Chapter 226

Chapter 226

Bai Xiaoyu had no idea that Liu Lingxi was promoting his stream at the moment. The batch of eggs he was nurturing was starting to hatch.

In other nurseries across the star system, when eggs hatched, some of the hatching moments were automatically blocked by the livestream system.

This was because, even now, some people were still unwilling to accept the cubs, especially due to their appearance.

Not long ago, when it was revealed that the eggs would hatch into human-insect cubs, the entire star system found out. President Luo and the others believed that since the empire had designated a planet for the human-insect cubs, they should now be able to appear in public without issue.

After all, hatching was a crucial event. It couldn’t be kept off the streams and out of sight forever. So, they decided to allow caretakers to livestream the normal hatching process.

On that day, even though viewers across the planet had been warned and were mentally prepared, they were still shocked to see human-insect cubs emerge from the eggs during the livestream.

Unable to accept it, the Nurturing Association had no choice but to block any hatching moments involving human-insect cubs.

Bai Xiaoyu’s stream was as lively as ever. The eggs he nurtured were hatching, and none of the hatching moments were blocked by the system. This meant that none of these eggs hatched into human-insect cubs. This was more good news for him. The cubs were born in perfect proportions across three different forms, and they were healthy, lively, and of high quality.

However, in other nurseries across the star system, the number of human-insect cubs hatching daily was rising.

People across the star system remained anxious and fearful, with no immediate solution in sight.

In Bai Xiaoyu’s stream, the viewers let out a collective sigh of relief.

“It’s still the streamer’s place like before. This way, I can forget that other nurturing facilities have been overrun by human-insect cubs.”

“Seriously, more and more livestreams in other rooms are being blocked. Will our cubs be replaced by them in the future?”

“The students here are learning, and hopefully, they’ll master it soon.”

Bai Xiaoyu paused for a moment after hearing this. A large portion of his viewers also resisted the idea of human-insect cubs. These were the more moderate ones. After all, the many years of war between humans and other races had ingrained this hatred in many people’s bones, which was expected.

However, it would be impossible to completely prevent the birth of human-insect cubs for the next ten years or even longer. There was no other way around it.

As for the new interns, they had only been learning for ten days. Currently, only the students from the imperial military academy’s nurturing and potion departments were progressing at a similar rate to the previous batch of interns. The rest of the students were far behind.

The students from these two departments of the imperial military academy were handpicked as the top elites from across the star system. The rest of the students couldn’t keep up in terms of talent or understanding. The previous batch of interns took a full year to barely graduate, forced to do so because of the tense situation. For now, besides teaching the new students, they also had time to learn from Bai Xiaoyu.

Looking at their learning progress, Bai Xiaoyu realized that only the students from the two departments of the imperial military academy might graduate within a year. The rest of the students would need much more time, not to mention the novice caretakers from the Nurturing Association.

However, the slow progress was only in the first few years. Now, various universities had incorporated foundational knowledge of strengthening mental energy and removing dark substances into their curriculum. Once this batch of students graduated, future students wouldn’t be starting from zero but would be those who had passed assessments. At that point, they would only need to undergo the final step of synchronizing mental energy, training mental energy tentacle splitting, and practical dark substance removal and assessments. This way, a batch of students could graduate within a few months.

So, human-insect cubs would continue to be born in the future.

Bai Xiaoyu sighed. The human-insect cubs, forced into this state, bore too much from the moment they were born. They weren’t acknowledged, had no identity, were abandoned by their parents, and couldn’t grow up in a normal environment.

But then he thought about how the first batch of human-insect cubs, born less than two months ago, were now eight years old. This growth cycle did make it hard for them to integrate with other cubs in the star system.

The hatching here was extremely lively, and with the last cub hatching, this nurturing process was a complete success. At the end of the livestream, he still spoke a few words for the cubs, “The human-insect cubs were forced into this state. Although their bodies have changed, their consciousness is still human. I hope everyone can treat them as a new rare race in the star system.”

He knew that his few words wouldn’t change the attitude of the people across the star system, but someone had to speak up for the human-insect cubs. As for the rest, it would be up to the future human-insect cubs themselves.

He firmly believed that one day, the human-insect cubs would vindicate themselves.

After ending the stream, thinking about how the human-insect cubs were already eight years old, he realized that it was around this time that cubs in the star system started learning about mechs.

The human-insect cubs had already been in real battles on the eight-legged brown insect planet and were about time to learn mechs too. If possible, he hoped to provide each of them with a child-sized mech.

With mechs, they would have more safety in battles on the insect planet.

He asked Lou Hao to contact the largest youth mech supplier, planning to order the next batch of youth mechs, totaling 10,000 units.

He initially wanted to order more, but building F73 required a significant number of credits. For now, 10,000 units were sufficient, as the number of cubs undergoing their second transformation matched this quantity. They could also rotate the mechs, with the first batch handing them over to the next group of cubs heading to the insect planet.

Even for these 10,000 youth mechs, he could not afford them for the time being.

Youth mechs were not as expensive as adult ones, but a formal combat mech still required over a million credits each. This batch would cost over 100 billion credits.

Bai Xiaoyu paid half of the deposit using 10 billion credits transferred from the imperial treasury. The remaining balance would only be paid after the energy boxes sent to the royal family's auction house were sold.

At that moment, the royal family's auction house was extremely lively. Not only had various factions arrived, but even the leaders of the legions that Liu Lingxi had boasted about earlier had sent representatives from Imperial Star.

When the earlier items were almost auctioned off, the host had a black box of energy boxes brought up, and everyone perked up.

The host then projected the data, and the crowd gasped at what they saw.

Although these boxes were rated as 2S grade, the internal data was solidly 3S! The values were even higher than ordinary 3S boxes, especially the energy conversion rate, which was as high as 98%. The 3S energy boxes issued by the imperial military were only between 70% and 80%.

Even though they had known the approximate data beforehand, they still gasped in amazement.

The leaders of various legions, watching the live auction on the star network, were also fixated on this data. The higher the energy conversion rate, the less restricted their mechs' endurance and attack power would be.

No wonder Liu Lingxi had been acting so smug after obtaining these energy boxes; they were incredibly attractive. Most of those who had some relationship with Liu Lingxi were frontline legions, and they spent most of their time using ordinary 2S energy boxes.

During battles, they could not give their all, which was not only frustrating but also perilous if the enemy's top leader entered the fight.

So, these energy boxes were extremely important to them.

From the information Liu Lingxi shared, there were nearly 3,000 energy boxes up for auction this time. They should be able to grab a few.

In fact, they were getting ahead of themselves. These energy boxes were also highly sought after by various major factions. Not only did they have intricate relationships with certain legions, but they also had a demand for such high-grade energy boxes. Moreover, obtaining them would allow them to curry favor with the legion leaders. After all, it was clear who needed these boxes the most. Ideally, they could even recruit them into their own camps.

These factions each had a royal family member, always preparing for future succession disputes.

Everyone had their calculations, and they were all determined to get these energy boxes.

The subsequent auction became exceptionally fierce, with 50 energy boxes being auctioned as a set, followed by 100 boxes, and finally, the remaining ones were auctioned individually. The starting bid for each energy box was 50 million credits.

The legion leaders were frustrated by the announcement of a bundled sale, but fortunately, there were individual auctions later.

Meanwhile, Bai Xiaoyu had joined the auction on the star network at Liu Lingxi's invitation. He didn't really care about bundled sales or retail; these energy boxes were not useful to ordinary citizens. The auction in Imperial Star was naturally aimed at the various factions in Imperial Star, and it didn't matter to him who bought these energy boxes or how many. He just needed the credits to rebuild F73 and buy mechs for the cubs.

However, at that moment, he saw the giant silver wolf beside him shake its fur, clearly in high spirits, and couldn't resist asking, "Xiao Xi, do you like watching auctions?"

He hadn't seen Liu Lingxi bid on anything, so was he just enjoying the show?

In his tiger cub form, he called the much larger silver wolf by its nickname. Anyone else would have been quite surprised to see how well they got along now.

The silver wolf looked down at Bai Xiaoyu's tiger cub form and helped him smooth his fur, saying, "It makes me feel great to know that some people are going to be furious because they can't afford these boxes. Brother Bai, you know, as a legion leader, I have to support the entire legion, especially those on the frontlines. Most of them are quite poor and don't have much money. They usually don't have time to attend large auctions in Imperial Star, but when they do, they are met with a huge shock. They might even develop a resentment towards the rich, and then they'll come looking for you."

Bai Xiaoyu was stunned. "Looking for me?"

What kind of riddle was Xiao Xi playing at now?

Liu Lingxi didn't explain, and even if he hadn't suggested it, the auction house would still bundle the items for sale. The legion leaders had already fought over the bundled auctions earlier, and they probably wouldn't succeed in the individual ones either. This would also give them a chance to see how financially powerful the various factions in Imperial Star were, and it might lower their impression of these factions. He knew that the factions in Imperial Star had always been trying to win over various legions. In the past, it didn't matter, but now, he naturally hoped that these people would side with Bai Xiaoyu.

The auction began, with bids of several billion credits for each set, leaving the cash-strapped legion leaders holding their breath. They had long heard that the factions in Imperial Star were incredibly wealthy, and now they could see it for themselves.

However, they could wait until the individual auctions at the end.

But the further the auction went, the higher the average price climbed. When the individual bids exceeded 150 million, they began to feel uneasy.

Finally, the individual auction started with a starting price of 50 million, and they hurriedly had their people begin bidding.

But in the next second, other factions from Imperial Star quickly outbid them, offering prices higher than the previous average.

This continued for all the individual auctions. Under the fierce competition from various factions, the last item was bid over 200 million credits, and it seemed like the price could still rise higher.

These factions were simply showing off their wealth and competing for prestige, deliberately keeping the energy boxes out of the hands of those who desperately needed them.

They were about to lose it.

These factions had collaborated with the royal family on many industries, making huge profits, and almost every one had a royal family member behind them. Yet, they had never done any real work in the star system. And now they were here, competing for the energy boxes?

According to various intelligence networks, everyone knew the bidders represented these factions, and they knew the frontline corps were in desperate need of these energy boxes. Even so, they either pretended not to know or deliberately drove up the prices.

As they suspected, the various factions indeed recognized the representatives of the corps and deliberately prevented them from winning the bids. The reason was simple: if the corps got what they wanted, how could they use the energy boxes to gain favor later?

After the final energy box was auctioned, the host announced that a black mineral energy box production facility had been established on F73 planet, which would produce energy boxes using black mineral, a highly sought-after resource.

Naturally, there was an uproar. Everyone thought this batch of black mineral energy boxes was a large quantity, but now there would be more produced at this new facility. Although it was known that the energy boxes from the facility wouldn’t be of such high grade, their appearance would still impact the existing market system. This development left some people happy and others worried.

The energy box auction ended quickly, and none of the corps had managed to secure any boxes. By this point, the bidders from these corps had received invitation letters from the various factions.

These invitations were soon forwarded to the leaders of each corps. Seeing the smug expressions of those factions, they were fuming and called Bai Xiaoyu right away.

While the various factions received no response, Bai Xiaoyu’s optical brain kept flashing, and he was confused to see more than a dozen unfamiliar numbers contacting him at once.

The silver wolf next to him glanced over and had Bai Xiaoyu swipe to display the numbers. Seeing a row of familiar numbers, the wolf said, "They're acquaintances. Just group them together and take the call collectively."

Meanwhile, the various factions were getting annoyed by the lack of response.

On the other side, the Imperial Finance Department was even more frustrated because Bai Xiaoyu’s share from the auction of energy boxes on F73 planet amounted to over 20 billion credits. Normally, they would expect to collect at least several billion in taxes, but now they wouldn’t receive a single credit. It wasn’t just these billions—they didn’t lack that amount of credits. But this time, Bai Xiaoyu also informed everyone about the establishment of the black mineral energy box production base on his planet. What did this mean?

Not only would the steady stream of tax revenue dry up, but this was a highly profitable industry that all factions had been eager to control. Moreover, with control over this energy source, Bai Xiaoyu’s emerging faction would be able to firmly establish itself, especially given its strong appeal to various corps.

Bai Xiaoyu also had another product that was equally appealing to the corps. This made the factions in the Imperial Star even more cautious. Now, Bai Xiaoyu really didn’t fear most of them.

While the royal youths had powerful families backing them, Bai Xiaoyu had started with nothing. Through sheer ability, he had carved out a place in the world.