Chapter 1 Fleet Preparations

The fleet remained at Beacon Star for two days, receiving various exploration devices from Tarrokov. Huge alloy containers were transported by ground vehicles to the Black Star Army's transport ships and stacked neatly.

These were exploration supplies equipped by the Empire, such as stargate devices, fool-proof planetary fortress expansion packs, and space monitoring buoys used to improve star charts and provide dynamic environmental monitoring functions. All were military equipment and not available in the regular interstellar market, only occasionally appearing on the black market.

Han Xiao had Phillip take inventory and received approximately five hundred stargate devices, six thousand fool-proof planetary fortress expansion packs, and fifteen billion space monitoring buoys. These weren't gifts but task items on loan, enough to last for a while.

In addition, Tarrokov dispatched an Imperial fleet to temporarily join the Black Star Army's team to assist in exploring the Goru Star Cluster. The commander was Seniok, a major general under Tarrokov.

Tarrokov remained at Beacon Star as commander, and the several Imperial fleets he dispatched each had their own commander. Seniok was a direct subordinate of Tarrokov and one of the Imperial cadres stationed in the Shattered Star Ring in Han Xiao's memory. He had some impression of him.

As partners in the upcoming exploration period, Han Xiao met with Seniok to discuss and reach a simple cooperation consensus. Seniok stated that he would not interfere with the Black Star Army's exploration plan; their main role was to assist.

After two days of preparation, the commander-in-chief finally announced the official start of operations. The fleets stationed at Beacon Star parted ways, heading to the star clusters of their choice.

The Raylenor Star Cluster was to be explored by the War Domain and Klent, the Goru Star Cluster by the Black Star Army, and the Crown Ring Star Cluster by the remaining direct Imperial fleets. In comparison, the Crown Ring Star Cluster had the most manpower, while the Goru Star Cluster had the least.

The Black Star Army fleet, accompanied by Seniok's fleet, set off towards the southernmost border star system of the Goru Star Cluster.

Before departure, Han Xiao had notified all members of the army, including millions of players, of the exploration plan.

He placed various tasks on the army's mission list, including planet exploration, buoy deployment, and more. These were further divided into different regions, with a large number of tasks, each with a limited number of participants, for millions of army players to choose from.

The various exploration tasks sparked discussion on the forums. Because the main quest mechanism of the Shattered Star Ring was a point system, divided into individual points and overall points, different exploration tasks yielded different points, depending on the actual rewards. Players could only guess and analyze at this time, but they were still happy to do so.

On the forums, players generally believed that planet exploration theoretically had the greatest benefits. Discovering resources, finding life, researching planetary history, and mining resources all had point rewards, and the process was full of unknown fun.

In the eyes of the players, other tasks such as deploying monitoring buoys, setting up stargates, and building base transfer stations were all hard labor, and currently, the fewest people had chosen them.

Han Xiao knew that once the players figured out the exploration process, guilds would begin to compete openly and secretly. Large guilds hoped to use resource-rich planets as guild resource points. Although they could only get a small percentage of the total resource exploitation, equivalent to skimming a little profit, it was already extremely generous in terms of the average wealth of the players.

In his previous life, there were two main reasons for the chaotic battles between players from different countries in the Shattered Star Ring: factional disputes and competition for planet resource points. Now that millions of players belonged to his faction, factional disputes would not occur, so competition for resource points was the only reason.

Han Xiao knew that in order to compete for planets with rare resources, guilds would compete fiercely and frequently engage in guild wars, seizing each other's "territory." Although it hadn't reached that stage yet, he knew it was coming, especially since there were club guilds from different countries within the army, and competition was inevitable.

His promotion of social interaction between new and old players was another measure to prepare for the future, to minimize the impact of competition between guilds from different countries on ordinary players. It was unavoidable that ordinary players would fight each other for fun, but he wanted to prevent a clear hostile attitude between ordinary players, so he used two faction contribution-boosting tasks to encourage players from different countries to actively make friends.

As long as the internal players did not develop obvious rifts, guild competition would not be a loss for him. In any case, players' equipment would be damaged and need repair, which would instead promote consumption.

...

The various fleets sailed for some days and entered their designated positions, officially starting their respective exploration work.

The Black Star Army exploration team arrived at the southernmost border star system of the Goru Star Cluster and began building the first transfer station according to plan, connecting to the Morning Star Cluster.

The engineering corps used a fool-proof planetary fortress expansion pack on a barren planet at the edge of the star system—the transport ship opened the launch bay, and hundreds of thousands of giant mechanical bases with their own space thrusters flew out, resembling steel nails—these were all fortress nodes.

The fortress nodes arranged themselves in the outer space of the planet, with the same spacing between the nodes, forming a large net that enveloped the entire planet.

Immediately afterward, the thrusters of these fortress nodes spewed out a raging orange tail flame, broke through outer space, and landed on the planet's surface like hundreds of thousands of heavenly gravity weapons, all deeply inserted into the earth's crust, raising boundless dust.

In the next step, all the fortress nodes were activated, the top lit up with a crimson light, began to transform the planetary atmospheric environment, transform the terrain and landforms, each node was vibrating, bursting out a circle of shock waves, causing a rumbling earthquake, tearing the underground rock layer, and pouring in a large number of metal structures.

Silver and gray metal continuously extended from the nodes, spreading across the land, covering the soil, turning the planet into a metallic surface. According to the preset program, these engineering alloys with nano-transformation capabilities automatically deformed and assembled, and bases, fortresses, and warehouses rose from the ground.

After dozens of hours, the preliminary transformation was completed. This yellow-black barren planet had been completely renewed and turned into a silver-gray planetary fortress, becoming the first stronghold in the Goru Star Cluster.

The Imperial engineering ship was not idle either, using tractor beams to drag sections of huge stargate parts and assemble the stargate next to this stronghold.

The unactivated stargate looked like a hollow giant mechanical ring. After activation, indicator-like blue lights lit up in the inner circle of the mechanical ring in sequence, releasing spatial energy and connecting to one of the stargates near Beacon Star according to the set coordinates.

After completing the activation process, the hollow part of the mechanical ring turned into a wormhole-like blue vortex, becoming a complete stargate.

In addition to the troops that stayed behind to build the stronghold, the others dispersed, part of the people went to the surrounding area to deploy space monitoring buoys, and part of the people went to explore unknown planets one by one.

A star system was divided into about ten star regions. At this time, the main force of the Black Star Army began to explore the first star region.

According to the plan, Han Xiao sent a task force, led by Hadaway, with one hundred and fifty stargate devices to act alone, the goal was to cross more than a dozen star systems to the eastern part of the Goru Star Cluster and establish a long-distance stargate channel.

The ships configured for the task force were all high-warp advanced transport ships, with a limit of 14.1 warp level, and they would warp continuously at the limit speed all the way, and it would take about four months to cross such a long distance to reach the destination.

When the task force established a long-distance stargate channel, the four-month trip could be shortened to a few hours—because it was not a direct-type stargate, it was necessary to transfer in more than a dozen star systems in the middle, so it would take a little extra time to travel.

Countless army members cooperated and worked together, and Han Xiao himself was not idle. He took the main ship, with a group of normal army soldiers and army players, to explore a planet in the center of this star region.

In his memory, this planet was a trade transfer station in his previous life, one of the gateways to the Goru Star Cluster, with considerable mining value, and without too harsh an environment, it was a habitable planet, and there was a native civilization on it.

Now, this planet does not have a name, only a number, just to take it down in advance for development.

...

The outer border of the Shattered Star Ring.

This is the edge of the explored universe, separated from the Shattered Star Ring by a long, desolate cosmic belt.

Fleets left the border from different directions, turned into streaks of warp streamers, entered the desolate cosmic belt, and headed straight for the direction of the Shattered Star Ring.

The news that the Crimson Empire was developing the Shattered Star Ring had already spread throughout the Star Sea. Although the Empire expressly prohibited other civilizations from entering, a piece of paper could not scare away advanced forces, and they all wanted to bypass the Empire's monopoly and enter the Shattered Star Ring in advance to seize the opportunity.

These fleets were not the first group. They came from different civilizations and organizations and concealed their identities to avoid being discovered by the Empire.

Because they could not use the Empire's stargate, they could only smuggle to the Shattered Star Ring, carrying stargate devices, and planned to secretly establish a secret stargate channel to avoid the Empire's surveillance.

Even if the warp level of these fleets was very high, it would take at least a long time to cross the desolate cosmic belt and reach the Shattered Star Ring.

Among these smugglers, most people were for profit, and a small number of people had ulterior motives.

One of the groups was the direct personnel secretly sent by the EsGod civilization.