Author's corner: Another chapter finally out after much procrastinating, don't blame me since i'm sticking my nose in LN and those normally distract me. Now then, time to see if the result of pushing through worked. Lots of pushing i must say. So tired next chapter no more being stuck in the station.

ENJOY!

We were currently within a relatively large hall. Me and dad were sitting at the front row while a large group alcohol fans behind us.

Where are we? In the auction hall within Kelha Station, resident ring.

How did we get here, well let's go back to the day after dad had introduced his brand of alcohol which was a massive success.

Dad, Lisa and I walk into the airfield with the next six barrels like we had before but when everyone noticed it was us entering the reaction was far from the neutral poker faced men yesterday.

"So guys, how was my first batch?" Dad asked with an "innocent" smile on his face.

"It was good." Someone said.

The tone of voice was emotionless but I guess you would be when you found a new love and she was sitting right in front of you.

"Will you me be buying them like yesterday?" Dad asked.

"""No!""" Shouted several men in unison.

"Sell me the barrels, all of them boy, I want to let this beauties age properly!" Colonel said walking up.

"Fuck that colonel, I want them!" Shouted another dwarf and from their shouts began to fly all over.

I see dads smile turn to a grin as he sticks two fingers in his mouth.

I plug my eyes just as an ear piercing whistle rang through the entire airfield with a sound as bad as a banshee's high pitched yell.

All the men plugged their ear in pain for a moment until dad stopped.

"Now now, let's not fight or else it will ruin the unity of the dwarf fighter unit. Since so many want the beer let's do this. We will wait 5 more days for the remaining batches to reach 1 month of aging. After that we will auction the drink in the resident ring auction hall. How does that sound?" Dad said.

All the men looked at us and then looked at their neighbors and began chatting.

Finally they all agreed.

"Considering we can't reach a clear decision, we will do as suggested, with all the barrels sold at the same time more men will be able to get one and there will be less hard feelings." One man said.

With that we returned to the ship where dad burst out in laughing as his plan was a success. You really need to be shrewd to pull one over on so many people but I don't think many people would appear.

Boy was I wrong, the entire hall was filled with people standing.

This standing were less reluctant to bid as they were the ones that didn't taste the beer and were looking at the auction with caution. Dad is forced to keep a poker face and keep the shrewdness from showing on his face.

All the barrels were taste tested and examined for poison and was graded.

Alcohol grading was like most rankings where it is 1-10. The first several batches reached rank 5 while the later batches were rank 6. Only 1 barrel showed extreme quality and got to rank 7.

Obviously I knew why, every beer barrel was made by the same formula but that same formula is the one to make Dwarf Smasher drinks.

The drink concoction can be any beer but there are several ingredients that dad needed to brew any formula into Dwarf smasher. This formula is what causes such a high quality in the beer but as it shows, it takes testing and figuring out how each formula of alcohol reacts. There was 1 barrel in nearly all batch that was rank 5 but the ranks went up in other barrels in later barrels.

This makes the price of beer go up higher as the ranks rise.

Wine is the same but they were rather stable ranging from rank 4 and 5.

The formula dad uses would ruin a wine so he didn't bother but even so wine is an expensive drink to get just right.

The price per liters for rank five is the same that Colonel stated when he first tested the ale. Rank six is 50-100 credits more expensive per liter and rank seven is an additional 50-100 on top of rank six. Rank eight is 100-200 on top of rank seven and rank nine is the same. Rank ten is hard to gauge since quality and quantity is so small that the price is what the brewer makes it.

Now for barrels of 20 liters the auction normally rises the price all barrels is sold at least 30% to 50% more than the actual price.

Our stock is...

18 barrels of wine, 8 rank 4 barrels 10,000-16,000 credit/barrel, 10 rank 5 barrels 16,000-20,000 credits/barrel.

18 barrels of beer, 7 rank 5 barrels 6,000-10,000 credit/barrel, 10 rank 6 barrels 7,000-12,000 credit/barrel, 1 rank 7 barrel 8,000-16,000 credit/barrel.

With just these 36 barrels, we can easily put the ship into working condition. Both the Power generator and engine will be rebuildable and we will have surplus money to invest in our own gear.

Dads brewing business will also expand and we will need to build shelves for the barrels for better storing since we can the stack several rows of alcohol in them increasing the capacity.

We have already sold all the wine which went all for 30% above the ranks max price. The total was 328k credits while the 30% was 98,400 credits. At the moment it was the beer that was slowly rising. As you can guess, when all the wine was gone most elves were gone as well. Other races also left while ogre and dwarves remain with humans here and there.

The rank 5 beer barrels were played around by a few men dad paid to raise the price and made them go all to 30% above price. Ranks six were around 35% and now the rank seven was being sold.

"21k going to the number 32 do I here 21.1k!" Shouted the auctioneer.

"21.5k shouted a dwarf."

"21.5k to number 7 do I here 22k?" The auctioneer announced.

"24k!" someone said causing a ruckus as 90% of the men sat down. This was already 50% above rank price.

The buyer was a large ogre that, after some examination I saw was the Ogre captain that got smashed by Colonel and that elf.

"We have 24 thousands in the back for number 56, do I hear 24.5k?"

No one spoke.

"No one?! Do I hear 24.5k?" The auctioneer asked.

"For 24k going once? Going twice? Sold to the ogre captain the final barrel that the sellers put on auction." The auctioneer announced and slammed the mallet closing the auction.

With that the total for the beer was 206k while the surplus equaled 68,500 credits.

Summing all the profit of today, we have a grand total of 740,900 credits.

It was more money than we thought we would get from selling a few barrels of 1 month aged beer and wine. I'm sure things will get more interesting from now on with our own ship finally working.

We wait in the back as all the buyers come and take their merchandise and hand over the money.

After the last guy, the ogre captain, left, not without making some stupid remarks after he remembered me and since he knew dad since dad is part of the guards, we paid the tax of using the auction hall which is 2% of the profit which equaled 14,818 credits.

Small price to pay to get so much more. With the remaining 726k I take 110k and hand half to each android for their upgrade and for weapons and extra gear, the upgrade being 40k each, then I took 300k storing it for making the two major systems on the ship. I took 50k from the remaining 300k and gave it to dad saying it is for investing in the alcohol business to buy a better brewery and the material to outfit the cargo to store the wine better. With the remaining 266k everyone agreed to leave with me so I can further outfit the ship with all the still needed things. If money remains we will split evenly.

With such a successful selling of the alcohol we couldn't help but be very happy so before splitting up we went to a restaurant and ate a big meal and went our own way.

I head triumphantly to the military hanger and talk with the mechanic about the engine and power generator.

"Bloody hell, you got the money in full?!" He says wide eyed when he heard me before going quiet.

"Yes, well I have surplus and will be refitting the ship entirely with all the systems still needed." I said.

He nods before looking at his wrist computer for a bit.

"The trade ship will be passing through next week for the monthly trade. Only they have the rare parts needed for the engine that this system lacks due to the materials not existing in this system." I suggest storing the money in the bank.

"We can do everything besides the engine and power gen then." I tell him.

He nods and calls someone to tow the ship into the hangar.

"Now what is lacking still that fits in the ship?" He asked.

I look at Lia who was watching and she brings up the screen.

List of Required Systems (by necessity)

Standard Shuttle Power Generator 150,000

Standard Shuttle Engine 150,000

Shuttle Thrusters “Omnidirectional” 60,000

Cargo Energy Shield Barrier (cargo door) 15,000

Water Storage Tank - 7,000

Oxygen Storage Tank - 12,000

Shield Generator - 90,000

Medical Room - 22,000

Sensor/Scanner - 17,000

Ship Laser Weapons - 35,000

The inertia Dampeners and Gravity generator were determined to be useless to us now because the ship didn't have the originally so we removed them especially since they cause the price to rocket above the ship's actual price range.

"Kay, besides the shield generator when you also need to wait for the trade ship, we can build the rest." He said.

This meant the price for this was 168k or 258k with the shield. It was just in the budget, obviously, I had kept an amount of money to save some extra. Considering I gave the girls so much extra money, unless they buy something big, their honorable personality will add the spare change to be split up as well.

After the ship entered the hangar the door opened and dad walked out. He let the men enter the ship.

“Well you didn’t waste time?” Dad said.

“If I did, I would be in danger with so much money in my hands.” I replied.

Dad nodded and agreed.

"I'll be going to get some wood so I can make some barrel shelves." Dad said.

"Don't get so many that it will occupy the entire cargo. We still need store food and spare parts for repairs." I tell him.

As a shuttle we don't have much space to make everything. Even though we have two floors for all the things, 1/3 of the top floor automatically goes to the engine, power gen and cockpit. Then there is bedrooms, bathroom, medbay and kitchen/dining room.

Second floor automatically gives half of the floor to the cargo. Then there is life support, Shield gen, Ship's core computer system main computer and water/oxygen tank. The cargo will be split so that one part is for my robot while the other will be for jessica’s tool and weapons research. I really must say her scanner was a big help for mining since I could get a basic reading of what minerals I could find in asteroids.

Last floor is obviously the cargo but that will be split up into 2 parts, dads brewery which will be positioned at the front of the cargo where the door is while the back part will be the regular cargo.

The brewery will only be 1/2 of the cargo but that size has enough space to hold probably a bit more than what we had before.

Well it’s not like it matters at the moment, we just have to rebuild this quick and we can finally start serious exploring. Well, not to seriously since the ship doesn’t have lots of weapons or turrets so we still need to be wry but that will come when it happens. For now on to repairs.

Jessica PoV

Hilda and I are currently at the android specialization center. Unlike the previous upgrades where it is done in regular shops this one is much better upgrades.

This is a large robotics place where all the much more powerful upgrades are done.

Inside were quite a number of players who were waiting to do their own upgrades or where with others.

As we looked around we could see some already upgraded androids.

I saw one male that looked more like a tank then android that looked human. With heavy plates and a bulky figure he was walking around while laughing with his friends.

He activates a mechanism that makes the plate just before his hand open revealing a gun and then from his thigh popped out showing a large gun that was sized to him. It reminding me of that movie with the cop that turned into a cyborg.

Come to think of it we haven’t seen any cyborgs. I’ve been wondering but then again it may be something that needs really high level tech to do and many rare materials for the parts as well as an institute to monitor the person to make sure the implant isn’t rejected.

We both go to the counter.

“Hello, are you both here for upgrades?” The pink haired cute android asked. She was android because of the eyes, it’s easy to tell if you look in them.

“Yes, we are both here for class upgrades.” I tell her.

“Alright, there are some plug openings on the side here…” She said and pointed to a dashboard with plug openings, “Please connect these to your main frame so that we can scan for your class information since you should have already obtain them. Once we get that and some information that will be updated to the galactic database for future upgrades. Also if your crew possesses someone that can do future upgrades you will need to go to any station and update all upgraded parts so that if you head to be upgraded in stations those present know what you have.” She explained.

She then showed us where to connect, it was a small opening behind the ear.

Connecting to it we saw some screens appear in our view.

Welcome to Cluster Upgrades Incorporated.

We thank you for using our services for your upgrade and specialization needs.

Scanning systems….

Class Scout detected in system.Registration of personnel has been complete, once again welcome and please choose your upgrades.

The system for our upgrades is broken down by Category, each category is specific to a base class, and a specialization, which is a branch of the category.Category: Scout: Basic Body upgrade: 20,000

*Specialization:

Marksmen

Sniper

Spy

Tracker

Trapper

More advanced options require going to a more advanced station with more resources.

“Wow!” I exclaim.

The pink haired android giggles at my reaction and Hilda soon does the same.

“Everyone says that the first time they see the options. There is a more impressive selection at bigger stations and planets so don’t get too caught up in a small station’s selection.” She said.

““Small?”” We both asked.

“Yes, of course! Kelha Station is small. There are many capital stations that are the size of small planetoids.” She said.

Our jaws dropped when he got this bit of information.

“Don’t underestimate technology developed for living in space.” She said with a smile and we nod.

I looked at the list again and pulled up the list for Sniper since that is the specialization I was focusing on.

Category: Scout: Basic Body upgrade: 20,000

*Specialization: Sniper:

Brain (Core System Hardware):

Processor Upgrade: 7,000

Overclock/Processor cooling Upgrade: 10,000

Eye:

Eye Scope: 2,000

Eye Scanner: 3,000

Tracker: 3,000

Torso/Shoulders:

Recoil Dampeners: 5,000

Reinforced Skeleton: 6,000

Overclock/Processor cooling Upgrade: 2,000

Arms/Hand:

Stabilizer: 3,000

Physical Proficiency Upgrade: 8,000

Overclock/Processor cooling Upgrade: 4,000

Legs/Feet:

Physical Proficiency Upgrade: 10,000

Overclock/Processor cooling Upgrade: 2,000

Auxiliary:

Basic Camouflage System: 8,000

Looking at the list I found that it didn’t have many options but I wouldn’t really expect much from a “small” station, I guess.

I had 55k as my share from the money Noah handed over. After doing several combo’s I found one that gave me just correctly 55k while giving me the most benefit.

Besides the basic body upgrade, I choose both the Processor Upgrade and Brain Overclock/Processor cooling Upgrade, Eye Scope, Recoil Dampeners, Stabilizer and Basic Camouflage System.

Processing upgrade allows me to intake more information and process it at a faster pace. The Eye scope obviously is an android eye that has a built in scope for shooting rifles and long range weapons. On closer inspection of the information after choosing I see it can zoom up to x4 which seems to be a good zoom power for hunting rifles and such. Considering I haven’t used much extreme range yet then I don’t need something so powerful.

Recoil Dampeners is a must, it’s an upgrade that is done around the arms, and torso that is kind of like a padding that can absorb the recoil of heavy guns. For snipers it’s a must but it’s not included in the basic body upgrade which is strange but I guess that is to not rise the price for the poorer players.

Stabilizer is something in the arms that helps reduce the shaking of my arms when holding the gun.

Finally the basic camouflage is just that, it can’t make me invisible but it allows me to change into a solid color to hide. It may seem crappy but it still helps. In a barren wasteland planet like Kelha it may not help but in a forest I can change into the color of the dirt or tree.

Later on it may become even better and there is always the option of me studying it and trying to develop better ones by myself with Noah’s help.

“Vivi, can you access the database and calculate the boost I stats that all these upgrades will bring?” I asked my AI.

Hold on big sis…

Physical Proficiency: 32 (+10) -> 57 (+10)

Resilience:31 (+10) -> 56 (+10)

Dexterity: 30 (+30) -> 95 (+30)

Agility: 28 (+15) -> 78 (+15)

Overclock Potency: 50 -> 125

Processor cooling: 60 -> 150

My eyes bulge as I look at the boosts. Seriously how can one set of upgrades boost so much.

“Seems you both have chosen your sets.” The pink haired receptionist said and pulled out two small papers with a bar code and a number.

“Just wait until the number is called and then present this to the person that you are called to follow and you will be sent to your specific area for your upgrades.” She explained.

We each take our own, which had our name on it, and then thanked the android.

As we go and take a seat I look at the bar code and involuntarily my systems analyzes the bar code making the upgrades I choose appear in my view.

“Oh cool we can see the upgrades on the barcode.” I said surprised.

“Really? Can I see yours?” Hilda asked.

“Let me see yours as well.” I asked.

He exchange them and I look at her bar which was analyzed as well.

Category: Swordsman (Basic Body Upgrade: 25,000)

Specialization: Samurai:

Upgrade:

Full Body: Reinforced Skeleton: 8,000

Flexible Joints: 5,000

Head: Processor upgrade: 6,000

Torse/Arms: Reinforced Armor Plate: 5,000

Legs: Physical Proficiency Upgrade: 6,000

“Wow, you choose a lot.” Hilda said.

‘Your body upgrade seems to be more expensive.” I said.

“Yeah, I think it's because it's focused on strength and resistance so that means more plates.” She said.

“Samurai… aren’t them more speed and skill related?” I asked.

“I think so, not really sure.” She said and I could only chuckle. “So what were the other options?” I asked.

“Besides Samurai there was Fencer, Blade dancer, Berserker, Mercenary, and Knight.” She explained.

“So most 1st tier class upgrades.” Kind of interesting how they do that android class if I must say.” I say and Hilda said.

We trade back the cards with the barcodes and then wait.

After a while we were both called together but were sent to different rooms. Time to get strong.