Once this meeting ended, Li Yaqi at once revised her earlier project plan.
She'd expand the existing ship factory tenfold, straight off the current foundation!
And this was only the first-phase plan considering the cash flow; once funds grew ampler later, she'd keep expanding!
With the four new ship technologies, Li Yaqi was confident she could forge Northern Goose into a first-rate starship-technology group in the Starlight Empire's northern star region — with a chance, even, of vaulting up to become a dazzling new star of the empire!
And the 20 million star coins the other party demanded, Li Yaqi transferred over in full without a word, even in the face of her uncles' curious, doubting questions as to just what so enormous an outlay was for.
Li Yaqi offered no explanation.
Her authority in Northern Goose now was near enough the greatest there was, second only to her father's.
Zhao Chen, for his part, need worry over raw materials no longer.
As for why he didn't produce and sell these ships himself — for one thing, he hadn't so vast an industrial base now.
For another, one man suddenly bringing out some T1 ships might carry little danger, but T2 ship technology would draw attention.
By contrast, Li Yaqi putting out these ships drew no notice, for she was in that very trade.
And besides, Zhao Chen had a great many affairs; to take up production and sales himself would demand he carve out enormous time — for labor, for the bulk purchase of raw materials, for sales channels, and so on.
In these areas he was a complete novice.
So for now he'd still use Li Yaqi's resources to carry out this work, transfusing lifeblood into Zhao Chen's Owl Dragon Fleet; and once Zhao Chen truly had the strength in the future, he'd build his own sales network and step from behind the curtain into the open!
……
Northstar Starship Military Academy.
Half a year on — and the term three months underway — Zhao Chen came, for the first time, to his fourth-year classroom.
The instant he stepped in, every gaze fixed on him.
Even the teacher come to give the lesson was surprised that this student, three months truant, should suddenly appear.
The Northstar Academy's system was one long break a year, a single three-month holiday — the very span of Zhao Chen's return to his fief earlier.
Zhao Chen took a seat at the back, paying no close heed to the lesson's content.
For to accumulate three times the assessment credits, the pittance of credits from attending class was nowhere near enough.
By the Northstar Academy's credit system, completing a school year's assessment requirements only ensured your smooth passage to the next grade.
To pile up triple the credits, one had to walk an unusual road.
And Zhao Chen soon found one.
The imperial military's combat tasks.
The Galactic Alliance was, all this while, locked in war with the Mechanical Race, and the Starlight Empire's northern star region sat right on the war's border — so some imperial-military tasks were put out.
These imperial-military tasks could be carried out by private fleets, generally simple things like patrols or escorting transport fleets; completing them earned high bounties.
And to test its students, a starship military academy would likewise permit them to take on some imperial-military tasks; complete one, and beyond the high bounty you gained extremely rich grade-assessment credits.
It was the fastest means of gaining grade-assessment credits — and, at the same time, the hardest.
For that was at the very edge of war; who knew what one might run into.
In the Northstar Academy's founding history, there was no shortage of cadets who'd taken on seemingly harmless imperial-military tasks, and in the end… run into the enemy, ship destroyed and crew dead.
But to complete the Annual Mission, Zhao Chen had no choice.
He set to browsing, right there in class, the imperial-military task page, scanning task after task.
Small ones — patrols, transport escorts.
Large ones — direct combat support to the battlefront; tasks of every stripe.
But few were generally willing to take on frontline combat tasks; the casualty rate there was far too high.
After searching some minutes, Zhao Chen's eye fixed on one task.
Escort an interstellar transport fleet to the Quicksand City Interstellar Fortress.
This task's difficulty was medium — and it could, at a single stroke, yield better than twice the assessment credits required of a fourth-year at the Northstar Academy!
The task was to set out from the Northern Star Region's No. 3 Military Base and escort an interstellar transport fleet to the Quicksand City Interstellar Fortress, in a contested star system on the front.
This task would run about a month; beyond the assessment credits, it paid 200,000 star coins, with additional pay should combat occur.
"This one, then." Zhao Chen at once tapped to apply for the task, and when it came to entering his fleet's makeup—
—he thought a moment.
He entered a fleet of five T2 interstellar frigates and one T2 carrier starship.
Over this stretch, the T2 Iron-Hammer-class Heavy Interstellar Industrial Ships had production work to do and couldn't leave.
So he'd have to leave several ships to take up the guard duty; Zhao Chen meant to leave five T2 Black-Rhino-class Interstellar Heavy-Assault Frigates and the T2 Blizzard Zero to guard the T2 Iron-Hammers.
The rest of the ships would take part in this military task.
His application submitted, he waited for the far side's assent.
Several hours later, Zhao Chen received a reply: his application was approved.
He was ordered to reach the Northern Star Region's No. 3 Military Base and stand by before January 20, Galactic Star Calendar 3031; failure to arrive by the deadline would bar him from accepting imperial-military bounty tasks for the next three years.
Though there was still no little time, Zhao Chen had already begun preparing.
This would be his first time truly drawing so close to a battlefield.
Set against a real battlefield, Zhao Chen's earlier small doings counted for nothing at all.
Everything readied, Zhao Chen first told Zhao Wan'er, Li Wei, and the others that he had matters to see to and would be away for a while.
Zhao Wan'er asked what it was.
Zhao Chen said he was off to carry out a bounty task.
Because one of the fourth-year assessment requirements was to carry out a starship task — only, most cadets carried out far simpler ones.
Zhao Wan'er thought nothing more of it, never dreaming Zhao Chen had taken on a military task.
That was a task at least a fifth-year would take — and generally a very ordinary one at that.
His preparations done—
—Zhao Chen led his ships out of the Northstar Academy, and rather than head straight for the No. 3 Military Base of the task, he went first to his Owl Dragon Fleet's temporary garrison.
Reaching it, Zhao Chen saw a T2 Iron-Hammer on the verge of completion.
Though at the academy, Zhao Chen had kept a constant eye on the progress here.
Once his 20 million star coins had landed, he'd at once bought a batch of raw materials, shipped them to the vicinity of this star region, and then had his own ships ferry them in.
With this batch of raw materials in support—
—the second T2 Iron-Hammer could be built smoothly, and completed ahead of schedule besides.
And once the second T2 Iron-Hammer was done, that would be the moment for the build plan Zhao Chen had awaited so long: the T3 Blizzard-class Light Interstellar Battlecruiser.
This was the flagship he'd waited for!