Chapter 559: Brother Zuo's Annie

Looking at Li Hao, who looked like a long-haired monster, everyone was very curious.

"Brother Haozi, did you go off to become a fisherman?"

"Haha, something like that. Wow, Er Ya, what have you been eating? You've grown so fast!"

"Wow, I know! Brother Haozi, you must have gone off to be a pirate!"

"No way, Brother Haozi must be a good person; he went to be a captain!"

"Pirates are captains too! Pirates are so cool, I want to be a pirate!"

At this moment, everyone felt that this was the real Li Hao, now truly a big goofball. After a year of not seeing him, he had grown so fast. A group of children surrounded Li Hao, chattering away. Of course, the excitement only lasted three minutes, and soon everyone lost interest in Li Hao.

At this time, a strange girl stood quietly to the side with a smile on her face. Li Hao pointed and asked, "Who is this?"

Zuo Xiaotang immediately felt a bit embarrassed. "Ahem, this is my girlfriend, Annie, our junior."

"Hello, Senior. I am Annie Hese. You are my idol." Seeing Li Hao, Annie also appeared slightly constrained.

Li Hao blinked and gave a thumbs up. "Not bad, Zuo Xiaopang, impressive!"

Zuo Xiaotang proudly puffed out his chest. Just kidding, he was a well-known figure now!

Various seashells and some strange toys attracted the children's attention. Li Hao and the others went inside the house. After a while, Li Hao cut his hair short and cleaned up his beard. Looking in the mirror, he finally looked like a human being again as he reappeared before everyone.

The Dean nodded repeatedly. "You've tanned, and you've grown up!"

Li Hao smiled. "Yeah, I think I'm almost on par with Huo Ying now."

"There's still a gap; Huo Ying is naturally dark. Hao Ge, you're finally back. You have no idea, things are almost in chaos," Zuo Xiaotang said impatiently.

"You're just exaggerating. Isn't everything fine? How is Tianjing Martial Arts? Is it still open?" Li Hao laughed. Along the way, everything in Tianjing City seemed normal and peaceful; Zuo Xiaotang just liked to be jumpy.

"Principal Long would say you're heartless if he heard that," Zuo Xiaotang said, and it was clear the fat man was incredibly happy.

In fact, a few months after Li Hao left, the Solar System had returned to normal. The Star River Alliance had rich experience and standard rules for handling new members. Humans only had the option to accept, with no room for further negotiation. After initially understanding the scale and power of the Star River Alliance, the informed human leadership completely abandoned other ideas. The only goal now was to do everything possible to integrate into the Star River Alliance as quickly as possible, improve themselves, and form a force capable of self-preservation. The existence of the Celestial actually didn't cause much resistance among humans.

The Star Alliance built a massive Star Gate near Muxing; the Eye of the Storm on Muxing was already a reserved coordinate. This place was also a transit point for trade between the Solar System and other Star Alliance members. It was built by the Mechanical Race, who sent a team of engineers. Of course, the construction costs for the Star Gate and the Great Space City were borne by humans themselves. All trade rules were based on the contracts of the Silver Heart Commercial Alliance. Although it was a commercial alliance, it was actually the largest power among the Celestial. The Star Gate connected directly to Kepler 22b.

The Solar System was not positioned as the main axis directly connecting to the Star Alliance; Kepler 22b was designated by the Star River Alliance as the external window for human civilization. Of course, the journey from the Solar System to Kepler was greatly shortened.

Naturally, this implied a series of problems. The K23 resources on Kepler were clearly more useful than those in the Solar System, though it was the "biological" resources of the Solar System that the Star River Alliance was more interested in.

As for the cutting-edge technology humans craved most... that was pure wishful thinking. Let alone the Celestial, if it were humans themselves, would they give it away easily? This was another thrilling game of chess between biological species.

After a year of difficult transition, humans indeed had a deeper understanding of the Star River Alliance. Silver Heart, Seventh Art, Aozier, Helax, and the Star-Casting Dragon Race, as the first tier, formulated and controlled the order, finance, and law enforcement of the Star River Alliance;

The Charks Mechanical Empire, the Ghost Empire, the Strong-Colonization Empire, and others, as the second tier, monopolized the production and execution of some massive profit-making industries.

The Lalutu Orcs and other vast third-tier groups were essentially low-end raw material colonies, exporting

the low-carbon fields needed by the upper echelons and providing effective supplements, exchanging these for the technology they needed. But it had to be admitted that in the last hundred years, the Lalutu Orcs had almost monopolized all the dirty and tiring work, and their development had indeed been rapid, possessing an astonishing number of planets and armies.

Humans certainly did not lack brave souls willing to take risks. In this year, the Four Great Federations had sent out many merchant fleets and exploration fleets, reaping many rewards while also suffering various casualties. Interstellar travel was quite unsafe; it was fine near the Star Gate, but once entering unfamiliar star sectors, one would encounter various civilization collision crises, as well as all kinds of interstellar pirates.

But even so, humans did not stop; instead, they were strengthening exploration. This was also summarized from human history: closing the country leads to certain death. Rather than waiting for outsiders to destroy us, it was better to explore actively; at least paying a price would yield some gains.

This was also a characteristic of humans: as long as there was an opportunity, humans were very resilient.

The Anthem was open for recruitment to all members of the Star River Alliance. Like new members such as humans, there was a very favorable training period for this year, meaning there was a limited quota selected by humans themselves. After a year, one would have to pass an assessment.

Of course, there was also good news. Within the Anthem, the performance of human Warriors was extremely "excellent." This excellence was our internal self-assessment, because the Saint Song System was almost a perfect fit for humans. With the Spirit as the main focus, for human Warriors who had already entered the Flowing Heart Martial Arts, it provided exactly the room for advancement. Coupled with human learning ability and the complete Saint Song System, it was like a fish in water.

Of course, it was not without problems. The potential for humans to adapt to the Anthem was absolutely unprecedented, but the objective and subjective prejudices they faced were also enormous. Objectively, the Saint Song System was very unfriendly to new civilizations, causing Chao Qinglong and others to be unable to break through this shackle. Subjectively, higher civilizations generally did not have a good impression of a group like humans that stood out and was niche.

There was another important reason: because humans now relied on the Star Alliance in every aspect, the Council's strict order was that human Anthem Warriors, for whatever reason, must not cause interstellar disputes. This clearly created huge obstacles for Chao Qinglong, Maxis, and the others. The only one who was relatively successful was A Youyou; she was in the top tier of the Balance Sacred Song of the Scales in the Galasta Commercial Alliance and had achieved excellent results.

Zuo Xiaotang chattered on for over an hour, while Annie listened quietly to the side, her eyes filled with love as she looked at Zuo Xiaotang.

Li Hao was relieved. The fat man had finally found someone whose eyes were full of him, and this guy was also very satisfied with his current life. "By the way, is the S Tournament still being played?"

"It is, but we only made it to the semi-finals this year. North Caro won the championship." Zuo Xiaotang scratched his head, a bit embarrassed.

Although Chao Qinglong was gone, excellent Warriors from other major war zones were also sent to the Star River Alliance. Ye Tong didn't make it at the last moment, apparently due to the issue of her Nangong Family status. Of course, she herself did not participate, and in this era, that little matter was no longer necessary.

Human technology also ushered in a new round of innovation. Although they couldn't get new technology, for humans, just being able to see it was enough; they could research it themselves. Clearly, in the big trend, of course, mature human Mecha technology was not immediately abandoned. Don't be in a hurry to deny yourself whenever you encounter something. After weighing it during this period, human Mecha were behind the Celestial, but still ranked in the middle within the Star River Alliance, and at the same time, they had room for further improvement. The key was that the requirements for pilots were extremely low, while the requirements for Celestial Armament were too high.

Of course, keeping pace with the times, the Four Great War Zones as a whole launched "Ultra-Light Mecha," changing their thinking to further improve human combat effectiveness, because the coming year would welcome the new Anthem assessment. The Anthem assessment allowed the use of individual weapons; all member states were the same, and the Celestial were the same. Without Celestial Armament, the combat effectiveness of the Celestial would drop by a large margin, and races like the Mechanical Race and Strong-Colonization Race that were born with powerful bodies didn't need them—having more would just be a burden—but for most races, they were needed.

Now, Tianjing Martial Arts had also added an "Interstellar Diplomat" major, which was the most popular and glamorous, and also a talent humans were in urgent need of.

Language was not a problem. In this year, many people chose to load language programs from the Mechanical Race, choosing a few mainstream common languages; it was just that the process was a bit painful.

It was basically not a problem, and some who were responsible for negotiations and a portion of the high-level officials consumed the "Fish Pearl" of the Helavis Empire. This was a type of egg from a special marine creature; as long as you let it listen to various languages during its growth process, it would automatically record them, and the user would gain the ability to be fluent in languages. This was also a specialty of the Helavis Empire and was a best-seller in the Star River Alliance, only the price was expensive. For new members with "potential" like humans, the Helavis Empire provided a batch for trial, and they were also the first to establish trade with human civilization.

The power of the Helavis Empire was beyond doubt; it was the most powerful branch among the many marine civilizations. Arcane Power was once mentioned in the same breath as Heavenly Human Battle Technique. They had participated in four Star River Wars. Anyone who could survive as a main combat force in that era was a behemoth. The Helavis Empire was commonly known as the "Sea People," belonging to the Celestial-like type, but they were smaller in size—in human terms, about the same as a dwarf. Their physical strength was average, but they possessed powerful Spirits.

They could be considered relatively friendly among the powerful civilizations at present.

In the shadows of the general environment, some malicious problems had also sprouted. Humans were very "sought after" in the interstellar black market, especially by interstellar pirates who were moved by the news. The reason made humans laugh and cry: because in terms of appearance and characteristics, humans were almost 99% similar to the Celestial. The main distinction was the eyes. Excluding physical strength and Spirit strength, they were about the same. This made humans a very popular "slave" choice for other civilizations, being able to use the high-and-mighty "Celestial" as servants.