Chapter 52: The Gains
Arcturus immediately perked when he heard that Red Queen discovered something precious because the Mind Ruler\'s spaceship would only have good things. The Mind Flayers were rather picky about the resources and other precious things.
\'The first thing that I need to say, probably is that the Empire\'s Intelligence was right about the possible attack of the Illithids because right now, as we are speaking, one of their Mind Fleets is heading towards the Alaric Star Domain, from their outer territories.
The only good news is that it is a relatively small Mind Fleet, but event at would give the Imperial leet a hard time, considering the fact that the Greenskins are going to attack the Alaric Star Domain at any time right now.\'
Still, the mission was a success because they managed to get confirmation that the Mind Flayers were going to play the fisherman in the conflict between the Eternal Empire of Asurya and some random Orkish WAAAGH! that was heading towards their borders.
With the piece of information, the Imperial Navy could better prepare for the battle that is to come and what was even more important that Arcturus could get tremendous rewards for this.
"And what is the good news that you found in their servers?"
Soon enough, he saw a holo projection from the Red Queen as she was pinpointing him several places in the Chronus Expanse Star Region and Wildstar Star Region, mostly planets, but occasionally, there were whole Star Systems and even Star Domains being marked.
\'These are the planets and places across the Chronus Expanse Star Region and Wildstar Star Region that have been marked by this exploration vessel as strategically important for the Mind Fleet Leviathan to which the Mind Fleet that is going to attack the Imperial Space belongs. Fortunately for us, the Illithids didn\'t have time to relay this information back, so we could take their hard work.
Most of the planets on this list are rich in exotic resources, though they are not without their own dangers, and for some, we would need an army of relatively big size to get a hold of.\'
As the Red Queen was explaining the situation to Arcturus, she put forward two planets. Both of them were Super Planets of enormous size and had some really precious resources.
One of them was an unnamed planet, apparently, and it was full of dangerous flora and fauna. Many of the creatures that lived there were reminiscent of the dinosaurs from the Earth, albeit a bit mutated...
A bit lot.
Even the Mind Flayers it was deemed an extremely dangerous planet. Thus, they decided to bring a whole army of Illithids for the complete subjugation of the world. Not only did this world have rich ore reserves, but the most precious things on the entire planet were the flora and fauna itself.
The beings that lived there were very powerful, and as a source of food, they would be invaluable for the Warriors. Aside from the fact that they could serve as good cannon fodder for the Illithids.
Secondly, on the planet it was found that it contained some extremely precious herbs that were useful for the Psykers. Due to these factors that planet was marked by the Illithids to conquer and was even given highest priority for the thing.
The second planet was equally interesting for Arcturus, mainly because it contained a pretty developed civilization from the start. Or it would be more appropriate to say that it contained a pretty developed civilization in the past.
Planet Aquamarine was peculiar Super Planet that was located in the deepest parts o the Wildstar Star Region.
Due to the presence of almost constant Cosmic Storms, any travel to their Star System was almost impossible, considering the fact that the surrounding Star Systems were all swarming with Cosmic Storms.
This one was discovered by the Mind Flayers by a sheer accident when their spaceship was sucked into one of such Cosmic Storms and appeared near the Planet Aquamarine.
In short, one could say that the entire Planet Aquamarine was one huge Post-Apocalypstic World that recently underwent Apocalypse. What was more entertaining was the fact, that it wasn\'t done by some higher civilization, but it was done by the natives themselves.
Due to some rare herbs that grow on their planet, they wanted to develop a serum that could enhance someone\'s Psionic Potential. Their civilization was rather similar to Arcturus\'s past life and they just discovered the existence of the Psionics.
Thus, they started experimenting with it and creating a serum that would create powerful Psionics or at least enhance their Potential using some of their natural flora.
It seemed that things didn\'t go well, and they indeed developed the prototype of such a serum, but it had certain side effects. Approximately 99% of those who came into contact with it were devoured by the substance and turned into necrotic undead.
Or zombies.
However, these ones were different because these Zombies had the latent Psionic Potential and could evolve.
Soon enough, the virus was spread through the entire planet, and the entire Planet Aquamarine turned into a post-apocalyptic wasteland the moment when the humans living on the planet detonated all of their nuclear arsenals as their last ditch effort to save their very own lives.
The main inhabitants of Planet Aquamarine were ordinary carbon-based humans similar to the ones on Earth. They were just a bit physically stronger and more durable, which was mostly the effect of the increased gravity of Super Planet.
What was suprising though were the notes done by the Illithid captain about whole bunch of herbs that were native to the Planet Aquamarine and were marked with Top-Priority.
In fact, the spacecraft\'s captain planned to secretly infiltrate the Planet Aquamarine to get a few of them for himself because they would be able to increase his Psyker Grade and boost the potency of his Psionic Energy by a whole degree.
This was rather surprising information because herbs that could be used in Alchemy to create Serums or Potions that could boost the Psionic Power or advance someone\'s Psionic Grade were rare.
Still, what caught the Arcturus\'s attention was the fact that the Planet Aquamarine was also deemed to be extremely dangerous. Accordining to the preliminary scans conducted by the squids, there were several Psionic signatures at the Alpha-Grade.
Which meant therre would be ton more of Warriors of the Alpha-Grade, which in turn meant that the world was dangerous for current him like hell.
On top of that, some Zombies evolved into sentient creatures and even managed to create their own factions together with the other sentient zombies, or Flesh-Eaters. Some of the Flesh-Eaters were too powerful for even the Mind Flayers to handle alone, thus they have decided to wait and see.
With the infiltration capabilities of the Illithids, it wouldn\'t be a problem for the Mind Flayer captain to infiltrate the Planet Aquamarine and obtain a few resources for himself before he would report it back to the Mind Fleet.
\'Master, don\'t need to worry; on Planet Aquamarine, there are certain locations that are relatively safe, and we could try them once you advance into higher Grades in both Psyker and Warrior Path. In the near future, I would rather recommend going to the second super-sized planet.\'
He could see the logic in her words, because from a certain point of view, the unnamed prehistoric planet was a bit safer than the Planet Aquamarine. Even though both of them had their own dangers, at least the prehistoric planet didn\'t have any intelligent civilization as it seemed.
The prehistoric planet was in uncharted parts of space, which was usually a no-go zone for anyone who wasn\'t extremely powerful in Psionics or Psyker or had some special spaceship for such purpose.
Arcturus could use the planet\'s safer areas for training and hunting for resources. The meat of some powerful dinosaurs or whatever was down there would be of great benefit to him because it would be a good resource for his cultivation as a Warrior.
Not to mention, if he was lucky, he could find something precious on there.
"Then we would go with that... prepare the Nautiloid for the travel. We are leaving the place as soon as possible."
When everything was resolved, there was no need to remain at the place for any more time.
Red Queen quickly used anti-gravity chains to link the Nautiloid to the Obscurus as Arcturus\'s spaceship entered the hyperspace and went directly for the Rylon Star System, where the Starfort Lycurgos was located.