Chapter 27 In space with a junkyard ship

There was one thing I needed to do before I left for the city.

“Lola, have you finished the research about the habits of the people of this station and the solar system? What's the verdict?”

“I have not finished it completely, but the current results are promising. There's a good chance that this plan would work if you can find the right buyers.”

“Hopefully that won't be too hard. Do you also have the correct format for a storage device?”

“Yes, I’ll send you the blueprints now.”

On my AR, something very similar to a memory card appeared, and I started looking over its blueprint to see how it’s made. It was easy enough to replicate, so within only 14 minutes, I had myself a memory card that functioned in this station.

Transferring the necessary data was easy enough, and just in case, I hid it inside my cybernetic arm, so if they had sensors looking for stuff like this, they wouldn’t find it.

The trip to the city was uneventful, yet the second when I looked over the city, I was amazed at this entire construction. To have such a large city inside the station with so many people living here was something I never expected to see.

As time goes on and I learn more and more about this galaxy and universe, even with the bad stuff, I’m truly glad that there’s so much more than just empty solar systems.

Upon reaching the ground floor, instead of continuing to walk on the current street, going a few streets over took me to one of the main streets that led straight to the city centre.

Instead of there being the usual street for vehicles, this entire street was meant for walking. Both sides seemed to be filled with storefronts, and a lot of the sidewalk was filled up with stalls for food or knick-knacks.

This street was also one of the dividing lines between the adventurer side of the city and a side that was hard to give a name because there didn’t seem to be anything specific that could be named. Perhaps off-brand, but that didn’t feel right.

The corporations had a clean, almost sterile look, prioritising profit above all else. The adventurers’ side of things with more emphasis on what I would call a medieval style.

So many of the shops in the adventurer area were for different kinds of weapons and armors that didn't have any electronics in them. Apparently, that's because mana and electronics didn't work well together, with the only way to 100% guarantee that electronics worked in high mana areas was to be bonded to them.

It was the main reason why AIs were required to have a bond, as raw mana could change their programming in unexpected ways, if not straight corrupt it.

At first, Lola and I had thought that the universal law was because they were afraid of AI, but no, it was to keep them sane, and in some cases, the AI was the one in charge instead of the other way around.

There were even advertisements here for AIs that were offering worry-free lives for people who would be willing to be bonded with them but be the servants of AI instead of the other way around.

Lola found that quite hilarious because back on Earth, there was no way anyone was going to allow that.

The street was packed with people, there was music in the air, the smell of food was intoxicating, and it was hard to not stop every few steps to see what everyone was selling.

So while the right side of the street had adventure stuff, the left side had more normal shops but obviously still meant for adventuring. There were even some advertising no-electronics guns and stuff like that. To my surprise, there were some gun shops on the adventure side as well, so there was a mix of stuff.

Mostly, I managed to not stop as I continued to work towards the city center, but the large shop that took up basically the entire block made me stop.

The name of the shop was Light Mech Suit Emporium. On display were different kinds of mech suits, yet none of them truly looked like stuff I knew from games and movies. It more looked like exoskeletons like they used in the military, which I guess was where the ‘light’ part of the shop name came into play.

They did have impressive stats. One of those would allow you to carry a few tons, and the display windows and the screens inside continued to cycle through different designs and how they could be used.

A lot of the pictures showed the huge weaponry that could be used with these kinds of mech suits—from swords that should not be practical to what looked like miniguns that must have weighed 400 kilos or more, with about a ton of ammunition carried in the oversized backpack.

The funny thing was that on the other side of the street, in the adventure side of the city, there were multiple shops that sold oversized weaponry. I guess it was a good spot to put these kinds of shops, but I also saw that the doors of these places were meant for bigger species. There was even someone that was at least 5 meters tall shopping for what looked to be a huge spear.

For a moment there, my mind went through different ways of fighting that person, and one thing was clear—if that thing was actually fast, it was going to demolish me in a close-up fight. My right arm had sneaked dangerously close to my revolver, so I had to forcefully relax myself. It was time to continue walking.

While a mech suit sounded nice, there was no way to purchase one right now and no way for me to know what I actually needed. All of those were also apparently light mech suits, so I wondered what the heavy kind looked like. The battlefields of this galaxy must be quite chaotic and dangerous.

After about another hour of walking, to the right of me a shop piqued my interest once again. It wasn't a traditional shop, but something of a mix between a repair shop and a pawn shop.

The urge to go into the shop was strong. I was also certain that if I did enter, there was no way for me not to purchase anything, so it was best to move on right now and return when I was heading back to the ship.

“Lola, we need a comprehensive list of species, if possible, their universal translator keys, but we also need their species’ weaknesses, strengths, and how their bodies work.”

“I will add it to the list, but what brought this on?”

“There’s more crime here than I expected. This reminds me of my old city. But now I’m realizing that back on Earth I knew the weak points of my species and I knew the weak points of cybernetics.”

“If I’m lucky, the cybernetics should work similarly, but like with bodies, I would only know the basics—so, like, hit at the head. But I bet you there are species here walking beside me that wouldn’t be killed by me hitting their head?”

Lola took a while before she answered.

“I have been able to confirm that there are quite a lot of species where even shooting them in the head wouldn’t kill them. But it would still slow them down. Don’t worry, I will start compiling a database, but the storage might become an issue.”

“Yet another thing we need to spend money on. The storage solutions are better here than back on Earth, and I could even upgrade the computer in my head, but like always, everything costs a lot. We really do need a profitable job.”

“Agreed. And a few more quantum chips would also be nice.”

“Yeah yeah, and so would a couple of billion worth of skills.”

I was finally starting to reach the center of the city. Because of this, the shops started to be more high-end.

It was as good a place as any to get some skewered meat. It only cost fractions of a credit to buy it, but damn was it good. It was also the first time I figured out that credits could be used in fractions.

Most of the food seemed to cost between 0.08 to 0.2 mana credits, and you got a pretty decent amount of it.

As I was eating, it was time to decide which shop I should go into first. The adventurer side had the first skill shop I had seen. The other side had a shop that sold engines for spaceships—but more specifically, those engines that somehow were able to propel spaceships without using any propellants.

Those were the engines I was most curious about when I saw them as we slowed down to match speed with the space station. Damn it, the skills can wait for a bit.

There were quite a few people in the shop, but it was amazing to see engines that made me look so small. Most of them seemed to be using propellers like the ribbons or more traditional electric fan designs. The engines themselves seemed to be electric with huge gearboxes.

There didn't seem to be anything special with the engines themselves, but when I looked at the propellers—now those looked special.

"Welcome, sir. Sorry for the wait. Is there something I can help you with?" a shop clerk said in Common, most likely because on my calling card that people saw whenever they used an AR system, it listed that as my preferred language to communicate in.

"Electric motors don’t seem to be the best for this kind of application, do they not?"

That seemed to fluster him a bit.

"Well, yes and no. There are some downsides—the instant torque is always a problem—but our gearboxes are up to the task, I assure you. We also have adequate cooling solutions, so there's no need to worry about that."

"Good. What about the propellers? Are they as good as the engines?"

"Absolutely. We only use the best materials sourced from space monsters. We refine them ourselves and then make the propellers. We actually guarantee a lifetime warranty—except for battle damage, of course."

"Of course. And let's say a price for this beauty here?" I said while pointing at the engine we were currently looking at.

"The engine itself is 12.5 million mana credits. The propeller is 122 million. It’s perfect for ships of the tiny category that are around 500 tons.”

“This engine will easily be able to maintain the needed acceleration for faster-than-light travel and will do so cheaper than any other engine. While yes, the price might seem high, you will faster than anyone expects make that money back in lowered fuel costs."

The moment he mentioned the propeller price, it was hard to keep a straight face. 122 million was ridiculous.

“Lola, do you have more information? How does this actually work?”

“Give me a moment.”

As Lola researched, I excused myself and exited the shop. It would take quite a while for the fuel costs to make that money back, but eventually it would.

“It seems that the propellers are made of materials gathered from space monsters that allowed those space monsters to move through space. It seems like they push against the very fabric of space-time itself, and if made into a propeller shape and powered, you could push yourself like you would in air or water. A wing design would also work, or flippers.”

“It once again comes back to manipulating the fabric of space itself and the space monsters. I will bet you that those shield generators also use something from those space monsters.”

“There’s no way I’m going to take that bet.”

“Fair enough, Lola, fair enough.”

The walk to the skill shop was harder than expected as the street was so full of people. As I entered, I was reminded of medieval shops in VR RPG games. There were wooden shelves—or at least they looked like it. I didn’t believe that they were actually wood, although when I saw the prices of everything, perhaps I was wrong.

There were so many skills on sale underneath glass boxes that looked strong enough that even with my cybernetic arm there was no way to break them.

Whenever I got close every skill seemed to be calling out to me wanting me to learn them. They looked like small rocks of different types with more colorful integrated designs.

As I started to look through the names of the skills calling to me, I realized that they were all the basic starting skills.

I was brought out of my browsing when a noise came from not too far away from me. Apparently, two people were arguing, wanting to buy the same skill.

There were quite a few guards around, but it surprised me that they reacted almost immediately, secured the two who were making a ruckus, and just threw them out.

“What a bunch of idiots. Don’t they know that this shop takes no chances? Even if you raise your voice too much, you're out of here.” I heard one of the customers say to another.

Seems that I wasn’t the only one walking from skill to skill. There were quite a lot of people walking through the aisles, occasionally stopping. Not because they saw a skill they were interested in, but I bet they were feeling the same thing as I did: a skill that they could use that was calling to them.

The problem was, for me it seemed like most of the skills were calling to me.

Who would have thought that the basic affinity was going to be such a problem? Was there a way to lessen its influence? Because I really needed to narrow things down.

There was another approach that I could take, as the sections were labelled, and there was one for general survival, so I walked there before trying anything else.

Basically, I wanted everything. There were different kinds of skills that offered resistances for temperature, even pressure.

One that I think I was actually going to buy, which cost 3.3 million, was a skill that would help you survive longer without breathing. It was a G rank skill, and at the start, it would already halve your breathing requirements.

So would that mean that with my canisters, I could survive without refilling them for about two weeks, up from the one week?

Magic was weird, and it seems like skills could be improved upon, so I could probably extend that time by quite a lot.

There were other people in this section, some quite distraught.

Seems like their affinities didn’t allow them to have any skills from this section.

Okay, I take it back—I love my basic affinity, because with it every skill in this section was calling to me.

As I continued to browse around, finally I found the skill that I came here for.

While I had no idea what kind of build I wanted to go for, in everything Lola and I found on the web, the most recommended skill for basically every build foundation was mana sense.

While I could sense mana, everyone who had gone through mana rebirth could, that didn’t mean that this sense was good enough to be useful during combat.

This skill changed that.

Fortunately, it was a relatively cheap skill because apparently it was dropped quite often. That was another thing I wasn’t quite certain of—how did skills actually drop? But that didn't matter right now.

“Excuse me, I would like to purchase the Mana Sense skill,” I asked one of the shop clerks.

“Of course. It is our most sold item. The cost is 2.2 million mana credits. How would you like to pay for it?”

“In station credits and with a transfer.”

“Excellent,” he said while showing me the skill but not giving it to me before I transferred the credits.

As soon as the transaction was completed, he handed me the skill, and I pretended to break it by squeezing it in my hand like everyone else had done, but I just used some sleight of hand to make it disappear into my sleeve.

It would have been so much safer just to absorb the skill right now, but I wanted to test back on the ship if I could somehow filter out the basic affinity's acceptance of basically every skill here.