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The research department started by using the ready portals to link rocks and planets together. This didn't require much, and the only drawback was that most of these anchor points weren't suitable for life. So people coming and going had to wear suits. Not to mention letting spaceships pass through these wasn't possible.
Hye asked for the help of the pirate king. He was the one who inspired Hye in the first place with such an idea.
The pirate king said he bought this portal before from somewhere and didn't get how to make it. Yet he got two more and didn't complain when Hye ordered to give these to the research department to study.
According to the pirate king, these portals worked by opening long-distance paths toward faraway points in space. At the same time, they had many weaknesses, like the need to be protected, the inability to control who'd pass through them, and their short life term.