Chapter 372: Let's Just Call It Chen Nine-Rounds |
"..."
Chen Mang narrowed his eyes slightly and remained silent. The main issue at present was that he did not know exactly how many different racial talents existed in the universe. In any case, apart from the human race, which had no innate talent, basically every other race had a unique talent exclusive to them.
Assuming there were a thousand different racial talents in the universe.
Then, based on an expected probability of one in a thousand, it would require 200 billion units of iron ore.
Ten times that would be two trillion units of iron ore.
A hundred times would be 20 trillion units of iron ore.
A thousand times would be 200 trillion units of iron ore. Converted into Background Units, this figure was merely 0.02 Background Units of iron ore.
For the current Stellar Train, this was merely a drop in the bucket.
And compared to the expected returns, it was practically a zero-cost investment.
They would definitely manage to draw the right one.
"Let's do it this way."
Chen Mang pondered for a moment before nodding. "Produce one million loaves of 500-Level Bread and distribute them. Tell this group of people that if any of them draw the racial talent of the Star Arrow Clan, they will have to leave their homes and head to the Rugged Civilization to serve as a leader."
"Understood."
"Right, have Ji Chuchu and Yan Yao come see me."
After roughly settling this matter, Chen Mang looked thoughtfully at the Doppelganger Radar's screen. The territory of the Rugged Civilization spanned roughly several hundred million light-years.
A territory of this scale was no longer considered small.
Currently, the entire First Universe was constantly expanding outward. The universe was always growing, but according to the latest data, its present diameter was around 400 billion light-years.
The entire universe was only this big.
It was large, yet at the same time, it wasn't.
Of course, the true spatial area of the universe was definitely far greater than this figure.
Within this 400-billion-light-year universe, space was divided among several god-level civilizations. Within the territories of these god-level civilizations lived countless weaker civilizations, and many regions consisted of the Dark Abyss and a wide variety of cosmic celestial bodies.
And this 400-billion-light-year universe.
This was his ultimate destination.
Level 10,000 Mechanical Train components were his ultimate goal.
This was the final destination of his Transmigration journey.
"..."
Chen Mang stared at the train's screen in a slight daze. It had been a long time since he last thought about the fact that he was a transmigrator on this planet. Although only a few years had passed, it felt like an eternity, giving him the surreal sensation of a lifetime having passed.
If those memories weren't so deeply etched into his mind, he might have even believed that his past life in his previous world was nothing more than a fleeting dream.
Once he ascended to a god-level civilization.
The very first thing he intended to do was scour the entire universe in search of the Blue Star.
He desperately wanted to know if the Blue Star he lived on before his Transmigration was located within the First Universe. If it was, that would be wonderful. He could drive his train back and broaden the horizons of his compatriots from his previous world.
Up until now.
Only now did he realize just how despair-inducing the location of the old Blue Star truly was. There were no life-bearing planets nearby, no other civilizations, not even a single Ore Star. It was an entirely isolated and desolate place, utterly devoid of resources.
Being born in such a place.
Even with a top-tier train, if one wanted to create a Wormhole to leave that barren region, they wouldn't be able to mine enough surrounding resources to support its construction.
The vicinity of the Blue Star...
It was simply far too impoverished.
So poor that it could make a person weep.
Right at this moment—
Ji Chuchu and Yan Yao walked into the train's control room. Standing side by side, they looked at Chen Mang and greeted him softly in unison, "Lord Mang."
"Mm."
Chen Mang swiveled his chair to look at the two of them. "The last time I had you two awaken racial talents, what exactly did you get?"
Last time, after experiencing Xiao Fang's Future State, Past State, and Present State, he had found it incredibly fascinating. Caught up in the heat of the moment and having a rather wild time, he had told Ji Chuchu and Yan Yao to consume a slice of bread as well.
However, he hadn't paid much attention to it afterward.
If the topic hadn't been brought up again just now, he would have completely forgotten about it.
Ji Chuchu and Yan Yao exchanged a glance, their voices growing a bit faint. "Lord Mang, both of us awakened the talent of the same race. It's the racial talent of the Fox Charm Clan, One Qi, Three Pure Ones."
"The effect allows us to simultaneously summon our Past State and Future State."
"..."
Chen Mang remained rooted to the spot, his face devoid of expression as he stayed silent for a long time. Finally, he murmured, "Very well."
Xiao Fang, Ji Chuchu, and Yan Yao... Did these three really just happen to awaken the exact same racial talent by mere coincidence?
He didn't buy it for a second.
Who were they trying to fool?
Xiao Fang might have genuinely lucked out, but there was no way these two had struck the same jackpot purely by chance. They must have consulted Xiao Fang and used some specific method to acquire this exact racial talent.
Although he didn't voice his suspicions.
He still mentally instructed Xiao Ai to investigate their situation and find out why they had awakened the same racial talent as Xiao Fang.
It didn't take long to get an answer. Xiao Ai had looked into it and found absolutely no anomalies. It truly had been completely random.
'It really was random...' he thought.
Since that was the case.
Chen Mang lifted his eyelids slightly. "Call Xiao Fang in as well."
Fifteen minutes later.
Inside the Stellar Train's control room, bathed in dim, ambiguous lighting, a full nine figures lay on the spacious bed. They were the Past States, Future States, and Present States of Xiao Fang, Ji Chuchu, and Yan Yao.
"How should I describe this feeling..."
Chen Mang looked at Ji Chuchu's Past State and clicked his tongue with a hint of awe. "Does this count as regaining your maidenhood?"
The process defied verbal description.
He could only say.
The physical pleasure paled in comparison to the mental thrill, a sensation akin to an electric shock coursing through his soul, leaving him profoundly refreshed and captivated.
It was a unique and absolutely perfect experience.
It made him somewhat curious about the Fox Charm Clan. He even hoped to have the chance to witness this race in person one day, just to see how their men and women operated in the bedroom.
Three on three?
It would be just like a gang brawl.
Moreover, there could be so many different permutations and combinations.
For example...
The man's Past State versus the woman's Future State.
The man's Future State versus the woman's Past State.
And so on.
It could be arranged into a multitude of combinations.
And he vaguely felt that this was somehow more in line with the natural laws of the universe.
Among humans, most couples were close in age. This led to certain unspoken problems that lurked beneath the surface but were experienced by many.
When a man was young and in his physical prime, apart from brute strength and quick recovery, he had nothing else to offer. Completely lacking in experience, he would often leave his partner unsatisfied.
But as he grew older and gained experience, he became like a specially mixed cocktail—packing a potent initial kick, but the moment it slid down the throat into the stomach, the after-effect vanished. Yet, a woman of a matching age usually didn't want any fancy prelude; she just wanted that raw, vigorous stamina.
Absolute power overcoming all techniques.
In this scenario.
Having the man's Past State go against the woman's Future State, and then pairing the man's Future State with the woman's Past State—everything suddenly made perfect sense. All four individuals would be completely satisfied.
Everyone would be happy.
As for the two remaining Present States, if they were bored, they could lend a helping push from behind for the other two couples, which would also be excellent.
"As expected..."
Chen Mang lay on his bed, feeling the soft bodies draped across his chest, arms, and legs. He murmured, feeling somewhat exhausted and in a daze. After finishing a strenuous battle, a person's brain just couldn't help but wander into wild thoughts.
He silently lit a cigarette.
Savoring the peace and tranquility of the moment.
No.
The intensity of this session had been a bit too much. One post-coital cigarette wouldn't suppress the edge; he needed two.
He grabbed another one.
After quickly finishing the first, Chen Mang silently lit the second cigarette.
The fading and glowing scarlet tip of the cigarette continuously flickered in the dimly lit train room. Blended with the heavy, rapid breathing echoing around him, it created an extremely harmonious atmosphere.
It was a pity.
A pity that the affairs of the bedroom couldn't be spoken of to outsiders.
Otherwise, he truly wanted to give himself a nickname. Let's just call it Chen Nine-Rounds.
One word: powerful.
Even though he had relied on a bit of biological technology, he was still incredibly robust, and he was very satisfied with himself.
There were only three months left until the Star Arrow Clan returned to their main branch.
Soon enough—
A month passed.
The problem of the Holy Arrow had already been resolved. A total of 987 people had randomly acquired the racial talent of the Star Arrow Clan. This meant he could provide the Rugged Civilization with 987 Holy Arrow candidates all at once.
However...
He ultimately selected only one middle-aged man and sent him over to the Rugged Civilization.
Prior to doing so, he erased all the crucial memories regarding the Human Civilization from the middle-aged man's mind to prevent any vital intelligence from leaking. Of course, many things would inevitably still slip out.
For instance, the fact that in just a little over a decade, the Human Civilization had gone from a civilization teetering on the brink of an apocalyptic extinction to becoming a level-six civilization.
It was indeed quite a showy accomplishment.
In reality, the timeframe was even shorter. In his personal timeline, only a few years had passed.
It was just that when traveling toward the Good Cat Civilization, they had been affected by a black hole. While less than a day had passed inside the train, seven years had gone by in the outside world.
But it didn't matter anymore.
As he was now, it was incredibly difficult to stop himself from standing out. When one's strength grew too massive, deliberately trying to hide became a near-impossible task.
It was like a firefly trying to hide its glow in the dark—not very difficult. But for a super stellar star attempting to conceal all of its brilliance across the universe, the difficulty was astronomically high. It simply couldn't be suppressed.
Along the way...
He also helped the Rugged Civilization solve the virus problem—the poison planted by the Green Mountain Civilization.
Xiao Ai and Qi Ke Xiu had jointly researched an antidote, using a method of fighting poison with poison.
The original poison worked on the principle of spreading through sexual fantasies. Its effect caused newborns, upon their class transition into a God's Chosen, to have a 99.9999% probability of becoming a Berserker, and only a 0.00001% probability of becoming a Divine Archer.
The actual chances were even lower.
This was merely a rough numerical example.
To neutralize this virus, they had to somehow increase the probability of becoming a Divine Archer while simultaneously decreasing the probability of becoming a Berserker.
Unfortunately.
They couldn't manage to boost the chances of becoming a Divine Archer. That was an unsolvable threshold.
And so...
They stopped researching an antidote and abandoned the idea of restoring the Rugged Civilization to its former state. Instead, they infected the Rugged Civilization with another poison—one that reduced the probability of becoming a Berserker down to 0.00001% as well.
When members of the Star Arrow Clan came of age, they were absolutely guaranteed to transition into one of the two God's Chosen paths.
And the probability of becoming a Berserker was 0.00001%.
The probability of becoming a Divine Archer was also 0.00001%.
In a certain sense.
This balanced the odds out to roughly fifty percent on each side.
A perfect solution.
Although the methodology was vastly different from before, the actual result brought things back to a functional equilibrium.
"Very nice."
Sitting inside the train room, Chen Mang gazed at the control console screen, watching the Elder Council meeting of the Rugged Civilization he was secretly monitoring. The corners of his mouth curled up as he let out a soft chuckle.
All of his tasks were fully complete.
There were still two months left before the Star Arrow Clan returned to their main branch.
From here on out, all he needed to do was wait patiently. Once the two months were up and the Rugged Civilization left, he could simply inherit all of their resources and their entire civilization's territory.
Of course.
He had also left himself a backup plan.
After all, he had never heard of a Bloodline Wormhole before. The claim that nothing could be carried through a Bloodline Wormhole was something he only learned from the mouth of the Rugged Civilization's Grand Elder. What if the other party was deceiving him?
What if they took all their resources with them right before leaving?
Then all his efforts would be like drawing water with a bamboo basket. It would be one thing if it was merely wasted effort, but to be ridiculed as a fool behind his back while suffering a humiliating total loss was something he absolutely could not tolerate.
Fortunately, however—
According to his surveillance over this period, the Rugged Civilization truly hadn't been lying. They couldn't take a single resource with them. When the time came, it would all be his.
This was much faster than outright plundering.
Plundering couldn't extract every last resource from an entire star system. After all, a large chunk of resources was scattered among commoners. For instance, if a normal citizen had a few thousand or a few tens of thousands of units of iron ore, was he really supposed to personally hunt down ordinary people just for that minuscule amount?
Just like with the Green Mountain Civilization, he had only taken the lion's share.
He hadn't touched the meager scraps held in the hands of the civilians on the other planets.
But if the Rugged Civilization simply migrated away, those meager scraps would become his as well. Gathering them up would be far more convenient and wouldn't require much effort at all.
"If this Grand Elder of the Rugged Civilization can continue honoring his promises so thoroughly, then perhaps the Star Arrow Clan might just receive an olive branch of friendship from the Human Civilization."
Chen Mang clicked his tongue, a bit moved by the thought.
To be completely honest.
Having grown so accustomed to mutual deception and scheming, he was actually a little unaccustomed to dealing with such an honest friend.
Keeping their word, never lying, and playing everything completely straight.
"How goes it?"
In the blink of an eye, the three-month countdown was drawing to a close.
Sitting inside the Stellar Train's control room, Chen Mang looked at the Grand Elder of the Rugged Civilization seated opposite him and smiled. "This antidote we researched spreads exactly like the poison—through sexual fantasies."
"It will still take some time to disseminate completely."
"I estimate that in a few decades at most, as the new generation is born and comes of age, this virus plaguing your Rugged Civilization will essentially be wiped clean."
"And according to what we agreed upon..."
"I should be able to move into the Rugged Civilization's territory now, correct?"
"Correct!"
The Grand Elder of the Rugged Civilization took a deep breath and nodded slowly. Looking earnestly at Chen Mang, he said, "Keep going. Your civilization's strength is formidable. I believe that sooner or later, I will see you on the grand stage of the god-level civilizations."