Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 641 - 256. Not letting me play? Then no one gets to play! (flipping the table)

Chapter 641: 256. Not letting me play? Then no one gets to play! (flipping the table)

"Nikita, my friend, you may understand war and planetary environments well, but you are unfamiliar with economics."

Li Aozi gave a brief explanation:

"In Layer Abyss civilization, we uniformly use the most stable currency, ammonium gold. Ammonium gold possesses divine power and contractual protection, and it often appears as a tool for casting spells. Therefore, basically, everyone universally holds and reserves ammonium gold as foreign exchange currency."

"For a civilization, the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves are an important basis for balancing the entire civilization’s interstellar expenses, especially affecting the exchange rate of the domestic currency against ammonium gold and maintaining confidence in the interstellar financial market. The more sufficient your foreign exchange reserves, the more capable you are of solving problems in the face of economic crises, wars, plagues, natural disasters, and Society invasions."

"A simple economic principle is that currency devaluation is beneficial for exports, while currency appreciation favors imports. Generally, civilizations prefer to keep their currency exchange rate lower than ammonium gold so that they can maintain a low price position in the interstellar market and then dominate it."

"Even for Narrative-level civilizations, although they are not short on money, they still need to reserve large amounts of ammonium gold to maintain interstellar market order so that their hegemony can continue."

"Increasing foreign exchange reserves... the most critical purpose is to stabilize domestic capital, prevent the middle class from emigrating, and avoid investors moving their enterprises and workshops to other civilizations—especially the middle class."

"In interstellar civilizations, the middle class is the best source of technical troops. They care about their children’s education and Pathway ascension but rely on others, lacking industries of their own, and thus lack loyalty to the national civilization."

In short,

the Crystal Tower needs to retain people.

"I slightly compared the highest conference’s official website’s immigration numbers in recent years to external civilizations—basically, the annual immigration growth rate increased by 60%, with a peak year seeing 64 million people giving up the Crystal Tower civilization’s passport. Most of these are young labor forces, between Epsilon Stage (5) and Zeta Rank (6)..."

Li Aozi was too familiar with this setup.

Only by increasing foreign exchange reserves can capital confidence be ensured, and once enterprises and workshops decide to stay, the middle-class families dependent on them will inevitably stay as well.

These are normal operational methods; the impoverished populace at the bottom cannot ascend to Zeta Rank (6) and thus have no ability to enter the battlefield. They don’t even get a chance to fill ranks and often long to change their family’s fate through battling.

In a short while, conscription targets will be middle-class individuals.

The interstellar battlefield is different from that of mortals—the cost of soldiers is very high, but they often turn into space debris, making it hard to even recover. Deploying soldiers below Epsilon Stage (5) would only add to the death toll, lowering morale without any significant gains.

The Crystal Tower’s problem remained as severe as it was five years ago; the battlefield lacked personnel, yet sending mortals would be pointless, not even worth the round-trip fuel cost.

Unless they were players, who would never rest ’till die, and could constantly grow in battles, born war maniacs.

"This time, we are just unlucky, caught up in the Crystal Tower’s middle-class harvesting. What else can we say?"

After analyzing the situation, Li Aozi found no solution.

"The ones competing with us for high-cost-performance planets must be influential, such as the university feudatories and workshop masters that the Crystal Tower needs to rope in, who might have a Kappa Rank (10) mage backing them up. We don’t need to fight for benefits with people like them, let’s just do our job well."

"Hmm... maybe not."

Nikita stroked his chin and said meaningfully:

"Though I don’t understand economics, I trust my experience."

"The Valenkov Autonomy has a state army. We fought from the edges of the Layer Abyss to the Supernova Belt. In our nation, there’s a saying: war itself is the best tourism."

"They might have official insights revealing advantageous planets, but their understanding of local conditions, especially the human and cultural aspects, can’t compare to my knowledge."

"I have reviewed the directory multiple times, and roughly recalled it all. There are details they can never grasp better than I can,"

Nikita’s eyes lit up as he extended an invitation to Li Aozi:

"What do you think, Li Aozi?"

"’No alien understands the thoughts of those planetary natives better than me’—I dare say, hardly anyone in this cosmos can speak with such confidence."

"How about we fleece some wool from those scholastic lords?"

Li Aozi pondered.

After a moment, he spread his hands:

"Why not?"

Li Aozi smirked:

"Earnings gained through labor are certainly satisfying—but only food taken from others’ hands tastes sweet!"

Nikita and Li Aozi shared a knowing smile and began detailing their plan.

The final grab for Baizhu Star by the Crystal Tower had already irked Li Aozi. Now, it seemed like his buyer’s information had been leaked.

This further displeased Li Aozi.

It could even be said that he was getting a bit angry.

Who was he?

Judging by Li Aozi’s glorious feat of fending off a Mechanical World Society invasion to secure Discerning Eye Fragments, he was nothing short of a savior for Baizhu Star.

For various reasons coupled with personal moral cultivation, Li Aozi didn’t go around boasting about his achievement under the banner of ’Society’s Retaliation.’ He was a typical industrialist who eschewed extravagance, relying instead on his strength and foresight from a previous life to expand Newbie Village into Trevela City’s destruction, making it the largest city on Baizhu Star.

With a population of 6 million, consisting of players, local residents, alien refugees, imported scientists, and laborers, he effectively managed the planet’s life-or-death affairs in the absence of interstellar civilization oversight.

One must understand that the people on this planet were akin to the primary ethnic group of the Crystal Tower—the Tanas People.

It was through his own strength and capital that Li Aozi safeguarded the lives of these 3 billion Tanas tribe members.

Even so, the Crystal Tower still aimed to squeeze more money, disregarding Li Aozi’s previous achievements and contributions.

What does 3 billion people mean? Even counting the Outer World, Azure Star only has 2.6 billion people.

The Crystal Tower didn’t care about this. They paid little attention even to someone like Li Aozi, a student and descendant of their civilization.

Li Aozi was very displeased.

First of all,

his money didn’t grow on trees. Originally, he planned to undertake a bitter military campaign in space, rigorously managing his resources to enhance combat power. It took him 100 years of relentless fighting to earn enough ammonium gold.

After earning money through Spirit Maggot, Li Aozi didn’t immediately spend it on himself; otherwise, he’d have reached Kappa Rank (10) by now.

Instead, he cautiously invested, protecting his wealth while improving Baizhu Star’s basics, ensuring that people’s living standards didn’t regress to times of starvation and suffering.

Although profit-driven, Li Aozi was a principled industrialist who valued relationships with those around him. The planet treated him well, so Li Aozi would inevitably meet everyone’s expectations wholeheartedly.

Additionally, something else weighed on his mind:

The Crystal Tower civilization abandoned Baizhu Star’s 3 billion inhabitants for its macro strategy, using them as a shield to cover the real Discerning Eye Fragments’ departure.

Over the past five years, Li Aozi frequently took action, dealing with pirates drawn by the scent, delaying his own development and preventing his second job change.

Honestly speaking, the Crystal Tower itself didn’t help Li Aozi much.

His academic status was settled by Lady Nastisha from Baizhu Star, his friends and classmates were all locals, and his companions in the Aid Study Society were fellow local students from the lower classes.

Even after the government cabinet withdrew, former Baizhu Star Minister of Education, Balkmon, specifically stayed on the outer orbit of this planet under the pretense of ’recuperating’ for several months.

Instead of going to a proper atmospheric planet to recuperate, staying on the outer orbit was ostensibly for healing but effectively protected the planet.

The benefits Li Aozi received all came from the original Baizhu Star natives, without much emotional connection to the Crystal Tower civilization itself, which in contrast moved one benefactor of his after another away.

From village chief to mayor, Li Aozi, favored by this planet, had no plans to abandon its straightforward and sincere people.

Li Aozi had a bad trait: he disliked owing favors.

He would always repay the kindness shown to him, sometimes even giving more in return for peace of mind.

Nomi and Qiu Ran, members of the Metro Brotherhood, and other kind individuals saved his life. In turn, he helped them bust Old Frost Plating.

Alicxia assisted Li Aozi multiple times, so he readily helped her descendants in Grante Duchy achieve republic status.

Grante Duchy offered Li Aozi several advantages; in return, he secured a large batch of armaments for them and encouraged many players to fight for Grante.

According to N4, the armed force even troubled David Lyn during negotiations with Grante.

Isaac provided Li Aozi with conscripted bodies; in return, Li Aozi lavished him with benefits, allowing him to spend his savings freely.

Grante Duchy and Narrow Space Mirror got him into space. Li Aozi didn’t shortchange them either; now both hold positions as Prime Minister and President.

Hence, Li Aozi felt regretful about those he couldn’t repay,

like Du Zexin, Lucite, and Hobbs.

Their abrupt departures and ongoing absences nagged at Li Aozi.

As for Yawen, Li Aozi even knew she held Society citizenship and was a Senator. Yet, he still accepted her, despite the fact that under Starry Abyss law, her actions would warrant capital punishment.

"From now on, I will not let anyone from the Crystal Tower take any advantage from me."

Li Aozi sat up straight, took a deep breath, and his eyes shone brightly:

"Don’t they love scrounging fur?"

"In that case, we won’t let them scrounge a single fur."

"Give me all the money they’ve earned from me, and they better spit it all out!"

If I don’t make money, then no one gets to make money!