Chapter 164: Alpha Assimilation Zerg
Xu Luo didn't report back to Zhong Tianyue immediately. Although he had obtained enough Divine Domain cores, he felt that since he had already started, he might as well be more thorough.
Having just acquired some Divine Domain cores, he took advantage of this social event opportunity, when everyone's morale was high, to hold an internal meeting. This was to create an internal gathering place for their Umbrella group.
Initially, he thought about doing all this on the starships, but after this carnival, Xu Luo realized there was no need. They could completely set up their own independent place as their base.
At first, he considered seizing someone else's Divine Domain, but other people's possessions were unpredictable. If that person was unyielding and directly self-destructed their Divine Domain, then this so-called base would cease to exist.
Using his own Divine Domain as the base was naturally impossible; no one would agree to such a thing.
So finally, Xu Luo made the decision to conquer a plane world and use it as their base. Each person would leave a teleportation gate on it, making it convenient for coming and going.
However, this teleportation gate was limited to divine avatars only; units were not allowed to be teleported. Of course, if it was a unit card, there were no restrictions.
This plane world served as a platform, connecting all Umbrella members. They could freely travel between this plane world and their own Divine Domains.
On this platform, Xu Luo specifically set up a complete management system. Any needs could be posted as tasks, and Umbrella internal members could accept tasks or commission others according to their abilities.
These tasks could include help, search or protection, and even team exploration.
They could also post their own needs, such as items or resources and units. Complete transactions could be conducted here.
So at first, Xu Luo just put his own things up to stock the warehouse, then left it alone. Related matters were left to the alchemy golems to handle.
As long as the requirements were set, everything could proceed according to procedure. The reason for not letting any member manage it was to avoid others thinking there was any trickery involved.
Xu Luo himself did not directly manage this internal platform.
Everyone could set up stalls to sell things on it. Buying things didn't require extra expenses, but selling would incur a tax.
This was his purpose for creating this platform.
Over a hundred thousand Umbrella members would exchange resources on it, with items from dozens or hundreds of civilizations circulating. When this platform truly grew, many things that civilizations needed but couldn't find purchase channels for would all be available here.
Even if they couldn't be found immediately, they could commission other members to search in their respective Divine Domain main cities. This would naturally make things much simpler.
At this time, the platform had just been established and was still very rudimentary. Initially, Xu Luo didn't think about earning much from this platform. It was just a place to increase cohesion among members while also enhancing their strength.
These Umbrella members still thought Xu Luo was so kind-hearted. They felt that although they were being exploited, it was just paying the Umbrella fee once every real month. Apart from this, other aspects were quite good.
Now he was even providing a plane world for free, allowing them to conduct internal circulation. Moreover, because it was in a plane world, they didn't have to worry about their coordinates being discovered by others when communicating with each other, ensuring safety.
As for the small fee charged, it was just to maintain this plane world. They didn't feel there was anything wrong with it.
However, these members still underestimated Xu Luo's sinister intentions, not knowing what he was really planning.
They didn't know about something called middleman profit.
Xu Luo indeed didn't charge much for maintenance fees on this platform. He even hoped they could earn more money on this platform, so that everyone's strength would become greater.
But what they didn't know was that the more the lower-level members earned, the more Xu Luo would get in the end.
Because every member needed to pay him protection fees. And the amount of these protection fees was directly linked to the member's monthly income. Therefore, the more they earned, the more Xu Luo would take as a cut. This was his true purpose.
After this successful operation, the Umbrella's name became well-known among many nearby civilizations.
Those civilizations they plundered issued bounties and, together with their allies, posted wanted notices. Some other civilizations were also trembling in fear, worried they might be the next target.
Unlike general plunderer groups, which were usually individuals or small teams with limited harm, the Umbrella was different. Where else would you find over a hundred thousand people acting together like locusts, directly causing countless people to suffer wherever they went? The economic losses caused were immeasurable; it was practically a small-scale war.
More importantly, they would plunder and run, not staying at all. People couldn't even chase them if they wanted to. They came and went freely, like the wind. And because they had no specific purpose, they were even harder to fathom.
After plundering ten star regions in one go, Xu Luo didn't organize members to continue plundering.
The target was too big, and various civilizations had become vigilant and made certain responses. Unlike at the beginning when all powerful geniuses were concentrated in the central area and the outer areas were all weak, if they acted again, it wouldn't be as smooth.
Moreover, the previous plundering operation also caused significant losses for Umbrella members. Although they indeed gained huge benefits, they needed some time to digest these gains.
Therefore, continuous operations in a short time would only cause greater losses, which would be unfavorable for development.
Xu Luo casually posted a long-term purchase task for Divine Domain cores on the plane platform, then didn't bother with these matters anymore.
Instead, he turned around and handed over the Divine Domain cores in his possession to Zhong Tianyue, letting him take them to the Education Department to complete the task.
As for Zhong Tianyue's surprised expression at that time, there's no need for further elaboration.
Anyone who saw him produce so many Divine Domain cores at once would be very surprised.
More importantly, the quantity far exceeded expectations.
Regarding these Divine Domain cores, Xu Luo didn't think about donating them for free, and the Education Department wouldn't accept such conditions.
However, he didn't want credit points or faith power.
At this time, the most important thing for him was starships. So Xu Luo directly converted these Divine Domain cores into starships of equal value, asking the school to build them as soon as possible.
As for the price, he naturally asked the Education Department for that. He only needed to give himself enough starships, not caring about anything else.
The reason Xu Luo wanted to build a large number of starships at this time was because a new type of Zerg appeared in his projections.
It was because of the appearance of this Zerg that he saw hope for large-scale construction of Zerg fleets, and thus had the ambition to dominate the entire universe.
The Alpha Assimilation Zerg was a spore-type Zerg. Its level wasn't high, only Silver Tier 1.
Moreover, this type of Zerg had no hope of promotion and no potential. It seemed very weak and was of no help in battle.
But for Xu Luo, seeing this Zerg made him even happier than when he obtained the Leviathan.
Because the appearance of this Zerg directly freed him from the limitations of the Queen, and he no longer had to worry about constraints on the number of Zerg.
The Alpha Assimilation Zerg had only one ability: parasitism.
Like spore plants, it could project seeds to parasitize other creatures, then slowly assimilate this creature, making it regress and gradually turn into a Zerg egg.
This Zerg egg was a bit special, different from those produced by the Queen.
Because the eggs produced by the Queen actually had potential. After hatching, they could reach higher levels.
But the eggs assimilated by the Alpha Assimilation Zerg did not have the ability to evolve.
Although like normal Zerg eggs, they could hatch into any Zerg needed at will, the strength of the hatched Zerg was fixed and couldn't be improved further.
Moreover, they could only hatch Zerg up to Silver Tier 9 at most, unable to hatch Gold-tier ones.
However, this problem was completely insignificant for Xu Luo.
He never needed the Zerg's evolutionary nature. Directly plundering other creatures' genes and fundamentally improving was the most convenient and direct way.
If he needed Gold-tier Zerg, it was simple; he could just use eggs produced by the Queen. What he needed now was to greatly increase the number of Zerg, allowing him to build fleet after fleet to invade one star region after another.
Especially earlier, the beam attack formed by the Stam Ray Worms, that power made his eyes light up. He wanted to hatch more Stam Ray Worms.
But Stam Ray Worms had very weak individual strength and consumed a large number of eggs. With scarce combat power, he naturally prioritized improving other Zerg.
Now, the appearance of the Alpha Assimilation Zerg meant he no longer had to worry about the number of eggs and could improve the Zerg he needed at will.
When he first obtained this new type of bug, Xu Luo's first thought was to immediately start the invasion plan and begin his conquest journey.
But this idea had just arisen when he eliminated it.
Because directly invading those novice Divine Domains, the number of creatures in these novice Divine Domains or novice Gods' Divine Domains was actually not large. The creatures in others' Divine Domains weren't as numerous as Zerg. How many could there be in such a short development time? It was impossible to satisfy his needs.
He couldn't go to great lengths to attack one Divine Domain after another. The heavy losses incurred to let Alpha Assimilation Zerg parasitize simply weren't worth it.
This had to consider a cost-effectiveness issue, and it would definitely be uneconomical in the end.
As for secretly teleporting Alpha Assimilation Zerg into others' Divine Domains, no one was that stupid. The Divine Domain was a God's backyard. Any foreign object entering it would be discovered immediately. After some investigation, it would be found out right away, so quietly developing was completely unrealistic.
Therefore, the ideal method was to find plane worlds.
In plane worlds, there were numerous living creatures, and their strength was relatively weak. Although there were powerful individuals, their numbers were not large.
More importantly, entering such worlds would not attract the attention of certain beings. Most plane worlds were unclaimed, and anyone could enter them.
When Xu Luo thought of this, he suddenly realized that plane worlds were what everyone was looking for! Every discovery of a plane world would cause a bloodbath, with countless forces fighting over it.
He thought it was simple to put Alpha Assimilation Zerg in and assimilate, but the problem was he had to find a plane world first!
Plane worlds were not easy to find.
Although every school seemed to have many low, medium, and even high-level plane worlds, those were found by countless teachers and staff outside, brought back at great cost.
And when these people were looking for plane worlds, it was very difficult. They all sent out their avatars.
In the Novice Divine Domain, there were also large and small plane worlds scattered throughout, especially in the central area where there were more plane worlds. Most were occupied by those powerful experts. This was why strong individuals gathered in the central area; resources were abundant, so everyone flocked there.
Having no clue about plane worlds and finding them himself was very troublesome, so Xu Luo's approach was actually very simple. He directly bought plane world coordinates in the novice main city, while also posting messages within the Umbrella to purchase plane world information from them.
Because for many people without enough strength, even if they discovered plane worlds, they didn't have enough power to conquer them. So they would rather sell the information they knew to others for some compensation.
After all, guarding a plane world wouldn't yield any benefits, so it was better to sell it early and exchange for resources to strengthen themselves.
As for developing it later when they became powerful, by that time the plane world might not even exist anymore. After all, chaotic storms were constantly erupting, and plane worlds were rising and sinking, disappearing and regenerating!