Chapter 198: A New Federation Order: Building the Points System

Lin Yu spent a full hour speaking.

In short, he had just one message.

And that was…

The Federation can sell anything, and at the same time, those subsidiary civilizations can exchange anything they have for points at the Federation’s side.

According to Lin Yu, even jump technology, light transmission tech, or even zero-point modules—

All of them could be listed on the platform for sale.

Doesn’t matter if it’s the technology itself or finished products.

Of course, the price tag on those technologies will be sky-high—totally unaffordable.

As for finished products, they’d definitely come with certain limits or restrictions set on the back end.

Bottom line: once this system is formally in place, points become the universal currency for all subsidiary civilizations.

Some civilizations will even tighten their belts just to rack up more points, constantly offering up whatever they can to the Federation in exchange.

But there’s a catch—

The Federation has to always maintain an overwhelming lead over all its subsidiaries, and the items up for exchange must always be tempting enough.

Take a jump engine, for example. What mid-tier civilization wouldn’t kill to get their hands on one?

Not just mid-tier, even civilizations a step above would be scrambling over each other for it.

No matter how expensive it is!

“So, we can use this approach with every civilization we come across in the future?”

“No, definitely not every single one!”

Lin Yu shook his head right away in response.

“At its core, the system is meant to spur the Federation’s advancement through them. So what we really need to think about is—which civilizations can drive our progress? Which contribute little or nothing at all?”

“That’s why I think we should create a dedicated civilization potential rating—say, seven levels from F up to S. Only those at B-level or higher qualify to become subsidiary civilizations. If they don’t make the cut—”

“Well, sorry, but it’s better to wipe them out and take over their territory, or simply toss what’s left onto the subordinate platform and let others exchange points for it.”

“As for how to judge their potential, we can have a specialized Federation division responsible for creating the standards and running evaluations.”

The meeting went on for seven hours straight.

Lin Yu covered everything, and the whole system was so well thought-out it could go live as-is.

Even just a brief rundown of all its parts ate up a ton of time.

After the meeting, both the Presidential Office and the Federation Fleet sent large teams to form a special working group.

They’d focus solely on the system and see if there were any loose ends to fix.

Most importantly, they were to figure out how to actually put it in motion.

——

Time passed.

Another month slipped by.

The refit on the Houyi was finally complete.

Meanwhile, all three hundred Zhulong-class B warships had joined the fleet, fully crewed as planned.

The crews had already done close to a year’s worth of simulation training, and after the ships rolled out, they spent another half month on hands-on drills.

At this point, they could handle everything perfectly.

Lin Yu had planned to bring Lin Yun back to Proxima Centauri V.

But Lin Yun shot down the idea. She said she still had several important projects on Earth and couldn’t leave for now.

At least, that’s the official reason. As for her real reason…

Only she knows.

To be honest, Lin Yu had already noticed she was keeping some things from him. But…

He didn’t press further. After all, his daughter was in her forties, not a kid anymore.

If she wanted to tell him, she’d do it in her own time.

Lin Yu was never the controlling type who couldn’t handle a few secrets.

He stepped into a room that looked a lot like an elevator.

As the hatch shut, a virtual console popped up in front of him, displaying the general layout of the Houyi.

He tapped the area marked First Bridge, and when a confirmation prompt appeared, he confirmed again.

The next instant—

A flash of white light swept over him and Lin Yu vanished from sight.

As if he’d never been there at all.

At the very same moment, a white flash arced through the bridge.

Lin Yu appeared there, safe and sound.

A distance of over three kilometers covered in a heartbeat.

Lin Yu couldn’t help marveling—this light transmission…

It was just too convenient.

“Bai Jun, you’ve got the jump engine procedures down pat, right?”

“Relax, Commander, this thing’s way easier than hyperspace navigation!”

“Good. Set course for Proxima Centauri V. Relay the coordinates to the entire fleet—everyone get ready for a mass jump!”

“Understood, Commander!”

A dozen seconds ticked by.

Space suddenly compressed tight.

In a blink, the Houyi and 301 warships disappeared.

——

The truth is, for short-range travel, jumping has bigger advantages than hyperspace.

Simply put, it’s much faster.

Hyperspace navigation works by forcing open a quantum window, letting a warship break into hyperspace. Since light speed isn’t a factor in there, you can cruise faster than light.

Jumping though…

Think of it like drawing two dots, A and B, on a piece of paper, then connecting them with a straight line.

Normally, you’d travel from A to B along that line.

But with a jump, it’s like folding the paper so the two dots overlap.

Now, the distance represented by that line doesn’t mean a thing.

Once the paper is folded, A and B are touching. There’s no such thing as distance between them.

Put simply, that’s what jumping is.

Meaning, the time needed for a jump is almost zero.

You could even call it a cosmic version of a ‘blink’ skill!

Naturally, someone might ask: If jumping’s this amazing, why is hyperspace a higher-tier technology?

Well, that’s where another old problem comes in.

Jumping only has an edge for short distances.

Because, on paper, a single jump maxes out at 18.8 light-years—and after each jump, the engine needs a solid 24 hours to vent all the radiation it accumulates.

Plus, compared with hyperspace, jumps are a lot easier to block or mess with.

In other words: short range only, long cooldowns, and easy to disrupt.

Those are all drawbacks of jumping.

Because of these flaws, you can’t use jumping for intergalactic trips, or sometimes not even for free movement within a star system.

Take the Orion Spur, for example—you can’t just jump directly to one of the other four main spiral arms.

It’s just too far. The 18.8-light-year cap isn’t nearly enough.

If not for that wormhole in the Orion Arm linking to the galactic center, the whole region would be an isolated island.

Now, with hyperspace technology,

There’s no limit to how far you can go, and while the Houyi now tops out at 505 times the speed of light, there’s no hard ceiling.

In theory, hyperspace travel has no speed limit.

So as the technology evolves, that number just keeps going up.

And with no range restrictions…

Hyperspace lets you travel anywhere—even to another galaxy.

In fact—

As long as your speed’s high enough and you have enough time—

There’s nowhere in the cosmos you can’t go.