Chapter 190: The Stranger that Showed Up on the Starship [Part 2]
When the two types of precious minerals were extracted, Cillin scanned them using his own upgraded scanner. He was very happy to find the metals contained in these minerals were exactly what his robot urgently needed right now. They would be sufficient for his purpose.
According to the rules within the Hunter regiment, they could choose to sell or retain the minerals they had mined themselves. The choice was theirs to make. Cillin would split the minerals the team had mined with everyone and let them decide what to do with them on their own. Meanwhile, he would be using his own share to create a composite material.
While Cillin and the others were busy mining the minerals, the gray cat sent back news informing him that it had discovered a mineral resource that matched up with Cillin’s verification program. However, it wasn’t on the planet’s surface, but deeper in. In short, a deep well had to be drilled.
Cillin cast a glance at the data and the rock formation scan results the gray cat sent back to him. The mining machines they were using right now couldn’t perform mining at such a depth, but other deep mining machines couldn’t reach that depth while remaining intact either. This was because the machines would have to pass through a magnetite area, and judging from the data supplied by the gray cat, the magnetic field generated was strong enough to severely affect the machine’s operational capabilities. There were basically no chance the deep mining machines were making it to the mining spot. Most importantly, that type of mineral was present only in a small amount of area.
“In that case, there is a simpler way to do this.”
And so the gray cat transformed while the others weren’t looking. The transformation hadn’t taken place at the planet’s surface since anything that happened there would be captured and put on display by the observation satellites launched by the two starships orbiting the planet.
Cillin didn’t plan to reveal the gray cat’s full identity to the Third B Squadron just yet. Maybe Falvey knew some things about the gray cat, but some key info remained hidden from him.
The gray cat dug into the underground with its cat form first before it transformed into its machine form. The observation monitors’ scan system wouldn’t be able to catch any exact changes, and at best they would notice that there was now a life form moving beneath the planet’s surface. However, every operation personnel was busy with mining, and the technicians aboard the starships were busy analysing the minerals right now. As long as it wasn’t a foreign life form or another type of threat, the monitors and scanners wouldn’t sound the alarm.
The gray cat only found a few minerals. The amount was probably just enough to create one robot after they were put through the purification process. Whatever that remained wouldn’t be enough to create a second composite exterior for a second robot.
The gray cat noticed some crystals while it was mining the minerals. The gray cat was sure that it had never seen this type of crystal after scanning it; it hadn’t detected any kind of reactionary signal from it while it was scanning the area from above. At first, the gray cat thought that these crystals were just a bit unusual, and it was going to leave them behind after a curious look. Before it left, it scanned the crystals with Cillin’s verification program out of habit, and to its surprise, the line ‘compatibility: super grade’ jumped before its eyes.
The gray cat was stunned. The deep level metal mine it detected just now was one hundred percent ‘excellent grade’ at best, but these crystals were ‘super grade’!
It hastily told Cillin about the news.
When Cillin heard about this, he was in a bit of a daze himself. The concept of ‘super grade’ was just an upper limit Cillin had set up as insurance; something he calculated based on his theories. It was common sense that there was always a gap between theory and reality, but he never thought that a thing at its theoretical limit actually existed.
The gray cat discovered that the object wasn’t quite easy to mine as it was a sphere-shaped, one meter diameter object. Cillin had passed down his work to Dias immediately and arrived at the location where the gray cat was at for the crystal.
He used a machine to enlarge the hole the gray cat had dug into. The hole was narrow only at the surface since the gray cat had dug deeper into the ground using a different form, so he didn’t need to enlarge the hole beyond that point.
Cillin followed the tunnel and arrived at the place the gray cat spoke of.
He unlocked his close fitting protective cover, took off his protective suit and touched the spherical object with his hand.
The instant he touched it, a large number of data was sorted out in his mind.
It really was the theoretical value!!
The theoretical value he designed was at the far end of the spectrum to begin with. To some researchers, this value was practically impossible to attain. Cillin himself never expected to run into something that existed at the theoretical value.
This crystal was spherical in shape, but it was not entirely a round ball. It had a core at the center and countless branches that extended outwards from this core. Every branch was a strange and very complicated looking fine crystal column. These fine crystal columns looked like a layer of thick fur that wrapped itself around the core.
Cillin’s hand moved, and he withdrew this crystalline ball into his leaf-patterned ring. At the same time, the gray cat had also put away the dug minerals while grabbing the rest of it in its arms.
Most subspace containers couldn’t be used on a rank D planet. Therefore, no one would suspect that Cillin had hidden anything for himself even if he walked out with the gray cat openly.
Cillin returned to the surface and headed towards the team’s mining spot after he was done dealing with the minerals. Meanwhile, the gray cat continued on its underground journey of mineral exploration. It discovered that exploring for minerals underground was pretty interesting. At the very least, it was more interesting that doing tedious mining work like those people on the surface.
However, the gray cat was disappointed to find no other materials that reached the ‘super grade’ level other than that round-shaped crystal. In fact, there wasn’t even a second ‘excellent grade’ mineral resource. The rest were all at the same level as the minerals the crowd was busy mining right now. Still, this outcome was more than enough to make Shawton and Falvey happy.
Three types of precious minerals were enough for them to earn a sizable amount of profit. They would sell a portion and turn in another portion to the A Squads. This way, the two B Squadrons would be able to greatly increase their influence in Vanguard.
After all teams were done mining, they returned to their starships and began processing the minerals. Cillin had long since decided what he was going to do with the minerals, so after he took his share, he returned to the workshop once more and busied himself with work.
Everyone else chose to sell away their share. They chose to sell the minerals in one big bulk and split the money amongst themselves later.
Cillin was assembling inside the workshop.
Some parts of the creation process had already been dealt with. The main task was to choose the robot’s primary material.
The primary element of the round-shaped object the gray cat discovered was an alien element, but it could temporarily transform into a known nonmetal element or a known metal element when subjected to certain conditions.
Cillin was rapt with joy after a meticulous analysis of its characteristics. This was literally the perfect material for his theoretical design!
Not only was it pressure-resistant and capable of memory restoration and perfect recovery, it was also the ‘triple-resistant’ material Cillin had been looking for all this time!
It was resistant to radiation, resistant to acid and alkali, and resistant to electromagnetic interference!
Sometimes luck truly was an unfathomable thing.
He was seriously too lucky this time. There were plenty people who were never able to discover such an amazing material even if they spent one or many lifetimes. For example, the Robert Family members had never encountered such an amazing material.
The gray cat was the absolute man (cat?) of the hour this time!
The teams continued to search for minerals in Sector U. The two commanders were feeling a lot less pressured after they found three kinds of precious minerals. It was fine even if they were to find nothing during the remaining period of time.
The moment Cillin went into the workshop, he spent ten GAL calendar days inside.
The gray cat had also been staying inside the workshop and watching Cillin create his robot during these ten days. It had even dragged his own storage cabinet over so it could sleep after it was tired, eat after it awoke, and watch after it ate.
The gray cat got to rest from time to time, but Cillin hadn’t shut his eyes once throughout these ten days.
It was a massive amount of computations and work he had to deal with. He hadn’t stopped assembling since the moment he began his work. Although he he had relied on some fabricators many times throughout the process, he had overseen the critical areas himself. There was no room for even the slightest bit of sloppiness.
Ten days later, Cillin went out to replenish his energy for a bit. Then, he went back into the workshop once more to continue the last task of perfecting his creation.
“What’s on earth is LC Cillin doing right now?” Udoze asked while lying on his chair after logging out of virtual combat.
“Who knows? Our LC has never disappointed us though. Let me tell you a secret, Udoze.” Cary moved closer with a look of enigma on his face, “The last time he hung around his workshop for a few days, he destroyed a planet after he came out!”
Xiao Shang curled his lips when he saw Udoze’s mouth turning into an O-shape, “Unfortunately for us, we weren’t around to see him destroy ‘Poison Fang’ that time.”
Ba Dao also echoed in agreement from the side.
The ‘Poison Fang’ incident had left a deep impression in their mind. It was also that incident that made everyone feel a kind of reverence towards Cillin.
“I wonder what would happen after LC Cillin comes out this time.” Udoze’s eyes were filled with hopeful expectation.
Xiao Shang, Cary and the others suddenly remembered something at the same time. They all wore odd looks on their faces.
It can’t be parasites again, can it?
They only had a rough understanding of what happened during the ‘Poison Fang’ incident. However, they had seen with their own eyes the mountain of Poison Fang logos ripped from their members’ bodies and the Skull King’s skeleton at the end. They felt their blood turn cold even though they hadn’t seen those parasites with their own eyes.
Cary rubbed his stomach, stood up and moved his arms for a bit, “I’ll go bring some food over. Do you guys want some?”
“Do you seriously have to ask that?” Xiao Shang blurted out a few types of portable food at once.
Cary replied a disdainful hand gesture before opening the door and heading outside. Because Ba Dao had requested for a few more types of food, he turned around and swore a little while talking with them. He didn’t expect to run into someone when he walked out with his back was facing the door. He even stepped on the other guy’s foot.
“Oh, sorry…”
Cary turned around and was just about to apologise when he suddenly notice that he didn’t recognize this person. Why was there a stranger here when there were no notifications of visitors or recruits in this team?!
Cary instantly tensed himself into a state of high alert.
Why couldn’t he detect any signs of life from this person?!