From star gatherer to leader of humanity

"Hajime, if I upgrade you, will you be able to help me control the spaceship?" Xu Bai, who was controlling the spaceship to search for spirit ore, suddenly asked.

"Master, the Thirty-Six Immortal Sects Alliance has a rule that none of the intelligence levels (high, medium, or low) have the authority to control the spaceship with their main consciousness," Hakimi said.

"Okay." Xu Bai had vaguely heard about this rule during the training.

Half a day later, an exceptionally clear data on mineral exploration fluctuations was transmitted back to the spacecraft.

Xu Bai became excited after just one glance.

"Such a clear fluctuation in the price of spirit charcoal indicates a large shipment of at least 5000 tons."

"Although it's not worth much, it definitely contains spirit wood charcoal crystals inside."

As several surveillance drones began to probe around the gray-black, broken celestial body, a giant red centipede, hundreds of meters long, suddenly crawled out from the broken celestial body beside it.

"Warning: Energy-limited alien beast detected!" Hakimi's voice rang out.

The giant centipede, nearly a hundred meters long, transformed into a streak of rainbow light and coiled around the spaceship.

Xu Bai simply smiled slightly, and the heavy twin-barreled machine guns on the top of the spaceship began to fire.

The rainbow light transformed from the giant centipede nimbly dodged between the celestial gaps, but no matter how it dodged, one out of every three shots from the heavy twin-barreled machine gun would hit it.

"boom!"

The giant centipede split in two mid-air, and was then hit in the head by the third shot, causing its head to explode.

"The fire spirit bird carcass in the warehouse hasn't been disposed of yet, and with this, it should be worth quite a bit of money."

The mining spaceship extended its mechanical arm and retrieved the giant centipede carcass, now broken in two, back into the cabin.

"When I get back, I'll replace all the shells with the top-of-the-line armor-piercing shells. Six shots will definitely be enough to kill a top-tier Foundation Establishment stage Star Beast."

Xu Bai maneuvered the mining spaceship and slowly landed on the gray-black, broken celestial body, beginning the mining of spirit charcoal.

Twenty medium-sized mining robots began operations, and Xu Bai also began his training in the control room.

Five hours later, Xu Bai felt that his meridians had reached their limit, so he stopped cultivating.

"With a renowned teacher to guide me, I can achieve twice the results with half the effort, and my cultivation efficiency has increased by 10%."

"If I learn the Spirit Gathering Technique, my cultivation speed will definitely be even faster."

Xu Bai took out the Spirit Gathering Technique spell jade slip and placed it between his eyebrows, continuing to study it.

As he was learning, an idea suddenly popped into Xu Bai's mind. He put down the Spirit Gathering Technique jade slip and took out the Spirit Qi Technique jade slip.

He was going to verify whether the attribute of that Master Teacher's Shadow was only capable of teaching the "Spiritual Qi Technique".

As Xu Bai pressed the jade slip containing the spiritual energy technique close to his brow, the image of that venerable old man reappeared in his mind.

"Teacher, could you explain the Spirit Gathering Technique today?" Xu Bai thought to himself.

"Is this the Spirit Gathering Technique that you just learned, young friend?" the venerable old man asked.

"Yes, I wonder if the teacher could explain it?" Xu Bai was delighted to see the old man's reply, and then said respectfully.

"Yes, but only one method will be taught per day, limited to the Qi Refining Realm."

After the old man finished speaking, he began to break down the Spirit Gathering Technique that Xu Bai had learned, explaining it to Xu Bai point by point.

The Spirit Gathering Technique, after being enhanced with additional attributes, became extremely profound. The old man in his mind spent three days explaining it before Xu Bai could barely manage to use it.

The old man sighed slightly when he saw that Xu Bai could barely perform the Spirit Gathering Technique.

"Your talents are not exactly rotten wood, but they are certainly not good wood either. It will be no easy task for you to embark on the path of immortality." The old man with an air of otherworldly wisdom sighed and disappeared from Xu Bai's mind.

Xu Bai was not angry or ashamed at the old man's evaluation; on the contrary, he was secretly pleased.

"I was able to embark on the path to immortality; my teacher has a pretty high opinion of me."

After his initial excitement subsided, Xu Bai inspected the cabin and found that he could barely gather all the necessary items.

"Two corpses of peak Foundation Establishment stage star beasts, 4100 tons of spirit charcoal, and 530 jin of spirit charcoal crystals. Not bad, barely worth seven or eight hundred thousand."

"That's it~"

Xu Bai looked at the huge spirit wood charcoal mine at his feet. He had only managed to mine half of it, with more than 5000 tons remaining.

"Let's leave this to someone who's meant to be."

Experienced miners at this depth usually don't mine spirit charcoal alone because the price per unit is too low.

Inside the control room, Xu Bai formed hand seals and began to awkwardly perform the Spirit Gathering Technique.

Consuming 15 strands of spiritual energy, 72 seals, and 20 breaths, the Spirit Gathering Technique is complete.

As if sensing Xu Bai's presence, strands of pure spiritual energy condensed and finally transformed into a spirit bead the size of a glass ball, containing 140 strands of spiritual energy.

Xu Bai felt the more than 300 strands of spiritual energy in his dantian and decided to condense more small spiritual beads to take back and cultivate in the spiritual energy room at home.

"Hakimi, activate mind control mode."

Xu Bai decided to multitask. With the mental amplification, he only needed to use a sliver of his mental energy to control the mining spaceship to slowly return to the space city.

"Yes, sir. Switch to mental control mode."

Instantly, Xu Bai felt his mental energy being drawn in, giving him control over the entire mining spaceship.

With its focus divided, the spacecraft took four days to return to the space city.

As soon as Xu Bai piloted the mining spaceship to the unloading port and was about to queue up, Hakimi reminded him that he had received the location information of the unloading port, which was specially prepared for prospective full-time employees.

"I forgot about this perk!"

Xu Bai immediately turned his mining spaceship around and arrived at the unloading port, which was reserved for prospective full-time employees.

The automated equipment at the unloading port professionally removed the inner cabin of Xu Bai's mining spaceship and replaced it with a new one.

As soon as Xu Bai found the location of the public port, the information about the unloading port was sent over.

"The corpses of the Firebird Spirit and the Fire Spirit Centipede are worth a total of 380,000."

"The spirit charcoal and spirit charcoal crystals together contain 523,000 strands of spiritual energy."

"All of them sold for 451,500 strands of spiritual energy after tax."

"So-so~"

After selling the corpses and spirit ore, Xu Bai disembarked from the spaceship, preparing to treat himself to a meal at the food street.

As soon as Xu Bai's feet touched the ground of the public port, a service vehicle stopped in front of him.

"Honorable prospective full-time employee, this vehicle is at your service." The electronic voice of the service vehicle sounded, instantly attracting the attention of the mining team members around the port.

The mining team consisted of both men and women. Most of the men looked on with envy, while the women, feeling quite attractive, went up to Xu Bai, wanting to get to know him.

Xu Bai didn't give them a chance and boarded the service vehicle to leave.

On the food street, Xu Bai changed to a new restaurant to eat and sample different specialties.

In Xu Bai's previous life, cuisines were divided by region. In the human realm, cuisines were divided by major planets.

The restaurant was less than half full. Xu Bai ordered a barbecue set meal, planning to enjoy a delicious meal before strolling around the area.

After the barbecue set meal was served, several more exquisite dishes were brought out.

"These don't seem to be included in the set menu," Xu Bai said, looking at the waiter.

"Since you are a friend of Mr. Yue, this is a complimentary side dish for you." After saying this, the waiter bowed respectfully and left.

"The food's already served, might as well eat it."