Starship Obscurus, somewhere in the Chronus Expanse Star Region, some time later.
Traveling through the Hyperspace was nothing new for Arcturus, but traveling such far distances was something new. Every Star Region was a humongous part of space, consisting of around a few Star Segments, which in turn consisted of around 1,000 Star Sectors each.
And each Star Sector had something between thousand to five thousand Star Domains, and each Star Domain was ranging from thousand to sometimes staggering 25,000 Star Systems, so yeah...
Every single Star Region was humongous, and even if someone was using the Hyperdrvie, it would take a very long time to travel from one Star Region to another Star Region. Though Obscurus had relatively advanced Hyperdrives that were faster than the ordinary ones, he wasn't going the top speed.
He ordered the Red Queen to use only the basic mode of the Hyperdrive to save fuel; when the Hyperdrvie Engines were working at 100%, and the special speed mode was activated, then it was burning the fuel like nothing, and it was rather pricy.
One could even say that it was like burning money away.
It wasn't that far from the truth.
For most of the time during his journey to the core worlds of the Eternal Empire of the Asurya, Arcturus decided to spend them by training and acclimatizing to the newfound physical strength after he took the Delta-Grade Physical Enhancement Serum and elevating his Warrior Grade to the Delta-Grade.
Most of his Universal Credits were spent by the Red Queen on the materials and other things that she needed to finish the upgrades on the ship that she planned and to build more battle droids, to expand the battle droid army on the Obscurus.
That also led them to today's discussion because, despite everything, Arcturus was growing short on money, though that was even a temporal problem as he could always hunt for some pirates or something.
In the end, there were plenty of ways to make money, and even the Eternal Empire of the Asurya wasn't an exception when it came to the Space Pirates. However, their space pirates were rather problematic, as almost all of them were Asuryani, and they were far better armed than the average kind of space pirate.
Sometimes the Space Pirates in here had some pretty advanced technology and equipment because they were looting the Imperial technology, which was one of the most advanced around here.
In hindsight, even the bounties that were given by the Imperial Government were rather high for the Space Pirates of Imperial origin. Obviously, the Imperial Navy was periodically cleaning their core territories, but once again, the space was huge, and there were plenty of ways to hide.
Especially for the small space pirate bands that had only a few vessels; such ones were almost impossible to track down effectively because it was like searching for a needle in a sack of hay.
Not to mention, many of the smarter Space Pirates that were of Asuryani origin were operating in rather a smart way, as they would be mainly active in the territories of the Mid-Level Civilization and Low-Level Civilizations while hiding on some Native Worlds that didn't even achieve the spaceflight.
Some were even hiding on the primitive planets that were still in the age of sticks and stones because it was the most effective way, and practically nobody would bother with such worlds at all.
<The number of the ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids that I have produced has already crossed two hundred, and with the arrival on the Planet Asurya, I should have constructed around 500 of the ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids altogether. With the current operation capabilities, I made some adjustments to the battle droids, to increase their combat prowess and the results are rather promising so far.>
500 of the ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids was already very nice number and if the Red Queen could make some upgrades to the ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids, then it would be even better.
"How much upgrading are we talking about?"
Right now, the ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids represented the core of his firepower for the large-scale mission because they were rather reliable and relatively strong, even if a bit outdated by the standards of the High-Level Civilizations.
Still, Arcturus was planning on taking tasks that were rather below his firepower?
In the end, it was complicated as fuck that was the conclusion that he came to.
Only the Bloodline Lineage Aristocratic Houses had the permits to maintain their own private Navy and spaceships, but even that was in very limited quantities. Aside from that, everyone who wanted to legally own the starship or use certain services and facilities needed a permit.
When someone wanted to be privateer and have his own space fleet and legally operating within the borders of the Eternal Empire of the Asurya, he would need permission directly from the Imperial Administratum.
Most probably, there was even some sort of agreement needed from Lord Padishah-Marshall on that matter, as the Empire took this matter very seriously.
It was clear as sky that the Empire didn't like people owning private fleets, and so, in many cases, it didn't end well for the government when the people always had the means to overthrow it in a successful rebellion.
"For the time being, we should be focusing on the more doable goals... right now, the top priority is cracking down the Dark Matter Engine Designs that we got from the Space Hulk during the siege of the Alaric Star Domain. If we can manufacture them en masse and start selling them, it would make a killing."
Arcturus didn't want to be just an ordinary Star Mercenary and Bounty Hunter.
While for sure was entertaining and thrilling, it wouldn't make him as much money as he wanted because he wanted to be rich, and he was a greedy bastard.
So his own idea was to use the Star Mercenary and Bounty Hunter business as a means of obtaining exotic pieces of tech, reverse-engineering them, and selling them to the customers.
That was his priority, because he would be needing to work his ass off to obtain the resources needed to achieve his goal.
This was the easier way, and the moment he obtained the permit from the Administratum to establish the corporation and manufacture the engines and other techs, based on the databanks of the Space Hulk, he would be literarily swimming in money.
<The progress is steady; the encryption on the databanks is very advanced, but nothing that additional time wouldn't solve. For the Dark Matter Engines, I finished the preliminary scans, and I have a rather functioning prototype of the Dark Matter Engines, but that would require a lot of work for them to be 100% reliable and effective.>
That was already better progress than he expected from this.
When they had solid blueprints and theories behind the Dark Matter Engines, another thing that would be needed was to construct the prototype and test the engines. Nobody would be buying the engines that were untested, much less being said about the prototypes.
Arcturus needed a product that was already finished and as perfect as possible. After that, when he obtained the permit from the Imperial Administratum, he could start selling. Another thing that he planned for a later date was to create a much, much weaker version of the engines and sell it to the Mid-Level and Low-Level Civilizations.
There was a lot to exploit.
"Start initial scouring of the market and choose the most suitable Low-Level Civilizations and Mid-Level Civilizations within the Chronus Expanse Star Region and Wildstar Star Region where we could start selling our products. We need to create all of this before we launch the sale, even though this would be several years in the future."
Arcturus wanted to have everything done even before they could start selling.
He knew that the best markets for his product were actually the actually various Low-Level and Mid-Level Civilizations that he could exploit and sell scraps for extremely high prices, and they could do nothing about it.
He would have behind him the entire might of High-Level Civilizations, a very powerful one that, because not even High-Level Civilizations were the same. Arcturus understood why the High-Level Civilizations had such tacit understanding between them to exploit those weaker and less advanced.
<Per your command.>