Chapter 36: Requirements for Upgrading an Airship to an Air-Warship

If there really were over a hundred tons of phantom crystals deep within the star core below, this would undoubtedly be a massive windfall.

One ton is worth five wisps of Tier-0 floating continent origin; one hundred tons would be five hundred wisps. Converted into Tier-0 floating continent origin, that amounts to five thousand wisps—a staggering figure by any measure for a psionic shuttle.

With a faint sense of excitement, Song Chi donned his exoskeleton. Even so, after exiting the shuttle, he still felt a profound sense of discomfort. It is difficult for a Tier-0 ordinary life form to adapt to the unique environment of the star field, even with the aid of an exoskeleton and his own cultivation of the Guidance Technique; otherwise, it would have been far worse.

He immediately retracted the Sky Vault into his ancestral Fire Seed aperture, then quickly led the three remaining Fire Sunflower soldier puppets through the hole in the ground to enter the core area of the fragment beneath his feet.

The fragment was only a few dozen meters in diameter, so the core space was naturally small. The incredibly long body of the Gold-Devouring Vine piled in the corner made the already cramped space feel even more crowded.

Even if the Raging Tiger mining vehicle had successfully entered, it would have been difficult to operate, not to mention that the vehicle was still inside the Sky Vault. To deploy it, he would first have to summon the seven-meter-long Sky Vault from his ancestral Fire Seed aperture, which was impossible in such a confined space.

Consequently, Song Chi could only order the three Fire Sunflower soldier puppets to hold specialized drilling shovels and manually begin further excavation and exploration.

Before long, at a depth of several meters at the bottom of an excavation pit, the Fire Sunflower soldier puppets successfully discovered a new type of ore: the phantom crystals.

Song Chi patted his forehead, making a mental note to himself to avoid such amateur mistakes in the future.

Previously, to avoid any potential traps left by the Gold-Devouring Vine and because he could not remain exposed to the outer space environment for long, he had only sent the puppets down to clear the area. In fact, besides the Life Crystal, the puppets had also mined over a dozen tons of ordinary refined gold.

Based on that, he had simply entered for a final inspection and, having found nothing else, left immediately. He had not expected that hidden even deeper beneath those tons of refined gold lay a much larger quantity of phantom crystals. Had it not been for the post-exploration reminder from the scanner and the onboard AI, this bounty of phantom crystals would clearly have slipped through his fingers.

...

The subsequent arrangements were simple. Manually mining over a hundred tons of phantom crystals was impossible; even if he waited until the return deadline in over ten hours, they might not finish half of it.

Song Chi had a plan for this. Without lingering in the core space, he returned to the surface with the three puppets, summoned the Sky Vault and the Raging Tiger mining vehicle, and commanded the onboard AI to dig straight down.

Since the original core space of the fragment could not accommodate the mining vehicle, he would simply create a larger entrance from the surface.

Leaving that mining vehicle to work, Song Chi piloted the Sky Vault back to the fragment where the first Raging Tiger mining vehicle was located. Several hours had passed, and the thousand tons of refined gold had been fully mined. He used the Sky Vault to transport the raw ore into the Market in batches, then returned along the same path with that undamaged mining vehicle.

The second mining vehicle’s efficiency had dropped significantly, and Song Chi was unsure if it could finish mining the phantom crystals before the deadline tomorrow. He felt it would be safer to swap it with this intact vehicle.

The next day, half an hour before the return deadline, Song Chi returned in the Sky Vault after spending over ten hours roaming the area with the damaged mining vehicle, collecting minerals worth one or two hundred wisps of Tier-0 floating continent origin.

He deposited the 112 tons of fully mined phantom crystals into the All-Heavens Market and began to wait quietly.

...

An hour later, at the entrance of the Dongjiang residential complex, Song Chi and Chen Lixia stepped out of their respective Fire Seed starships.

Song Chao was currently using the family's Pentium-III flying car, so even though it was a bit high-profile, they had no choice but to pilot their own Fire Seed starships back; calling for a taxi was too much of a hassle.

His mother, Chen Lixia, piloted a psionic airship named the Dragonfly. It had been decades since it was promoted from a shuttle to an airship, and it was currently stuck at Level 19, just one step away from Tier 2.

Do not underestimate this small one-level gap; it represents a world of difference. This tiny level is like a chasm that has trapped countless Fire Seed captains throughout their lives.

Promoting from a psionic airship to a Tier-2 "Escort-class" psionic starship requires not only specific rare resources but also the personal experience of killing alien civilization creatures of a higher rank during expeditions in foreign territories, bathing in the blood of alien races.

It is said that the success rate for promoting an airship to a starship is terrifyingly low, starting at only 1%. Investing specific rare reinforcement resources can raise this to about 10%. To further increase the success rate, one must kill alien races during exploration in foreign star fields and use their blood to baptize the ship.

The more aliens killed and the higher their rank, the greater the increase in the success rate.

"Mom, what is the current success rate for the Dragonfly's promotion?"

Chen Lixia pursed her lips and gave an answer that Song Chi found hard to accept.

"24%."

"Less than a quarter? How can it be so low?"

Song Chi frowned. Promoting from Tier 0 to Tier 1 is manageable; as long as resources are sufficient and luck isn't too poor, success is generally achievable.

However, promoting from a psionic airship to a psionic starship is different. Once the promotion mission begins, there is only a one-year preparation period.

Over the coming year, the captain must do their utmost to increase this success rate, whether by investing rare resources or entering foreign star fields to hunt alien races. After one year, the airship will attempt the promotion. The higher the success rate, the greater the chance of advancing to a starship (Tier 2); conversely, the lower it is, the smaller the chance.

Chen Lixia had started her promotion mission five months ago. Nearly half of the year had passed. He had assumed that with his father's help, she would have been able to raise it to at least 30% or even 40%, given that his father's ship had been Tier 2 for over a decade. He never imagined it would be only 24%.

Chen Lixia rolled her eyes at her son.

"Do you think promoting a psionic airship to a psionic starship is simple? If the success rate were that easy to raise, there are over twenty million people in Jiangyuan City and tens of thousands of registered Fire Seed starships—why would there only be a few dozen Tier-2 psionic starships?"

Song Chi was speechless, but the worry in his eyes refused to fade.

At this current pace, unless there was a major stroke of luck, the success rate for his mother's Dragonfly after the one-year preparation period would likely be at most around 30%.

For an ordinary Fire Seed captain, this success rate would be considered quite high, but Song Chi could not accept it.

It is common knowledge in the Fire Seed human civilization that every Fire Seed starship only has one chance for each promotion. There is no such thing as trying again after a failure. Once the promotion fails, the Fire Seed starship sinks forever.