Chapter 159
Rewards
Lucas stopped by the jellyfish planet, informing them of their creations’ destruction. They thanked Lucas multiple times until he finally got fed up with it and left. Arriving back at the Nugitraaiilian planet, Lucas took his ship back to the surface.
Aslo, Chu Shen, Chrissa, and Lucas all exited the ship after it landed. Facing them was a mech. There was a flash of light and suddenly, hundreds of thousands of mechs were now in front of them. Lucas backed up, his hands in the air. “What do you think you’re doing? We are supposed to be working together.”
One of the mechs stepped forward. “We have ended the threat to our planet posed by the invaders. Due to that, pre-war measurements are now in place. No war vessels greater in number than fifty are permitted to be under the command of one person or entity. No fighters greater than the number of two hundred are permitted to be under the command of one person or entity. Any persons that violate these laws will be accused of attempted treason and executed.”
Aslo immediately became outraged. “You can’t be serious. We just saved this entire planet! Show some gratitude at least.”
Lucas grabbed his shoulder. “Aslo!” He hissed in Aslo’s ear. “That won’t work. He’s a robot, only logic will work on him.” Turning to face the mech, Lucas started thinking. “AI, we did not know of this law previously, so forgive our ignorance. In order to meet your requirements, may we be allowed to self-destruct our ships until they are at the designated number?”
The mech nodded. “This is permitted, but it must be carried out within the next hour or you will be accused of treason.”
All of the mechs surrounding them disappeared. All that was left was a single scout drone. Lucas started issuing orders. All of his ships except 40 destroyers, 10 battleships, 100 shield fighters, 30 fighters, and 70 sniper drones immediately deactivated their reactor containment systems. Overhauling their engines, they soon became beautiful fireworks in the darkness of space.
After the last extra ship disappeared, the scout drone approached them. “Now that you are no longer being accused of treason, your privateer payments are no longer suspended. The major contributions you have accomplished is not covered in the Sh’lteek protocol.
“Military accomplishments shall be paid in cores to the person or nearest of kin. Due to your unprecedented accomplishments, all cores available in the warehouses shall be paid to your privateer group. The payment will be given once the other privateers have been paid.”
Lucas looked confused. “I thought there were no privateers except us.”
The scout drone replied matter-of-factly. “All other privateers have passed away in the line of duty. I am currently searching for their closest relatives.” Lucas finally realized what that meant. The privateers the scout drone mentioned were obviously the privateers that had defended the Nugitraaiil against the first alien invasion. All of them were already dead or evacuated.
Lucas sighed. “Thank you. Please let us know when the distribution is over so that we can take our share.”
“It will be as you instructed, Privateer.”
While the rest went to eat, Lucas started to dismantle the ARD and the fabricators. There was no point in letting the AI study them. He didn’t want to cause an upset in the power balance of the world. Plus, you could never fully trust a robot. Give it a convincing argument and it would kill its own creator.
Thirty minutes later, the scout drone appeared in front of Lucas. “I have finished scanning the planet. No one eligible to receive a reward was detected. Because of this, their reward defaults back to the military. Your reward is now available. Would you like to see it now?”
Lucas set down the quantum stabilizer. “Yeah, just let me get my crew together first.”
Soon, the whole gang was following the scout drone. They were slowly walking towards the city. Finally, Lucas got annoyed and called his spaceship down. Boarding it along with everyone else, he had the robot point out where to land the ship at. Soon they were at the Planetary Command Center.
Once there, the scout drone guided them to a heavily fortified section of the base. There, they found an elevator that was supposed to take them to the bottom of a fortified bunker. Unfortunately, due to the power usage, the elevator was out of operation.
Instead, Lucas flew down with his jetpack while holding the scout drone. Chu Shen used his
At the bottom of the shaft was a pair of closed doors. Chu Shen brought out his hammer and started using his
Peering through the gaping hole, Chu Shen could see a small open room. Walking into the room, he saw many doors leading away from it with signs on each door. Going over to one of the doors, he opened it. There was a large warehouse filled with many small metal boxes. They were painted different colors with the most common being green and blue while the least common was red and purple.
The scout drone walked through the door Chu Shen opened. Going over to one of the purple boxes, the scout drone easily took it off the shelf it was on. “This contains twenty J’Tik cores. There are ten more purple boxes with J’Tik cores in the warehouse. The forty red boxes contain H’Tik cores, the two hundred green boxes contain G’Tik cores. Finally, the nine hundred red boxes contain F’Tik cores. Each box contains twenty cores.”
Chu Shen got closer to the box of J’Tik cores. He gasped as he felt the immense energy coming from the box. Master Ti Wu floated out from the Void’s Hand. Upon seeing the cores, he was stunned. “You brat! Where did you get such insane luck! These are Emperor Beast Cores, Level seven if I’m not mistaken.”
Chu Shen backed away quickly, tripping over himself in his haste and falling on the floor. “W-w-what? Emperor Beast Cores? These are Emperor Beast Cores!”
Emperor. The pinnacle of the martial realm. When one reached it, they would be elders in any sect they wished. To think that there were four hundred Martial Emperor Beast Cores in this warehouse.
They were all his.
If he managed to absorb these, then… He didn’t dare imagine how far he would advance in cultivation. Chu Shen grinned. “I think it’s time for an upgrade.”