https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-35-The-Gold-Vine-Crystal-of-Life/12833244/
https://novelcool.info/chapter/Chapter-37-The-Ember-Seed-Recovery-Period/12833246/
Chapter 36: Conditions for Elevating a Airship to a Starship
Chapter 36: Conditions for Elevating a Airship to a Starship
If the depths of the star fragment really contain over a hundred tons of Phantasm Crystals, this would be an incredibly vast harvest. One ton of Phantasm Crystals is worth five strands of First-Class Floating Land Essence, so a hundred tons would be worth five hundred strands, or five thousand strands of Zero-Class Floating Land Essence. For a Spirit Energy Airship, this is a staggering amount.
With a hint of excitement, Song Chi donned his exoskeleton suit. Even with this, he still felt a strong sense of discomfort after exiting the airship. Zero-Class ordinary lifeforms find it very difficult to adapt to the unique conditions of space, especially without the assistance of an exoskeleton suit and his own Guiding Technique level.
He immediately drew the Skybound into the Ember Ancestral Acupoint and quickly led the remaining three Fire Chrysanthemum Soldier Puppets through the hole in the ground, entering the core area of the star fragment.
The star fragment was only a few dozen meters in diameter, so the core space was naturally small. The long, devouring Golden Vines piled in the corner made the already cramped space even more crowded. Even the Anger Tiger Mining Vehicle, which had successfully entered, found it difficult to work, let alone the fact that the vehicle was still inside the Skybound's cabin. To release it, he would need to summon the seven-meter-long Skybound from his brow's Ember Ancestral Acupoint, which was impossible.
Thus, Song Chi ordered the three Fire Chrysanthemum Soldier Puppets to use specially designed drilling shovels and manually began further excavation and exploration.
It didn't take long for the Fire Chrysanthemum Soldier Puppets to discover new minerals at the bottom of a small excavation pit, several meters deep. It was indeed the Phantasm Crystals.
Song Chi rubbed his forehead, mentally noting this to avoid making such a low-level mistake again. Previously, to avoid any lingering traps from the Golden Vines and because he couldn't stay exposed to the external space environment for long, he only had the Fire Chrysanthemum Soldier Puppets come down to clean up. In fact, besides the Life Crystal, they had also mined a dozen or so tons of ordinary refined gold.
Based on this, he had come in for a final check, found nothing left, and left. He didn't realize that beneath those dozen tons of refined gold, there were even more Phantasm Crystals.
Without the reminder from the exploration device and the vehicle's AI, he would have missed this significant deposit.
...
The subsequent arrangements were simple. With over a hundred tons of Phantasm Crystals, manual mining was impossible. Even after a dozen hours, they might not have mined half of it.
Song Chi had a plan. He didn't stay in the core space for long, returned to the surface of the fragment with the three Fire Chrysanthemum Soldier Puppets, and summoned the Skybound and the Anger Tiger Mining Vehicle. He then gave the vehicle's AI the command to dig straight down.
Since the original core space couldn't accommodate the mining vehicle, he decided to create a larger entrance from the surface.
Leaving the mining vehicle to work, Song Chi drove the Skybound back to the fragment where the first Anger Tiger Mining Vehicle was located. After a few hours, a thousand tons of refined gold had been mined. He used the Skybound to transport the refined gold to the Marketplace in batches, then returned with the undamaged mining vehicle.
The second mining vehicle's efficiency had significantly decreased, and Song Chi wasn't sure if it could complete the mining of the Phantasm Crystals before the next return. He felt it would be safer to replace it with the undamaged vehicle.
The next day, half an hour before the return, Song Chi, who had spent over ten hours exploring the surroundings and found minerals worth a couple of hundred strands of Zero-Class Floating Land Essence, finally drove the Skybound back.
After storing the 112 tons of completely mined Phantasm Crystals in the Marketplace of All Realms, Song Chi began to wait patiently.
...
An hour later, at the entrance of Dongjiang Neighborhood, Song Chi and Chen Lixia disembarked from their respective Ember Ships.
Their family's Bentei III flying car was currently in use by Song Chao, so even though it might seem a bit showy, the two had no choice but to return in their own Ember Ships. Calling a taxi would have been too much of a hassle.
Chen Lixia's personal ship, the "Dragonfly," is a Psionic Airship that has been upgraded from a shuttle for several decades. It is currently at level 19, just one step away from reaching the second tier.
However, don't let that small one-level difference fool you. It's a massive gap, and this single level is like an insurmountable chasm that has trapped countless Ember Ship captains for their entire lives.
To upgrade from a Psionic Airship to a second-tier "Guardian-Class" Psionic Ship, it's not just a matter of acquiring certain special resources. It also requires personally venturing into foreign territories to hunt and kill alien beings of a higher rank, bathing the ship in alien blood.
It's said that the success rate for upgrading from an airship to a ship is terrifyingly low, with an initial success rate of only 1%. By investing specific rare reinforcement resources, this rate can be increased to around 10%. To further boost the success rate, the captain must venture into alien territories and kill more aliens, using their blood to bless the ship.
The more aliens killed and the higher their rank, the greater the success rate will be.
"Mom, what's the current success rate for the Dragonfly's upgrade?"
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. Upgrading from zero to the first tier is relatively straightforward; as long as you have enough resources and a bit of luck, you can usually succeed. However, upgrading from a Psionic Airship to a Psionic Ship is a different story. Once the upgrade task is initiated, the captain has only one year to prepare.
During this year, the captain must do everything possible to increase the success rate, whether by investing rare resources or venturing into alien territories to hunt. At the end of the year, the airship will attempt the upgrade, and the higher the success rate, the greater the chance of becoming a second-tier ship. Conversely, the lower the success rate, the smaller the chance.
Chen Lixia initiated the upgrade task five months ago, and nearly half the year has already passed. Song Chi had originally thought that with his father's help, they could easily boost the success rate to over 30%, or even 40%. After all, his father's ship had successfully upgraded to the second tier over a decade ago. He never expected it to be only 24%.
Chen Lixia rolled her eyes at her son.
"Do you think upgrading a Psionic Airship to a Psionic Ship is that simple? If the success rate were so easy to boost, would there only be a few dozen second-tier Psionic Ships among the tens of thousands of registered Ember Ships in Jiangyuan City, with a population of over two million?"
Song Chi was speechless, but the worry in his eyes lingered.
At this rate, without a significant stroke of luck, the success rate for the Dragonfly's upgrade after the one-year preparation period would likely be around 30%.
For an ordinary Ember Ship captain, this would already be a very high success rate, but Song Chi couldn't accept it.
A basic fact of the Ember Human civilization is that each Ember Ship has only one chance to upgrade each tier. There is no second attempt after a failure. If the upgrade fails, the Ember Ship will be completely lost.
(End of Chapter)
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