Chapter 776: Golden Age of Eternal Star Alliance

As Nash enjoyed his vacation, the Mind Link Module began to make waves in the Eternal Star Alliance. Although it had strict eligibility requirements, quintillions upon quintillions of talents could still use it to make rapid advancement.

As if having divine help, the Mind Link Module made them advance by leaps and bounds, boosted their production capacity, and multiplied their battle prowess several times over.

The most obvious effect of this was the dramatic increase in the output of the Eternal Military Outpost. It had jumped from 5,000 units a month to 15,000! This limit wasn’t because they lacked people, but because they didn’t have enough mother core ships to produce the parts they could assemble.

So far, they barely had 30 million mother core ships. Using half of them to produce the Eternal Military Outpost already overextended their capacity to the limit. This strain further slowed down the construction of the dimensional-scale dark gate. The production of S- to SSS-class battleships and training resources also took up capacity.

It could be said that with everyone turning into a masterful elite, there was no limit to their production capacity except materials and technology.

Besides the production of the Eternal Military Outpost, the construction of the dimensional-scale dark gate also began to progress at astonishing speed.

Based on the previous estimation, because of the lack of manpower, the basic foundational work would take 5 years. Coupled with the final touches, it could easily reach 7-8 years.

However, with the addition of the Universal Runic System and everyone turning into dragons, they could now complete construction in 1-2 years.

If all the workers in the Eternal Star Alliance pitched in, they could even complete it in a few months. However, to balance production, resources, and defenses, they could only slightly slow it down. Otherwise, they would have the dimensional-scale dark gate but not the foundation to protect it.

—

Three months later, as the Mind Hive Module continued to make waves, the expedition team finally cleared the area around the Forbidden Domain.

Cleaned spotless, the place had almost no trace of dark beasts. The planets and stars were also claimed and incorporated into their territory.

Having done everything they could, they eagerly prepared to go on an expedition. Compared to being a housekeeper, it was more exciting to be a treasure hunter in the unexplored domain.

Although it was more dangerous, now that the seven major alliances had activated the dimensional-scale dark gates, they didn’t feel any fear.

Over the past year and a half since the dimensional-scale dark gates activated, their Eternal Military Outposts had reached a staggering 150 thousand!

Mass-producing these beasts that could go toe to toe with a Tier 9 dark beast, as long as they had enough Chaos Stones, they didn’t fear anyone. If a major alliance dared to attack them, they could pulverize them to pieces.

Unfortunately, the Eternal Military Outpost had slow mobility and was only good for defense. Otherwise, given their hard power, the Eternal Star Alliance would have long since conquered the other major alliances.

Possessing such a large number of Eternal Military Outposts, they quickly gathered a force to go on an expedition. Leaving 50,000 behind for defense, they decided to send 100,000 out.

This time, they were going all out, not only to earn Merit Source, but also supplies for the coming Altier Convention. They had only half a year, the ideal time for an expedition cycle.

If they didn’t stock up on resources now, it would drag down the Eternal Star Alliance’s reputation.

—

As the expedition force ventured into an unexplored domain, their large movement caught the attention of the other nine major alliances.

100,000 Eternal Military Outposts! How massive such a force was! Unless they were blind, it would be impossible to miss such a spectacle.

“What is the Eternal Star Alliance trying to do? Are they trying to clear an unexplored domain area?”

Controlling dimensional-scale teleportation arrays cut from the same cloth, they could easily trace the destination of the Eternal Star Alliance. Such a force could already crowd an unexplored domain area, yet they had just sent them all to one place?

“Why do such thankless work? Besides Merit Source, there is no additional reward.”

An unexplored domain area was similar to any domain they settled into. The only difference was that the space was unstable, stretching its size an unknown number of times.

Furthermore, with a weak space barrier, the chaos origin and dark origin essence outside the void permeated inside, making the environment incomparably harsh. Yet the same harshness was the reason it could nurture rich wild resources.

This meant that as long as they didn’t fully clear and incorporate the unexplored domain area into their territory, it could continue to generate resources.

Clearing an unexplored domain area was truly a thankless task, with little reward. Besides a one-time bundle of Merit Source from the Void Administrator, what could they gain? It wasn’t as if they were lacking space in their current domain.

“Could it be the Eternal Star Alliance has deeper plans?”

“What plan could he have?”

Unable to think of the real reason, they could only watch the Eternal Star Alliance with suspicion. They were too busy building a dimensional-scale dark gate to spare the manpower; going on an expedition now wasn’t practical.

—

Meanwhile, contrary to everyone’s suspicions, the Eternal Star Alliance truly planned to clear and incorporate an unexplored domain area just for the Merit Source.

The Merit Source’s value to the Eternal Star Alliance was limitless. Unlike the other major alliances, which could only use it crudely for training, they could use it to accelerate their research.

Unlike others, they only need to cram the most critical data and simulations into the virtual server. For information, analysis, buffs, management, entertainment, and the like, they could offload it to the Universal Runic System.

All in all, with the Universal Runic System, they could stretch Merit Source to 5-10 times its value. Nash’s genetic ability was truly unique, as if from another dimension. As long as the connection was made, there was no longer any consumption.

If a Runic World were built to replicate all the properties of the virtual world, the value of Merit Source could even stretch to its limit. No matter how many people there were, as long as they entered the Runic World, the consumption wouldn’t increase.

With 100 Merit Source, time could be accelerated 100 times; whether there was 1 person or 1 billion, they would only spend 100 Merit Source all the same.

Unfortunately, such a large project was not something Nash could create in a short time. Even with time accelerated to millions of times, it was not something he could do alone. It needed to be built little by little, with the supporting module systems, elites, technology, scientists, and resources.

—

Half a year later…

As the Altier Convention approached, the expedition force returned to the Eternal Star Alliance. However, unlike when they left, their number was now less than ten thousand.

“We left 90,000 Eternal Military Outposts; they should be able to thoroughly clear the place in a month or two,” Teal reported to Nash.

“It’s fine. It’s already fast. I thought it would take you a few years to do it.” Nash smiled.

According to the Altier Arcane Tower Library records, pioneering an unexplored domain rewarded trillions of Merit Source.

This was trillions! If they got lucky and cleared a large territory, it could even reach tens or hundreds of trillions. And what about their harvest? In half a year, they had only managed to collect less than 60 billion Merit Source. How could that compare to a trillion?

“If not for having to deliver the resources we hauled back, we could have cleared it much faster.”

“Oh? How many resources did you harvest this time?”

One had to know that each Eternal Military Outpost had a large built-in space storage the size of a few sector territories. Yet even at that scale, it took almost 10,000 Eternal Military Outposts to transport everything back.

“It’s not bad. We managed to harvest about 7.2 trillion worth of resources.” Teal said proudly.

“Hiss, you really plucked the land clean! Could it even hold such a large amount of resources?”

Previously, with over 25,000 Eternal Military Outposts, they had only managed to harvest 675 billion worth of resources. How did it skyrocket over ten times all of a sudden?

“Haha, this is probably thanks to the dimensional-scale dark gates activated by those major alliances. Like a magnet, those unexplored domains could attract more wild resources from the Chaotic Void.”

“Tsk, what about the danger? Were there any casualties?”

“No, everyone is fine. The only problem is we are running out of Chaos Stones…” Teal said helplessly.

The Eternal Military Outpost was good and all, but it was too power-hungry. Just one trip exhausted all their Chaos Stone reserves; they even had to overdraw the Chaos Stone mines just to get by.

Chaos Stone mines could continuously generate Chaos Stones just by absorbing the ambient energy. As long as they didn’t mind it taking its time, it was an infinite wealth generator. However, with their consumption, Chaos Stone generation could no longer keep up.

Even if there were more Eternal Military Outposts in the future, they would be nothing more than useless hulks floating in the void without energy.

“This is indeed a problem.” Nash also frowned. The resources they got were merely materials. If they couldn’t be sold, they were nothing more than rocks and shiny marbles.

Thinking of the coming Altier Convention in a few days, his frown deepened. Now that the major alliances had tense relations, how could they mobilize these resources and turn them into Chaos Stones?

“Should we go back to selling the Eternal Military Outpost?”