To assist Mu Yunhua, Chen Jin not only pulled out many of his trump cards, but also left a mighty, mysterious, and reliable impression on her.

It could be said from Mu Yunhua’s reaction that Chen Jin had totally achieved his most wanted first-contact effect.

But the price was, in order to maintain his mighty and mysterious image in the future, when facing greater challenges and difficulties, it was possible that Chen Jin would have to go beyond his own ability and come up with more advanced technology and more powerful trump cards so that Mu Yunhua would continue to rely on him.

However, it was already a little hard to maintain his front-facing image at that time. As future demands would only become even higher, he was afraid that, by then, what he provided would not seem quite enough, even after he emptied his entire arsenal.

What should he do at that point?

“Boasting for a while is pleasurable, for sure, but to do it in the long run…”

Chen Jin shook his head. Was it time for him to change his impractical, aggrandizing behavior?

However, there were some things that, once done, would make it a little hard to make a U-turn. He could only grit his teeth and continue down this road.

“Luckily, Mu Yunhua will need at least two to three decades to digest that bundle of technical information. We still have quite a lot of time.

“We should take advantage of this period to improve our strength and enhance our own prestige.

“Just like in a race, we must always maintain a lead. We must not allow the disparity between us and them to become too narrow.”

Therefore, Chen Jin had to improve himself. It was a necessity for him to accelerate forward!

He thus formulated the Haierfa Expansion Plan.

This plan was mainly developed through artificial intelligence Nuwa’s and Alice’s simulation. Its primary purpose was to improve their own strength.

There were three main aspects targeted for an upgrade.

The first one was in science and technology. Without a doubt, this was the most important of all.

Nuwa said, “Master, we are going to build 10 top-notch science laboratories in the future to provide a more superior testing environment for conducting advanced physics experiments. We shall provide the best conditions for exploring the truth of the universe.

“Additionally, in order to study the mysteries of the stars and probe the possibility of mastery over stellar energy, we will go to our neighboring star: α Star, four light-years away. Around the star in that galaxy, we will build an experimental ‘Dyson Ball’ structure and attempt to harvest energy on a stellar scale. And, on this basis, we will carry out various scientific experiments.

“In short, no matter how much time and material we may expend, our exploration of the truth of the universe will be carried out at all costs.”

Secondly, the military aspect.

With regards to planet Haierfa, it was now necessary to enhance military might.

“Master, at present, we can create Class-B+ starships with a combat power no weaker than that of the main battleships of the Crystal Brainers. But, right now, there is only one space dock that can produce such warships, and it can only construct one Class-B+ warship every three years. Efficiency is extremely behind.”

“In order to increase our efficiency, we will increase the number of large space docks to more than 100 in the future, striving to achieve the mass production of main battleships to more than 30 units per year.”

“In addition, with the Warp Engine technology gradually maturing, Class A ships equipped with high-power warp engines will probably be successfully created within five years. Together with our other latest tech for the A-class warships, the combat power of an A-class warship may be equivalent to 10 B-class warships.”

“Hence, we plan to build about a hundred A-class warships within 30 years, and then match them with another 3,000 B-class warships. By doing so, our comprehensive combat strength will be at least half of that of the Crystal Brainers. If we use these forces cohesively, we will be able to crumble their unadorned civilization by exploiting their weak nodes.”

After all, it would, in fact, be very difficult for the Crystal Brainers to assemble a large number of interstellar warships within a short period of time due to their relatively backward ion thruster technology.

The Crystal Brainers, who were like someone with a massive family business, could only deploy single-fleet units to safeguard their territory.

Chen Jin’s end goal, which involved the Wrap Engine technological development tree quickly lighting up, possessed an absolute speed advantage.

The last initiative was the strategy for their resource aspect.

“Since we only occupy one star system, our planetary resources are limited to what we have, little more than a dozen planets. Although there are many meteorites in the asteroid belt, mining them will not be easy, and our efficiency is bound to be lower… In terms of resources, it will be very easy for us to fall into a bottleneck.

“Compared with those aliens, who have colonized multiple galaxies—even if their strength in science and technology is weak, they are in control of hundreds and even thousands of times the resources we have. The difference between us is several orders of magnitude.

“If conflict erupts between us and a resource-rich civilization, we will win in quality, but their mass-mobilization strategy and warship-overcrowding tactics may sometimes offset that advantage in quality and inflict almost certain damage on us. If our opponent’s never-ending hordes break through the threshold of our limits, we may even be submerged.

“Many such cases have happened in ‘Galaxy Era.’”

“Hence, we have to acquire as great an amount of resources as possible.”

So… how could they acquire them? Chen Jin asked the AIs.

“One way will be intensifying resource collection in the Haierfa Galaxy—best to utilize all its planetary and meteorite resources to make the ultimate starships.

“In addition, we should collect resources from our surrounding galaxies.”

Other galaxies?

Even the nearest of the galaxies around planet Haierfa was four light-years away. It would take a few decades for ordinary spacecrafts to go back and forth. The efficiency of their resource collection efficiency would be too low.

“If we deploy cargo spacecrafts equipped with warp engines to mine our surrounding galaxies, the round trip will be shortened to several months,” Nuwa said. “Of course, a few months’ journey will still be too long. As a deduction, we can also build military docks directly in our surrounding galaxies in order to construct interstellar warships on the spot. They will be equivalent to mobile military factories.

“If we build a military factory in each mineral-heavy galaxy to produce interstellar starships and deplete the entire galaxy, at least hundreds of thousands of battleships of class B or above can be obtained. If a black swarm of battleships were to automatically aggregate above planet Haierfa, it would be pretty amazing and shocking to look at.

“The mass-mobilization strategy and warship-overcrowding tactic of our potential enemies will be entirely crushed.”

Chen Jin nodded.

What Nuwa meant was, in fact, similar to establishing subbases, which actually referred to military bases used for “filibustering.”

“Then, we should first find 10 suitable galaxies mainly for the production of B-class warships. If production goes up, we will stop producing B-class warships here at planet Haierfa and shift all our resources into making high-end A-class warships.”

The idea was that the high-end would be made at “home,” while the low-end and mid-range would all be made in the outer galaxies. By this method, more valuable docks could be freed up.

Upon listening to Nuwa’s explanation, three clear goals were presented before Chen Jin:

1. Build large physics labs to explore higher technology.

2. Go violent in filibustering, building as many advanced interstellar warships as possible.

3. Gather resources, exploiting their own advantage in speed to acquire a large amount of materials from the surrounding galaxies and prevent the risk of deficiencies.

These three points were also the synthesis of the most comprehensive methods for an exhaustive approach to expansion in strength.

They might be better alternatives out there, but, as of now, only these conventional methods could be used.

Without question, Chen Jin approved all implementations.

……

However.

Quiet times passed by, day after day.

Chen Jin was executing his operation, step-by-step, and was just now in a more confident state to face the challenges of the future, which might not even prove a challenge for him.

On Earth, which he had not paid much attention to for the past few decades, there had suddenly been a bit of a commotion as of recently.

Even Chen Jin had to take some of his time and energy to express his worry about those upheavals.

“That can’t be. What’s going on?”

“Why would such a thing suddenly happen?”

“Surely this is too exaggerated, and too much of a fantasy? Shouldn’t Haierfa be the Sci-Fi universe?”

After reading the news from back on Earth, Chen Jin was shocked, and felt disbelief.

He instinctively mumbled to himself:

“Earth has been developing very well over the years. Very peaceful, although a little impetuous, it has been relatively harmonious and stable on the whole.”

“It was so peaceful that it had even become quite boring. Days were dull and uneventful, and people were drowsy.”

“Such a wonderful world should always be kept that way. I would rather such stimulating incidents not happen.”

“For such a massive turn of events to happen like this out of the blue… I don’t like it at all.”

Chen Jin kept mumbling to himself, and he was apparently experiencing some difficulty in digesting the facts.

…

Speaking of which, what exactly had happened on Earth? What could make Chen Jin lose his composure to this extent?

In fact, it was mainly about two things.

Firstly, many weird things had happened on Earth.

Or, so to speak, many people were experiencing “mutations.”

For example, in a short period of time, a regular guy suddenly spiked in physical fitness and was granted a strength of up to a thousand kilograms of force. As another example, a high school student with a plain appearance could suddenly climb on walls and fly over the roofs as if he had mastered some form of Qinggong martial arts. After returning home from school, he even saved the day by defeating seven or eight lewd riffraff. There was also a white man from a western country who, after awakening, could summon a high-temperature fireball like one might do in a magic show. Similar ‘mutations’ had manifested in many people, with all of them being granted unique abilities.

These abilities had been classified into several types after being summed up by a statistical study. There were “power,””magic,””witchcraft,””mutation,””blood force,” and many more.

Within just a little more than three months, at least more than a thousand “strange individuals” had appeared on Earth.

In social media, with the increasing exposure of the “strange individuals,” the topic was getting hotter and hotter. After the possibility of it being a fraud or mischief was eliminated, the entirety of human society completely heated up and was completely blasted away.

“A new era is arriving!”

“The boundary that divides gods and mortals has dissolved. Gods, gods that are invisibly awakening, are now all around you and me.”

“Wow! Such immense powers, such magical powers—how can we get them?”

It was just like tossing a huge rock into a calm lake.

Orderly life on Earth had been completely disrupted.

The impact of all kinds of magical powers made it impossible for anyone to calm down. Traditional living habits, past legal systems, and even the stable business environment and political system were now being hit by an unprecedented shock wave. Although there were currently less than 10,000 awakened human beings on Earth, a proportion that did not even exceed one in a million, it was already severely disrupting the existing order of society.

After a few days.

An old man with a white beard, who had the demeanor of a transcendent being, and a number of famous experts revealed several exciting pieces of news in a press conference in front of hundreds of well-known media from around the globe. What they said overwhelmed the whole world with astonishment.

One of the leading experts spoke:

“For a long time, we have been troubled by the question. Why haven’t we found any traces of alien civilizations since the birth of mankind?

“Are there aliens in this universe? Are we the only lucky winner underneath this starry sky, or, that is to say… orphans?

“Fermi’s paradox once pointed out that, if alien civilizations exist in this universe, why can’t we see them? Where are they?

“Today, we have the answer to this question. Aliens 100% exist, and their numbers are nowhere near small. However, many years ago, all aliens disappeared from the universe. Under the lead of the ‘Protoss’ of various civilizations, they crossed into another universe.”

“In the end, only us humans were left in this universe. Only we have not been taken away.

“This… is the truth behind our question.

“But, from now on, we humans will no longer be alone. The gods of various alien civilizations, including ours, are coming back soon. Just like going home, they will be returning to our universe… our joyful days are finally arriving.

“But, of course, the door of time and space has been opened in advance of the migration. Particles containing massive energy from another universe, the realm of the gods, are constantly pouring into our world. Divine powers are about to awaken. Our dry and barren universe will be showered with enormous divine energy. Many strange people who were born recently are such because they have a higher affinity with the Gods. After absorbing these divine particles, they have awakened a part of their abilities.

“Of course, the power of those who were awakened does not hold a candle to a real god. When the concentration of the divine particles, what have been disseminated gradually, increases, the number of awakenings will increase. Extraordinary power will be in the grasp of many more.

“These were all ‘gifts’ that the gods have bestowed upon us. They have given us, poor and weak mortals, such unimaginable potential and hope, even for us to become… one of them.”

“For instance, this respected old gentleman beside me is a ‘monk’ from the divine realm. His power is so strong that he is not afraid of being bombarded by a 155-millimeter howitzer. Powers like this are what people here yearn for and adore.

“But this old gentleman is just an ordinary person in the world of the Gods.

“What’s more, as for the gods of the divine realm—after the door of time and space is opened, when the concentration of the divine particles has improved to the extent that this universe could harbor the survival of the Protoss—one day in the future, a group of Protoss will immigrate to Earth. They will live among our ranks, and, at the same time, they may pass on to us some of their powerful artistry.

“From then on, the Protoss that come home will work with us to forge a new glorious era that belongs to human civilization.

“Therefore, please give them your warm and friendly applause! Our family, our ancestors, our future companions, are back!

Clap, clap, clap…

The reporters applauded, but most of them had amazed expressions on their faces, indicating that they were still not able to digest this amazing news.

The microphone was handed to the old man with the demeanor of a transcendent being to allow him to speak a few words. After taking the mic, the old man’s face was neither excited nor serene. His face had no expression for a long time; but, once he moved his lips, the atmosphere became rather chilling:

“Ready your best houses, present to us your most precious possessions, offer us your most respectful etiquette, and prepare for our arrival.”

As he finished speaking, the air flashed, and the old man vanished without a trace.