no one may keep slaves, but nobles can have hired workers, right?

Some slightly more Advanced stewards have served their master families for eight to ten generations.

After the Omen Ship arrived in Qingyuan Star’s orbit, it didn’t land. Nutrient Injection sent a string of garbled code down toward the surface.

Half a day later, a Starship lifted off and came up to the Omen Ship.

It was a relatively small Business Starship, with three crossed pole-axes painted on the hull.

"This is the crest of the Gustine Clan, once Honored Warriors of the Imperial government. At their peak they were a Marquis, almost promoted to Duke."

The Gustine Clan is now only at Earl rank, and they migrated as a whole clan three hundred years ago, leaving Qingyuan Star.

The fief is still here, currently managed by several stewards.

The one coming to negotiate this time was one such steward, an A-level Wood Attribute, courteous and eloquent.

While they were descending aboard the Business Starship, Nutrient Injection calmly stated, "This fief has been rented for four hundred and ninety-nine years!"

Fiefs can’t be transferred, but renting them out... no one can really say anything.

And the lease was for nearly five hundred years in one go. You had to admit, the Gustine Clan was ruthless.

Nutrient Injection hadn’t said who originally leased this land. Anyway, he had the token and the passphrase in hand, and that was all the steward needed to recognize him.

After hearing him, the steward respectfully said, "Sir, I have the roster of workers here. Do you want to make any arrangements?"

Nutrient Injection didn’t answer, but turned his head to glance at Qu Jianlei. "Boss, you decide."

Qu Jianlei had done his homework and knew these workers couldn’t just be dismissed at will—most of them basically had the status of household-born servants.

However, while they were living here, he could give them time off and only had to cover the minimum baseline of wages.

So he already had a plan for these people. "Have them live together in one area, and don’t let them wander around when there’s nothing to do."

"If anyone from outside comes, you’re responsible for stepping out and blocking them. No problem, right?"

That was no problem—that was already part of their usual duties. But the steward still wanted to confirm one point.

"Stopping outsiders is only proper. But if the other party refuses to listen and insists on forcing their way in..."

"Then leave it to us to handle," Qu Jianlei said calmly. "You just take care of the cleanup afterward. Any other questions?"

The steward’s expression clearly relaxed a bit. He slowly shook his head. "No more. May our honored guests have a happy and pleasant stay here."

"One more thing," Nutrient Injection suddenly spoke up. "We’re not afraid of trouble, but you lot better not go out of your way to stir up trouble."

The Gustine Clan had moved out because they lost a noble war. He obviously had to consider the grudges involved.

"That is impossible!" The steward’s face flushed scarlet in an instant, as if he’d suffered a grave insult.

But in the end, he still forced down his anger.

He took a deep breath and spoke slowly. "Honored guests, please do not doubt our professionalism and our faith in Glory!"

Yet Nutrient Injection wasn’t affected by his rhetoric in the slightest, only saying flatly, "Good, if it’s impossible then that’s fine."

The Business Starship passed through the planet’s ground service center and landed directly inside their own fief.

This fief covered more than fifteen thousand square kilometers, with rivers, mountains, mineral deposits, and more.

More than ten thousand people lived here, over four thousand of whom were long-term workers and their families.

Their main work was farming and maintaining the territory—never mind that there were mineral deposits, they simply didn’t develop them.

The steward explained this was to guard the master’s wealth, and tactfully hinted that the lease did not allow the guests to open mines.

Qu Jianlei really felt he’d seen it all now. He’d had plenty of complaints about Imperial human nature, yet he hadn’t expected to run into this particular type.

So... can a sense of Glory really help people overcome the darkness in their hearts?

But he wasn’t the sort to mope over it. He quickly tossed the matter to the back of his mind.

He stated that around the main manor where their group would reside, no one was allowed to loiter.

The control systems for all the alarms and surveillance also had to be handed over to their side to manage.

He put on a straight face and said, "We don’t want anyone spying on us, and we don’t want you doing anything that would harm your Glory."

"Understood," the steward answered just as solemnly. "We will invoke the Sealing Land Technique to harshly punish any behavior that abandons belief in Glory."

The "Sealing Land Technique" had been passed down for ages. Nobles could use private punishment within their fiefs; even killing was legal—and they didn’t even need a reason.

If anyone voiced objections, the noble would simply say: If you don’t want to accept the Sealing Land Technique, then don’t enter my territory!

This law was extremely ancient and backward, rather out of place in the age of great navigation and advanced technology.

But the fact that it had endured meant it had its reasons for survival; no need to belabor the point.

Nutrient Injection had suggested they come here precisely because of the Sealing Land Technique.

Anyone daring to trespass into a noble’s territory, Qu Jianlei and the others could attack without hesitation—and without bearing any responsibility!

The main manor was an estate covering more than four square kilometers, shaded by trees and overflowing with flowers, kept extremely clean.

The main building inside was a large castle, remarkably solid, with underground bunkers whose layered walls were more than ten meters thick!

This structure could be used as a war fortress, and stuffing a thousand or two people inside wouldn’t make it feel crowded at all.

Everyone spent three days getting all the equipment and facilities set up, then entered their daily Cultivation routine.

In the blink of an eye, more than a month had passed, and life was so peaceful it felt like a secluded paradise.

Claire was a bit restless, but she didn’t run outside; she just occasionally strolled around the workers’ living area.

On this day, Qu Jianlei took out a new result—the preliminary calculations for the Five Elements Battle Array were done.

He had long since copied the Five Elements Array by imitation, basically using Five Elements Crystal to aid Cultivation.

It could be used at the Supreme Realm and even above, and the Energy type it provided leaned toward Spiritual Qi.

However, for someone who already possessed a Super Spirit Gathering Array, the Five Elements Array was a bit tasteless at this stage.

Five Elements Crystal was not only outrageously expensive, but in very short supply.

So, based on the composition of the Five Elements Array, he began deriving a Five Elements Battle Array.

Back when he was ambushed by someone, he had personally felt the power of a Five Elements Battle Array, and he’d been brooding over it ever since!

Today, he finally produced a phased result!