Chapter 1 The Beginning

"Mr. Bai, we've had another accident with a freighter. Two destroyers were sunk, and the freighter and its cargo were all stolen."

Half an hour later, at the Murfila Presidential Palace, an officer came to Bai Jingyan and said with a serious expression.

Bai Jingyan, who was looking through the documents in front of him, didn't pause, nodded and asked, "How many resources were on board?"

"It was a freighter transporting steel, with a load of 80,000 tons," the officer replied truthfully.

Bai Jingyan gave an "mm" sound and didn't look up. He had expected this kind of loss, so he didn't take it to heart.

"By the way, where did it happen?" Bai Jingyan asked casually.

"The Bering Sea." The officer paused and then continued, "The northern part!"

Bai Jingyan took off his gold-rimmed glasses, put down his pen, and frowned slightly. He found a document from the pile of files next to him and began to read it: "Northern Bering Sea... Found it. There have been more than thirty robberies in the past seven days. Something seems wrong here, haha..."

The document in Bai Jingyan's hand recorded that since he began transferring resources to the outside world, freighters had encountered more than thirty attacks and robberies of varying degrees in the Bering Sea within seven days.

In just seven days, his resource losses had reached more than two hundred tons.

In other sea areas, the number of attacks was much lower.

The entire route went through four sea areas, and the number of attacks in the other three sea areas combined was not even half of that in the Bering Sea!

This was very abnormal.

It meant that he was being targeted, and the more times he transported resources in the future, the greater his losses would be.

"Can you determine the specific coordinates?" Bai Jingyan turned his head and asked.

"Yes, the destroyers have positioning devices. We can deduce the final stopping point based on the positioning signals," the officer said. "But the positioning device on the freighter was dismantled, so we can't determine where they dragged the freighter."

"Find the exact coordinates of these thirty-four attacks." Bai Jingyan pushed up his glasses. He felt a vague threat because every freighter had Evolver warriors stationed on board. Despite this, the other side still completed the actions of "attacking, hijacking, dismantling the positioning device, and forcibly towing away the large ship" in a very short time. This indicated that the other side was very powerful, but not a superpower.

Because if the other side were a country like the EU or Russia, they wouldn't have to stay in the Bering Sea and attack repeatedly. They could directly mobilize their troops to enter Murfila and wipe everything out in one fell swoop.

"A force that is not a superpower, but has a very strong combat capability, and may also have Evolvers within the organization..." Bai Jingyan tapped his head with his finger. The usually calm him was now a little irritable.

Since the world changed, many small countries had been destroyed, some due to war, some due to internal strife.

The destruction of these small countries didn't mean that their armies and civilians were all dead, but that the regime of the country had disappeared. However, some of their former armies, civilians, and weapons still remained. Under the leadership of someone, this remaining force plundered a large number of resources before the country was destroyed, and fled the original national borders, either relying on other countries, or directly occupying an area and becoming pirates or bandits.

However, these pirates who had transitioned from regular armies were not the same level of combat power as the pirates of the past. They were well-trained, well-equipped, and possessed large military equipment.

Perhaps it was not accurate to describe them as "pirates." The correct name should be "warlords"!

"These wandering ghosts..." Bai Jingyan rubbed his temples. These warlords had unpredictable whereabouts and no obvious identity markers, making it difficult for him to determine who had attacked him.

But if this matter was not resolved, Li Tianran's losses would probably reach fifty percent by the time all the resources were transported.

"For the next trip, arrange for forty Evolvers to hide on the transport ship." Bai Jingyan raised his head and said softly, "We are in the open, and they are in the dark. We are too passive. At least we must first determine their identity."

Forty Evolvers was a force that could definitely be called powerful. Even when launching a coup, only a little over a hundred Evolver warriors were mobilized.

Obviously, the repeated attacks made Bai Jingyan feel threatened and angry.

"Yes!" The officer accepted the order and left.

Bai Jingyan leaned back in his chair, slowly exhaled, and closed his eyes.

...

"All members of the Pioneer Legion have completed evolution!"

Inside the castle, Lu Chi handed a detailed statistical report to Li Tianran and said in a deep voice, "This records the detailed abilities of each Divine Descent type Evolver."

Li Tianran took the information. He scanned the Evolver abilities on it and found that most of the Divine Descent type Evolvers' abilities were more inclined to combat, which was very in line with his plan.

"Have any Ancient God type Evolvers appeared?" Li Tianran asked.

Lu Chi shook his head upon hearing this, "Eighty-nine Pioneer warriors, nine Intelligent Brain type Evolvers, eighty Divine Descent type Evolvers, consuming a total of eight thousand seven hundred Lv4 fruits, no one activated the Ancient God type evolution path."

Although he was mentally prepared for this result, Li Tianran still felt a trace of disappointment and regret.

"The nine Intelligent Brain type Evolvers also consumed Lv4 fruits to increase their abilities, but there is a situation. Their limit for consuming Lv4 fruits seems to be weaker than yours and Han Han's. Most of them reached their limit at around five hundred fruits."

"..." Li Tianran raised his eyebrows after hearing this, but did not express any opinion.

"The factory for the Pioneer Legion has been established. Currently, the equipment of the EU evolution team that you brought back has been disassembled and researched. I plan to improve some areas, functions, and materials based on this equipment. The first batch of modified equipment will be manufactured in about three days," Li Tianran said.

For the equipment used by the Pioneer Legion, Li Tianran did not use the naturally occurring steel materials on Blue Star, but instead used special alloys from the points store. Whether in terms of hardness or toughness, they were far superior to those used by the EU team.

Although the cost was a bit high, elites... had to be made with money!

"Divine Descent type Evolvers, equipped with high-intensity equipment, I wonder what kind of combat power they can display on the battlefield!" Li Tianran laughed, "I really want to pull them out to try them out immediately, but unfortunately, this opportunity may have to wait a long time..."

...

One day later.

Murfila.

Presidential Palace.

The officer stood in front of Bai Jingyan again, his face panicked: "Mr. Bai, freighter number 273 was attacked again in the Bering Sea. Forty Evolvers... all died in battle! The burned and incomplete corpses were all nailed to the nearby sea rocks!"

Bai Jingyan looked at the photos in his hand and suddenly felt that completing this material transportation would probably require a lot of effort...