The Star Thief technicians had already done their best to salvage the situation, but twenty-five seconds later, a violent explosion occurred at the power center.

When designing this lair, the Star Thieves had considered it thoroughly, including contingency plans for a central explosion.

However, it only allowed part of the energy to escape into space, preventing a catastrophic event in the sealed area.

Yet even so, the impact of the explosion could not be underestimated.

With a muffled sound, the entire space shook violently, and the brightly lit city instantly turned exceedingly dark.

Immediately, a massive shock wave rolled in, penetrating numerous buildings and igniting several blazes.

Screams erupted everywhere, with silhouettes of people fleeing; the vicinity of the power center seemed like hell on earth.

Qu Jianlei draped himself in golden armor, and with a slight movement of his wrist, a fine line appeared on the handle of his alloy walking stick.

The walking stick appeared seamless, without any joints, as if it was formed all at once.

But in fact, Qu Jianlei had placed a storage ring, sachet, and storage talisman in the hollow of the handle.

He then employed gold attribute convergence to refine the interface, so even instruments couldn't detect it.

Now it's quite convenient to access; he removed items, directly stowed the walking stick into the storage ring, and took out a short blade.

For him now, unless it's a large-scale slaughter, there's no need for a gun.

There were numerous surveillance devices in the lair, but most had ceased functioning due to lack of power.

A small number of surveillance cameras had batteries and were still operating, but Xiaohu had infiltrated the central control system, rendering them ineffective.

Qu Jianlei's figure flickered bizarrely as he navigated the dim underground city, reaching the prison in a few seconds.

In the Star Thief lair's prison, besides hostages, there were prisoners and delinquent star thieves.

Not many people were held here, around four hundred or more, and with the power outage, the doors had already locked shut.

Qu Jianlei pulled out a piece of high-explosive fire bomb, blew open the door, rushed in, and slew several guards to release the captives.

He then tossed a heap of firearms and ammo, his body flickered, and he mysteriously disappeared again.

Someone questioned his name from behind, but he couldn't be bothered to respond.

Among these people were atrocious criminals, as well as soldiers and Awakened who refused to surrender after capture.

Creating some chaos was never an issue, right?

His next target was the Star Thieves' gold vault, although he wasn't quite sure how much was actually stored there.

Ultimately, it's not as tightly regulated as the government, and the Star Thieves don't even keep proper accounts.

Yet, despite the chaos he orchestrated, the guards watching over the vault remained exceedingly vigilant.

But when it comes to Supreme killing, no need for words; gold attribute technique suffices.

When entering the vault, Qu Jianlei hesitated momentarily, finally opting to use technique to slice open the alloy door.

However, just as the door was cut open, three streaks of golden radiance flew out from within, astonishingly swift.

Inside the vault, there was actually an A-level star thief with a gold attribute.

Qu Jianlei had already sensed it earlier and evaded the three streaks of radiance, raising his hand to form a seal, precisely the "Golden Thread Binding" technique.

One was genuine gold attribute, the other mimicked it, yet the fake triumphed over the real.

The gap in cultivation level objectively existed, not something that superior convergence or micro-operation ability could remedy.

Yet the bound A-level gold attribute was extremely surprised, "Really stronger than me?"

Qu Jianlei had no interest in answering, swiftly punching him unconscious.

Indeed, the fellow's cultivation level was quite remarkable; the golden armor shook Qu Jianlei's hand a bit numb.

He didn't kill the person, instead banned his cultivation level and began sweeping the vault.

"The vacuum gate is ready," Xiaohu urged, "You have two minutes left."

At this moment, intense gunfire had already erupted from the direction of the prison, excessively chaotic.

"I originally wanted to visit the finance department!" Qu Jianlei sighed in frustration, quickening the pace of collecting items.

The finance department definitely had some cash, but to him, the documents room was more important.

When collecting the documents, the resistance he encountered was fairly light, yet his gains weren't small.

Seeing a minute remained, he no longer fixated on the finance's trivial cash, grabbing the A-level star thief and dashing for the door.

Sure enough, near the inner gate, he again faced resistance, forcing him to kill again.

While rushing to the inner gate, he tossed several fire bombs behind him to block pursuers.

The inner gate opened, he swiftly dashed out, Xiaohu started controlling the gate's closure.

From behind came the Star Thieves' shout, "Control center has been infiltrated, the opponent has a data expert!"

But it was already too late; Qu Jianlei stood at the inner door, executed several pursuing Star Thieves, including two B-levels.

In the hall between the inner and outer doors, two starships slowly slid out of the storage room.

One was a company level warship, and the other was an armed starship.

Qu Jianlei first boarded the armed merchant ship, fixated a Pioneer onto the console, connected the power and turned it on.

Next, he pulled out two million energy stones and placed them into the power chamber.

Whenever the Star Thieves return from their raids, they leave only a small amount of Energy Blocks on the ship. This is resource management, and it's also to prevent people from escaping.

At this moment, Qu Jianlei feels a bit fortunate to have brought along a large number of Energy Blocks.

You should know, although this resource is everywhere, exchanging them on a large scale is basically impossible.

Back then, in order to exchange ten million Energy Blocks, he and Yuanyuan ran all over the place, it was quite troublesome.

Next, Qu Jianlei boarded the company-level warship again, took out Baofeng, and repeated the operations in the power room.

In the next moment, the two starships slowly started, and then, the outer gate slowly opened.

The two starships rushed out the gate one after the other, and soon were just tiny dots.

With Xiao Hu's abilities, not using the Pioneer on the armed starships wouldn't be much of a problem.

However, Qu Jianlei still chose to use the terminal as a medium, so that in case of battle, the warship could be better operated.

Their destination was a star body with a diameter of over 180 kilometers.

It was the first mineral star body discovered, with a lot of rare earth minerals, very high purity, and very efficient mining.

Now the ores have been mined out, so its existence isn't a secret anymore.

Most of the rare earth minerals were concentrated on the surface, making it easy to mine, but there were also some large-scale mining tunnels.

Qu Jianlei chose it as a transfer point mainly for these tunnels, they should be convenient for resting.

"Xiao Hu, observe the surroundings," Qu Jianlei issued orders, "Try to stay hidden."

The range of the asteroid belt is vast, but there are also many forces around, and almost none are easy to deal with.

Even though he has two warships, their combat power is only marginally better than none, he really can't be careless.

"Don't worry," Xiao Hu replied confidently, "The route I've chosen is relatively safe, although it's a bit of a detour."

Qu Jianlei released the harvest from the data room, including books, files, and several storage devices.

"Scan these things to see if we can get some new information."

Xiao Hu didn't resist this arrangement, "Then what will you do?"

Qu Jianlei answered in a deep voice, "I'm pondering how to modify this company-level warship... it's a bit difficult." 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

This isn't because he had nothing better to do, but according to gathered intelligence, this company-level warship was acquired from the military.

However, in the Celestial Hook Star Realm, the Star Thieves are far less arrogant than those in the Hope Star Realm, even if they have a military warship, they dare not use it indiscriminately.

But not using it is also impossible, to avoid provoking the military's ire, they modified the warship.

You heard it right, they actually modified a military-standard warship.

The performance after modification is certainly reduced, as it was a warship equipped by the military, with extremely mature and well-developed details.

Qu Jianlei isn't very interested in modifying warships, but deliberately degrading the performance... is a bit excessive, isn't it?

The reason he took two warships away isn't just to create an illusion for the Star Thieves, to show that more than one person is escaping.

Besides increasing his own combat capabilities, he also had a crucial reason, which is to facilitate modifying the company-level warship.

If conditions allow, he certainly hopes to buy materials related to the modifications,

However, in his estimation, the difficulty won't be small.

Thus, dismantling needed components and materials from the Armed Starship becomes the backup option.

So far, the plan hasn't been finalized, so he needs to think carefully.

The next moment, that Gold Attribute A-level let out a faint grunt, slowly awakening.

The first thing he did upon awakening was to sense his Inner Breath, then his expression changed slightly.

"You've sealed my Cultivation Level?"

"How are you talking?" Qu Jianlei stepped forward and kicked the man squarely in the mouth, "Want to die?"

Don't deny it, this really is the way Star Thieves communicate—somewhat simple and brutal, but absolutely effective.

Since a Star Thief can kick him, this "cripple", responding like this isn't too much.

Unexpectedly, the Gold Attribute A-level didn't mind, he snorted coldly, "Give me a quick end."

"A quick end, huh? You're looking for some fun!" Qu Jianlei lifted his leg and kicked again, "Now what do you want?"

The A-level Star Thief wanted to provoke, but he was tied up and his Cultivation Level sealed; he chuckled bitterly and spat out broken teeth from his mouth.

"Then kill me, I've lived a worthy life."

Qu Jianlei coldly laughed at his words, "You think dying solves everything? Do you know why I brought you out?"

The Gold Attribute A-level thought for a moment and his face changed dramatically, "You... you want to frame me?"

He guessed correctly, after Qu Jianlei discovered that the vault's occupant was the second-in-command of the Star Thieves, he decided to choose this guy to take the fall.

After all, he displayed Gold Attribute Techniques.

As for whether the frame would work well or not, it doesn't really matter; he just wants to muddle the waters.

As long as no one notices a guy named Tesla disappearing mysteriously, neither dead nor alive, that's good enough.

Qu Jianlei nodded slightly at his words, expressionless, and asked, "Is that all you can think of?"

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