Qu Jianlei ransacked quite a bit of supplies from the treasury, but he had been on the run and interrogating people, leaving him no ti to tally them.
The inventory results proved that to support the daily life and expenses of a team of eighty thousand, a substantial reserve is necessary.
Especially since this team is a group of Star Thieves, when things get hot, they'll need to hide and survive for a while, requiring even more reserves.
In the Star Thieves' treasury, there were hardly any Silver Notes, but quite a lot of silver coins, box after box, taking up a lot of space.
However, this is the characteristic of underground trading; transactions are unreliable, cash is king.
Just the silver coins were over a million, not to ntion over ten tons of gold.
These two alone were worth nearly twenty million.
There were plenty of other good things too, nearly a hundred A-level Crystals, and over three hundred B-level Crystals, worth another twenty million.
Then there were various gems and antiques, whose value was imasurable.
Basically, aside from antiques, everything was hard currency, aligning with the Star Thieves' needs.
There were also so securities, equity docunts, and property deeds.
These things weren't easy to liquidate, but considering the team's nature as a dynamic social organization, it made sense.
Such an organization surely couldn't do without extortion and bribery, having such valuable items wasn't surprising.
However, Qu Jianlei felt a bit frustrated; apart from the gold, gems, and crystals, selling off other things was quite difficult.
If it had been a year ago, using Ran Bingluan's identity, selling them wouldn't have been a big issue, just a bit cumberso.
But now, he might still be watched by the Supre, so he avoided making big moves.
"At least worth several tens of millions!" Qu Jianlei gritted his teeth in frustration, "Anomalous Managent Division, I'm not done with you!"
Additionally, it's rather unfortunate that there were no Energy Blocks in the treasury!
Just looking at the scale of the Star Thief Nest, there should definitely be no shortage of Energy Block reserves; they must be stored in another warehouse.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much ti then, and Qu Jianlei wanted to lant to the sky—having two warships and still lacking Energy Blocks.
However, right afterward, an unexpected surprise appeared.
In the Storage Talisman carried by Tie Ling, there was a large amount of Silver Notes and various Card Coins.
And all of them were unregistered, ready to be used anywhere—this too aligned with the Star Thieves' traits.
Qu Jianlei roughly counted them, totaling over two billion.
For a mont he was a bit stunned; if these funds were distributed among the eighty thousand people, each would get about three to four thousand.
Is being a Star Thief so profitable? Wrong... With this much money, why be a Star Thief?
Little did he know, he was overthinking it; this group of Star Thieves had just sold a looted rchant ship.
Recently, the entire Celestial Hook Star Realm was strictly investigating illegal immigration and smuggling by the way.
Although the crackdown wasn't as severe on other planets as on Celestial Hook, the Star Thieves' supply chain couldn't operate openly.
Due to the increasing shortage of supplies, the Star Thieves had no choice but to raid other planets—certainly not near Celestial Blade.
Yet, such raiding couldn't be done frequently; otherwise, it would provoke a military crackdown.
Thus, selling off their previous loot beca a necessity.
After clarifying the approximate amount, Qu Jianlei felt puzzled, but Xiao Hu's voice had already changed from soft to silvery.
"Haha, now we're rich, we can buy a large machine!"
"Don't get so excited," Qu Jianlei couldn't help but dampen its enthusiasm, "these two warships are also money burners."
"Just sell one," Xiao Hu replied without hesitation, "I just advised you to sail away two to three more warships earlier."
It knew Qu Jianlei still had a vortex and two Anti-Smuggling Terminals; sailing away three more warships wouldn't be a problem.
Upon hearing this, Qu Jianlei rolled his eyes, "Two are just right, anymore would be a hassle… I told you to keep a low profile."
Truly, taking five warships would not only alert too many people, but Xiao Hu might also be exposed, "You need to know to restrain your greed."
Xiao Hu still muttered quietly, "Selling two warships would significantly improve the grade of the large machine."
"First, I have to be able to sell them!" Qu Jianlei almost chuckled.
"With this ti, I might as well sell houses and land, at least that's relatively safe... Focus on piloting your starship."
Xiao Hu was already focusing on piloting the starship, but still encountered two dangers.
No choice, space is truly vast and empty; though the Asteroid Belt has many star bodies, it's all relative.
Starships navigating in space have highly advanced capabilities for warning of anomalous objects—ensuring navigation safety, right?
Even ordinary comrcial starships can spot such a warship from hundreds of thousands of kiloters away, it's quite common.
Qu Jianlei and Xiao Hu turned off all lights and nearly all power, almost like a Ghost Ship.
But even so, they couldn't escape so starships' active detection.
One of the two dangerous incidents involved encountering a fleet of seven ships.
The fleet had five cargo rchant ships and two ard rchant ships for escort.
However, these cargo rchant ships also boasted significant firepower.
Qu Jianlei and the Little Lake were flying close to various star bodies. Seeing the situation, they quickly hid behind the star bodies.
However, the opposing fleet still managed to capture the two ships and got into a battle formation, then called out to them.
Qu Jianlei and Little Lake did not respond, making the fleet even more suspicious, thinking the other side was planning sothing big.
Not only did the two sides confront each other, but the fleet even tried to approach the two warships.
Ten hours later, Qu Jianlei couldn't hold back any longer and finally spoke out.
"If you don't leave now, then you might as well not leave at all. Is this giving you face?"
Strangely, shortly after these words were spoken, the other side actually began to slowly retreat.
Only much later did Qu Jianlei find out that according to interstellar navigation rules, the movents of the two warships were quite stealthy.
Flying close to star bodies, it didn't feel like they were traveling normally, no wonder the other side got nervous—what were they up to?
The irony was, when Qu Jianlei started cursing, the other side actually felt a bit relieved: Why didn't you say sothing before if you had issues?
The fleet couldn't just believe them because of this, but so response was better than no response, so they slowly retreated and eventually broke contact.
The two navigation newbies didn't know these unspoken rules, but since cursing could drive people away, they gained a lot of confidence.
The second dangerous encounter was with a super-large cargo starship, both sides were about three hundred thousand kiloters apart and discovered each other.
Large cargo starships also carried powerful weapons, and wouldn't necessarily fear a one-on-two battle.
In any case, both sides maintained a hundred thousand kiloters distance, passing by each other without any interaction.
In fact, the cargo starship flashed a light signal, which was a form of interstellar greeting.
But Qu Jianlei didn't respond, as both warships were under light control, there was no need to make an exception for a greeting.
He didn't bother to consider the other side's mindset—seeing traveling in pitch darkness, why would you even bother greeting?
According to the plan, it should take about four and a half days to reach the target star body, but because of these delays, it took a forced five days.
If they flew in a straight line, it wouldn't even take three days, but he couldn't be that reckless.
After finding that star body, the two warships scanned for a while, and the ard rchant ship landed first.
The star body had indeed been thoroughly mined, visible mining marks and abandoned mining carts could be seen everywhere.
After the ard rchant ship landed, it perford a full scan of the star body and finally chose a mine, then went in to explore.
Throughout the process, the starship Qu Jianlei was on remained on alert in the air.
Only after confirming there was no danger inside the mine did this warship land and enter the mine.
The mine was incredibly wide, its widest part reaching nearly six hundred ters, and two hundred ters high.
Qu Jianlei was astounded by the sight, what massive mining equipnt was necessary for this?
He first controlled the warship to use thermal weapons to bombard the mine for a bit—mainly to adjust the mine's structure.
Then the ard rchant ship went into action. This type of rchant ship could do much more, equipped with very powerful and flexible chanical arms.
These operations would consu Energy Blocks, but Qu Jianlei didn't mind, as his Inner Breath was more valuable compared to Energy Blocks.
A day later, the modifications to the mine were mostly complete, and the excess waste had been cleaned up, only then did Qu Jianlei disembark the warship.
This ti he didn't wear a spacesuit, as his Supre cultivation level allowed him to survive in space for a short ti.
After exiting the starship, he shivered a bit, "Damn, it's cold!"
He didn't bother complaining further—mainly because he didn't have the ti, raising his hand to quickly perform a Finger Technique.
One after another, two stone walls rose from the ground, sealing off a sealed space in the mine.
The space contained Qu Jianlei himself and the two warships, occupying quite a bit of area, but the recently modified mine didn't consu much Inner Breath.
Then he began further modifications to the sealed space, including but not limited to building insulation layers.
There was no choice, although he could resist the severe cold, the experience was incredibly poor—besides, it would consu Inner Breath too.
In fact, insulation layers were easy to install, as this is a common requirent in space travel.
Using a spray gun to spray a certain liquid, which would adhere to the solid and rapidly expand, forming a very effective insulation layer.
Additionally, there were other applications, such as... filling in air.
The warship didn't lack compressed air, stored as liquid or even solid, given that every ti a vacuum door was opened and closed it was needed.
However, such a large space still consud a considerable amount of the stock.
In short, after a day, this mine was transford into a habitable space, complete with vacuum doors for entry and exit.
The cost was that a few more Energy Blocks were consud, and Qu Jianlei used up so of his Inner Breath too.
At this point, replenishing Inner Breath couldn't be done with Stone Milk, as that would be too extravagant—he would just make do with an A-level Crystal for now.
Wouldn't using a B-level Crystal be more cost-effective? Oh, co on, you can't calculate it like that!
Due to different levels of scarcity, A-level Crystals have a much higher profit margin on the black market—and significantly higher at that.
However, the key problem is that A-level Crystals are difficult to sell, not to ntion they're expensive with low demand, often drawing unwanted attention.
B-level Crystals don't have these concerns.
User Comments
0 comments from readers