Chapter 4180: Yes, Supreme Sorcerer (31)

"Today we gather here to discuss a serious issue." The Minister of Development stood in the center of the Interstellar Parliament's chamber, looked around, and said: "Obviously, due to the recent over-expansion of the Parliament, our existing government areas can no longer meet our work needs. When the Twelve Stars were built, they were only the size of satellites, and the area is not large enough. The distance between the planets is also too small, not enough for spaceships to shuttle, not to mention the aging dormitory environment, loose mechanical structures, slowing optical fiber transmission speed, etc. This has brought serious employee welfare problems to the entire Interstellar Parliament. I have currently received more than 60 complaints, and I think my colleagues also have many complaints about this."

"But actually, it doesn't matter what our working environment is like. After all, we didn't come here to enjoy ourselves, but to contribute to the safety and stability of interstellar society. But because the office environment is too bad, most employees cannot focus on work, which led to three strikes in the Ring Star Zone, and one incident of portal damage caused by the mistakes of expatriate employees. These are low-level mistakes that should not have happened, but they may trigger a huge cosmic disaster, which is something none of us want to see. So, I propose to carry out a large-scale repair activity to improve the office conditions of the Ring Star Zone and improve employee welfare..."

The Supreme Intelligence's head was buzzing as he listened below.

To say whether the situations mentioned by the Minister of Development exist, they indeed exist. The Ring Star Zone has indeed existed for too long. When the three major empires were built, they didn't expect that this stall could be laid so big, so they didn't choose to form an Interstellar Parliament in a natural star system, but simply built a star system themselves.

Almost all the planets in the Ring Star Zone are man-made; the star rotating in the center is not a star, but a star-level energy reactor provided by the Kree Empire; the gravitational orbit is artificially laid; and the planets revolving around the reactor are modified from the first-generation planet warships eliminated by the Kree Empire.

Although they are retired warships, they are actually not broken, just because there has been a major breakthrough in technology, they were abandoned. Some were even brand new—but that was when they were just put into use, and they have been operating for a long time now, and they are indeed a bit unresponsive.

The first-generation version of the planet warship itself has some defects, and it was designed and manufactured during the thousand-year war. Even its inventor didn't intend to provide a long service life for this thing. Everyone assumed this was a disposable weapon, and it might be destroyed as soon as it appeared, so the materials and technology used had no intention of maintaining service life, and after such a long time, the wear and tear is even more severe.

With the change of planet mass, the gravitational orbit must also be adjusted, and even the output of the reactor must be changed; and once these orbits are adjusted, the spaceship's orbit must also be adjusted, otherwise they will collide. Although these were all adjusted by the Supreme Intelligence himself, this situation can be seen with the naked eye, and it cannot be hidden, so he didn't deliberately cover it up.

Actually, if it followed the original situation, this set of systems could run for another thousand or eight hundred years without problems, but the bad thing is the rapid expansion of the Interstellar Parliament. As of the convening of this congress, they already have 21 departments.

This is not just a matter of having more than 21 ministers or secretaries. As a department, you must have members. Before, a department actually only had twenty or thirty members, and also included some interns who only engaged in clerical work; but since the establishment of a large number of new departments, the number of members has also risen, and a department has to have more than 200 people.

The reason for this is actually the idea of only wanting to take advantage and not wanting to suffer losses: you electronic life can expand, create so many departments, and then mix your own forces into them, then of course I have to stuff more people into the department I manage, otherwise how to resist you?

Consequently, they devised all sorts of schemes and pretexts to squeeze their relatives and friends into the organization. Although most of these people's relatives and friends were also elites who could handle being ordinary staff members just fine, they were all accustomed to being high-ranking leaders who barked orders in their own civilizations. Suddenly becoming ordinary staff—would they be happy about that?

Fortunately, the Interstellar Parliament had a tradition of recruiting interns. So, what more was there to say? Just recruit as many as possible. Thus, there were over 200 official staff members and 4,000 interns—of course, not that many actually showed up; having even a small fraction was decent, but that was still absurdly high.

The stars in the Ring Star Sector weren't large; the biggest one was only slightly larger than the Moon, all satellite-class, because this thing wasn't built to be used as a regular planetary system. If you built warships too large, the probability of them being destroyed on the battlefield would be even higher; they weren't very big to begin with, making it even harder to expand outward. The buildings on top were built long ago, so naturally, it was crowded when more people arrived. Interns had to squeeze two or three to a dormitory, and they had long been complaining incessantly.

If that were all, it would be fine, but traffic was the real problem. Public spaceships were too crowded, so they drove private ones. However, these people's private ships were a motley collection, and coming from different civilizations, their traffic rules varied slightly, leading to collisions every other day. After a crash, I'd have to find a tugboat, and once that tugboat lay across the path, no other ships could fly; everyone just got stuck there together.

Anyway, in general, the Ring Star Sector's innate conditions were just poor. Even natural star sectors created by God have all sorts of problems; how many years has mechanical civilization been developing? How good could a self-created star sector be?

This was indeed a problem in urgent need of a solution. However, upon hearing that they intended to sell the entire Ring Star Sector, the Supreme Intelligence still couldn't help but give the other party a punch. He swore he didn't mean it, but he was caught red-handed by the Sorcerer Supreme. Fortunately, humans seemed exceptionally tolerant in this regard; the Sorcerer Supreme just gave him a casual lecture and let him go.

The Supreme Intelligence also knew he was a bit impulsive, but he had had too many program errors recently, and sometimes he really couldn't control himself well. However, after calming down, he still had a serious talk with this minister, and eventually, they changed the plan to one of renovation.

Although the entire assembly lasted for over seven hours, everyone had their own opinions on how to renovate, and the various parties fought chaotically, with spit flying everywhere: the Shi'ar Empire elbowed the Skrull Empire, the Skrull Empire gave the Kree Empire a kick, and the Kree Empire gave the Shi'ar Empire a punch; in any case, the whole scene was in complete disarray.

They argued back and forth without achieving anything. The Supreme Intelligence had tried to interrupt them several times to offer his own opinion, but no one paid him any mind. Everyone was busy attacking their opponents' views while showing off their own brilliance, to the point that after a full 7 hours, they hadn't figured out a damn thing.

After it ended, the Supreme Intelligence decided to go talk to each minister. After all, fixing it sooner was better for everyone. What reason did they have not to support the renovation? It used public funds from the three major empires, so they didn't have to pay out of their own pockets, and after it was finished, it would certainly be better than before—wouldn't they be the ones enjoying it?

When the Supreme Intelligence went to talk to them, everyone agreed quite well, but when it came to the practical execution phase, reality gave him a slap in the face.

"You mean to say this is the material cost budget provided by the Department of Commerce?" The Supreme Intelligence looked at the computer screen, his expression could be described as completely dumbfounded. "Forty trillion? I didn't misread that, did I?"

"No, Mr. Secretary-General, every quote above has a detailed description. I don't see any problems, do you?"

The Supreme Intelligence had already run all the data through his mind, and the most infuriating part was that there really, goddamn, wasn't any problem.

If they were to renovate according to the highest standards, it would indeed cost that much money. But the problem was that they were just renovating an office building, not turning this place into an impregnable permanent fortification—what kind of sane person uses vibranium for the load-bearing columns of an office building?!

But the Supreme Intelligence had learned his lesson; he knew that if he went to question the Secretary of Commerce, the other party would definitely have a set of high-standard, strict-requirement rhetoric to fob him off. So he could only go to the Secretary of the Armed Forces, who was still somewhat on their side.

The Secretary of the Armed Forces was training in the drill ground. As soon as he saw the Supreme Intelligence, he couldn't hold back his booming voice. He said, "When exactly will it be fixed?! The two ships that crashed earlier are still embedded in the wall at the edge of the drill ground, and an explosion happens every three minutes on average. If my soldiers weren't tough, we would have been finished long ago!"

"I came to see you precisely to talk about this. Take a look at this budget sheet."

After the Secretary of the Armed Forces took it, he clicked his tongue. The Supreme Intelligence had expected him to curse, but after thinking for a moment, he said, "This is too expensive; we can't afford this amount."

"Don't you think there's something wrong with this?"

"I said, it's too expensive!"

"This is unreasonable," the Supreme Intelligence said. "We have no need to use such high-quality materials; after all, we are just building a political star sector, not the headquarters of an empire."

The Secretary of the Armed Forces waved his hand and said, "You machine-brains don't understand; to get it fixed, you have to spend this much money."

"What do you mean?"

"There are so many people in Parliament, all counting on this matter to make a living. Once the funds are allocated, everyone from top to bottom has to take a cut. If you don't send out enough, nothing will get fixed in the end; you have to feed everyone from top to bottom for the work to yield results, otherwise, it's just money down the drain."

The Supreme Intelligence got a headache again. He said, "I control the entire financial system, and every piece of data is precisely recorded. Where are they skimming money from?"

"What is the current market price of vibranium?"

"About 36,000 universal credits per robo."

"They will quote Wakanda 50,000, then collude with the King of Wakanda to claim that vibranium is currently scarce and needs a price hike, and finally, it will manifest in the budget data as 100,000. How do you check that? You govern the heavens and the earth, but can you govern that panther head?"

"But we don't even need vibranium!"

"How do you know we don't? After the design blueprints come out, we need to conduct a safety assessment. If you don't add enough vibranium to it, they won't pass it for you, because they can also get a share of the vibranium money. Understand what I mean now?"

"I've had enough," the Supreme Intelligence said. "I don't think there's any need for the current Interstellar Parliament to exist anymore."

The Secretary of the Armed Forces sneered and said, "Before the Sorcerer Supreme came, you still had a choice. But now, can you use those little tricks of yours to kill them all right in front of him? I guarantee that if you dare to do that, he will slap a portal directly onto your face and give your main body a punch."

The Supreme Intelligence, who had just been full of murderous intent, felt as if a basin of cold water had been poured over his head. After a long silence, he asked, "We really can't afford this money, and I don't think they'll do the work properly even if we pay. So what should we do?"

"Sell the Ring Star Sector."