139: I never imagined that Gou Shi's plane would be enough for you.

Received a Master Certification from the big shot Ke Qing, who loves saving the world.

Currently owing 23.5 chapters.

...

Upon hearing this, Xi Hai realized, are they eyeing his vesta a021 and mistral?

Sitting opposite him, Kelaifu stopped his incessant chatter, stared into Xi Hai's eyes, and leaned forward.

It seems that incident at Ursa Major V12.22 really left a deep impression on him.

Even though the Imperial fleet acting as bait back then was beaten so badly partly because their Shields had been dismantled, sold off, or embezzled, there was no doubt that those little flying sticks performed exceptionally well.

After thinking for a moment, Xi Hai agreed: "That's easy to talk about, but since you want to configure a complete carrier-based aircraft system, I need to consider the actual situation."

"I need the specific parameters of those two aircraft carriers."

"Furthermore, to confirm the battlefield positioning of those carriers, I need to conduct an on-site inspection, and it would be best if I could copy the flight logs from those two carriers."

Seeing that Xi Hai agreed to cooperate, Kelaifu seemed to heave a sigh of relief, and he immediately stated:

"The specific parameters are no problem."

"However, regarding copying the data, those two Warships have undergone multiple data overwrites and deletions. Currently, the earliest record is from when they were retired in the third era and placed into the Warship graveyard."

"Moreover, some Warships have participated in secret missions, and their security clearance is higher than my authority."

"If you want their data, you have to apply—and it likely won't be approved."

Xi Hai expressed his understanding, "Let's apply and see first."

"But, what about the on-site inspection?"

Kelaifu stood up directly, flexed his wrists, and said: "That doesn't matter, we can leave right now."

...

The request to copy the logs was undoubtedly rejected. The crew of those two aircraft carriers gave the reason that they had executed secret missions and could not disclose information, only willing to provide a portion of the combat logs for reference.

But this instead piqued Xi Hai's curiosity—hiding things?

What are you babbling about?

Just because you won't let me see it, does that mean night lamp can't hack in?

I was just asking you out of politeness (DOGE).

Soon, the Shuttle they were riding reached the port area.

Amidst the dense steel structures, two black behemoths lay quietly, their cold metallic luster flickering under the blinking warning lights, as if exuding a silent pressure—

If one ignored the external armor that had clearly been replaced many times and had obvious color discrepancies, it was indeed quite intimidating.

A person wearing an Imperial Navy Colonel's uniform stood at the entrance of the connecting Bridge. Looking at the approaching Kelaifu, he saluted with an Imperial military salute and said: "Supreme Director (the Imperial Navy's term for the Minister of Military Affairs), the Star Visitor is ready for inspection!"

Kelaifu walked over, returned the salute, and then stepped aside, "This is the Tianjin Seat V89 Navy Supreme Director, Grand Duke Chu Xiluo. Your task is to lead him on an inspection of your ship."

The Colonel turned to Xi Hai again and also gave an Imperial military salute, "Respected Grand Duke," "Colonel Bente reports to you!"

Xi Hai signaled, and then, under Bente's guidance, walked toward the interior of the Warship.

...

"Star Visitor, a CM-077 carrier modified from the Third Epoch."

"She is 2300 meters long and has a maximum carrier-based aircraft capacity of 1600 C-22 amphibious heavy attack aircraft produced by the Empire."

"Currently, the combat radius of this type of fighter is only about 1-2 gimi."

"But obviously, this is already enough—the Imperial Naval Aviation's combat positioning is to participate in orbital support and the contest for air superiority during planetary warfare."

On the Shuttle, Bente kept explaining the Warship beneath their feet, his proud tone as if they had built the ship themselves.

Xi Hai responded perfunctorily from time to time; he was focusing on night lamp's hacking progress into the Warship's central control room—

This electronic attack was actually simple. Relying on the overflowing materialized data stream, night lamp easily visited the main database here. As for the recovery of deleted data, that would take some time.

It seems that the human-brain computer isn't always turned on.

Suddenly, their feet jerked as the Shuttle they were riding stopped. The hatch opened, revealing a vast dome— "This is Hangar One."

Xi Hai looked in the direction Bente pointed. Under the dome, four rows of fighters about twenty meters long were neatly and densely arranged.

The obvious open-and-close air intakes and slender wings all indicated that these fighters still followed basic aerodynamic layouts—full of a backward aura, he thought.

For the rest of the tour, until he left the ship, he didn't see anything else that could interest him.

Originally, he wanted to see this aircraft carrier from the Third Epoch and see how it differed from the carriers in the setting, but the result clearly disappointed him: the relics of the Third Epoch here were just a shell, and all other parts had been "localized" by the Empire.

However, in this era, for a piece of equipment, "localization" is a derogatory term.

First, the core combat power of the carrier, the carrier-based aircraft. On this carrier, whether it was bombers, interceptors, or attack aircraft, they were all designed with amphibious warfare as the center. Their combat power could only bully the small fries on the surface.

And its battlefield positioning had undoubtedly changed from a backbone force to a roadside stray, only fit to act as an orbital airport in security operations and suppression warfare.

And the reason why the Naval Aviation had become such a mess was simple—the Empire's carrier-based aircraft recovery technology was unimaginably terrible.

The small locators that could be installed on carrier-based aircraft still had a positioning deviation of several thousand meters within 1-2 gimi, and they could barely find their position with a little guidance from the communication system.

And when the distance expanded to 5 gimi, this number would become 1 gimi; when it expanded to 10 gimi, it would become 3 gimi—and when the fighter flew beyond 20 gimi, the positioning system would automatically disconnect.

Unlike those human missile parts and Amnesty Soldiers, no matter how bad the Imperial Naval Aviation Pilots were, they were decent folks and had received a certain amount of training.

If every time a carrier performed a mission it had to come at the cost of losing a large group of Pilots, the Imperial Naval Aviation would sooner or later face a generational gap.

After the tour, Xi Hai felt his biggest gain was that night lamp had copied a data stream from the Third Epoch on this Warship, which was now stored in the database and could be viewed after decompression.

But for now—he had to prepare fighters for these guys.

mistral and vesta a021, since they specifically asked for them, he would give them.

Anyway, the cooperation agreement between him and the Empire did not include the provision of blueprints.

And if the technology on these fighters could be successfully reverse-engineered by interstellar natives whose technology tree path was completely different, then the four major enterprises of Never Ending could just go find a piece of tofu to smash their heads against.

As for the configuration of other aircraft? Arrange balanced anderson SC020, and add a bullfrog, and that would be complete.

As for selling a large number of powerful fighters on hand to the Empire, what would he do himself? That's simple, isn't it? Strengthen his own Warships and then nerf the versions for sale.

First, slash the flight controls—anyway, AI isn't allowed here. Reduce the ammunition of the weapon system and slash the caliber. Finally, give the engine a slash, making the already castrated pieces of junk even worse.

As for the recovery issue, check out Reciprocating Command Bridge Technology (R1).

This was an even harsher slash than the four major enterprises. Finally, when considering the pricing, Xi Hai felt trembling, and in the end, he only chose a few numbers slightly higher than the norm—

anderson 500,000 energy currency each. Vesta A 1.2 million, mistral 800,000, bullfrog 3 million (Normal frigate-class starship prices are mostly around 20-50 million energy currency).

It's just—he overestimated the Empire's lower limit and underestimated his own upper limit:

Watching the balanced anderson frolicking in mid-air, listening to the excited roars of the test Pilots, and after testing the reciprocating flight within a 1AU radius— "This is a real airplane."

That's right, those were Kelaifu's exact words.

And looking at the excited Imperial Naval Aviation personnel, Xi Hai said nothing, just followed the call in his heart to "be bold," and quietly added a 0 to the price of those items.