57: Chapter 57 Imposing a Points Tax

"All transmigrators who have not paid enough points, the system will prioritize reclaiming your warships and technology. Those who cannot make up the points will be directly forcibly erased by the system."

Everyone knew that being forcibly reclaimed by the system meant certain death.

"For those with a point debt of less than 50 million, you only need to pay the points you owe; for those with a debt exceeding 50 million, you must pay at least 50 million points."

All the transmigrators read this content, some wailing, some rejoicing.

For instance, some transmigrators who started with inferior warships and technology only owed one or two million points, and they easily paid off all their debts.

There were also transmigrators who, although they owed less than 50 million, were unable to pay off their debts and began desperately trying to scrape together points.

Just as the chat group was in chaos, an astute transmigrator discovered with delight that the space jump engine on their warship was worth exactly 50 million points.

This transmigrator quickly shared their discovery with everyone in the group.

Seeing this message, many people realized that the system intended to reclaim their warship engines, forcibly pinning them down to struggle in this cesspit that is warhammer 40k.

Although many were extremely unwilling, due to the reality of the situation, they had to dismantle the space jump engines from their warships to pay off their debts.

However, most of them had already established a foothold on their own planets and did not really need intergalactic jumps at the moment.

These emerging planetary civilizations currently had a relatively low dependency on space jump engines; after all, they did not need to raid across galaxies, and steady development within their own star system was sufficient.

The starship civilizations, on the other hand, were filled with wailing.

Of course, there were a few stubborn ones who refused to pay the points no matter what.

Just a second after they were still spouting off in the group, the countdown ended, and no matter how the people in the group called out, that ID never replied again.

His friends in the group also confirmed that those who did not pay enough points really would die.

With the previous example, the process of collecting points went exceptionally smoothly.

Everyone either relied on their own strength to gather the points to pay, or simply dismantled their engines to give to the system as payment.

"The collection of points for this time is complete, thank you all for your cooperation. Within the first seven days of the new year, the System Mall will be fully open to you all, so feel free to shop to your heart's content. It will close after seven days, please pay attention to the time."

"The next year's point collection will still begin when Emperor's Day arrives, so please prepare your points in advance."

After saying this, the system went completely silent, and no matter how the people in the group called out, there was no response whatsoever.

"I've finally figured it out. The system is just a debt collector and a middleman earning the price difference; besides collecting money, it's completely useless!"

"What, were you expecting it to give you some life advice?"

"At the very least, it could answer some of our questions, right? For example, why do we all have black avatars, no names displayed, and we can't even create alliance group chats, only private chats?"

"Isn't that simple? If we were allowed to organize alliances, the speed of information transmission would be absurdly fast. For instance, if your Base One were attacked, the Empire's news might take hundreds of years to spread, while we would know in just a few seconds."

"He's right. This would be too game-breaking; what could the Empire and Chaos possibly use to fight us?"

"Exactly. If things continue to develop like this, I only need to borrow another five hundred years from the heavens, and I'll be able to crush all factions. By then, any Chaos God will be kicked into the gutter by me."

Information communication is a major drawback of the warhammer 40k world; even with Astropaths, the Empire's communication efficiency is so low it is appalling.

After reading the content in the group, Xia Xingchen did not pay much attention to it and instead turned his gaze toward the System Mall.

The vast majority of items in the mall were various technical blueprints, along with some special items, such as an exterminatus-level shell capable of destroying an entire star.

Could this also be considered a type of technology?

Xia Xingchen looked at this item in disbelief. It seemed that many transmigrators in the galaxy were holding not complete technical blueprints, but finished equipment, and this equipment possessed terrifying power beyond what ordinary people could imagine.

Of course, there were also some unlucky ones who only received some trash weapons at the start; one could only say their luck was too poor.

Meanwhile, on a Hive City world in the galaxy.

A transmigrator was toying with a scepter in his hand.

The next second, 10,000 cakes appeared in front of him.

He looked at the scepter in his hand speechlessly and could not help but complain: "What is the use of this thing? My ability is just to get 10,000 strawberry-flavored cakes every day."

The transmigrator rubbed his chin and suddenly had a thought: could someone else's ability be to get 10,000 chocolate-flavored cakes every day?

On another planet, a transmigrator sneezed violently.

"Who is it? Who is talking about me? Damn it, I almost dropped my 10,000 chocolate cakes on the ground; how annoying!"

The transmigrator then waved the small flag in his hand.

The next second, 10,000 dark chocolate cakes appeared in front of him.

"Dear guests, the cakes are fresh out of the oven."

Returning our gaze to Xia Xingchen.

Xia Xingchen browsed through all the content in the mall and finally selected three technical blueprints.

The first was soilless cultivation technology, valued at 20 million points;

The second was vertical farming technology, valued at 25 million points;

The third was rapid troop deployment technology, valued at 35 million points.

The first and second technologies go without saying; the core function of both is to increase grain production.

And the third, the one-time rapid deployment technology, was quite impressive.

It could deploy thousands of standard humanoid combat units to any corner of a planet at once.

Of course, it also had many restrictive prerequisites, such as requiring absolute air superiority and needing one's own troops to establish a space teleportation beacon on the ground.

Moreover, this technology had no ability to defend against attacks; simply put, the space teleportation point was extremely easy to destroy.

But sometimes, this technology could also have miraculous effects.

If one could sneakily set up a teleportation beacon in the enemy's core city, it would mean being able to precisely deploy an entire elite force into the city to engage in battle, easily completing decapitation strikes or seizing key locations.

Xia Xingchen pondered his upcoming plans; the core priority right now was not unlimited expansion, but shifting to internal affairs to steadily develop his own strength first.

Therefore, the one-time rapid deployment technology was directly rejected by Xia Xingchen.

The final choice fell on the soilless cultivation and vertical farming technologies.

Xia Xingchen also understood that vertical farming technology required soilless cultivation technology as a foundation, while soilless cultivation technology did not require vertical farming technology as a prerequisite.

In his heart, Xia Xingchen was also more inclined to exchange for the soilless cultivation technology first.

After all, food is the primary red line for development; the root cause of countless riots within the Empire lies in the common people not having enough to eat.

Once people have no food to eat, they will rebel, so it is necessary to ensure that the people under his rule can have full stomachs.

Alright, since he had made up his mind, he would not hesitate any longer.

Xia Xingchen clicked on the exchange button for the soilless cultivation technology without hesitation.