Chapter 192: ‘Rare Age’, City of Trade
Although there were no more gratifying harvests at the end of the mining mission, overall it was a rare good result. Their mission was not made in vain if they got even one type of precious mineral out of it, and they definitely found more than one type of precious mineral during their journey.
The original plan was to spend fifty GAL days to search for minerals, but in reality they used a total of sixty days. This was because they found some energy ores during the latter half of the mission. Although the quality of the energy ores wasn’t good, it wasn’t subpar either. Therefore, both squadron commanders decided to use the energy ores to sustain an additional ten days of mineral searching.
When the sixtieth day arrived, both commander lay down the orders to leave Sector U. They hadn’t encountered many difficulties throughout the journey, nor did they run into any robbers along the way. They did run into someone from Heaven’s Birth, but had parted ways after a simple greeting. Blue Butterfly continued to keep a low profile, whereas ‘Mist’ and ‘Merciless’ seemed to have evaporated into thin air once more.
Everyone thought that the general situation must have calmed down temporarily. Otherwise, there was no way their journey would’ve gone this smoothly.
Cillin didn’t think that those fellows would calm down this easily. The reason they hadn’t encountered any disturbance so far might be because the conflict wasn’t happening in their area. Perhaps a major conflict was happening somewhere in GAL while everyone thought that all was peaceful.
However, Cillin didn’t need to think about this right now. If he didn’t have the strength, then even if he did come into contact with that level of conflict, he wouldn’t have the right to speak. He would only be cannon fodder.
“Are we heading to Sector I this time too?”
Inside the meeting room, Wa Qing threw the question at Shawton.
Normally speaking, they would first submit the data on the precious minerals they found to the A Squads first unless it was for a specific mission. The A Squads would then decide how the precious minerals would flow. Generally, the A Squads would keep a portion to themselves according to their needs and sell the rest of the precious minerals away. This time there were no exceptions either.
Shawton nodded, “Both Commander Falvey and I have come to the decision to head to the City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’.”
It was a predictable outcome. The City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’ was an excellent choice to sell these precious minerals at a satisfactory price.
The City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’ Shawton spoke of wasn’t the regular city that most people imagined in their heads. While the City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’ had used the word ‘City’, it was far, far, far larger than an actual city.
The City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’ was situated at a Sector I’s Planet I-I100. This planet wasn’t small. It was five times bigger than the Planet Brown Earth Cillin was born in.
Looking with the visible eyes from space, Planet I-I100 only had a single continent, and this continent took up seventy percent of the planet’s surface. The rest of the planet was covered in sea with some sporadics islands of all sizes scattered in between.
This was where the City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’ Shawton spoke of was. The entire continent was a city of trade, and it was Sector I’s biggest and most famous trading center. Transactions of incredible value were happening at every place and every second in ‘Rare Age’.
The history of the foundation of the City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’ spanned over several thousand years into the past. Several thousand years ago, a few businessmen developed the only continent on this planet into a trading center. Several thousand years of development later, the City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’ had become one of the richest place in the entire GAL.
While this city of trade had a long history, in reality its architecture was inclined towards the neoclassicals. It wasn’t lacking in ancient buildings of incredible history, and some of its well preserved, age-old buildings captured the hearts of some literature researchers and artists.
The City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’ was also Sector I’s biggest precious mineral trading and processing choice. There were plenty of famous gems, enviable energy blocks, and familiar rare materials that were traded from this place.
The City of Trade’s uniqueness was exactly why its level of security was ranked among the top in the entire GAL. In fact, its security measures were even better than some of the places in Sector A. Therefore, no invaluable transactions conducted within the City of Trade needed to worry about robbery attempts. Of course, what happened outside the planet didn’t fall under the City of Trade securities’ scrutiny, although anyone who came here to trade was both capable and influential. There was no chance the average robber could get anything from them.
This time, the two squadrons were planning to register the precious minerals they found for an auction in the trading center. There was no need to worry whether the precious minerals would be sold; there were plenty of people in urgent need for these types of minerals keeping watch at the trading center day and night and inspecting goods that came through the whole City of Trade. They would automatically make their way to the auction houses the moment they found what they fancied or needed.
The items and samples had been submitted to ‘Rare Age’s’ trading center. Five days later, these precious minerals would be auctioned to the public. However, these minerals were all auctioned separately instead of lump sum. This was because the lump sum price of the minerals would be too high, and most people wouldn’t be able to prepare the money they needed to bid at first notice. Therefore, auctioning them separately would allow the buyers a buffer time to gather their funds, and enable the precious minerals to be sold at a higher price too.
Planet I-I100’s security inspection was incredibly strict. A person was forced to go through multiple inspections to prevent the carrying of dangerous articles or unknown viruses into the place.
This wasn’t the first time Cary came here, but he was unusually nervous this time. He wasn’t nervous for his own sake, but for the nonhuman behind him.
Their group had gone through the security inspection tunnel in succession. Cillin had gone through the tunnel without any troubles, and the gray cat on his shoulder had not triggered any alarm either.
Czedow slowly stepped into the tunnel from behind Cillin, and the rest of the group who had safely passed through the tunnel looked at him with rapidly beating hearts. Cary once saw an unrepentant person who got caught carrying a mini hand grenade with him, and countless muzzles and weapons had suddenly appeared all around the tunnel. Since it was a hand grenade the guy was carrying, he was instantly zapped into an ice sculpture by the ultralow temperature weapons around him.
Normally, any weaponry that didn’t exceed the predetermined limits of offensive power would be returned to the person after they reached the other side of the security inspection tunnel without issues.
That being said, Czedow probably wouldn’t be executed on the spot, would he? At worst, he’d be kicked out of the trading center with a serious warning.
It would be a lie if Cillin said that he wasn’t nervous himself. He might be confident in his creation, but Czedow had never gone through a real life inspection either. The decision to have Czedow follow him was not without its risks.
As Czedow took one step after another through the tunnel, Cillin and everyone else’s heart went up their throats, and fell back down to their chests.
No alarm was triggered. The word ‘average human’ was even displayed in the end.
Shawton gave Cillin a thumbs-up. Even Frentz’s robot couldn’t get an ‘average human’ verdict, could they?
Tang Qiuqiu made a racket about coming over with them too. She had heard that the sweets here were extremely rare, and she was willing to spend on them even if they would be extremely expensive to buy.
Snowball also followed her into the trading center. The security inspection tunnel didn’t categorize an animal like it as a threat.
When walking on the streets of the City of Trade, ‘Rare Age’, they couldn’t help but feel as if they had gone back to ancient times.
There were no buildings that reached over the clouds. Buildings of rich traditional architecture were everywhere.
Shawton and Falvey had taken a few men with them and gone to the auction house they contacted earlier. The rest of them had some time to themselves. Cillin’s group was split into four batches: Tico and Rikulab went to check out the medical type auction houses; Cary, Xiao Shang, Beaver and Ba Dao went to visit the bars since Cary said that the alcohol here was pretty tasty; and Dias and Asiya went away somewhere to enjoy their time alone.
In reality, Cillin was going to follow Cary’s group into the bar. However, since Tang Qiuqiu wanted to buy some sweets, he told them that he would go to the bar and find them after they had bought Tang Qiuqiu’s stuff.
Czedow, Snowball and Scarlet Wind walked together with Cillin. This was the first time Scarlet Wind saw an environment like this, so he could scarcely hide the curiosity in his eyes. While he couldn’t help but feel wary as a matter of habit, curiosity was still the dominant emotion in his mind. Meanwhile, Czedow was absorbing new information into himself at every moment, but unlike Scarlet Wind who revealed both his curiosity and wariness in his eyes, he maintained a mild expression on his face.
Following the City of Trade’s map, the group arrived at ‘Sweet Street’. This whole street was used to sell desserts. The gray cat was urging Tang Qiuqiu to buy some sweets ASAP. Then they could go to the commercial street right next to this street where luxury pet supplies were sold and buy some fish biscuits.
However, Tang Qiuqiu obviously lacked resistance against all kinds of sweets as she bit her finger in hesitation. She really wanted to just buy the whole street.
“Hey, Qiuqiu, faster faster! Scarlet Wind and I are still waiting to buy stuff from the street next door, you know!” the gray cat said impatiently from above Cillin’s shoulder.
Tang Qiuqiu ignored the gray cat’s complains and continued to hesitate. Suddenly, her attention was drawn by a fit of commotion.
It was a store built in the style of a village. The flora adorning the window sills were in fact all made of sweets. In fact, the window sills that seemed to be made of wood and stone were made of sweets too. Overall, the entire building exuded a neoclassical atmosphere and rich sweet fragrance.
Tang Qiuqiu wasn’t drawn by the store’s architecture, but the giant lollipop slowly floating above the store. It was a sign of free samples.
“Wait here, big brother Cillin. I’ll go snatch some sweets!”
Tang Qiuqiu had ran over before Cillin could say anything. Snowball had followed her as well as they squeezed between a crowd of other kids.
Seeing that those who squeezed their way to the store were all kids, Cillin decided to stand at a side and wait.
It was only when sweets were involved that Tang Qiuqiu would act childlike.
There was an unwritten rule in this street, and that was kids were the only one who were allowed to participate in sweet snatching events and the like. Adults were forbidden from participating in it. Therefore, the surrounding bodyguards, nannies, fathers and mothers could only shout from outside the commotion to watch out themselves and not be trampled by other people.
In reality, this store was a small branch set up by a sweet processing factory. They were promoting all kinds of sweets, and there were plenty of people who would put in huge amounts of orders everyday to this factory because their kids loved these sweets.
The sweets here were extremely expensive; it was obvious the second someone looked at the price tag. These sweets were the luxury goods among sweets, and that small bag of sweets could make up the price of a flying car already.
However, no price tag could stop the footsteps of GAL’s sweet lovers, and Tang Qiuqiu was one of them.
While the kids were on a rampage, cracking sounds suddenly resounded from a place not far away. Then, a big ball suspended in the sky suddenly exploded with a bang, and the sweets stored inside it began to rain literally.
It was yet another free sweet snatching event.
Seeing that the surrounding kids were now charging towards that direction, Cillin turned around and asked, “Qiuqiu, why didn’t you go snatch those...”
Cillin’s voice cut to an abrupt stop. This was because he couldn’t see Tang Qiuqiu or Snowball anywhere at all.
There was absolutely no way Cillin would’ve missed them. If Tang Qiuqiu and Snowball had given up the sweet snatching event here and went over, they couldn’t have avoided Cillin’s vision.
How could this be?!