Starting from the Planetary Governor

Chapter 1073: Chapter 584, The Alliance is Too Appealing_2

Here, Gu Hang could reduce the cost of replenishing new blood for the battle group by three to four hundred Gift Points.

Quite a bargain.

And this batch of Interstellar Warriors Gu Hang developed outwardly numbered only 500, but in truth, there were as many as 1,800.

Among them, 500 were assigned to the Phoenix.

Another 300 were sent to the Blood Shark.

The Blood Shark Battle Group, which had assisted the Alliance and rescued three Strike Cruisers, lost two of their own Strike Cruisers during subsequent battles. This time, the Blood Shark Battle Group that returned with Commander Youwin had a total of just over 700 members, but by this point, over 200 of them had been lost.

These losses were significant for the Blood Shark and extremely difficult to bear.

Unlike the Phoenix, they didn’t have an invincible and enduring support system to rely on.

Gu Hang couldn’t exactly reveal everything to the Blood Shark Battle Group, with whom he wasn’t yet sufficiently trusting or close.

But that didn’t mean Gu Hang couldn’t act in this way.

The Genetic Seeds of the Blood Shark didn’t require Gu Hang to exchange Gift Points for them.

Though it was likely he could exchange for them in the near future.

The [Event] interface had already displayed an event related to the Blood Shark.

[Event Activated: Blood Shark Battle Group]

[An Interstellar Warrior Battle Group returning from the dark outer regions, they’ve decided to end their long nomadic life and rejoin the Empire’s sphere of influence. They urgently seek to establish their prestige and power within the Empire, aiming for a brighter future. The Alliance is their first stop, but will it be their final one?]

[Please decide your actions carefully. Your behavior will determine the next phase of the event.]

[Event Reward: Once the Blood Shark pledges allegiance to you, unlock the ability to exchange for Blood Shark Genetic Seeds.]

Gu Hang had not cared much for this event reward in the past, but a recent discovery made it something he had to take seriously.

He had uncovered a limitation in the [Battle Group] interface: The number of Phoenix Genetic Seeds that could be exchanged was finite!

The total number of Phoenix Genetic Seeds in existence, whether implanted in people or held as spares, could not exceed 2,000. Once this cap was reached, new seeds could not be exchanged unless some were lost from the Alliance’s control — for example, failing to recover them, them becoming inactive or destroyed, or paying the Genetic Seed tax to the Empire…

This limitation had never previously come up because he had never been idle or rich enough to exchange large quantities of seeds and stockpile them for no reason.

But this time, when he wanted to push the boundaries a bit to create more Interstellar Warriors, he hit the cap and found himself stuck.

Gu Hang’s vision of using Phoenix Seeds to create hundreds of thousands of Interstellar Warriors and establish a “Phoenix Legion” was shattered. It seemed he still needed to go down the path of collecting seeds from different battle groups to increase the number of seeds available for exchange.

Under these circumstances, the Blood Shark Genetic Seeds, which Gu Hang had previously not paid much attention to, suddenly became quite desirable.

How could this goal be achieved?

The Blood Shark wasn’t like the half-dead Phoenix of yesteryears, which could be easily manipulated.

On the contrary, the Blood Shark was currently very strong.

This meant it would require more effort and subtlety.

Gu Hang planned to adopt a maneuver — “clearing the nest to replace the bird.”

The Blood Shark had a tradition of collecting blood tax, and Gu Hang had already agreed to this.

This time, during their campaign with the Alliance, the Blood Shark had not engaged much in ground combat. As a result, their consumption of cannon fodder was minimal, and their need to replenish auxiliary personnel was small.

Their current blood tax request to the Alliance was for “exceptionally strong, resolute, devoutly faithful, and highly skilled young men.”

This, in essence, was the core of the blood tax: selecting youths capable enough to satisfy the Blood Shark’s standards and become the new blood of their battle group.

On the surface, this was an extremely stringent requirement. While physical fitness, military skills, faith, and determination weren’t too difficult to meet individually, the key restriction to “young men” made it especially troublesome.

A 16-year-old youth seldom possessed all these qualities simultaneously.

According to the Blood Shark’s experience, meeting these criteria required selecting from tens of thousands, and then subjecting them to rounds of bloody and brutal trials and combat baptisms.

This was akin to nurturing poison through mutual slaughter; those who survived were undeniably the best of the group. Whether due to their own initial excellence or growth during the grueling process, as long as they met the objective, it was sufficient.

But for Gu Hang, selecting qualified new blood wasn’t difficult at all.

After replenishing the Phoenix, there was still a surplus of youths whom Gu Hang had trained.

Three hundred young men were sent into the Blood Shark. Prior to this, not only had Gu Hang trained them to T1 level, significantly increasing the success rate of their Genetic Seed implantation surgeries, but they had all undergone additional Gift Point training in “Political Officer” expertise.

The Blood Shark wouldn’t immediately accept all of them wholesale, but Commander Youwin would soon discover that the 300 youths sent by the Alliance fulfilled their requirements perfectly. Even compared to the auxiliary candidates selected through their previously ruthless screening methods, few could rival these 300.

As for their loyalty to the Alliance?

Even setting aside whether the Blood Shark’s evaluation process accounted for such factors, most normal battle groups rarely concerned themselves with such matters.

Interstellar Warriors’ lifespans bordered on eternity. Compared with the decades or centuries they would spend living and fighting in the battle group, the fleeting mortal experiences of 16-year-olds were insignificant. A small attachment to their homeland was normal, but it would soon be eroded through the cultural immersion of the battle group.

This cultural transformation wouldn’t even account for the significant physical changes resulting from Genetic Seed implantation, evolving the youths from mortals into superhumans. This process involved considerable physical pain and emotional shifts induced by hormonal imbalances.

In short, almost no battle group worried about such concerns.

Could Youwin have foreseen that the “Political Officer” training would instill unwavering and long-lasting loyalty to the Governor in these youths?

Probably not.

In any case, Gu Hang didn’t intend for these youths to do anything unusual.

They only needed to be good Blood Sharks.

These “new Blood Sharks” didn’t even require Gu Hang to provide Genetic Seeds. After their implantation, system recognition still categorized them as part of the Alliance.

This only reassured Gu Hang regarding their loyalty while enabling him to plan his next steps.

He spared no effort in leveraging the Interstellar Warrior-exclusive training systems to push the development of these “new Blood Sharks” to the limits. Not everyone had the aptitude to be trained to the level of a company champion; out of the 300, only 18 could reach this rank. However, everyone could be trained as veterans, with half even reaching the rank of Sergeant.

From Youwin’s perspective, this was an outright delight: the youths provided by the Alliance not only exhibited exceptionally high implantation success rates — minimizing the Genetic Seed Bank’s losses — but also excelled tremendously during their growth phase after integrating their superhuman organs. Remarkably, they quickly achieved the performance standards expected of Blood Sharks!

This was exceedingly rare!

The impressive combat capabilities of older Blood Sharks were earned through years of dark and harrowing battles in the outer regions. To see new recruits reach — or even slightly surpass — such levels was a source of immense excitement!

The battle group’s strength, initially predicted to take many years to rebuild, had been restored in a remarkably short time.

Originally, Youwin had intended to adjust post-campaign strategies to reduce manpower deployment in certain battles with the Alliance.

But now, adjustments were still necessary—only this time, they would involve dispatching more troops!

The Alliance’s blood tax was simply too good.

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