Chapter 1120
Over two centuries of study had elapsed since Maheg had been discovered and people began studying the remains of the planet. Two centuries was a long time, but to carefully study the remains of a whole planet it was just barely scratching the surface. The planet itself was left more or less as it was, with Maheg itself doing its very best to minimize any continued decay due to solar radiation.
But the system wasn’t empty aside from those studying the planet. Indeed, it had a growing population upon its moons, with the one that Maheg and Anton had populated with some replication of the local plants having a population of a few million people. That was still a sparse population even given the small size of the moon, but it could grow quite quickly once it took off. With the Lower Realms Alliance expanding, it could go either way.
Some parts of the population might spread out broadly, and they might gather in others. Maheg was unique enough to be a reasonable place for cultivators to develop themselves, though it was also valuable for them to begin their growth in more established systems. But with traffic increasing, people might find themselves more comfortable with going to further systems with the knowledge they could more easily return where they came from.
That was where Anton was when Catarina and Timothy were undergoing their advancement. He was aware of the precise date, but as much as he would have liked to support them he couldn’t from so far away. Even if he’d heard the call they put out within their system somehow, Xankeshan was still a bit far for him to shoot.
He did send his own devotion to them consciously. He hoped it helped. After finding out about how it actually happened, he calculated the possibility of attacking all the way to Xankeshan through the upper realms. If he used the same technique as he did against Sudin and he had the help of the Tides of the World… he’d still be a bit short even with optimistic calculations. But his growth had not stagnated yet, and he was still working his way towards a theoretical next stage. For that, he needed to actually bind more stars.
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A particular star came to Anton’s attention due to one of their scouts. Even if they were as thorough as possible, they simply didn’t have the people to actually visit each and every star just yet. Producing millions of ships and drones would be the easy part. For the more long term details, finding people who would be content going hundreds of lightyears away from the core of the Alliance for long periods of time was a bit more difficult. Most importantly, they needed people both willing and with the proper skills to survive. They didn’t intend to just scatter people about for nothing.
Because numbers were still limited, the particular star in question hadn’t been visited, and for good reason. It was weak… which meant it might not be possible to refuel there, or at least it would be more difficult. But the energy signature of that particular star caught Anton’s attention. Checking with what they had on record from their long distance measurements, he confirmed it had weakened sometime in the last few centuries.
On a stellar scale, that meant it had literally just happened. And the fact that it hadn’t been measured previously meant it might have been a result of outside influence. Anton was the first to be interested in that particular star and free to go in that precise direction, so he mapped out a route that would have him stopping by a cluster of other stars for in-person measurements to help do his part for the greater project.