Chapter 368: Max Level Armor |
"God Extermination Plan?"
Chen Mang raised an eyebrow, asking thoughtfully, "Does this mean the reason why the Rugged Civilization has seen fewer and fewer Divine Archer God's Chosen over the years, to the point where even the position of Holy Arrow has been left vacant, is due to a conspiracy by the Green Mountain Civilization?"
"Logically speaking, yes."
Xiao Ai continued, "For the Green Mountain Civilization, this is a good thing. In the Rugged Civilization, Berserkers represent violence, while Divine Archers represent wisdom. The consensus among their people is that whoever holds the position of Holy Arrow is the leader of the Rugged Civilization."
"As long as no one holds the position of Holy Arrow in the Rugged Civilization, the Green Mountain Civilization remains safe. This also means the Rugged Civilization won't have the spare capacity to deal with them."
"The logic is sound."
"However, all the details of this plan were completely erased. I only obtained the plan's name. Moreover, I don't believe the Green Mountain Civilization possesses any method capable of causing the Rugged Civilization's Divine Archers to dwindle in number."
"This is somewhat akin to racial erasure."
"A Level 6 Civilization shouldn't possess such means, especially when targeting a Level 7 Civilization."
Chen Mang nodded without saying anything further. He pondered thoughtfully, planning to visit the Rugged Civilization in a few days. As a Level 7 Civilization, their resources had to be abundant. Plundering them first was the obvious choice.
Plunder all the way to the top.
Plunder until they became a God-Level Civilization.
But before that, the train needed a thorough upgrade!
Near the Dead End Star System.
After plundering the entire Green Mountain Civilization, the Stellar Train ultimately chose to return to the Dead End Star System to rest and reorganize. After all, in this vast universe, this was the only region that gave him a sense of belonging.
However...
"I remember my Dead End Star System not being this flat."
Sitting inside the train, Chen Mang sighed as he looked out the window at the Dead End Star System, which was now as flat as a sheet of paper. His pitiful Dead End Star System had been reduced to a mere picture. Originally, returning here felt like coming home, but now it felt more like guarding a tomb.
Chrono-Retrogression was also impossible.
A two-dimensionalized region possessed no temporal attributes. It was impossible to return to its past, or rather, the region no longer had a past.
He then checked the train's current resources.
2,872 Background Units of iron ore!
This was the remaining total resource count of the Stellar Train after deducting all expenditures from the recent battle.
An astronomical figure.
Equivalent to...
28,720,000 trillion units of iron ore.
Converting the units made the terrifying scale of this wealth truly palpable. This was an amount of resources capable of completely transforming the train.
He hadn't captured a single Murphy Stone.
The political home planet containing the Murphy Stones had been collapsed into two dimensions along with its entire star system by his seven shots of Two-Way Foil. After all, they were a Level 6 Civilization, and it was hard to say if they possessed some unknown foundational trump cards. He had already taken everything that needed taking.
He didn't desperately need a few extra Murphy Stones anyway. To avoid any unforeseen complications, he simply took action and cleared the board.
The first component that needed upgrading was obvious.
Naturally, it was...
The armor.
To push its defense even higher.
Back when he upgraded the armor from level 1,000 to 2,000, it only cost 20,000 trillion units of iron ore, which was 2 Background Units. But now, upgrading it to level 5,000 required a staggering 200 Background Units.
The cost had multiplied by a hundred times.
Utterly terrifying.
However, compared to his current fortune of 2,872 Background Units of iron ore, 200 Background Units suddenly seemed rather insignificant!
And with this, he obtained a brand-new Overlimit Effect!
-
"Carriage Steel Armor Level 5000 Overlimit Effect": Can resist all dark matter attacks and absorb all dark matter attacks to temporarily increase the armor's level.
-
"..."
Chen Mang's eyes narrowed slightly. He hadn't encountered dark matter attacks yet, but this would definitely be useful in the future.
The trick of a Level 5 Civilization was halving the resource consumption of component upgrades. However, this didn't halve the cost on the spot; instead, the saved portion of resources was stored away to be extracted at any time. Of course, it was explicitly stated that this did not apply to defensive components like armor and energy shields.
After upgrading the armor.
He still had 2,672 Background Units of iron ore.
He was now contemplating one thing.
And that was...
Should he push it all the way to level 10,000 in one go, maxing it out!
He took a look. Reaching the maximum level required 2,500 Background Units of iron ore.
He barely had enough, though doing so would completely drain his spoils from this campaign, all in exchange for a max-level armor.
He even suspected that this might be the very first max-level armor in the entire universe!
After thinking it over for a brief moment.
He gritted his teeth and immediately spent the 2,500 Background Units of iron ore, pushing the armor from level 5,000 to level 10,000 in one fell swoop!
The next moment—
Several notification panels instantly popped up on the control console screen.
-
"Stellar Train green-grade component 'Carriage Steel Armor' has been upgraded to the maximum level of 10,000. It can no longer be upgraded."
-
It was indeed at max level.
He tested it, and even with his 0-Level Authority, he couldn't upgrade it any further.
The number of Murphy Stones required to upgrade from level 5,000 to 10,000 was much higher than he imagined—a whopping 1,000 Background Units of Murphy Stones.
That was to say...
10,000,000 trillion Murphy Stones.
Although he hadn't looted the Green Mountain Civilization's Murphy Stones, he roughly knew their political home planet only held a reserve of about 0.03 Background Units of Murphy Stones.
1,000 Background Units of Murphy Stones...
It would take hundreds of thousands of Green Mountain Civilizations to scrape together enough Murphy Stones just to upgrade the armor to level 10,000.
The further into the late stages one went.
The number of Murphy Stones required for each subsequent level increase far exceeded his imagination; it was an astronomical figure.
It was worth noting!
The resources required to upgrade the armor were much higher than those needed for a normal Prismatic-grade component.
However, the Murphy Stones required to upgrade the armor were actually fewer than those needed for a normal Prismatic-grade component.
If it were a Prismatic-grade component.
Upgrading it to level 10,000 would demand an even more absurd amount of Murphy Stones.
Immediately following that.
Other panels on the control console screen began to flash.
-
"Human Civilization is the first civilization in the entire universe to obtain a max-level 'Carriage Steel Armor' component. This component has automatically been upgraded to the 'Sanctuary' grade."
"And has thus acquired the Civilization Wonder 'Descent of Miracles'."
-
"Carriage Steel Armor Level 10000 Overlimit Effect": Can resist attacks from all dimensions within this universe, with its structural integrity massively increased.
-
"..."
Chen Mang stared at the two panels on the console screen.
Just as he had thought.
The Human Civilization was indeed the first civilization to upgrade the Carriage Steel Armor to max level, automatically elevating it to the Sanctuary grade.
The armor's grade prefix had now changed to:
"Sanctuary Green-grade."
Sanctuary.
An extremely special grade, an existence even rarer than the Gray-grade, with perhaps only a single or double-digit number of them existing in the entire universe.
Only when a component was upgraded to the maximum level for the very first time would it attain the Sanctuary grade.
It possessed absolute uniqueness.
Only one person could ever obtain it. And once elevated to the Sanctuary grade, all of its attributes would experience a massive surge.
Reflected on the armor, it meant the defensive strength became vastly superior, and it gained an exclusive Sanctuary Overlimit Effect.
-
"Carriage Steel Armor 'Sanctuary' Overlimit Effect": Absolute Defense.
-
Just two simple words.
Which also meant he had embarked on the path of true invincibility.
Starting today!
Only he would be the one exterminating other civilizations; no other civilization could ever exterminate him.
To reach the absolute pinnacle, what he needed was no longer opportunity, but time.
Given enough time, reaching the end would be as easy as drinking water. He no longer faced any risk of an early demise; no one could kill him.
Unless...
Unless he took off the Hell Set and wandered aimlessly outside the Stellar Train. Or perhaps if he found a wife, and his enemies kidnapped her, forcing him to take off the Hell Set, leave the train, and attend a negotiation all by himself.
Otherwise, he genuinely couldn't imagine who could possibly kill him.
However, this also served as a wake-up call.
The Stellar Train's exterior defense was already strong enough, practically invincible even. At this point, he needed to focus on reinforcing the interior. Many impenetrable fortresses rotted from the inside out; he had to absolutely and thoroughly prevent such a situation from ever occurring.
After taking care of all this.
Chen Mang leaned back in his chair and let out a soft exhale.
He only had 172 Background Units of iron ore left.
He suddenly felt much poorer.
He was somewhat unsure of how to spend the rest. If he gathered more iron ore and maxed out every single component on the train to level 10,000, it would basically be perfect. Once he reached the status of a God-Level Civilization, he would just rob the databases of all other civilizations and let Qi Ke Xiu slowly research them.
Once he swapped all components for the most perfect Overlimit Effects.
He could basically consider himself fully graduated from this universe.
As for right now...
He didn't plan on spending this remaining bit of iron ore. The train needed iron ore reserves for navigation and attacking.
Seven days later.
The Stellar Train had completed all its rest and maintenance.
Inside the train, Xiao Ai's voice rang out.
"The wormhole has been fully generated. Entering jump state in 10 seconds. 10, 9, 8..."
He had upgraded the Wormhole Generator from level 500 to level 2,000.
This increased the maximum distance of the wormholes it could generate, reaching a peak range of one hundred million light-years.
A single jump could now cross several of those Dark Abyss voids lying behind the Dead End Star System. Of course, the cost of forging such a massive wormhole was equally substantial.
Upgrading this component to level 2,000 had consumed a total of 6,000 trillion units of iron ore.
Which amounted to 0.6 Background Units of iron ore.
Not even a full Background Unit.
And he had gained two Overlimit Effects in the process.
-
"Wormhole Generator Level 1000 Overlimit Effect": The cost of generating wormholes is drastically reduced, and their stability rate is guaranteed at 100%.
"Wormhole Generator Level 2000 Overlimit Effect": None.
-
The Overlimit Effect was decent.
Generating a wormhole spanning a full one hundred million light-years, aiming straight for the core territory of the Rugged Civilization, had only cost him 1.2 Background Units of iron ore.
A completely acceptable price.
Ten seconds later.
The spatial jump was complete.
A remarkably ordinary-looking wormhole manifested in the core territory of the Rugged Civilization, and a colossal armored train slowly emerged from it. There were no points of reference nearby, and planets were relatively sparse.
Even in a core territory, there were massive expanses of empty space.
This was just one such void.
Unnoticed by anyone.
Radars couldn't track them, and the naked eye couldn't see them. They had infiltrated this civilization in near-total invisibility.
Into the oddly-structured Rugged Civilization.
"So this is the Rugged Civilization?"
Sitting inside the train, Chen Mang glanced at the Doppelganger Radar map. By now, the radar's detection range covered 100 million light-years.
Back in the Dead End Star System, the radar had indicated that this entire region belonged to the Rugged Civilization, but he could only see a fraction of it at the time. Now that he had reached the core of the Rugged Civilization, he still couldn't see its borders. This meant the Rugged Civilization's territory spanned at least 200 to 300 million light-years.
The level 2,000 radar was starting to fall short.
He needed a level 5,000 radar.
He checked his remaining resources.
After thinking for a moment, he spent another 100 Background Units of iron ore to upgrade the Doppelganger Radar to level 5,000, acquiring its level 5,000 Overlimit Effect!
-
"Doppelganger Radar Level 5000 Overlimit Effect": Detection range is ultra-massively expanded, and can capture all abnormal activities within the detection area. Requires the Train Auxiliary AI to possess immense Computing Power, at minimum a Level 2000 AI.
-
"Hmm..."
Chen Mang raised an eyebrow. This level 5,000 Overlimit Effect seemed a bit average. It merely increased the detection range and added the ability to capture abnormal activities within that space.
What exactly did "abnormal activities" mean?
It sounded somewhat like...
Wait?
He froze for a second, looking at the unfamiliar map on the adjacent screen. Why did the display on the Doppelganger map suddenly look so completely alien?
His detection range had gone from the original 100 million light-years to... 1 trillion light-years?
Multiplied by...
Ten thousand times?
Holy shit...
He suddenly understood exactly what "ultra-massively expanded" meant!
This was a bit ridiculous!
Now he could finally see the full extent of the Rugged Civilization's territory. It was a massive circular domain with a diameter of 380 million light-years and an X-axis depth of 18 million light-years, encompassing 39 distinct star systems.
It was unfathomably larger than the Level 6 Green Mountain Civilization!
What a truly colossal civilization.
"Phew..."
Chen Mang exhaled slowly, carefully steering the Stellar Train into the Pseudo-Fourth Dimensional Space, preparing to land on a distant planet belonging to the Rugged Civilization.
It was worth mentioning that.
When demarcating territory, as long as there were no higher-level civilizations within the borders, one could draw the lines however they pleased.
However, for instance, when he claimed the Dead End Star System, even if his star system fell within the borders of the Rugged Civilization, it didn't matter. He could still claim it as his own. In such cases, as long as his declared territory wasn't larger than the Rugged Civilization's, it was perfectly fine.
Claiming territory was easy.
But establishing absolute control and projecting influence over every single corner of that territory was far from a simple task.
Just then—
Xiao Ai's voice suddenly rang out through the train.
"Captain."
"After digesting all the database information from the Green Mountain Civilization and reorganizing some fragmented data, I discovered something very interesting. The Dead End Star System was indeed extremely important to the Green Mountain Civilization."
"The Kasa Civilization."
"The reason that veteran Level 3 civilization in the Dead End Star System has such a devastatingly low birth rate is because the Green Mountain Civilization used them as a test subject before executing the God Extermination Plan."
"That is what caused the Kasa Civilization's fertility to plummet."