“Jump complete. Safe.”
In total, one hundred overseers crossed the great gate and arrived at the starscape on the other side.
The first thing they did was each lock onto a direction and observe the target environment.
Xia Jin soon received information about the target stellar system in her mind.
“The environment of this stellar system is stable, containing only one standard yellow dwarf. There are twelve planets, with one rocky planet located within the habitable zone, suitable in both distance and size.”
“The closest point to this stellar system is a multi-star system 3.9 light-years away. That system contains eighteen stars.”
“Huh?” Xia Jin’s expression looked bewildered when she saw a stellar system composed of so many stars.
The brightness of the stars made it difficult to discover any planets within.
After having twenty overseers observe the exposure together and using gravitational waves to explore for a while, she finally found seven planets among them.
“What chaotic movement.”
The three central stars rotated around each other, with the center of mass located on the surface of the largest star.
Further away, the other stars rotated around these three central ones together. Their orbits gave a strange sensation of being very unstable, yet somehow perfectly stable.
The planets rotated around several of those stars.
No life existed within this stellar system because the temperatures were too high. However, Xia Jin calculated that some of the planets in the middle were still very valuable. Simply spreading creep on the surface to absorb light energy could yield a vast amount of energy.
“Send one ship over.”
With a single thought, a fully loaded Small Leviathan crossed through space and then accelerated toward the target area.
The other overseers continued their investigation.
About a day later, Xia Jin had basically determined that this stellar system was relatively safe.
Subsequently, a large number of transport ships flew to the destination and began deploying drones onto various planets to build new creep.
That was right—she intended to establish a branch base in this stellar system.
This way, even if her home planet encountered an extinction-level crisis, she could evacuate to a new place to develop.
Three more days passed like this. Xia Jin had successively sent twelve Small Leviathans, two Hive Carriers, along with one hundred transport ships of various levels and two billion Swarm units to this side.
On most of the moons, planets, or dwarf planets they passed, she would deploy several million Swarm units to begin collecting energy.
Two days later, the Swarm discovered a hyperspace trail in the outer regions of the stellar system.
“This trail appeared ten years ago. It was likely left by a ship passing through,” Brain Bug No. 1 said.
“How is the strength of this civilization?”
“Average. Definitely inferior to us. Given the scale of this satellite galaxy, the probability of primary civilizations developing is not high; there are likely no more than five in the entire galaxy.”
“I see. It seems developing into a primary civilization is more difficult than I imagined.”
In truth, evolution was indeed very difficult.
The Earth had existed for over four billion years, giving birth to countless organisms and experiencing numerous extinctions before the high-level civilization of humanity finally emerged.
Of course, given Earth’s situation, it was only a matter of time before creatures like monkeys eventually became something like humans because they already possessed the conditions for evolution.
But once reaching the interstellar era, the difficulty increased infinitely.
Everyone knew about antimatter, but the difficulty of using it stably was astronomical.
Therefore, Brain Bug No. 1’s confidence was not without reason.
The smaller the galaxy, the lower the probability of a higher-level civilization appearing.
“Search for hyperspace trails. Meanwhile, observe the deeper interstellar space to see if there are any civilizations.”
Civilizations capable of using fission or fusion technology to fly into space were generally not rare. In theory, the longer the universe existed, the higher the density of civilizations became. Thus, Xia Jin was looking forward to seeing if she could encounter some lower-level civilizations here.
After observing for a few days, the overseers finally locked onto an area.
It was twenty-four light-years away.
“A newly born hyperspace navigation trail has been discovered in the target stellar system. Judging by its intensity, the flight speed is six times the speed of light.”
“Six times?” Xia Jin stroked her chin. “Let the Swarm reproduce for a few months, and then we’ll go take a look.”
Resources were naturally more abundant in places where civilizations existed. After all, biological resources were also resources; good genes were discovered through constant exploration.
Over the following month, the Zerg successively dropped over 100,000 bugs onto more than 240 planets.
The larger the planet, the more Swarm units were dropped.
Upon reaching their destinations, the Swarm immediately began laying down creep and utilizing resources.
At this stage, even pure rock could yield more or less some energy. Although the efficiency was low, as long as they waited long enough, they could achieve a positive return even in lightless interstellar space.
In the second month, they began dropping large amounts of creep in the interstellar space where the eighteen stars were located.
In the third month, construction began on twenty small escort ships and one Small Leviathan.
As the new vessels were completed, the fleet began jumping toward the target area.
The fleet’s current speed was incredibly fast, averaging one light-year every three to four days. Flying from one stellar system to another only took about ten days.
Soon, the fleet arrived at the hyperspace region discovered earlier.
“Unknown vessel detected.”
Information from the overseers was immediately sent back.
A large flying device, eighteen kilometers in length, was traveling at a predetermined speed.
Its appearance was similar to an ellipsoid with a smooth surface, seemingly constructed from some unknown alloy.
Its shield was a common force field shield.
“Such a large ship?”
Most of the civilizations they had seen before did not build very large starships. She hadn't expected that a civilization this primitive would build an 18,000-meter-long battleship.
After analyzing the opponent’s strength, Xia Jin said to the brain bug, “How about we let them discover us directly?”
“No problem. They won’t pose a threat to us.”
“Good.”
The command was issued. The Swarm fleet deliberately took a detour and flew directly in front of the target fleet.
Yes, she wanted the other party to see them.
Then she would observe how the ships of this unknown civilization planned to face this suddenly appearing civilization.
Incidentally... this Swarm fleet contained fifteen Small Leviathans and fifty small escort ships.
Rate on N.U.
