Chapter 234

Matt really didnt want to say goodbye to Liz so soon after saying goodbye to Aster, but he understood the necessity of completing missions on their own.

They gave it a week after the first counselors arrived to ensure people were settling into a routine for treatment, and that the nascent dryad was getting the care it needed in the form of a specialist carefully transplanting it to a hidden grove. Once they were satisfied, the two of them flew to space, withdrew their spaceships from their respective storages, and shared one last kiss goodbye.

Matts spaceship was substantially larger and nicer than Lizs, simply because he could power far more than the others could. That translated to a two-section ship rated for mortal occupants, as it was split between a cockpit with four distinct seats, and a storage bay large enough to hold a few full-sized crates. It also had an absolutely tiny galley installed in one wall. It wouldnt be comfortable for four people to live in it, of course, but each of the four seats could be raised into the ceiling for a small measure of personal space, with the seat doubling as a mattress.

Lizs ship didnt even have that, and was only a two-man fighter with no concessions made for people who couldnt go indefinitely without eating, sleeping, using the bathroom, or really even breathing. The only access point was through the cockpit windshield, which could be raised or even removed if needed. The ship had an atmospheric support system, so technically anyone above Tier 10 that was capable of surviving the half-hour required for the cabin to regenerate its air could utilize it, but was still missing basically everything mortals would need to survive. In a pinch, both of them plus Aster could fit in the fighter, but would require either Liz or Aster to be in their beast forms.

Matt ran through his pre-flight checklist, ensuring he didnt miss any important steps in his first real flight using the ship. Lights blinked on and off as they should, both of his AIs were coordinating with the ships onboard system, and enchantments hummed as the mana crystal powered up each system in turn.

April was Matts companion and supervisor for this trip, and Matt swiveled back around to look at the green-haired woman. Thats the last of it. Ready to go?

His liaison shot back a couple of questions about his startup, clearly meant to trip him up, but he handled them in stride. When she finally gave him a nod, he turned back to face the stars and engaged the warp drive.

Mana levels dropped, a surge of magic rolled out across the ship, and Matts senses twisted as he broke through to chaotic space.

Matt barely noticed as the shields kicked on, pushing back the corrosive reality of chaotic space, with the amount of mana it required so laughably below his mana generation that he needed to trust his monitoring devices to believe it even took any at all. Then, he turned his attention to the outside and felt the battering winds of the otherworld with his own spirit. Below him, or perhaps in front of him, the firefly that represented the world hed just come from glittered and shone with golden light, with the glimmering strings connecting it to nearby planets stretching off into the distance.

The range of his senses was odd. Dimensions were unusual in Chaotic Space, and while his spiritual sense could stretch for miles, it didnt seem like it translated in the same way to this reality. It was pulled along and twisted, swept along in higher-dimensional eddies and currents that he couldnt quite perceive properly.

Lizs ship appeared next to his, and he sent her a quick message before they started to pull away. He received a response instantly, and smiled. She must have had it queued up, ready to reply the moment she entered Chaotic Space, and Matt set a reminder for him to look at it later.

Lizs ship blurred as she pulled away, following one of the strings to her next mission, just as Matt did the same.

The Great Powers were in many ways one unified entity, a massive network of worlds and routes mostly locked in place, drifting like a net cast overboard on a vast ocean. Only hard work kept them moored to one another. Namely, the full suite of enchantments which facilitated the teleport network that ensured the linked worlds stayed locked together. That wasnt all they did though, they also acted as a beacon for ships to follow, and stabilized chaotic space just enough that travelers wouldnt be swept away by the currents and winds as they went about their daily business.

Of course, they werent truly currents, just ripples in space which could pull you off course or cause backtracking lead you to a completely different place than where you came from. Venturing too far from the great raft that was the Great Powers was a sure-fire way for even a Tier 35 to be swept away, never to be seen again. There wasnt any data for Tiers above that, but it seemed likely that it was only a matter of distance as well.

In the shallows of chaotic space, near known planets and their well-maintained pathways, the currents were weak enough that sufficiently high-tier ships and individuals could navigate the twisting space, resisting their pull and take shortcuts between worlds, but Matt was nowhere close to that level yet, and if he tried venturing into the unknowable, hed be swept away in an instant.

Unlike most people who met such a fate, Matt wouldnt be doomed if that happened to him. Beyond April being able to pull him out, assuming she reacted quickly enough, his shielding enchantments ran off of his own endless mana, and he could legitimately last the decades, centuries, or even millennia it may take before he was blown back into known space. Regardless, he stayed very firmly next the well-maintained and well-lit path, following the pearlescent white guideline demarcating the safety of the teleport tethers.

It took about three hours to reach the next world, passing a handful of ships on his way, and from there, he navigated around the world and the ships spawning and vanishing near it to his next tether, carefully following the paths to new worlds.

Quill watched for almost a full day before starting to do manipulation exercises that didnt need much room as a way to help recover his mana control. The last doubling had been as rough as expected, but he had started to learn the best ways to recover his mana dexterity faster.

While he did so, Quill went through the dossier of the mission.

As the brief said, he needed to help the low Tier charity construction company avoid bankruptcy, caused by the discovery of a mineral vein that prevented them from building while the mining rights were being negotiated.

Aloys Construction was a simple charity organization that had the mission statement of creating low-cost housing on new planets for low Tiers to move into. It was a noble cause, but was generally not needed, which made Quill start digging deeper into the issue.

Generally, the local noble family would fund such projects to make their planet more desirable for said mortals, but companies like this werent unheard of either. They were just usually for-profit entities that charged those same nobles for their work, who then gave the houses out in the same way as if they had built them themselves.

It took Quill almost an hour of digging through records, but he eventually found the reason for the company, and what he believed to be the actual underlying issue.

The owner of the charity company came from noble stock, but had been disinherited after his awakening, where they discovered he had a construction Talent. That in and of itself would have been fine, but the young noble scion, Michel Silvestre, had gotten a taste for constructing buildings, and found that he liked the actual construction more than making money. That was apparently unacceptable to his family, who wanted to leverage his Talent to open their own construction company, develop their holdings, and make a profit.

When his family threatened to disinherit him for his obstinance, he had threatened to call their bluff and the family backed down slightly, offering him a deal. They would give him a small payout equal to what he would have received as his inheritance to use for setting up a company where he could do as he pleased. The condition was, if his idea of charity work failed and the business went under, he needed to return to the fold and work for the family.

Quill shook his head at the family struggles, but understood the logic on both sides, at least from what he was able to source from the EmpireNet. Michel felt his Talent was best used to help others directly, and wanted to skip the noble families who might decide to charge mortals more than was reasonable. It was a possibility if he was a for-profit business, but would be out of the question if he operated as a charity. His family, on the other hand, felt that charity work was putting them and him at the whims of donors, let alone while working in a business where margins were already thin. A charity couldn't run forever at a deficit, after all, and that would slowly drain the family coffers, slowly ruining the family. From the reports, the family didnt even want him to price gouge people, just charge enough to make a small profit. It would then be on the local noble families to give those houses away for cheap.

While both were looking at the situation from pessimistic extremes, Quill personally felt the young Michel had the right idea. Not every noble family gave those houses away on the cheap, which is why he chose the area he did to start his first large scale construction operation.

Joyful Meadows, the crown jewel of that sector of Empire space.

The system was a Tier 15 world which had had a number of resources funneled into it by the Nazwari noble family, who owned it. The benefits included terraforming and bringing the formerly smaller world into a better orbit nearer to the star, and increasing its size massively, but even that hadnt been enough for their ambitions. It being the only world over Tier 10 in the vicinity, they had a plethora of immigrants, and two planets werent nearly enough. No, they had gone ahead and built an entirely new planet from scratch in the system, if only to further increase the areas value.

That third planet was Michels target. It was mostly regulated to a project planet, where only those too poor to live on the more established worlds or those playing the long game set up their homes or operations due to its low Tier. Eventually, it would Tier up due to the excess essence produced by the two higher Tier planets in the system. But for now, the images he had were more reminiscent of Lilly when he was growing up, rather than other high Tier systems, with only a few scattered cities built along the coast.

Being a purpose built planet, they should have never run into a gold mine near the coast, but they had, and even the company who built the planet was confused about its appearance.

If the Silvestre and Nazwari hadnt been from opposite political spectrums, despite both being hereditary noble families, he would have suspected that they had colluded to hamper the young Michel and his ambitions.

While the unexplained gold mine was intriguing, Quill didnt necessarily need to bother with it. His mission goal was to ensure Michels company didnt go under while creating as little interruptions as possible.

His first idea was to pretend to be a lawyer and represent Michel, but he quickly dismissed that, as Michel already had a seemingly decent lawyer, and Quill would just get in the way.

If he was allowed to go in loud, he would just disguise himself and steal the ore vein to remove the problem, but that was disruptive, and would raise all kinds of red flags. Even low Tier gold was still valuable due to its properties in enchanting and manatronics, but it wasnt so expensive that a Tier 15 would covet it, which would only raise more questions if he made a move.

While planning, Quill bounced his ideas off April, who helped him consider the pros and cons of each idea, and he eventually came to the decision of going undercover as an Imperial Investigator.

Imperial Investigators were, like most imperial organizations, limited in their scope and ability to interfere directly, but they had a few useful abilities that Quill thought might prove useful. Their entire purpose was to watch immortals who operated on mostly mortal worlds, and while they ostensibly only worked in Tier 10 and below planets, they had the governance oversight to limit immortals for nearly any reason.

And that suited what Quill needed to do to a T.

It seemed like the entire bottom of the ocean was stuffed with various metals, just far enough below a layer of dirt and stone to not interfere with the local aquatic life.

Flying around in zigzag patterns, Quill found ore vein after ore vein all the way till he neared a coastline. He suspected the out of place gold mine was from a shift in a tectonic plate or last minute change in the desired coastline, but couldnt prove anything.

He still wasnt sure why they had deliberately ordered the planet with such massive amounts of hidden metal reserves, but now he had the perfect method to apply leverage on the company. Heading back into the sea, he found a relatively rich vein of aluminum and carved his way through the ground towards the metal.

Even within arms reach, he couldn't see anything unique about the metals and decided to harvest some.

With a flex of [Metal Manipulation] he carved himself a chunk of the Tier 5 aluminum out and froze the moment he saw what he actually pulled out.

It wasnt aluminum, or rather it was aluminum, infused aluminum which was far more rare and far more expensive.

Even a Tier 5 infused metal was worth its weight in Tier 15 mana stones, no matter the type. That was mostly due to the fact the metal couldnt be mass produced or pulled from rifts, and needed to be harvested from planets that had been left alone in a high mana concentration area for long enough that the metals started to change.

All infused metals were useful, and their applications varied, but most of its uses revolved around enchanting. An ounce of infused copper or gold could be added to an enchantment that used one of those materials to both strengthen the enchantment and make it more efficient. There was one notable example of a man creating a weapon out of infused steel, which allowed that sword to rival a weapon five Tiers above its own.

Quill had never even seen infused metals, let alone in the massive quantities that this planet had to have, especially if all the ores in the oceans were infused metals encased in their normal variants.

Testing a theory, he checked a few more places and found there were no depleted metals which would have formed if the metals were naturally located there, proving this was some kind of smuggling, money laundering, or tax evasion method by the Nazwari house proving the infused metals were not natural in origin and being deliberately hidden inside their normal variants.

Exiting the ocean, Quill flexed his Concept to repel the water clinging to him and went to go find the company under the Nazwari family.

Flying into the one settled city, Quill walked around inspecting the people and how they fared. For all that he was expecting another copy of Lilly and the incompetence of the Junipers, the Nazwari noble house seemed far more competent.

Even though the city was using mostly the low Tier equivalents, they had all the modern amenities that he had seen on the two higher Tier planets. Things like early warning detection drones flew around the perimeter of the cities, watching for any rift monsters. The entire city edge even had cleverly concealed formations which would create defensive barriers if they were attacked. While those things didnt prove they were good rulers, it was a good indication, and made Quill more confused as to why they were trying to hide such mineral wealth.

Once he had gotten his fill of the city, Quill made his way to the Nazwari family company in charge of the local construction, and asked to speak to someone in charge.

The receptionist tried to deflect him, but Quill just grinned and flashed his Imperial Investigator badge. Then suddenly, the manager, Willa Stonewall, had her schedule freed up as if by magic.

Quill used his AI and Imperial Investigator credentials to get some quick information on the woman and liked what he saw. Her younger sister had married the third son of the Nazwaris current matriarch, making her an inlaw to the noble family, which was how she had gotten this otherwise cushy position.

Her bright smile was a little fragile as she asked, How can I help you, Investigator?

Quill returned her smile, letting his mask stretch it out a hair more than normal, giving it a slightly unfriendly feeling. Julius Alto, Imperial Investigator out of the Illeria system. Badge number I15794BT66. Im here to have a little chat with you about your company's interference in a mortal charitys day to day operations. Do you have a minute or ten to chat?

Willas smile nearly slipped as she led him to her office, but he didnt miss the receptionists frantic tapping at his pad the moment they were around the corner.

Perfect.

That meant someone with actual decision making power would be here as fast as they could travel the intervening distance between planets.

Willa deliberately kept the conversation from going anywhere important, and Quill didnt push, knowing she wasnt anyone actually important.

Despite that, he carefully watched her physiological reactions to his questions and determined that she had no idea why he was actually here, and was simply afraid that the gravy train would come to an stop with his presence.

It took almost half an hour, but eventually, the third son, Dejene, arrived with a bright smile. Good day Investigator Alto. Im sorry you needed to come out here. Thats a failing on our families' part. What can we do to assist you in rectifying the issue?

Quill returned his smile and handshake. Really, this isn't anything important. Frankly, it's not even an official matter yet. I was just nearby and heard about the issue through the rumor mill, and felt it was worth a stop. Best to head things off before they become official. Im sure youd agree.

Dejenes smile widened when he heard Quill wasnt here on official business, as that would be a black mark on his family no matter how the issue was resolved. If this was just an information seeking trip, they could either bribe Quill off the issue, or fix the issue before it became an official problem.

Gesturing for them to take a walk, Quill and Dejene walked to the edge of the city where the gold deposit was, and Quill indicated it and explained the issue he and the Bureau of Imperial Investigators had with a mortal charity company being hamstrung by such an incident.

Dejene tried to play it apologetic, like he was sorry it was an issue in the first place, but continued on the fact that an unexplained gold deposit had to be carefully handled, which took time.

Quill smiled right back and agreed.

Then, he abruptly changed the topic.

You know, Dejene, this planet has some beautiful oceans. I grew up on an archipelago planet, and I love deep sea diving. It's my favorite pastime. I do it whenever I have any time to spare. Have you ever been diving?

Quill had to hold back a laugh as Dejene tried not to react. Sadly, his heart escaped his control for a moment and started rapidly beating, even as his smile stayed plastered on his face.

I cant say I have. Ive always been more interested in the stars myself.

Quill continued with the fabricated tale of his adventures of deep sea diving, and let the conversation drift back to more neutral territory, until they got back to the city building that housed their local branch.

Once they separated, Quill indicated he would stay around for another week or two and see if he could figure things out. If he couldnt solve the issue, hed be forced to open an investigation. Which was exactly the threat they both knew it to be.

Quill knew the issue would be corrected for Michels charity within a few hours, but he would stick around, just to let the threat linger a little.

While he was interested in why the Nazwaris were trying to hide that much infused metal, he also didnt care that they were. It was probably to evade some tax laws, but he simply didnt care. Tax evasion, or what he now suspected was inheritance tax bypassing, was a natural product of having taxes, and he couldnt fix that, even by reporting them. Besides, if he reported them now, the tax hit would be comparatively tiny compared to when the planet was a few Tiers higher.

With that thought causing a grin to stretch across his face, Quill decided to go rent a boat and see if he could figure out how to sail. From the way Aiden talked about it, it seemed like a great pastime.