Chapter 1

"Old Ye, what's the price of ferrous minerals these days?"

Li Wei picked up the steaming cup of milk tea beside him, took a sip, and kept his eyes fixed on the central screen in front of him. The screen displayed a reaction from a meteorite floating in space, detected by the radar system of his armed mining ship. Two unmanned reconnaissance drones had already been dispatched to investigate.

From the screen, it appeared to be hematite, a type of ferrous mineral.

Ferrous minerals in the star system were usually not very expensive, and under normal circumstances, he wouldn't bother to mine them due to their low price and the space they occupied in the cargo hold.

However, this meteorite was quite large, and the initial detection showed strong signals from all angles. If everything went as expected, it might be a rich deposit.

At the higher price for rich deposits, it would be worth filling the remaining cargo hold. Once mined, he could wrap up and head back.

After a while, a message from Old Ye appeared in the right column of the screen. He opened it and read the response:

"At the auction house on Xilan, ferrous minerals are 24 star credits per cubic meter. If you go to Hailan, you can get 25 star credits per cubic meter. If you sell to a legion or a private company, the price might go up by one star credit."

"What about rich deposits?"

"Prices increase by 30% to 100% based on purity!"

"Got it!"

Li Wei summoned the control panel and tapped on the virtual interface, deploying all four unmanned mining drones from the ship. The armed mining ship moved above the meteorite, and two large mining lasers lifted, emitting brilliant laser beams to cut the ore.

Meanwhile, a large transport ship, hidden in the asteroid belt behind the mining ship, started to move forward, ready to load the mined ore.

The transport ship, a Giant Bird-class medium transport, had 30 cargo holds, each with a capacity of 5,000 cubic meters, totaling 150,000 cubic meters.

Li Wei had been in this low-security star system's asteroid belt for 21 days, and the ore he had collected had already filled the transport ship and the 10 cargo holds on the mining ship. It was time to head back.

"Ferrous minerals... 25 star credits per cubic meter, with a 30% increase for rich deposits, that's 32.5 star credits per cubic meter. I estimate I can mine about 40,000 cubic meters, which would be around 1.3 million star credits."

"Gneiss, 28 star credits per cubic meter, 110,000 cubic meters, that's 3.08 million star credits."

"Cupriferous minerals, 29 star credits per cubic meter, 20,000 cubic meters, that's 580,000 star credits."

"Isotopic minerals, 360 star credits per cubic meter, unfortunately only 3,500 cubic meters, totaling 1.26 million star credits."

"Other minerals, not much, around 300,000 star credits in total. Combined... about 6.52 million star credits, not bad."

Li Wei smacked his lips and lightly tapped the mechanical wristband on his arm, which projected a small screen displaying his bank account, with a balance of 23.7 million star credits.

"Bank account: 23.7 million star credits, plus 6.52 million star credits, total assets over 30 million!"

"Thirty million, enough to buy the materials, not easy!"

Li Wei let out a long breath, rubbed his hands, and with a thought, the surroundings changed. He instantly appeared in the cold starry sky from the control panel of the armed mining ship. The darkness stretched in all directions, with only a light source below. He looked down, and even after nearly two years of entering this civilization game and seeing it hundreds of times, he still felt a soul-shaking awe.

In the center of the star system below, it wasn't a star like in other star systems, but a supermassive cosmic wonder that exceeded his imagination, so vast he couldn't describe it.

A pure white sphere, measured in astronomical units, surrounded by... extinguished stars.

Literally extinguished.

Without the information transmitted by his "golden finger" universe, he wouldn't even know how to name this super-high-dimensional fortress called the "Witness of the Stars."

Yes, the official name is "Witness of the Stars," the only thing visible in his "golden finger" universe, a super-high-dimensional fortress from an ancient super-civilization, powered by a compressed super-galaxy... a wreck!

Well, to be precise, it's damaged, not a complete wreck, as its central system is still intact, and a tiny part of its functions still work.

With a thought, Li Wei transformed into a stream of light and flew toward the "Witness of the Stars" super-high-dimensional fortress, which replaced the star and illuminated the star system, measured in astronomical units.

To be honest, as the owner of the "golden finger" universe, he knew how terrifying the intact state of this thing was.

There's no need to describe it with his limited vocabulary. Just knowing that its energy core is a compressed galaxy, and during its prime, it was surrounded by millions of compressed stars and black holes for offense and defense, and its gravitational force could forcibly pull a galaxy out of its orbit, gives you an idea of its power.

Unfortunately, all this is past glory. Even if it could be repaired, the conditions for repair...

Let's not even talk about it.

As the owner of the "golden finger" universe, Li Wei ignored the gravitational pull of the extinguished stars and entered the fortress, appearing in a space surrounded by streams of light.

The space was empty except for a floating crystal card, surrounded by golden light, which contained the complete blueprint for a frigate.

With this blueprint, he could build a frigate from the Pioneer civilization, provided he had enough materials.

Outside the streams of light were countless irregularly moving streams, but he didn't know what they were, as his current permissions didn't allow him to enter or know. He was limited to moving within this small space of less than 1,000 square meters and entering a certain undamaged area of the wreck.

This area was part of the super-high-dimensional fortress's shipyard, which was once massive. Even the remaining part had a shipbuilding capacity of 2,300, capable of building two Titan super-flagships simultaneously or 100 battleships or 2,300 frigates.

Moreover, this super-shipyard, from a super-civilization, had complete facilities, capable of manufacturing not only ships but also blueprints and accessories like missiles and shells.

Unfortunately, he had neither the money nor the ship blueprints, so this massive shipyard was purely for show, with no practical use.

Fortunately, after nearly two years of non-stop mining, he finally had 30 million star credits, enough to buy the materials needed for the frigate blueprint he had drawn, and he could soon start building his own warship.

The thought was exciting.

He examined the floating frigate blueprint, growing more fond of it with each look.

It's worth noting that even the lowest-level frigates from a high civilization have the combat power of a cruiser. The frigate was equivalent to a common frigate, and the complete set of high-civilization weapons and accessories from the Pioneers were extremely powerful, all of which were rare and hard to obtain.

Unfortunately, these items either required civilization points to exchange or were randomly drawn once a year, making it impossible to get more.

Li Wei reluctantly put down the blueprint, not interested in looking at the shipyard, and directly exited the "golden finger" universe.

He stared blankly for a moment, until the armed mining ship vibrated slightly. Li Wei refocused his attention, and the screen showed that the rich hematite meteorite had been cut by the mining lasers, revealing the dark red hematite inside.

The mining lasers sparked, cutting the meteorite into standard 10-cubic-meter blocks, which saved more space when loaded into the cargo hold.

It took a few hours to finish cutting the meteorite. The transport ship had already flown over, extending its mechanical arms to load the floating ore into the cargo hold, leaving a small portion of the cargo space still empty. He decided to stop mining and head back.

He instructed the clone captain of the transport ship to follow the armed mining ship and set the destination coordinates to XL-D-249, the Endless Star System.

In reality, it was 249 jumps east of the capital of the Xilan Province. The star system was originally named with an English letter and number, but after the Endless Legion established a star city there, it was officially renamed the Endless Star System by the empire.

The legion's ore purchase price was one star credit higher per cubic meter than the system auction house. There were many legions nearby, but the Endless Legion was the closest to his current star system and had a good reputation, so he decided to sell to them.

The ship emerged from the asteroid belt and silently slid into the cold starry sky.

This asteroid belt was located at the outer edge of the star system's gravity well. A few astronomical units further out, it would leave the star system's gravity well, and the wormhole to leave the star system was a bit distant.

Li Wei turned off some unnecessary facilities on the ship to maintain maximum stealth while moving toward the wormhole.

The asteroid belt where he was mining was relatively safe, but the area near the wormhole was not. The nearby star systems were within the raiding range of the Reilite pirates, and small pirate patrols or raiding fleets often passed by. Ships like his, fully loaded with ore, were their favorite targets.

However, the pirates' ships and weapons were poor, and as long as he kept a safe distance and was cautious, he usually wouldn't be detected.

The most dangerous were the player pirates, who were cunning and powerful, making it hard to escape if encountered.

When he first entered the game two years ago, he lacked experience and was often robbed, earning little in the first year. The 30 million star credits he had were saved this year. Mining was a grind, but once familiar and persistent, it could be profitable.

After a period of acceleration, the ship entered sub-light speed, increasing its speed from 100,000 kilometers per hour to over 100 million kilometers per hour. The universe outside the thick, reinforced glass of the command bridge turned into long streaks, like a kaleidoscope.