The Mech Touch

5820 Preferred Planets

Ves had to remain in the auction house for the rest of the day in order to handle and supervise the massive transactions.

The legal department of the Larkinson Clan had to work at full capacity in order to tackle the enormous workload, and even then it was not enough. The Larkinsons had to enlist the aid of additional law firms in order to comply with all of the laws of different states and organizations.

The work was incredibly tedious, but necessary. Everything had to be exactly correct in order to transfer ownership of billions if not trillions of MTA credits worth of stuff. No one involved wanted to suffer unexpected losses or get dragged into disputes due to ambiguity and mistakes.

Fortunately, a lot of the first-class legal experts were fully up to the task. The lawyers in the employ of Estaban Leeds had facilitated a lot of similar transactions in the past, so they were able to speed up the process by a huge extent.

Of course, not all of the deals could be closed so quickly. Multiple parties had to file a lot of paperwork at many different government institutions. It could take days if not weeks for these offices to process everything and give out their seal of approval.

There were instances where these administrative steps could not be sped up no matter the circumstances.

There were also cases where people were willing to set aside every priority and complete a week's worth of paperworth in a couple of hours just because a god pilot or Star Designer was involved!

Ves grew incredibly envious whenever that happened. He wanted to receive this kind of treatment as well one day.

In any case, Ves settled in for a long day.

His cat on the other hand grew ecstatic now that he could finally sink his teeth into a bar of ATC-A exotic alloy!

Since Ves only paid the equivalent of 10 kilograms of phasewater for this bar of metal, it only took a short amount of time for Estaban Leeds to hand it over to his possession.

"Meow meow meow!"

"Go ahead, Lucky. Consider it your birthday present!"

"Meeeeow!"

Ves found it amusing how Lucky turned from a cute archemetal cat into a voracious metal devourer.

The cat utilized his phasing power to pass through the transparent composite container that protected the ATC-A alloy and kept it dry from the submerged environment.

Once inside, Lucky threw aside all propriety and began to feast on the alloy with great satisfaction.

After the first few bites, the gem cat slowed down his pace and actually attempted to savor the novel flavor of this brand- new alloy.

Ves observed his mechanical pet carefully, but failed to discern any useful clues. The Resonance Smith's work promised to pass through transphasic energy shields without needing to break them or figure out their pattern, but it was still a work-in-progress.

Whatever it did to Lucky, the new alloy was evidently not significant enough to trigger a visual transformation.

The only way for Ves to find out if Lucky became a lot better at bypassing strong energy shields was to test his capabilities in practice.

"Eat well. You're going to do a lot of work for me after you are done."

"Meow."

As Ves spent hours on handling all of the necessary steps, of which far too many required his signature for one asinine reason or another, he occasionally entered into interesting discussions with the representatives of the counterparties.

For example, the envoy of the Nayald Ancient Clan gave Ves a few tips on which star systems he should choose to plant his flag.

"As agreed, it is fully within your right to claim any star system that is not already permanently settled." The Terran lady reminded him. "However, I must inform you that all of the port systems as well as any other star systems with significant deposits of phasewater are already occupied. That still leaves many fairly resource-rich star systems in the Caesarion Upper Zone, but it will take considerable time and effort to build up large-scale mining operations. The prevalence of high-grade exotics and more recently hypers has generated hazardous environments that are unsuitable for human habitation. I fear that much of your initial capital must be spent on pacifying the planet."

That caused Ves to frown.

"How expensive can this get?"

"It is more efficient in the long term to terraform and pacify a hazardous planet as a whole. However, this can not only take years, but also impose a far greater upfront cost. You can choose to set aside terraforming and only do the minimum required to pacify a dangerous landmass or region in order to build a colony settlement as quickly as possible. This will allow you to preserve the original ecosystem and hostile environment as much as possible, but it will heavily limit the scope of human development on the surface. You will need to be ready to weigh your decisions and adopt the appropriate strategy."

There was not one correct choice. Terraforming an entire environment was usually the best choice to convert lifeless rocks into livable planets.

Preserving existing alien environments usually took place if there was a lot of value to doing so. This often happened with untamed planets whose surface was filled with unique exobeasts and exoplants.

When Ves thought about what kind of planet he wanted his Larkinson Clan to settle upon, he immediately developed a clear preference towards untamed planets.

His visit to Ocanon VI had renewed his appreciation and enthusiasm for planets that were filled with alien organisms.

However, Ves did not ignore the fact that dangerous species that grew up in environments that were abundant in high-

quality materials usually evolved into absurdly strong creatures!

It might not be viable to ask his clan to colonize a planet that was already filled with bloodthirsty monsters that could overpower typical second-class mechs!

"Are there any untamed planets available within the territory of the Nayald Ancient Clan?" Ves inquired.

"Our survey vessels have discovered several ones." The woman replied. "We have not scouted them for an extended period of time, so our observations are already out of date. We can still give you the relevant reports in order to give you an impression. We do not advise you to found your colony on any of them, though. The risk that your colony will continually provoke attacks from the local exofauna is too great."

"I'm counting on it." Ves grinned. "That is not to say that I am willing to allow all of the eoxbeasts to roam free. Who knows how many of them will evolve into mutated beasts and calamity beasts if we don't do anything to control their population. However, I have always been a big believer in growth through shared combat experiences. No amount of simulation training can ever beat actual battle. I think I can provide my mech pilots with the perfect training by subjecting them to battle against all manner of exobeasts and mutated beasts."

The Nayalder furrowed her brows in thought. "If you insist on colonizing an untamed planet for the express purpose of supplying your clansmen with an unending supply of dangerous sparring partners and hunting targets, then you may consider the Nero Alabaster System."

A projection appeared that displayed an old snapshot of the star system.

It was a binary star system centered around the dance between a yellow dwarf star and a white dwarf star.

The white dwarf was one of the odder stars in the cosmos. It was not a real star per se, just the core of one that had already 'died'.

Despite being considered a star, a white dwarf did not actually undergo any significant fusion processes and therefore did not emit heat or light.

It was just a piece of giant stellar junk that gradually cooled over many eons until it theoretically turned into a black dwarf.

It was highly unusual for an old white dwarf to occupy the same system as a much younger yellow dwarf.

This signified that one of them had randomly drifted in the other's neighborhood and got captured without somehow merging with each other.

The result was a typical yellow dwarf system that was plagued by more violent and complex gravitic tides.

The lack of any other activity from a 'dead' white dwarf likely prevented the fourth planet from the star system from becoming devoid of life.

"Zoom in on Nero Alabaster IV." Ves commanded.

There were 13 planets in the star system in total. Each of them promised to offer valuable resources, but Ves did not really care about them unless they contained phasewater.

Since the Terrans had already claimed all of the star systems where phasewater was ripe for the picking, Ves did not hold any expectations about finding any hidden stashes.

Perhaps the Terran surveyors hadn't been through enough, or perhaps there were still hidden phase whale enclaves that just happened to store thousands of kilograms of phasewater, but Ves did not obsess over these kinds of gains.

He cared a lot more about the wildlife of an untamed planet.

"Nero Alabaster IV is not the stablest of planets." The Nayalder admitted. "It has a 35.3 degree axial tilt, which means that its seasons are more extreme. Many exobeasts and exoplants have evolved to cope with radical changes in temperature and weather phenomena. Aside from that, the planet is orbited by three fairly large moons, each of which induce tidal phenomena that are very difficult for the local wildlife to predict in advance. High tides can flood entire marshes while entire sea regions can become almost dry for a few hours. Combined with interactions between multiple high-grade exotics with high reactivity properties, it is a miracle that life has managed to evolve on this planet at all. Every organism that has emerged from this globe is much more resilient than usual."

The more he learned about the planet, the more he felt attracted to it. That did not mean he refused to consider other possible candidates, but he couldn't help but feel that the Nayalder had intelligently picked a star system that just happened to fulfill his strongest desires.

"What are the dominant organisms on this planet?" Ves asked.

"That depends on your definition of dominant. The most prevalent large terrestrial exobeast species that can be found in a wide variety of landmasses is the zurian. It is a species of quadruped scaled reptiles that are noteworthy for their strong mineral-rich scales. They have proven to be highly resilient towards environmental changes as their scales can effectively protect them against shifts in temperature and radiation. On top of that, the scales of older zurians have proven to be highly effective against physical and energy damage. The zurians are communal in nature, so they have a habit of fighting against each other to establish dominance in their hierarchies."

All of that sounded good. The zurians were a little bit smaller than Ves liked, but he could still imagine them giving a good fight against mechs, especially if they had the advantage of numbers.

Harvesting their scales should also yield valuable materials that would make the hunts worthwhile.

"Interesting. Interesting. I will keep an eye on this planet. Can the Nayald Ancient Clan send its surveyors to Nero Alabaster and other star systems with untamed planets? I would like to obtain more up-to-data on how their ecosystems have adapted to the Age of Dawn. I am not sure if Nero Alabaster IV is still suitable for limited colonization. It is best to make sure."

"We can do that." The female Terran readily said. "May I interest you in other star systems? There are many other locations that possess resources that are in moderate demand in the Terran Alliance. They may not have any planets that bear any existing life, but that is what terraforming is for. You can even transplant zurians and other exobeasts to a planet of your choice. There is no need for you to limit yourself to the circumstances set by nature."

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