Chapter 494: A Deal in the Vault

Agreeing to let Pan Ying follow him wasn’t just about her potential—her family held sway too.

Eight Zhulu-class Cruiser Captains alone weren’t a force to ignore, and here, in the Silverplate Galaxy, they’d make it much easier for him to collect rare resources or Starsea Oddities he couldn’t convert into battleship components.

After thinking it over for a moment, Song Chi took out a Market-Walking Token from his Torch Ancestral Orifice, handed it to Pan Ying, and explained its basic use.

He wouldn’t be staying in the Silverplate Galaxy long. If she ever needed to contact him, the market was the best relay.

Pan Ying accepted the Market-Walking Token, a faint smile in her eyes, and led Song Chi toward the Pan Family’s secret vault.

Letting Pan Ying follow him was only one condition, though—the promise to pick three items from the vault was part of the deal too.

When they reached the entrance to the underground vault, two members of the Pan Family in special armor—though just at Third-Tier Guiding Technique, their actual strength reached the Fourth Tier—stepped forward to block their way.

“Elder, this man…”

Pan Ying waved them aside and explained:

“The master’s agreed to aid our Pan Family. Being allowed to choose three items from the vault is part of the terms.”

At her words, relief broke across the guards’ faces and they let them into the vault without another word.

The Pan Family vault was huge, hinting at past prosperity. Still, despite the size, more than three-quarters of the shelves stood empty—barely a fourth held anything at all.

Seeing this, Pan Ying’s voice reached him in a low murmur.

“The family’s been running at a loss for years—most of the vault is empty now. It really wasn’t taken away on purpose.”

With that, they began to wander through the vault together.

Red Energy Shield

Standard Orange Advancement Fire Source

Sixty thousand pieces of Titanite Crystal

A single block of Hunyuan Copper

…

As they strolled along, a wide assortment of items flashed past Song Chi’s eyes. Just as they were almost done exploring the vault, something caught his eye and made him pause—a pleasant surprise.

“Does this Antimatter Source help you, Master?”

Song Chi nodded, not bothering to finish searching the vault. He picked up the generous Antimatter Source without hesitation.

This source was almost identical to the one he’d retrieved from that black hole in the Hun Tian Star Domain. Once it let the Antimatter Evolution Engine consume this, its evolution progress should reach about two-thirds—putting him a step closer to upgrading that gold domain engine to black-grade.

A few minutes later, the pair had circled the whole vault.

Song Chi had only two words for the Pan Family vault: dead broke.

Compared to the vault he was still expanding, this one felt downright pitiful. Not a single silver-tier oddity or component was in sight, and even red epic components only totaled four or five. It was just sad.

Pan Ying seemed to catch on to his thoughts and looked a bit embarrassed herself.

“Sorry for the sight, Master!”

Song Chi just shook his head, saying nothing.

He considered, then after picking the Antimatter Source first, took the Hunyuan Copper as well. It was a universal enhancement resource heavily used in the Omniverse Market, and since he only had one block left, grabbing this one brought his stash back to two.

For his last pick, Song Chi hesitated for a few seconds, then walked over to the pile of Titanite Crystals.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Pan Ying—she looked over with her clear, wary eyes, but quickly looked away. Still, Song Chi caught the struggle on her face.

After some thought, he took only half—thirty thousand out of the sixty thousand Titanite Crystals.

Pan Ying’s reaction made it clear: these tens of thousands of crystals were probably all the Pan Family had left. Even though he’d stepped in to protect them from more suppression, shifting from defense to regaining lost ground would take time—at least until Pan Ying’s Guiding Technique broke through and she officially became a Battleship Captain.

In other words, until then, the family would only have these sixty thousand crystals to operate. If Song Chi took them all, things would only get harder for them.

When he took just half, Pan Ying’s eyes lit up into crescent moons.

“Thank you, Master!”

With that, she pulled something else from her robes.

“Master, there’s also this…”

He turned to look and was surprised to see it was the Voidlock Skyseal Sigil he’d already returned earlier.

As he accepted the silver component, Song Chi’s eyes drifted to a strand of Orange Advancement Fire Source off to the side. He turned to Pan Ying.

“Can I take that strand of Orange Advancement Fire Source as well?”

“Of course!”

Pan Ying replied almost without thinking.

But Song Chi wasn’t finished.

“As compensation, come see me again in two days. I’ll return you a Red Advancement Fire Source then!”

…For Song Chi, using one of the nearly ripe sixth-tier Silver Apples to upgrade an Advancement Fire Source wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment whim, but the result of careful thought.

He’d started planning this the moment Pan Ying accepted the Master-Servant Pact, weighing everything before finally deciding.

The main reason, of course, was her potential. With the Red Advancement Fire Source in advance, Pan Ying’s flagship would make a major leap in power, letting her achieve far more for him going forward.

Two days later, all five sixth-tier Silver Apples in the Cultivation Sanctuary fully ripened.

Song Chi took one, upgraded the Orange Advancement Fire Source to Red, and handed it to Pan Ying amid her grateful gaze.

“Alright. Head back to train, do your best to push Guiding Technique to Fifth Tier in one go. Don’t worry about the Annan Consortium—I’ll handle them.”

“Yes, thank you, Master!”

…

On the Heavenly Ruin’s main control deck, Song Chi’s gaze swept over the battleship’s lineup of orange components.

Soon he took out the second Silver Apple, evolving the Isometric Shrink Module to red-grade and strengthening it straight to level 60.

The brand-new third trait was a direct extraction from the Oddity Essence Refinement Platform: “doubling the shrink ratio by 100%.”

Now, the module’s max shrink ratio reached a full thousandfold. Thanks to that, the Long-Finned Void Whale’s corpse compacted down to just a kilometer, saving huge amounts of storage space.

Next came the third, fourth, and fifth Silver Apples. After careful thought, Song Chi upgraded the Void Shroud, Life-System Medical Repair Pod, and Aurora Jump Drive.

Why these three? Simple.

The Void Shroud’s concealment effect was always active, while Mirage worked only for limited times. Constant stealth was obviously the better asset for Song Chi.

After evolving it, he selected a new trait extracted from another high-grade stealth component: “increases stealth authority by one tier.”

This trait was hard-won, something Song Chi had gone through real trouble to extract, and its effect was crystal clear—any radar trying to break through the Void Shroud’s concealment would need to surpass it by at least one grade and one enhancement level.

For example, if the Void Shroud was at level 50 and red-epic, it’d take a silver-grade Patrol Radar at level 60 or above to spot the Heavenly Ruin. Even level 59 wasn’t enough.

He then pushed the Void Shroud up to level 60—meaning in future, only silver or higher Patrol Radars at level 70 or above could detect the Heavenly Ruin in its hidden state.

If someone used a gold-grade Patrol Radar instead—since the component outranked the Void Shroud by two grades—it’d only need to be at level 60 to break through the concealment.

Still, there was no denying the value of that “one-tier stealth authority” trait. If he could someday pull it off with a gold or even black-grade stealth component, the Heavenly Ruin would become nearly impossible for anything in the Sea of Stars to find—even by radar.

Then there was the Life-System Medical Repair Pod—no need to explain, it was a literal lifesaver.

The last upgrade was the Aurora Jump Drive. At orange grade, a single jump only covered a thousand light years. Coming here to the Silverplate Galaxy had taken forever.

But once evolved to red and strengthened to sixth tier, and with a trait added to extend jump range, its max range shot up from eleven hundred to three thousand light years.

With that, all the Silver Apples had been used up.

The excitement of using them all now faded—the hunger for more hit Song Chi hard.

He honestly wished he could just upgrade every orange component on the ship to red in one go—that’d boost the Heavenly Ruin’s power to a whole new level.

But the slow production rate of Silver Apples was an endless headache. Even with a Sanctuary Accelerator to help, each batch still took over twenty years—close to thirty.

So if he wanted to evolve every orange component on the ship to red, it was going to take ages.

Song Chi knew this was tied to the Silver Apples’ tier. The fourth- and fifth-tier apples grew way faster than this.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

While his thoughts raced, a series of heavy explosions suddenly rumbled overhead.

“They’re here already? That was fast.”

In a blur, he rushed out of the battleship’s summoning room and summoned the Heavenly Ruin, shooting straight for the sky.

He’d expected this attack—just not so soon.

As Song Chi arrived over the Floating-land, the Pan Family’s eight Zhulu-class Cruisers had already taken position. Each ship was pouring fire down on dozens of enemy cruisers outside the Floating-land’s shield.

When the Heavenly Ruin appeared, relief swept through the Pan Family elders.

Before they could even speak, Song Chi raised his hand, signaling everyone to stop attacking.

At the same time, three battleships—each ten kilometers long—out in deep space ordered their crews to cease fire as well.

With both sides holding, the Heavenly Ruin soared out past the Floating-land’s shield.

Soon enough, all four battleships had met in the starry void.

On the battleship comms, one of the Annan Consortium’s ultimate battleship captains spoke up:

“Friend, we of the Annan Consortium have already shown you respect. The year is up. If you push any further, you’ll be breaking our agreement!”