Chapter 722: Chapter 721: The Future of This Star Region

Vast wheat fields, peaceful countryside, cattle and sheep ambling slowly along the paths, and cooking smoke rising in the distance.

"If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, it’d be really hard to imagine this is deep inside the Dark Meteor Domain, the most lawless illegal zone in this Universe."

On a hill overlooking the plain, Baili Qing quietly gazed into the distance. In those extremely pale gray-white eyes of hers, the cooking smoke on the horizon was reflected.

Yu Sheng stood beside her: "Yeah. They’ve been farming here for hundreds of years, listening to the village Church telling stories about Kingdom Knights and border monsters. In the distance, high walls formed by watchtowers; nearby, generations upon generations working the fields with their backs to the sky and faces to the soil—who would ever think that above the head of such a primitive Kingdom floats the Hidden Monastery’s satellite matrix, and just beyond the mountains are factories and laboratories built for killing."

Baili Qing’s voice was calm: "This has already gone beyond a normal cult."

Luo, standing on Yu Sheng’s other side with his arms folded, nodded: "That’s why they got hit with a heavy punch."

Yu Sheng finally couldn’t help giving this golden-haired Elf a look.

"So why are you here?"

Luo answered righteously: "I hitched a ride on this expressionless block of iron’s ship."

Yu Sheng: "...Shouldn’t you be over at the Holy Realm Ruins with Master Yuan Hao right now, studying Black Star?!"

"None of the personnel or equipment are in place yet—what the hell am I supposed to研究个P啊!" The golden-haired Elf threw up his hands. "Boss, don’t tell me you think doing research is like in a game, where you pick a Five-star Scientist and drag them onto the project icon and then research points just start popping out on the spot?"

Yu Sheng was left dumbfounded by this golden-haired Elf. He was about to reflexively remind the other party that as an Elf he ought to be elegant, then suddenly realized something, turned his head, and looked at Baili Qing beside him.

"...If I don’t add the words ’Ironclad’ in front, it doesn’t meet the trigger condition so there’s no output, is that it?"

Baili Qing blinked: "...Hm?"

"Uh, nothing," Yu Sheng hastily waved his hand, and seeing that she hadn’t caught on, immediately changed the subject. "Anyway, never mind that for now—what’s your plan for this place going forward?"

"Do you mean this planet, or this Star Region?"

"Both."

Baili Qing lowered her eyelids slightly, pondering for a moment.

"The situation on this planet is a bit more troublesome than we expected. The Hidden Monastery’s cognitive blockade on the planet’s residents is almost airtight, and they’ve instilled a lot of ’the Church-State is supreme’ and ’everything beyond our Domain is the enemy’ thinking. Many of our ground personnel haven’t had smooth interactions with the locals.

"But on the other hand, since this is a ’Recruitment Planet’ for Artificial Saintesses and Knights, at least those con-artist Priests of the Hidden Monastery haven’t carried out large-scale gene excision or neural modification. The situation... hasn’t deteriorated to the point of exceeding our experience.

"We’ll start by taking part in local agricultural production and basic trade, and in that process, figure out how many of the local administrators are truly converted ’spokesmen’ for the Hidden Monastery, and how many were merely coerced or duped..."

Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows at that.

Baili Qing glanced at him: "Don’t be surprised. Based on our experience, the first kind definitely exists, and not in small numbers. After all, to keep so many big and small ’Kingdoms’ on an entire planet stable over the long term, and at the same time keep their level of development strictly within a set threshold, ensuring a steady supply of qualified recruits to the Church—this would be impossible without a large group of people who secretly know the truth and have completely converted to the Church acting as local administrators. They might be the highly respected elders of a village, the speakers in a city who liaise with the Church, or so-called local lords or the advisers at those lords’ side.

"If they were only duped or coerced, we can still keep them and reform them, and have them serve as a bridge between us and the locals. But if they’ve already converted as Believers, then they absolutely cannot remain.

"Public trials, public confessions, public executions... we know what needs to be done."

"And after that?" Yu Sheng asked curiously.

"Build schools, build roads," Baili Qing said very seriously. "First, raise the level of basic education among the populace, then use roads to get people and goods moving, and after that, factories and all kinds of infrastructure.

"During this process, to a certain extent, we separate school-age children, working-age adults, and the elderly.

"Let children receive our education in schools and begin reshaping their worldview from the new generation. Let young and middle-aged adults into factories and construction sites to change the lifestyle and economic cycle of the main body of society. Finally, let the elderly spend their later years in a new, relatively closed social support system for the aged.

"One generation—if things go smoothly, just one generation will be enough for us to erase most of the influence the Hidden Monastery has left on this planet. As for the remaining ’roots’... that may take longer."

Baili Qing stopped, looking into Yu Sheng’s eyes with great seriousness: "This is already an excellent scenario—using only mild methods. And on this planet, mild methods are all we can use."

"...Sounds like a massive project," Yu Sheng sighed with genuine feeling.

Baili Qing’s expression remained indifferent: "All engineering on the social level is measured in ’generations’. That’s perfectly normal."

"You guys do this kind of thing a lot?" Yu Sheng was a bit curious. "You sound pretty practiced at it."

"I wouldn’t say I’m practiced. The Chairman and Kant are better at this than I am. Everything I said is just experience I picked up from watching them," Baili Qing said. "As for whether we do it a lot... we can’t exactly say all our hundreds of planets were taken purely through peaceful negotiations, right?"

Yu Sheng raised an eyebrow.

The grass rustled in the distance. A little head was bouncing closer through the tall grass. Erin came running over from afar, holding up a weirdly shaped stone in her hands.

"Yu Sheng, Yu Sheng, look!" The little puppet hopped up and down in delight. "Look at this rock, it looks just like that silly fox’s head!"

Yu Sheng picked up the white triangular stone, weighed it in his hand, then smiled and casually stuffed it into the little puppet’s skirt pocket.

"It does look a bit like her."

He looked up and saw, not far away, a bunch of fluffy tails swaying in a clump of grass. The tall grass was swaying in the wind. The fox girl was curled up in the grass, napping under the sun, every now and then closing her eyes as she plucked a tender leaf from the nearby grass, popped it into her mouth and chewed, then happily burst into a giggle.

She’d been in this blissful state in the grass nest for almost two hours now—if he didn’t know there was a heavy-duty fusion reactor in this girl’s belly, Yu Sheng might actually suspect she’d secretly eaten a Spirit Mushroom like a certain golden-haired elf nearby.

As for Luna, she wasn’t here right now.

In the Soul Wilderness, she was leading her Knight Order and her sisters in planning a new city. She named that city "Valhalla." It was the name those Priests once made up for heroes’ final paradise, supposedly a name pieced together from some information fragments left over from the Old World.

It had once been a lie, but starting now, Luna and her Knight Order were going to build this eternal homeland with their own hands.

And in the real world, Luna was currently busy settling the Artificial Saintess and Knight Orders who had arrived on Pasture Star afterward.

They had taken over the original "Holy District" and turned those Holy Halls into Knight Order strongholds. Deep within those Holy Halls they also found a large number of intact Artificial Saintess and Brass Knight production facilities, as well as a batch of shells already cast but not yet assembled.

The Artificial Saintess and Knights had no idea how to deal with these devices, but the Boundary Land side was already organizing professional research teams, who would be sent over in a few days. Luo had also picked out two trustworthy people from the few staff she currently had on hand, and they could be in place tomorrow.

The two experts Luo had found were her former subordinates. As original Black Spot Scientists, they were quite accomplished in the field of Living Metal. With their help, they might really be able to rebuild bodies for those Artificial Saintess and Brass Knights who had lost their shells.

Once she was done with daytime affairs, Luna still had to go home and spend time with her parents.

The Holy Lady was very busy, but these past two days were clearly the happiest she’d been in many years.

"Pasture Star is the most complicated case and demands the most effort," Baili Qing’s voice sounded beside them. "Compared to that, the rest of this Star Region is much simpler."

Yu Sheng thought about it, but before he could speak, Erin voiced the question for him: "Whoa! Going around dropping Extermination Orders one by one?"

The little puppet’s eyes sparkled as she said this, filled with a strange excitement, looking just like some ruthless, inhuman villain (66.6 cm tall).

Even Baili Qing’s composure broke for a moment. The corner of her eye twitched as she looked down at the little stump on the ground. "It’s not that extreme. Even the heavy-industry planets of the Hidden Monastery aren’t entirely full of Cultists; there are still civilian cities. What I meant was we take them the normal way—send ground troops to complete suppression and occupation... Wait, how did you even jump straight to throwing Extermination Orders?"

The little thing planted her fists on her hips, face tilted up and full of righteous confidence. "Because you, Ironclad Expression, look exactly like the type who would fire a planetary extermination cannon at a heretic planet without changing expression..."

The little puppet hadn’t even finished her sentence before Baili Qing spoke up: "I am not an Ironclad Expression."

Yu Sheng suddenly clapped his hands. "So you really do have to add the word ’ironclad’ for the trigger condition to be complete, huh?"

The scene fell silent. After about three to five seconds, Luo finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing with a snort.

Once she started, she couldn’t stop. The laughter that she’d tried so hard to stifle for the first three seconds instantly turned wild and unrestrained. The golden-haired Elf was laughing so hard she could barely stand, clutching her stomach and pointing at Baili Qing. "You—you finally got your day..."

Baili Qing finally frowned. Turned out the meticulous and serious Special Service Director still couldn’t keep up with the mental leaps of Yu Sheng and this bunch. "What are you laughing at? Yu Sheng, what on earth is going on?"

Yu Sheng quickly straightened his face. "She probably ate a Spirit Mushroom before coming... a new delayed-release strain."

Baili Qing’s furrowed brow instantly smoothed out.

"That makes it easy then," she said, placing a hand on Luo’s shoulder. "The Mass Effect also has medical pods."

The smile on Luo’s face vanished on the spot. She darted her eyes around in a panic that was visible to the naked eye. "...Wait, no, boss, my... expressionless face, you can’t just—"

And then the poor Elf was carried off by the giant dragon for a stomach pump.