The days of being a spiritual mentor in Meiman.

Chapter 4194 A Guide to Wandering the Galaxy (1)

Chapter 4194 A Guide to Wandering the Galaxy (Part 1)

Asgard. The World Tree remained as magnificent and lush as ever, its hot springs below steaming, and the distant snow-capped mountains gleaming golden in the morning light. Strange immersed himself in the warm, slightly hot spring water, letting out a satisfied sigh.

Schiller was arranging the fruit on the fruit platter neatly, then eating them one by one from left to right; Loki took a glass of wine, drinking it while gazing at the distant horizon; Nick, wrapped in a bath towel, finally returned from the bathroom, bent down by the pool, and tested the water temperature with his hand.

"What are you dawdling about?" Strange said impatiently. "If you think it's too hot, go over there. Don't bother us here."

“Our Speaker’s temper is getting worse and worse.” Nick laughed as he stepped into the pool, hissing as he was scalded, and kept splashing water on himself.

Loki squinted, opened the eye closest to Nick, glanced at him, and said, "We've been busy in space all day, and you're enjoying some peace and quiet."

“My job is yet to come,” Nick said. “You’d better respect me; you’ll have to see how I perform when it comes to negotiating the price.”

"I never expected that we would actually receive money from the three great empires," Loki said with some emotion. "Although we've robbed quite a lot before, this time it's their own choice. It feels really good."

“Selling the land is only the first step,” Schiller said, forking a piece of melon and popping it into his mouth. “We’re thinking of bringing the political center to our own territory and controlling it; the three great empires are also eager to use this opportunity to infiltrate the nine kingdoms. This is going to be a long fight.”

"Has the location been chosen?" Strange asked.

"There are three options, but they probably won't choose the other two, so the final choice should be the Cross II of the Southern Cross."

Strange paused for a moment, then said, "Why there?"

"The concentration of dark matter in the Milky Way is too high. If they don't choose bright stars, they'll probably have to create an artificial light source. The Southern Cross constellation is relatively bright overall, and Cross II is a binary star system with one hot star, two half-hot stars, and one cold star, as well as three planets slightly larger than Earth that have primitive life. There are enough stars and enough space, so it's definitely more cost-effective here."

Strange thought for a moment and remembered. Actually, the Southern Cross is very famous in Europe and America, mainly because when viewed from Earth, the Southern Cross looks like a cross, and it is considered one of God's miracles. In fact, the Southern Cross is on the flags of many European and American countries, such as Australia.

Previously, humans didn't know much about this constellation, only that it was very bright; but after the start of interstellar colonization, they did fly spaceships to explore it, and to their surprise, they discovered that the Southern Cross constellation is home to life.

The cold star at Cross 2 has a temperature similar to that of the Sun, and the distance and orbit of its two planets are just right. The level of life there is similar to that of Earth in the Late Triassic period, but it is already considered a planet with a fairly good environment in the universe.

The hot star in this binary system, with its large mass and high luminosity, is an excellent guiding star. Lighthouses are needed for space travel, and the larger and hotter a planet is, the easier it is for radar to detect it. Therefore, a thriving star system ideally needs a superbright star as a navigational landmark.

Those two semi-hot stars, on the other hand, are the best energy source. They are not as hot as hot stars, yet their radiation is higher than that of cold stars. They are not difficult to mine, and their energy is relatively abundant. Most advanced civilizations would choose these stars to extract energy.

As for how hot a hot star is and how cold a cold star is, we can only say that the Sun is a cold star, one of the hottest stars in the universe. Only stars like this can support carbon-based life. Furthermore, due to the high concentration of dark matter in the Milky Way, the heat from stars dissipates slowly, so the actual standard for supporting life should be even lower. Most civilizations are situated in stars colder than the Sun.

The cold planet of Cross Two is similar to the Sun. If nothing unexpected happens, those two planets should also evolve life similar to humans, but that will probably be millions of years from now.

Thinking of this, Strange frowned slightly and said, "What about the life on those two planets?"

“There are no humanoid creatures up there,” Nick said. “There aren’t even any truly intelligent life forms, just some reptiles and theropods.”

Loki could understand Strange's thinking. He wasn't really concerned about whether the dinosaurs would go extinct; rather, he had long considered the Milky Way galaxy as human property—whatever was on those planets belonged to humankind. The fact that a decent civilization hadn't developed yet didn't mean it wouldn't in the future; what would happen if it went extinct now? This was the galaxy's potential power, and they couldn't just let outsiders destroy it.

"What do you think I set up the Ministry of Environmental Protection for?" Schiller yawned, tossed a cherry tomato into his mouth, chewed it, and said, "The council has already passed a series of related environmental protection regulations. The interstellar council must pay us about 30 million universal coins every year for environmental protection and biodiversity conservation. At the same time, all activities of council officials here must not harm any native plants or animals in this star system, otherwise they will be sentenced."

“What about the poachers?” Strange asked. “They didn’t come here before because the sea routes were blocked and they were afraid of being discovered by Asgard; but now that so many people have come, what if they manage to sneak in?”

“That is a problem,” Schiller said after thinking for a moment. “Combating poachers should be the job of the security department.”

“The entire Interplanetary Council is no longer functioning,” Strange said. “It’s all thanks to you. If we had relied on them, not a single animal would have survived on those planets.”

“I’ll figure something out,” Schiller said.

“Next, we need to talk about the troop deployment,” Loki said. “Last night, I discussed it with the King and Queen of Gods, and they decided to send a hundred-man squad of the Royal Guard. What do you think?”

“A hundred men? The Royal Guard?! The Supreme Intelligence is going to have a sleepless night now,” Strange said with a hint of schadenfreude.

“The Supreme Intelligence doesn’t need to sleep,” Loki chuckled, “but it’s not like he just started having trouble sleeping today.”

His words seemed to have a hidden meaning. Strange paused, then immediately realized what he meant and said, "That conman who fooled the Supreme Intelligence, it can't be you again, can it?!"

Loki covered his mouth with his wine glass and said, "What do you mean 'again'? This is the first time I've ever lied to a cybernetic life form."

"But this won't be the last time, right?"

Loki smiled but didn't say anything. Nick seemed to have warmed up, so he got out and started circling the pool, wiping his face with a towel while gasping for breath from the cold.

"When are they planning to start work?" Nick asked again. "You must remember to sign the local labor protection agreement. I have a lot of people here waiting to find work."

“What’s that thing?” Strange asked.

"If a project is to be carried out in a certain place, a certain percentage of local people must be hired to participate in the work. This is to provide local employment opportunities. There was no such law in the Interstellar Council before, but it was added after the Interstellar Code was updated. Our tentative percentage is 30%, because the amount of work that humans can do is very limited."

“That won’t do. It has to be at least 50%,” Nick said. “We can provide hundreds of symbiote agents, as well as special workers like Electro and Sandman, and Spider-Man! Those energetic bastards are always causing me trouble, we have to find them some work to do!”

“Okay, I should be able to get them to increase it to at least 40%,” Schiller said. “And the buildings must be built in the style of the local dominant ethnic group, not too out of place or disrupting the city skyline—although there are no cities on those two planets for the time being, they still have to be built in the style of Earth.”

“Why not Asgard?” Loki asked.

“You know how expensive your own buildings are,” Schiller said, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Why use those magical metals and enchanted stone slabs when you can use cheap reinforced concrete? Most interstellar officials wouldn’t just jump and collapse a roof!”

Loki was speechless. He knew that the reason Asgard used such luxurious materials was mainly because the gods were so destructive—if you didn't use good materials, a single battle could destroy half a city.

“Of course, the price can be based on Asgardian architecture,” Schiller said, changing the subject. “It perfectly blends the styles of the two main civilizations, reflecting the Interstellar Council’s respect for its lords.”

Now it was Loki's turn to roll his eyes.

“By the way, what’s going on with the Supreme Intelligence? Why is it so quiet?” Strange asked again. “He didn’t want to move to the galaxy. I thought he would make one last desperate attempt.”

“I don’t know,” Schiller shook his head and said. “He took a week off and I don’t know what he did; he came back yesterday morning and extended it for another week. I feel like he’s just trying to avoid it because he can’t resist.”

“He’ll still have to come to work eventually, unless he doesn’t want to be the secretary-general anymore.” Strange thought of something happy and said, “Now that we’ve moved to the galaxy, shouldn’t our electronic office system be based on Earth, like Jarvis?”

“That won’t work. The law stipulates that electronic office systems cannot be in the form of artificial intelligence. Otherwise, the Supreme Intelligence wouldn’t need to be the Secretary-General; it could just become the office system itself. Besides, Jarvis might not be willing to take on the role. His daughter was just born not long ago, and he’s busy.”

“It’s hard to believe that Wanda already has three children,” Loki said, stretching out his hand. “And my little niece is still in her mother’s belly, probably decades away from being born.”

"Is it confirmed to be a girl?"

“Of course, I knew the moment I conceived. Asgard is about to welcome a queen,” Loki said with a hint of joy. “Helen doesn’t like wearing jewelry, and putting a necklace on her is like taking her life—my jewels are finally going to have their heirs!”

“Honestly, we should go check out the Southern Cross,” Nick said. “I’m worried someone might sabotage things before the construction team gets on site. I have no doubt those cybernetic beings might take the opportunity to do something.”

"Alright, then send someone over."

"No, if I'm going to involve S.H.I.E.L.D. employees in the project, I have to train them to prevent those Spider-Men from acting like ignorant country bumpkins when they see large space engineering machines, making a scene and embarrassing humanity."

“Then I’ll send men,” Loki said. “It’ll be a good opportunity to find a good base for the Royal Guard in advance…”

"No, if the Protoss go, they'll definitely scare away those scheming people. Send a small team over to check it out; it would be best if we could catch them red-handed."

All eyes fell on Schiller's face. Schiller raised his hand somewhat helplessly and said, "Fine, I'll go find someone, okay?"

(End of this chapter)