Chapter 40: High-Grade Energy Matter

Chapter 40: Chapter 40: High-Grade Energy Matter

When Liam drove back with a vehicle full of crates large and small, Isabella and Benjamin had already laid out lunch, sitting waiting for him to come back to eat together.

Seeing the pile of things in the vehicle, Isabella was startled:

"Why so much?"

Liam said with a smile: "Two crates are the two robots, one is odds and ends Daniel sent me. One is the baby cot I just bought, the rest was sent by that friend of mine. There’s an egg incubator, the rest is all unusual plants I asked him to buy off mercenaries."

Benjamin let out an "ah", apparently knowing how mercenaries often gathered unusual things on the primordial planets then sold them on as souvenirs. He clapped his hands with a smack, saying:

"No wonder you’ve found all these strange plants, so you bought them off those people?"

Liam nodded, smiling to himself: "That’s exactly it. What’s more it isn’t only what I bought myself, what Daniel sent was all bought off mercenaries too. He doesn’t know what it’s worth, thought having it piled up in a storeroom was too wasteful so he sent the lot to me."

He rubbed his chin, saying thoughtfully: "Apparently his brothers have been buying for him since he was little, so I think there must be a great deal. Brother, later could you clear out an empty storeroom for me to unpack it all?"

Benjamin nodded: "All right. Leave it there for now, let’s eat first, we’ll sort it out after."

There were new dishes today, so Isabella and Benjamin were impatient to get them into their stomachs. Liam smiled brightly, quickly washing up then sitting down at the table. The three of them didn’t chat the way they usually did, only keeping their heads down over the food, as though afraid it would fly away if they ate too slowly.

When they had finished, all three tipped their heads back against their chairs, letting out satisfied belches.

Benjamin said with feeling: "In the old days, I’d never have believed there would come a day I could eat a meal this extravagant."

Isabella nodded in agreement. Liam, though, said: "Our family’s advantage is that we grow vegetables ourselves, so we can eat them whenever we like."

Benjamin snorted a laugh: "That’s only how you see it. Back when our family was well off, we still only got to eat low-grade vegetables. Greens like Jade greens or Crystal Coral take a year to harvest. Never mind these Amethyst greens, their growing season is twice as long as those two."

That was why these vegetables were so expensive. Because they carried so much energy while growing so slowly, besides which one lapse and star-birds or star-beasts would gnaw them away.

Because they were precious, when people on the livestream saw Liam with a whole fridge stuffed full they had howled the way they did.

Families that grew these vegetables usually needed very deep capital, plus a very strong defensive capability, so ordinary households had best forget it, sticking to low-grade varieties like Sawtooth greens.

And low-grade vegetables didn’t taste very good, fine now and then, but eaten every day they left the mouth tasting bitter.

Once the bowls and chopsticks and the table were cleared, Liam took two puddings out of the fridge, turning them out onto plates then bringing his brother and sister one each. He instructed the two of them just as he had Daniel: 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

"First have a smart unit scan the ingredients in the pudding then simulate their effect on the body, if you’re not allergic then go ahead and eat."

Isabella and Benjamin looked curiously at the wobbling yellow pudding on the table, then did as Liam said. The smart unit gave its result very quickly, neither of them allergic.

Only then did they pick up their spoons, taking a small spoonful into their mouths. That sweet, fragrant, silky-soft taste conquered the two Martinez siblings at once. Isabella cried out:

"Oh Liam, this is wonderful! It’s even better than the dessert at Daniel’s restaurant the other day. What’s it called?"

"This is mango pudding, made from mangoes." Liam took a mango out of the spatial bracelet to show them: "This was in the pile of gifts Daniel gave yesterday."

Benjamin took another spoonful, clicking his tongue in praise: "Another strange fruit, pretty to look at and good to eat too. Aren’t you having any?"

Liam’s face was full of misery: "I’m allergic, I can’t eat it."

The two of them immediately looked at Liam with deep sympathy. Liam didn’t feel sorry for himself, though, saying: "The seed of this fruit can be planted, so later once we’ve sorted through that pile to see if there are any new seeds, we’ll soak them in restoration fluid all at once."

Isabella nodded: "Keeping half back as a control again?"

Liam shook his head: "Soak two parts, keep back only one part as the sample."

The three of them sat talking a while to let the food settle. Liam felt a little sleepy, so he said to his brother and sister:

"I’m going up for a nap, put those things in an empty storeroom, I’ll open them this afternoon when I wake."

"Mm, off you go."

Isabella and Benjamin savored their puddings slowly, then took the plates to wash before choosing a patch of open ground beside the house, setting their old mobile home down there. The storeroom was dark with no cooling system, so naturally the two of them couldn’t bear to let their brother crawl in there to suffer.

With the house up, the two of them went inside, using the house’s smart system to change the layout of the rooms. From a single-story house with two bedrooms, it was now nothing but four walls.

Afraid their brother would get cold sitting on the floor, they laid down a thick synthetic woven carpet as well. By the time they had finished it was already half past one in the afternoon, so once Benjamin had switched on the cooling system for the whole house the two of them carried the crates from the utility vehicle inside.

That done, both of them went back to their own rooms. Benjamin went online, checking his channel figures, reading the messages people had sent. Among them was a message from White Narcissus: [I slept very well last night, thank you.]

Benjamin looked at the line for a long while, messaging back: "It’s what I ought to do."

[Um... could you help me again tonight?]

"Of course, I’ll call you at nine. Insomnia takes a long time to treat, just tell me once you’re better."

[Thank you, I’m putting you to a lot of trouble.]

"Not at all."

The other side didn’t message again, so Benjamin logged off too, climbing into bed to sleep. He’d slept late last night so he was tired by now as well.

When Liam woke it was already two in the afternoon. Sunflower relayed the message Isabella had left before her nap, so he washed his face then went straight to the house the two of them had cleared for him.

First he set aside the things he had put in himself, then he opened up the two robots. Farming robots were robots that could transform with great flexibility. Their default form was only as tall as an ordinary person, with arms and legs like a human.

Their other forms were usually shaped like farm machinery.

"System, start." Since that morning when the blue cat said calling its name was no different from practicing a bark, Liam had switched to calling it system. The blue cat began attaching itself to the robots’ smart units, beginning to install the programming.

While the blue cat was busy, Liam opened the pile of things Daniel had sent him. He had expected a jumbled heap, only to find Daniel had arranged everything extremely carefully. The items were sorted year by year, not nearly as uncherished as he had claimed.

Liam looked them all over, the oldest from Galactic Year 307x, which was when Daniel was ten. The newest was from a year and a half ago. Probably the last gift his eldest brother bought before it all happened. Fifteen boxes in all.

Liam opened them in turn starting from the oldest. After a while, he let out a long sigh at the worthless things in front of him. If it wasn’t a rock with rather eye-catching red veins then it was a branch of some odd shape. A good many strange-looking fruits and vegetables were judged poisonous by Sunflower.

He had opened twelve boxes in a row, when at the thirteenth the blue cat, still installing the programming, suddenly let out a piercing beeping:

[Beep beep beep! Super-energy object detected! Preserve current state!]

It abandoned the programming at once, shooting across in front of Liam in a flash. The blue cat cried: "Host, it’s high-energy matter! Quick, step back a bit and let me examine it."

Liam hurriedly backed away, pressing himself against the wall. The blue cat started up the system’s energy-scanning radar. About ten minutes later it had finished scanning, beginning its analysis. Ten minutes more, the analysis was in. The blue cat swished its tail happily:

"Host, you truly are the luckiest person I have ever met. This blue lump that looks like crystal is an extremely rare kind of ore. In a 5S-grade world, it’s the principal material that sustains the heart of a 5S mecha."

5S mecha?

Liam’s heart skipped a beat. Naturally he knew what a mecha was. It was the combat machine soldiers used on the battlefield, and only regular soldiers with mental power of grade B++ or above were permitted to own one.

But! In the world he lived in now, the highest grade of mecha was only grade S. Even the two strongest people in the galaxy with grade-2S mental power still had to use grade-S mechas. And yet the thing Daniel’s brother had casually bought as a gift for his little brother was the very treasure that would drive this whole galaxy mad.

The moment of delight passed, the blue cat hurriedly stowing the blue ore in the system storage bag. It said gravely:

"Once this gets out there’ll certainly be a storm of blood, so it’s best to put it away properly first. Wait until the Trading Hall reaches level five, then use it to trade for an ore suited to this world’s level of science and technology."

Liam nodded slowly. His brain felt about to explode. He asked the blue cat in a daze:

"Why is something from a 5S world in a 2S world? And why couldn’t the Research Institute detect its energy?"

The blue cat considered for a moment, then asked Liam in return:

"Host, have you considered one possibility? That this world was originally a 5S world, but for some reason fell to 2S?"

It tapped one front paw on the floor, going on: "As for why the Research Institute couldn’t detect the energy inside, my guess is that current machinery can’t scan high-grade energy matter yet. I’m different, I’m a high-grade system from the Cross-World Trading Hall, we’re configured to scan energy matter up to 6S."

Liam raised a hand to rub his forehead, feeling his brain wasn’t up to the job just now. Never mind that the original owner had been a hothouse flower, knowing very little about technology.

He himself was a soul transmigrated from the twenty-first century, the most advanced technology he’d ever touched being AI for making films and processing text.

How was he supposed to understand this tangled mess?