As Leah and the others flew off, Pelonius stood up and walked out of the teleportation pad room.
Tony’s nanite body had remained as a means to keep them connected and was sitting on Pelonius’s shoulder while he looked around.
He watched as the man returned to the bridge and ordered the AI to take off.
“Hey!” Tony called out.
“Do you need something?” Pelonius asked as he kept working with the computers.
“Well it’s a personal question really though not sure how personal it will be.” Tony said.
“Have you ever really cared about such a thing?”
“Not really but I’m not totally insensitive to a touchy subject.” Tony replied.
“Alright, go ahead and ask then, if I can’t then I will tell you so.”
Tony nodded and took a breath, “Okay then. Why do your parents hate magic so much.” He asked bluntly.
The question made Pelonius almost mess up his thinking process. It clearly showed that he wasn’t expecting ‘this’ kind of question. He looked at Tony serious, “Is there a reason for asking this?” He asked.
“Well when Leah finally told us about some of her past she mentioned how when she was born her magic ran wild. I had some doubts as to that being the sole reason that your parents hate magic but since she is young and doesn’t really know much else she took that as the only reason so seeing you I had to ask.” Tony said.
Pelonius sighed as he took Tony and put him in front of him on the console before sitting back. “It’s a bit more complicated than what Leah knows. I only want you to not tell her since I am not sure of her reaction to it.” Pelonius said.
“Sure, although I’m blunt I know limits.” Tony said.
Nodding Pelonius begins to type and soon brings up an image of his parents, “These are my parents, renowned pure technology researchers. Although they are only lower ranked noble they are quite high in the planet's standard of technological research. I was the lead in weapons development though.” He said. “Anyways the world usually knows them for their lack and hate of mana and magic but in truth it wasn’t always like this. It was actually surprising when I discovered it and it is one of the reasons I treat Leah so well.”
“What?” Tony asked confused.
“My parents, in their youth, where exceptional magician. The reason they had so much money for their initial capital is their connection to a nearby space station which they worked in and later they supplied new weaponry to the station while they received research material. But that is beside the point. On to your question, this was erased from all the systems on the solar system so you can’t find it but before my own birth, my parents had a fight with an archmage. He wanted them to develop a unique magitech staff that could greatly amplify his power and not only that he wanted it to be a living weapon. At the time they weren’t as good as they are today but they did know how to work with magic technology but when they told him that such living weapons required bioengineering and that they didn’t specialize in it, the archmage did something even others would find repulsive.” He sighed and shook his head.
“He attacked them?” Tony asked.
“Not so much attacked, he originally left after having an argument but two days later my parents crew had them leave because of the pressure from the archmage’s connections. After they had lost their ‘protection’ he appeared once more and before they could react he struck them both on the chest and crippled their mana pool. They lost all their magical abilities after that and held resentment to such degree that they settled down and using some few remaining connections to get the aid of a mage they invented a magic tech machine that I despise to this day.” He said. He removed and very small disk and put it into the ship’s system and an image appeared. “This was named the neutralizer, it can effectively close anyone’s mana channels without crippling the person. It is like a machine made to remove talent from a mage. I did not know of this until my fourth sibling, my second sister, was born. When I first saw her I saw she had incredible magical talent and the doctors were complimenting her but after we got home they took us to a basement below and put her in the machine. She came out completely without magical talent. The same happened to Leah but probably because of her immense magical power they neutralizer was destroyed as it tried to close them. It succeeded in closing only a few of them but it barely reduced her talent for magic. The thing about her powers running wild, that is a load of bull. In truth the powers went wild while it was being closed. They were quite resentful of that since the machine is very expensive.” He said and laughed.
“Wow…” Tony said in shock and Adal appeared slackjawed.
“What kind of monsters are these!” She shouted.
“Adal! You're forbidden from telling Leah of this, she already has a bad relation with our family so if you're say this then it will be even worse.” Pelonius said.
“Hmph! They wrecked a natural talent, if what you say is true then the small number of closed mana channels in her body are a result of this machine! They are unforgivable! Now I see why her magic is so rampaging! I need to clear out those mana channels as soon as possible, although her control depends on her it will allow her mana to flow naturally! How dare those two ruin a naturally born witch disciple! GRRR!” Adal growled in rage before vanishing.
“Well this won’t end well for your parents.” Tony said.
“You can call it karma I guess. I haven’t felt real love from them since ever, when I originally entered for the first time I asked if they did that to me and I asked them how much talent I had and they said ‘You ‘had’ the talent of an archmage I guess, maybe a bit more who knows but we cured you of taking such a pathetic route in life.’ is how they said it to me.” He replied.
Adal appeared with her eyes sparkling. “IS THAT TRUE! If you have talent for magic then we have to open your mana channels, if your talent is similar to Leah even by 10% then your mana channels should be very flexible no matter how old you are. It will just take Leah putting mana into your body and you working the mana into a few cracks to break the first few open then slowly working. I have a few foundation techniques that can even improve your physical condition.” Adal said giddy.
“Give it up, I don’t need that.” He said.
“But you want to make this magic technology thingy so if you opened your mana channels then you can directly manipulate that mana from your machines. Won’t the precision be higher!” she asked.
“No, it will be world’s lower because I never trained with magic.” He replied.
“Come on, it’s bound to be at least easier than Leah’s current control.” Adal said.
“Pff! Gyahahahaha! Oh man that’s rich!” Tony laughed.
Pelonius just sighed before Alad suddenly grabbed a screen and then a technique appeared, “See see! This is an advanced level foundation building technique for Wizards! You will definitely get better physical form unlike common techniques.” She said.
Pelonius took one look at it then frowned, “What is that section about feeling intensive muscle pain as I do this?” He said.
“Oh that? Well you are opening your channels all the way to the smallest ones unlike common techniques that only open the main artery of the mana channels. It goes right into the muscles so yeah, you get muscle pain but that is secondary, similar to exercise.” She said.
“No thanks, I’m more of a mental person anyway.” he said.
“Tsk, so hard headed.” She muttered, “With that scrawny look I doubt any woman would want you.” She cursed.
His brow twitched upon hearing that but he simply closed the file and turned to the laughing Tony.
“Anyway Tony, does that satisfy your curiosity?” He asked.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Gyahaha! Yeah Gyahaha! It does.” he said though his laughs.
With them flying off they soon arrived at their first destination.
At the same time Leah was already on to her second destination and with a new addition.
“Oi dungeon! Is this really what you call high tech! My bed is more advanced this these hunk of junk!” an arrogant voice said to the hologram.
“FUCK YOU MIDGET!” Tony shouted. “These are all I can spawn anyway. Blame the fucking system.” Tony complained.
The current argument came from the new member who was quite excited to join. His name is Victor Halloway and he is the mechanic that was living in Spenolif. The move for this man was quite quick unlike they expected. He already lived alone and because of the notice from the AA he had already packed up.
In truth from the start he wanted to leave and obviously the record of the crew was handed over and he was quite excited to be the first mechanic meaning he was the chief of staff for that section when the crew grew. His things were also stored quickly, due to his job as a mechanic with knowledge of magic tech, he had space storage and a few tools that were quick to store. His tools in particular were placed within a storage cube and he was arranging it now while looking pissed at the low grade drones.
He pulled out a datacube, “You should be glad I am so great. These shitty models you used, I used them for my warm up when I was in school and have long since upgraded their systems and kept it stored in case I got my own ship or on someone else's.
He walked to the computer and uploaded his information. “Now feast your eyes on my genius dungeon!” He said.
Tony just stood to the side and closed his eyes while leaning on the wall while Victor grinned at him waiting for the compliments.
“Well…” Tony begin, “... I can say the model is impressive more than a 30% improvement over their overall performance…” Tony said.
“Oh someone can even notice that?! Good good! I changed a few pieces off the main weapons or shield and some of them I made my own parts.” he said proud.
“Yeah, I noticed.” Tony replied not opening his eyes, “There are several new parts that work to improve the lasers from the fighter drone and a stabilizer to make the shield stronger. Even ten separate antenna with a unique scanning machine for the scout” Tony said.
“To point it out! You must be good yourself…” He begain.
“But you coding sucks.” Tony said opening his eyes.
“Eh?” Victor said.
“Your… coding… ability… sucks!” Tony said word for word slowly and pulled up to screens and pulled up several long sequence and turned that section red. “This part is wrong and making the power leak, if you change like this…” he said and on the one on the right it changed in some sections and grew more before turning green, “... the laser output will rise all the way to 50% improvement. If you change this…” codes fly and another section changed. “The speed of the scouts and fighters will improve from 30 to 60% and this…” Another section appeared and changed, “Will make the shields of your model shield drones evolve from hexagon shield sections to octagon and improve power output by 70% while energy consumption reduced by 30%.” Tony finished and crossed his arms.
The eyes on the mechanic were wide as he examined all the screens showing the changes before he slumped down. “My coding, I conceded!” He said.
“What are you two idiots doing?” Mirella asked while looking dumbly at the two men putting on a comedy act.
“Just putting this guy in his place.” Tony said.
“Looks to me like you’re doing a comedy act to me.” She replied bluntly.
Nelim smiled wryly, “Don’t make fun of them Mire, Tony finally got someone to talk to and compete with.” She said trying to be the peacekeeper.
“Mirella, just leave the two to there own things. I already checked Victors things when he showed me a few of them, he has several new robot's that Tony doesn’t have including magic tech ones. As long as they enjoy a week or two together the power of the ship will rise.” Leah said from behind.
“True enough.” Mirella said leaving for the gym.
“Things are getting so exciting. Who is the next one leah?” Nelim asked.
“It’s your sister at Floria Forest, did you already inform her?” Leah asked.
Nelim nodded, “She was really excited about it and she had already gotten information about the recruit request and she was even more excited when she knew I was on it. She said, ‘Hooray I get to eat little sisters food again’ first thing after I said it was my captain wanting to recruit her.” she said with a smile.
Leah’s smile was a bit forced since she didn’t know if she should laugh or not.
The girls left the two boys who had calmed down after the initial drama and Victor was now setting up his workshop in the room. Once his equipment was out, it would trigger a unique effect of the dungeon ship where the ship will scan the room and change the empty room that was made into the mechanic workshop and will open and connect all the machines and computers that were simply set down in different places. This is the magic of dungeons, if you have the equipment, the dungeon will automatically reconstruct to house the room properly using little mana to do the changes.
As for the new robot's those would take longer to spawn due to the mana needed, at the moment Tony was storing to expand once more and reach expansion two where he will be a true space class ship and will have enough space to put down all the systems needed.
After an hour they landed at Floria Forest landing port and Nelim walked out and contacted her sister. It wasn’t surprising that the girl had a crowd of ‘family’ but what made Leah freeze were the countless monsters in cage.
“Sister… are these…” Nelim asked with a twitching smile.
“Yep! These are my personal breeding animals!” She said with a smile. “Oh and don’t worry if you need space the people of Floria gave me a 55 thousand mana crystal to help the expansion. With you here I’m sure you have a farm already so all you need is to expand.” Crystal said cheerfully.
They laughed wryly and greeted the friends of the Naiad, with the crystal, Tony had more than 100 thousand mana which was enough for the expansion and he used everything.
The expansion pushed the ship almost 50% larger than it was before and it kept the half explorer half fighter look with a pointed front but now it had some turret stations and five floors. The rooms were separated further with the captain room at the top, the crew rooms with on that next floor the bridge and everything else was from the center down. The farm indeed expanded to have corrals for most of the animals with room to spare. The four rooms for the imps had expanded to eight rooms and now there were actual sleeping quarters there. All the other stuff also upgraded by a small margin of 10-20% but not enough to make the ship survive in space.
Still the ship now had a larger crew capacity and but most of it could be filled with monsters. The sentient crew capacity increased to 20 but there were rooms for monster races now so the capacity easily reached 100 or so.
It took a few hours to put everything in place for Crystal before they set off to get their final member, the field medic Joce Yanagi.
However, after they arrived and found her address and began to speak with her there was quite a surprise.
“No thanks.” She said.
The japanese like beauty with refined looks, a perfect face showed a cold expression.
“Is there something you don’t like about our crew?” Leah asked
“I wonder, do you remember the type of crew I had on my signup page?” She asked.
“Umm…” leah thought.
“”Preferably a Newly made crew where I can get along with from the start.” That is what was written.” Tony said sitting on Leah’s shoulder.
“Exactly, although the girls I can most definitely get along with, your dungeon is, unfortunately, someone I am unable to accept. His crude mannerism is so unrefined that it is like a rabid dog.” She said with a sigh.
“Just that?” Mirella asked.
“Yes, just that.” Joce replied.
“Well, he is annoying for sure.” Leah muttered, “But…” She was trying to find the words to come up with an excuse.
“With the fleet made between his stupid captain and her brother I will probably spend more time on his ship through a nanite body. Or I would be with the mechanic. I don’t really care much about these annoying women in my crew.” Tony said.
“Oh? And who, by chance, is this brother.” Joce asked curious.
Obviously she would be since it was a crew that formed a fleet so they at least had some capital or connections.
“Pelonius Ulkina Biswal” Tony replied.
“Hey Tony it's Pelodius Binoli now!” Leah said.
“P… Pelodius…” Joce said in shock and slowly a blush appeared and she walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a picture of him. “Is this him?” She asked putting it in front of them.
“Yes that is my brother? Do you know him?” Leah asked
“Know him?! Of course I know him! I was in school when I saw him dominate the school wide research tournament and when I was in the military he appeared with several new weapons that made life so much easier! Not only that but several medical gear we used were improved by him making administering medical aid much better.” She said and pulled out a pistol. “This is my heal gun, it was something he designed for mass production and it can only shoot healing magic but it has a unique setting that allows us to control the spell and the mana capacity is really high.” She said with shining eyes. “If I could meet him once I could die happy!” She said.
“Well… he is our research and development chief so…” Leah said.
“Really!” Joce said with a passionate shine in her eyes. “Even if I have to tolerate that annoying dungeon core I will join as long as I can meet your brother! If I can get meet him, learn from him and obtain things developed by him, I would even go to hell and back just for this!” She said in a daze.
Leah just forced a laugh as she had forgotten about her brothers fame though she never thought it was to this degree.
Joce didn’t lag after this and quickly packed up. Similar to Victor they made an empty room and moved her things, it wasn’t enough to make an infirmary but the tools she had were enough to cut the cost by half. It wasn’t enough for Tony to buy the real infirmary since he used all his mana on the expansion but the ship was already at the basic size for when they are ready to go to space where they can mine minerals and make what was required to cut all the costs.
With all of them gathered, the crew of six returned to Rokita to await for Pelonius.