Chapter 48: Preparing to Unlock a New Technology Tree

Preparing to Open a New Technology Tree

It was only at this moment that Tang Xiao shifted his gaze to Qu Xuewen.

Compared to Guan Yan and the others, Qu Xuewen’s appearance was far more striking. With short hair and black-rimmed glasses, she looked exceptionally delicate and charming. Beneath her loose white lab coat were a high-necked sweater, a pencil skirt, and tight sheer hosiery—an outfit that could easily be mistaken for cosplay or a uniform temptation, yet she happened to be an elite-tier materials science expert.

This was the classic case of someone who could easily rely on her looks, yet chose to rely entirely on her talent.

Knowing that Tang Xiao was coming, Qu Xuewen seemed to have dressed up for the occasion, exuding a faint trace of perfume. This inevitably sparked Tang Xiao’s growing interest in this female scientist, of whom he had previously formed little impression. Although her file indicated she was thirty-two years old, she was impeccably maintained; her skin was delicate, smooth, and firm, making her look like a fresh college graduate while still radiating the allure of a mature woman.

His prior impression of Qu Xuewen was merely that she was Feng Yongwang’s follower, having spent all this time alongside Dr. Feng researching the Ghost fighter. Her professional competence was solid, and compared to the other bookworms, she was much more worldly and socially adept, with above-average looks—nothing more, nothing less.

Qu Xuewen seemed to intentionally or unintentionally press closer to Tang Xiao's side, but Tang Xiao subtly stepped away.

He was no saint, but he genuinely hadn't figured out how to handle this kind of superior-subordinate dynamic. Perhaps sensing the subtle distance Tang Xiao was keeping, Qu Xuewen did not press the matter further. With a light cough, she led Tang Xiao around a corner and directly into the modification bay of the corvette. "Right here. Professor Chi and his team are currently modifying the turbo-laser turrets. Since this falls outside my field of expertise, I've had a bit more free time lately."

A drop of cold sweat slid down Tang Xiao’s temple. So this woman had been leading him in circles just now?

Over there, the hull on one side of the Hammer-class corvette had been completely stripped open, exposing a dense labyrinth of wiring and instruments beneath that gave Tang Xiao goosebumps.

Chi Jianjing was pointing at several wires, explaining, "This is the energy compression zone. We need to add a bulkhead here, but the release lines for two of the flow directors have to pass through this area, so we need to drill through the bulkhead and then apply double insulation. This is the only way to ensure the integrity and safety of the energy compression process. We won't bother with reverse engineering this turbo-laser for now; what we need is to build up adequate combat capability as quickly as possible."

Before him, Feng Yongwang and two other elite experts were like students, frantically taking notes while nodding repeatedly.

Noticing Tang Xiao’s arrival, Chi Jianjing turned around and nodded. "Manager, Dr. Qu has already informed us that you were coming. Coincidentally, I have a few matters to report to you."

"I mainly came to tour our newly commissioned corvette," Tang Xiao said with a smile.

"While the Hammer-class corvette can hardly be called exceptional—all in all, it remains a very crude warship—as a weapon platform, its performance will still vastly surpass the Blade-class fighter. At the very least, its energy tier is much higher. If we had possessed a few Hammer-class corvettes during the last pirate raid, the situation would have gone far better," Chi Jianjing said candidly.

"Let's talk about this corvette."

Chi Jianjing projected a holographic display nearby, pointing to the cutaway diagram of the Hammer-class corvette above it. "This corvette is 31.4 meters long. Its original design featured two medium twin electromagnetic gun turrets with a 40mm caliber, and heavy armor was added to enhance survivability. The consequence is that the armor and ammunition bays consumed a massive amount of space, making the entire interior of the spacecraft feel like a stuffed can of spam."

He tapped the screen, and the cutaway diagram began to shift. "During our research, we optimized the design without overturning the original blueprint. We replaced the twin electromagnetic gun turrets with twin infrared laser turrets. While retaining the heavy armor characteristic, this also saves a vast amount of ammunition bay space, which can now be used to install a larger nuclear fusion engine and an energy shield generator. However, this still fails to conceal the terrible handling and maneuverability of this corvette, and the firepower coverage of the two turrets remains inadequate; it requires a large number of corvettes operating in coordination to truly be effective."

He paused for a moment and added, "This can increase the combat efficiency of the Hammer-class light corvette by about thirty percent, basically bringing it up to a usable standard. But... there is still plenty of room for improvement!"

"Where are the shortcomings?" Tang Xiao humbly asked for guidance.

"Avionics, fire control, flight control!" Chi Jianjing swept his hand through the air, dismissing the cutaway diagram of the Hammer-class corvette on the interface. "I'll be blunt: this corvette is still just an iron box equipped with turrets and an engine. I checked the mothership's technology list, and spacecraft categorized under this 'Kushan Empire' classification, while having the lowest decryption difficulty, generally suffer from low efficiency."

"Do you have any suggestions, then?"

"My suggestion is this." Chi Jianjing opened another page of the technology list, pointing to a long string of spacecraft and technologies. "This technology comes from the Trader Emergency Coalition."

Tang Xiao knew that the Kushan Empire was from *Homeworld*, but the Trader Emergency Coalition? Tang Xiao was momentarily stunned upon hearing the name, but when he opened his own exclusive technology interface, he finally understood what it was.

It seemed that within the mainframe's database, everyone could only see the factions to which these technologies belonged. For example, the Ghost fighter was listed under the Terran faction. As for the fact that this item originated from the *StarCraft* game, that was a conclusion Tang Xiao had drawn himself.

In this light, to everyone else, this technology repository appeared to be a collection gathered from countless civilizations, without evoking any other associations. This conveniently matched the fabricated history of the Fourth Civilization he had concocted, because when the Fourth Civilization finally arrived carrying the spark of their entire galaxy, it wouldn't be surprising at all if it contained technologies from other civilizations.

As for the Trader Emergency Coalition, Tang Xiao was somewhat unfamiliar with it, but as he scrolled further down the entry, he discovered that these were technologies from *Sins of a Solar Empire*!

*Sins of a Solar Empire* was also a grand-scale interstellar warfare game, featuring immensely powerful factions capable of constructing everything from specialized light corvettes to colossal titan warships.

The Trader Emergency Coalition was one of the factions within the game, and a civilization closely resembling humanity at that. Professor Chi must have chosen this technology tree with this exact consideration in mind.