Chapter 36 In space with a junkyard ship

It has been close to three hours since I started with the snail experiments. By the end of it, there were four fully intact bodies and two more or less intact ones.

It was a lot of food to eat at once, and while the taste wasn’t the worst, the texture was too rubbery. But I couldn’t just throw out their bodies like that—it would be a waste and a mockery to their life.

Now I was only left with a few shells and a couple of small beads of iron. Turns out it’s harder for me to kill creatures like this than it is for me to kill people. Perhaps there’s something wrong with me, but I think I would rather be this kind of wrong than other kinds of wrong.

“Lola, can you please summise the results of the experiment, and then we can get on with the important news that happened during all of this?”

“Of course. After doing some safe research, I’ve concluded that your particular variations, while extremely rare, have happened before. Now, have they happened together before? That I don’t know.”

“First, your looting ability works like any other looting ability in its function. It turns whatever you kill into materials. Usually, that’s only restricted to monsters from portals, but yours works on any living thing.”

“This seems to be an extremely rare variation that we must most definitely keep hidden to the best of our ability, as this would get you classified as a dangerous individual—and that would close some doors.”

That made perfect sense, because I could see a lot of abuse this type of ability could cause. The question was: if I were to throw a huge asteroid onto a living planet—and of course if I had enough mana to do it—would anything that died because of that turn into materials, or did I need to be more personal about all of this?

“The second variation—and this is, once again, extremely rare, and there hasn’t been anything exactly like it recorded, at least in this database.”

“There are somewhat similar variations, but more limited ones than yours. It seems you can use your ability to selectively choose what to turn into materials and what not, some other variants do that automatically—like turning only flesh into materials.”

“In summary, your looting ability, previously classified as detrimental in most cases, would now be classified as extremely beneficial, dangerous, and highly sought after by all.” Lola finished explaining.

“Well, that's good for me, and bad if anyone finds that out. There is also a lot we don’t know about how this ability works, but we will learn in time. Looks like the original plan of keeping to ourselves is the way to go. However, in regards to the space monsters, I’m a bit worried—they look really strong.”

“Agreed. This ship needs to be a lot stronger before we ever think of going against them without support.”

“Now for that news?”

“Yes. During this experiment, it seems a raid was conducted and the pirates that threatened you were captured. Most of them died, but not all. They also captured a ship, which is really good news for us.”

“I mean, I get why it’s good news—they wouldn't be a problem for us in this station. But why is it really good news?”

“Because that ship is going to be sold off in pieces, and we would be entitled to a percentage of that. Also, I received a communication link from one of the case officers. He wishes to talk to you at your earliest convenience.”

“Before that, I’ll finish up with the ship and the preparations for hopefully selling a lot of my collected entertainment.”

“Acknowledged.”

The first thing I did was start printing out even more memory cards, and of course, replace the current ones connected to the server with new empty ones. We had a lot of data to transfer, but it was going pretty fast.

Next, with the help of my drones and the crane, we lifted into place the two final armour pieces. When they were secure enough that they wouldn’t fall off, I left it to the drones to finish stitching it in place.

After that, it was time to replace the memory cards once again with new empty ones.

There wasn't that much room between the two new engines, so it was awkward to work and lift the heavy gravity generator. But my bionic cybernetics had made my body a lot stronger, so I managed to wrestle it in place. Hooking it up to power was straightforward enough, and even on idle, it was a real power hog.

Good thing the power lines were so close—the same with the engines. Everything being so close up that consumed so much power made things just so much easier.

The calibration device for the gravity generator was easy to use. The manual that came with it explained everything extremely well, and now I understood why it was so important not to mess this part up.

Now, the real technical reasons why were still eluding me, but if you tried to generate gravity outside the hull, the results would at best be a broken gravity generator.

The explanation given was simple, but one most will understand.

It described it as trying to create a strong wind inside a small room using a fan, and then trying to create the same kind of strong wind during a hurricane using that same fan.

The results were predictable—your fan wasn’t going to do anything, and in the best-case scenario, your fan would somewhat survive what was about to happen.

So I needed to be really careful that the field wouldn't extend past the hull. Fortunately, my spaceship's outer wall was incredibly thick, but it seems that this model truly was quite good, as the calibration device indicated that the created field should be quite precise to the measurements I filled in.

In the end, we would need to test this outside, but for right now, this was all I could do.

“Lola, the ship is done. Start truly using up the credit we have and turning it into usable materials and hard currency, but keep a few million for me to go and buy the mind guard skill. We still aren’t sure about how many skill slots I have and how all of that works, but that's one of the skills that would most definitely be required.”

“Acknowledge. And on that last topic—while we still don’t know the exact number of skills you could incorporate—with the database now available to me, I have been able to confirm that there are ways of getting rid of skills. So you don't have to be so cautious.”

“Excellent. I am looking forward to that report.”

Now that all that was done, I gave all the drones the order to clean up and then go to their housing to get ready for takeoff.

The memory cards that were now full—as I had been switching them out constantly—I hid in my secret compartments, the majority of them being in my left hand. Wouldn’t want to be caught with this. Then the corporations would be even more angry about my actions.

As everything was ready and I started to walk toward the exit to enter the city, it was time to contact this case officer, but something made me stop. I looked back towards one particular compartment. Just in case I went and opened it, taking out a bullet meant for my revolver.

“Master, what are you doing?”

“Just a precaution, do not worry. And that’s one.” She went silent after that, but I didn’t actually count it as one. She could not help herself when she got nervous, as this bullet would make anyone anxious.

It took the case officer about six seconds to answer.

“Good day. My name is Remi Graves, you wished to talk to me?”

“I did. I’m glad that you contacted me. My name is—”

And what followed was literally the longest name I’ve ever heard, and what obviously didn’t translate correctly.

“We here wanted to thank you for the tip. It resulted in getting rid of a pirate spy, which helps make everyone safer. We truly appreciate your efforts, and I’m sending you another contact port for any other information you might have—not only about these pirates, but any others you might have information about.”

“But the thanks of all of us here are not the only thing you will be receiving. An entire pirate ship was seized, along with a lot of other goods. The space station has already bought them, and while you can imagine the price isn’t exactly market average, we are transferring to your account the 30% you are entitled to, which comes to approximately 98 million mana credits.”

I had just exited my ship’s dock, but those words actually made me stop walking.

“Excuse me—I’m pretty sure I heard you wrong. Did you say 98 million?”

What I heard in response was a hearty laugh.

“No, you didn’t hear me wrong. We managed to seize quite a lot.”

That made me think even more about my future plans regarding the pirates and the corporations. Well, I was always going to tip them off—but perhaps there is a way I could do this more directly.

“Hypothetically, let’s say that I might know where a fleet of pirate ships might show up, and give you a way to track that location and the approximate time they might show up. I assume there would be a reward for that as well, even if you all are doing the hard part of the job?”

There was a pause, and when he spoke again, he was speaking in a more serious tone.

“There would be quite a substantial reward, depending of course on the size of the fleet and the bounties on the pirates. But yes, you would be entitled to a portion of that.”

Perhaps this pirate hunting would be a good middle ground before we get to space monsters.

“I would need designs for a quantum tracking device, or better, if you were to send me one of yours. Now, I can’t guarantee anything. This isn’t exactly that type of situation, but when that tracker activates not too far away from here, there’s a pretty good chance that there would be a pirate fleet at that location not too long after the activation—with possibly another fleet that’s also on the wrong side of the law, but not as strongly as the pirates.”

There was a longer pause giving me enough time to reach the train station. Then all of a sudden, he spoke again with what seemed to be true purpose.

“Now that’s a lot of what-ifs and vague statements, but we will send you a tracking device in the next few hours. I hope that our future dealings go as well as the last one.”

I could sense he wanted to ask a lot more questions, but he understood that he wasn’t going to get more than he had received.

“I hope that as well. Good day.”

“Good day, Mage Captain Remi Graves of the Forward Horizon.”

And with that, the conversation was over. A moment later, Lola reported the increase in our account, which was 98,470,347 mana credits.

That was a lot, but I think I will still stick with buying only one skill, as we were soon heading toward a destination that had more skills for sale, and at a lower price.

“Lola, start converting that into hard currency. I’m going to try and get the deal done. Then, hopefully, we can get out of here, because I am starting to feel too many eyes on us. Also, see if there is a way to get credits of this station exchanged elsewhere.”

“Acknowledged.”