Zehal already decided to support Arcturus's ideas because she found them rather good. Not to ntion, even though the House Alvix held a stake in Starlight Drive Yard Industries, the number of stocks that their Clan held wasn't really that much, considering the size of the House Alivx.
Her Clan had tons of branches because most of the rcantile Clans in the known universe tended to be huge to handle the number of businesses and various endeavors that they were participating in.
So, like the House Alvix, which belonged to the High-Level Civilizations or High-Level Star Nations, easily had thousands of mbers, all of whom worked in the various business ventures created by the House Alvix.
In the end, those shares were distributed among the branches of the House Alvix, and even though her branch, the Main Line of the House Alvix, held the most, it wasn't really that much in the great sche of things.
Zehal knew that creating a new corporation would be a rather tedious and arduous task, but it would be worth it. It would be like a long-term investnt, and if the corporation that Arcturus planned to create beca a big thing, then the House Alvix would profit imnsely from it.
At the sa ti, this would also open more opportunities for Zehal because she would be able to get a good amount of shares of the new company that would belong only to her and not anyone else.
Like the problem with the shares that the House Alvix owned in the Starlight Drive Yard Industries, because the shared belonged to the House Alvix. It didn't belong to the Patriarch, Elders, or to anyone; it belonged to the entire rcantile Clan as a whole.
The part of the pie that every branch got depended on their skills and abilities, but the overall conclusion was that the shares and wealth that they generated from having a stake in the Starlight Drive Yard Industries belonged to the House as a whole.
anwhile, Zehal wanted sothing that would belong only to her, not related to her Housse or anyone from there. Even though she was the hope of the family to beco geniue Bloodline Linage Aristocratic House if she reached the Beyonder Realm, Zehal was still very cautious about the other mbers of the House Alvix.
Like in most of the rcantile Clans around the known universe, things were really not that much different in the House Alvix, and everyone would sell each other if it ant that they could make more money and increase their profits.
So, having a background that was unrelated to the House Alvix as much as possible was rather good, in Zehal's opinion. She also knew that due to Arcturus's special status within the Imperial as a whole, as the disciple of the Grandmaster Arsit Byrllir, he wouldn't really face many problems if he wanted to establish so business.
Nobody would really want to offend soone who was directly connected with Beyonder, especially the one that was most powerful in their entire Empire and was also responsible for cultivating another generation of the Beyonders with his sole efforts alone.
Not many people would have such a background in the Empire, and in fact, she could count on various companies that were backed by Beyonders or soone on a similar level, like the entire Bloodline Aristocratic Lineage House, which had many, many mbers.
There were not many of them.
Zehal was rather pleased with the decision to co along on the mission and suppose that they would leave the Ziras IV alive; the future was looking rather promising.
***
In the next few days, it seed that a relative form of peace had returned to the Obscurus because every ti Zehal and Jenaiel t, they wouldn't start insulting each other right away and typically started only when they were together for more than half an hour.
This alone was rather trendous progress compared to the state of what things were when they were at the Imperial Phoenix Military Academy; this was a comparison of heaven and earth.
Arcturus marveled at how they had achieved. Not to ntion, even when they started fighting... verbally obviously, the nature of the insults got much milder.
It mainly started because Jenaiel, seeing how much Zehal had achieved and how much money they could make together with Arcturus, grew rather silent at that because she now found one thing where Zehal was far superior, and she started to feel a bit inferior.
She herself needed a lot of money to support her own cultivation, because being born with such a particular condition like hers and the support that she received from her family was rather abysmal compared to what she really needed.
Like yeas, she had enough Universal Credits for most necessities of modern life, but what she really needed were various exotic resources and things that her family certainly wasn't really providing her with.
That was also the main reason why she ca to the Imperial Phoenix Military Academy from her howorld because only there could she receive as many cultivation resources as possible that would help her progress on her path as Anti-Psion Knight.
Jenaiel wanted to go and beco the Star rcenary and Bounty Hunter now after seeing how profitable the profession could be. Till now, she thought that most of the ti, they were just completing the tasks and jobs from the Star rcenary Association or Bounty Hunter Guild, but she was quickly proved to be wrong.
It seed that if one knew how to play it smart, one could create really profitable business opportunity. Obtaining various pieces of technology and then selling them on the dostic market or to lesser civilizations and star nations, was really a good job.
Now, seeing that, she decided that, as much as it hurt her inside and was maddening, she hoped to be on rather better terms with Zehal if that was even possible. This was extrely uncomfortable for her because, as far as she could rember, since they were children, she and Zehal had never gotten along.
Mianly due to their different personalities and other factors that ca to the play, but neither one of them liked the other, though for the past day, they learned to be civil with each other.
With Jenaiel reigning in her fiery temper and Zehal refraining from making more provocative comnts than it was healthy, their trip to the Ziras IV beca much more pleasant.
Arcturus was very surprised and pleased by this sudden developnt and decided to not dwell around it and pretend that things were always like this. He thought that this fragile peace that the two won had between themselves would crumble if he pointed out at it, so he chose silence.
For the greater good... of course.
Lately, aside from training with Jenaiel in the Holodeck, he was also spending more ti with Zehal, who was working on several scientific projects, and just now, when he had seen her work in real-ti, he realized how much genius she was.
Arcturus didn't doubt for even a second that if she were soone from more common and humble origins from the Empire, then she would have been a long ti ago recruited by so secret division of the Directorate to work on so super-secret projects or assassinated by the Veren Republic.
Unlike what would one thing, premier scholars were also one of the best targets for the possible assassination when two High-Level Factions were hostile to each other because no one wanted their rival to have higher technological, scientific, and research levels.
Ironically, though, Zehal was born as Heiress Apparent of the filthy wealthy rcantile Clan that was even richer than many Beyonders. So, any possible assassination wasn't really the best idea because if the Alvixes went all out with their revenge, then setting up bounties for even so Beyodners wouldn't be out of their reach.
And Arcturus knew that not every Beyonder was rich. The ones from the Mid-Level Civilizations and Mid-Level Star Nations were rather poor compared to the ones from the High-Level ones.
Much less is being said about the very rare cases of the ones that rose in the Low-Level Civilizations and Low-Level Star Nations. This was the difference in the foundation between various Beyonders and Professionals, and many from the more humble origins were far weaker in terms of strength compared to the ones that were from the High-Level Factions.
Thus, many of the Beyonders also worked as assassins and hired blades for morals rather easily if the mortals were paying enough. And he was sure that the House Alvix could pay more than enough... and this was considering just the reaction of the House Alvix.
The Empire had a rather pack-like ntality in this, and Arcturus heard that in many cases, soone who was an enemy of the Empire assassinated one of their geniuses or core mbers.
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Cases like this happened from ti to ti, and every single ti, it ca to an end where the Imperials would swarm onto the target like a locust until they destroyed the target and everyone related to them.
Right now, all three of them were sitting behind the table and eating dinner. Because Zehal occasionally joined them at the dinners, Arcturus was forced to tell the Red Queen to adjust the furniture in his room a bit so it could accommodate another person.
"How long till we arrive at the Ziras IV?"
Jenaiel asked because around two days ago, they finally arrived at the Nihilus Star Region, as they had been on the journey for twelve days or so. Obscurus was already approaching the target destination, and because he told Red Queen to increase the speed of the Hyperdrives, they would be arriving a bit sooner than initially anticipated.
After his talk with Jenaiel about possible bug infestation on the Ziras IV, he got rather bad feeling about the entire thing and wanted to be in that place as soon as possible if it could be done, even though they would be burning so fuel rods on the top of everything.
The power generators on his ship were working on heightened output, much to his dismay, because he hated wasting money. Still, the faster they arrived at the Ziras IV, the better it would be; at least they could see if the situation was just as grave or if they just had so really wild conspiracy theory.
"The journey should take us an additional five days. Fortunately, we got clearances from the Academy, so we won't need to stop at the military checkpoints aside from the one to the Solitas Star Domain due to the protocol."
As Arcturus answered her, she nodded, rather satisfied that they would be seeing so action and combine in the next five days because it had already beco rather unbearable for the past few days.
While training was good and in fact, she had a lot of fun in the Holodeck with Arcturus when they were fighting in various simulations, it wasn't really asuring up to the real combat where the thrill of death was much higher than in the holographic pprojection.
Even though Arcturus turned off the safety protocols at the Holodeck.
Jenaiel couldn't wait to fight against the bugs of the Arachnid swarm for real this ti, and soon enough, her wish would co true.
Because they had clearance from the Imperial Phoenix Military Academy, they didn't need to wait for the military checkups at the checkpoints, which were basically fortified positions at the various Hyperline points that were on the crossroads.
This saved a lot of ti, like a really, really lot of ti for them, because so checkpoints could be rather lengthy, even for a few hours of wait. The only one that they would need to go through was the one around the entrance to the Solitas Star Domain, which was created primarily due to the bugs.
No clearances were allowed there, and every single starship that was entering or exiting the Star Domain must be checked as thoroughly as possible for possible bug infestation or spies entering the Solitas Star Domain.
In the case of the war with the Arachnids, there were many spies and assassins trying their luck to sabotage the Empire's war effort, especially those from the Republic. From ti to ti, there were so spies from the Republic caught by the Directorate that had their own agents stationed across the various checkpoints leading to the Solitas Star Region.
Or so Jenaiel told him.
It seed that being friends with soone from the highest caste of the society in the Empire had its benefits, though when he thought it over, he realized that he also belonged to the sa caste.
Although his connections were almost non-existent at the ti, he also heard the sa thing from the Bator-Commandant Irene when he called her yesterday.
They were often chatting through the Imperial NetSphere, and he obviously told her that he had accepted a mission at the Solitas Star Domain to clear out the Arachnid Nest on one of the Imperial Colony Worlds.
"Also... yesterday I had a call with a friend from the military, and I told her about my speculation about the possible bug infestation at the Ziras IV. She told that lately, the bugs have been trying through various ans to get access to the Imperial Databases for so reason, perhaps due to the impending offensive that the Arachnids are preparing, so technically speaking, the chances of the Ziras IV being under the infestation has gone up."
Bator-Commandant Irene Terinus Varun indeed told him that in the several past months, they, in fact, captured a good number of people that were either infested with the Arachnid parasite or otherwise being under the control of the bugs in the Nihilus Star Region.
And it seed that with each passing month for the last three years, the numbers were getting higher and higher.
This was rather sensitive military information available only to personnel at the General rank or equivalent but was a personal adjutant to Bashar General Varathar des. So she had access to a lot of docunts that were far above her rank.
She passed this information to him because she, too, suspected the sa thing. Not only that, but Irene suspected that soone had most likely falsified the records about the truth of the Ziras who wanted to lure so students from the Imperial Military Academy to the planet.
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