During this new era of massive construction, Xiao Yu planned to retrofit all his ships into faster-than-light vessels powered by elemental decay, and to equip them all with Four-Dimensional Space Shields.

According to Xiao Yu’s blueprint, ships below the County-Class would not be equipped with the Four-Dimensional shields, they would only retain conventional Level 4 Civilization technology, namely the Force Field Shield. Only County-Class ships and above would be fitted with Four-Dimensional shields. With a total of one hundred thousand Four-Dimensional shields available, this meant an immense construction project.

Xiao Yu had even considered constructing a Nation-Class ship, but after carefully evaluating his current level of technology, he gave up on that idea. Instead, he decided to build a few more Province-Class ships.

Xiao Yu drafted a detailed construction checklist. It included ten Province-Class ships, five thousand City-Class ships, more than ninety-four thousand County-Class ships, and several hundred thousand Town and Village-Class ships. Among them, the large warships such as the Province and City-Class vessels would be constructed using the highest-grade materials, those containing more than fifty percent Alien Beast flesh. Ships at County-Class and below would be built with materials that incorporated Swarm limbs.

After the release of this construction list, Xiao Yu’s war strategy subtly shifted as well.

In past wars, Xiao Yu primarily used County-Class ships as squad flagships, with each such ship leading a battle squad composed of hundreds of Town or Village-Class ships. But once the tasks on the construction list were completed, Xiao Yu would elevate the scale of his battle squads: each squad would now be led by a City-Class flagship, accompanied primarily by County-Class ships. Under this new model, Town and Village-Class ships would shift from frontline combat roles to duties centered around harassment and intelligence gathering.

By then, Xiao Yu’s fleet would total nearly six hundred thousand ships, including nearly ten thousand logistics vessels, large dockyard ships, and more.

However, before construction could begin, one major obstacle stood in Xiao Yu’s path, insufficient computing power.

Back in the Aquila Nebula, Xiao Yu could construct a Supercomputing Center to manage the control of ultra-miniature starships in the hundreds of billions. But here, that approach was no longer viable.

Large ships had to be directly commanded by Xiao Yu himself. Only under his personal control could their full combat capabilities be unleashed. Future interstellar battlefields would rarely involve Swarm-style tide warfare.

Therefore, the development of a new generation of computers became a top priority on Xiao Yu’s research agenda.

“It’s time to begin quantum computer development,” Xiao Yu thought, and passed this task on to the Luka scientists, while also beginning preliminary research into quantum computing himself.

Before quantum computing, Xiao Yu had already acquired a vast amount of foundational knowledge through his studies on the Grand Unified Theory and Superluminal Communication. The necessary knowledge base for quantum computer research had already been completed.

With all conditions in place, the development process of the quantum computer unfolded without any turbulence. By Xiao Yu’s timekeeping, on an afternoon no different from any other, the first practical quantum computer was born in the laboratory.

With the advent of this first quantum computer, quantum technology began developing at lightning speed. Quantum computers rapidly grew larger and faster, bringing Xiao Yu greatly expanded computational power. And computational power meant command capability. The changes brought about by the birth of quantum computing were nothing short of revolutionary for Xiao Yu.

The central computer system aboard the Hebei was the first to be upgraded into a quantum system. Once installed in the new quantum framework, Xiao Yu’s confidence surged once again.

“With the computing power I now possess, even if I were to encounter that Swarm Queen again in the Aquila Nebula, I’d have enough computational power to directly command those hundreds of billions of ultra-miniature combat starships, even without constructing a Supercomputing Center,” Xiao Yu thought with some pride.

Amidst the intense construction and research work, Xiao Yu’s fleet was undergoing a fundamental transformation.

Twenty years after arriving at the Star of Hope, the first City-Class starship retrofitted with faster-than-light capability was completed. Powered by elemental decay technology, it could reach a maximum speed of five times the speed of light. At such a speed, a round trip between the Solar System and the Tianyuan IV star system would take only four years.

To celebrate the birth of the first truly large-scale faster-than-light ship, Xiao Yu organized a small-scale celebration. As part of the event, he also arranged another program: a performance test of the Four-Dimensional Space Shield.

The Four-Dimensional Shield Generators left behind by Taihao had no size restrictions. The amount of energy input directly determined the shield’s size. When the energy input stopped, the shield would vanish. This characteristic allowed Xiao Yu to freely deploy them, whichever ship he wanted to equip with one, he simply could.

This faster-than-light City-Class ship was already equipped with a Four-Dimensional Shield Generator.

Under Xiao Yu’s control, the massive starship slowly departed from the space dock and drifted into open space. After traveling some distance, several enormous cannons locked onto it.

The projectiles prepared by Xiao Yu this time were high-yield elemental decay bombs. Each of these bombs possessed destructive power equivalent to millions of tons of hydrogen bomb force.

The results came as no surprise to Xiao Yu. He watched as the bombs exploded, releasing deadly radiation and energy, none of which caused the ship any damage. All fatal forces were completely blocked by the Four-Dimensional Shield.

The strength of the Four-Dimensional Shield exceeded Xiao Yu’s expectations.

“Hmm… Driven by elemental decay, the Four-Dimensional Shield has an incredibly powerful defense. Essentially, unless struck continuously by extremely high-yield weaponry, it cannot be breached. With this, I will possess overwhelming superiority when facing any other Level 4 Civilizations.”

Xiao Yu joyfully saved the test results and threw himself back into the shipbuilding task with renewed enthusiasm.

The Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing, the four City-Class ships were upgraded into Province-Class ships during this great construction era. Additionally, Xiao Yu built five more Province-Class ships: the Henan, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Jilin. Including the original Hebei, Xiao Yu now possessed ten Province-Class ships in total.

Among these ten ships, the most powerful was the Beijing. Its empty mass alone reached seventy million tons, and its full mass approached two hundred million tons. It possessed the most complete defensive systems, the most formidable offensive capability and maneuverability, and the largest reserves of resources. The Beijing replaced the Hebei as Xiao Yu’s new flagship.

All ten Province-Class ships were equipped with faster-than-light engines.

Alongside them, over 2,000 City-Class ships were completed. Xiao Yu’s fleet was expanding at a jaw-dropping speed.

This was the advantage brought about by the integration of Xiao Yu and his quantum computers. According to his estimates, even Level 5 Civilizations might not achieve this level of production speed.

Xiao Yu’s power was increasing by the day and increasing rapidly.

One hundred years after reaching the Star of Hope, the construction of all Province-Class and City-Class ships was complete. Xiao Yu immediately began work on the County-Class ships and other smaller vessels.

The construction of over 90,000 County-Class ships and several hundred thousand smaller ships took Xiao Yu several more decades. Finally, nearly two hundred years after his arrival at the Star of Hope, Xiao Yu had completed every task on his construction list.

Before him now stood a powerful fleet composed of nearly 600,000 ships. Every one of them had faster-than-light travel capability. All County-Class ships and above were equipped with both Four-Dimensional and Force Field Shields, while the smaller ships possessed significantly enhanced survivability and intelligence-gathering capabilities.

In addition to combat ships, Xiao Yu also had nearly ten thousand logistics ships, including resource transports and large dockyard ships. At this moment, Xiao Yu’s power had reached a new peak.

Plenty of troops, ample supplies, and high morale.

“How should I allocate my time going forward?” Xiao Yu pondered. “Should I stay here and continue advancing my technology, or set out on a journey to engage with other civilizations, exchanging ideas, clashing, and fighting to drive progress?”

Both choices had their own appeal. Staying here to develop offered the primary benefit of safety. But safety also meant no external pressure, no exchange or conflict with other civilizations, and inevitably, slower scientific progress. Moreover, now was a rare and perfect opportunity: the Sweepers were damaged, and the Guardians had disappeared. Xiao Yu was truly reluctant to give up such a chance.

“I’ll venture out,” Xiao Yu decided. “Developing through confrontation with other civilizations, though risky, clearly comes with obvious rewards.”

Just then, Xiao Yu suddenly received a transmission. After reading it, he couldn’t help but feel both amused and exasperated.

“Want access to technology beyond your current tier? Want to fully develop your tech tree? Want access to more information? Come on in. So long as you’re willing to trade your tech or materials, you can get anything you desire!”

“Azure Market, founded by the Molian Civilization, a Level 5 Civilization. Whether you’re Level 3, Level 4, or Level 5, here you’ll find safety and fair trade guaranteed.”

“Azure Market looks forward to your visit! Galactic coordinates: …”