I say told me, but really it just sent me an alert saying that there was new research options. I might have looked at it, but they were all researched completely. Not that I had any capability to actually start making anything in that list, It's actually quite hard to make a deuterium fuel rod without access to oil. Actually now that I thought about it... There wasn't any coal or any traces of fossil fuels at all. My terrain scanner should have revealed if there was any deposit on the planet but there was none. I was going to have to find a way to make some sort of propulsion, not for just replacing my own thrusters but mainly for the copious amounts of fighters and space ships in my database waiting to be built. I'll have to find an alternative to the chemical thrusters for the early designs, luckily the later designs call for pulse engines. Which the designs seem to give me a headache just looking at them, but I gather they don't use chemical fuels.

I stopped my thought process and instead added 'find thruster alternative' to a to-do list. An actual list, the automated part of my being created one just for me. I need to stop getting distracted, it's taken me a while to just take a look at what this new research needs. I say long while but It was really only a few seconds.

Looking at what was required left me confused for bit. It was a single new research option. All I had to do was just 'Scan a mech'. So simple yet so hard, if I poked my head out to scan it with my cameras I'd be able to scan it but that would have me spotted. That got me thinking about what other things I could scan for new research. Vehicles, household appliances. Anything could be a possible research opportunity. I wasn't going risk myself, but I could get a rudimentary scan by placing another camera. If both cameras were focusing on the mech I should be able to overlap the two images and start constructing a model of this mech. It would be better with three cameras but I didn't have a way to view into the base from the other side. I would just have to hope it would be enough, I sent a second camera with instructions to set up on the other side of the waterfall from the other camera. After the scan finished it would be a good spot to get a view on what what happening over there.

The two cameras tracked the mechs walking around inside the small fort. There was progress being made on the research now, so there was nothing left for me to do. It quickly jumped up to about 20% but then slowed down, spiking as the mech they tracked spun around giving the cameras a new angle to look at. With this new development I went to the internet. If I wanted to build anything even if it was a hyper futuristic rail launch system, it would need to built by hand or with robots they understand. I have my own construction bots but they are essentially flying wedges that spray the dust form of the buildings to build and certainly don't fit in here. As I was browsing a multitude of robots more and more research options were becoming available. A cleaning robot, a construction robot. Many different types of robots for a consumer market. Luckily the consumer market had a nice webpage, with 3d renders of their robots that let me easily download those images that completed all those new research tasks.

I now had a two of every robot I could ever really want. One was a blueprint of the original and the other was improved and was definitely inspired by the originals. After these tasks though I was given a new research task, it was even added to my to-do list without even looking at it. It must have been important for the automated system to make this my new top priority. Apparently I was to get my hands on the energy source, it turned out they didn't use the same power source that I did. Electricity I mean. I use electrical signals, and they do as well at least for their internet as I could tap into it. But the power source was different than what I used.

I sent a render of an improved cleaning bot to the company who made the original. If they wanted to buy the blueprint I would ask for an abhorrent amount of money. But my real goal was to get some cash so I could buy this power source. I was going to ask for startup cash so I could start building a factory for these robots, if they did I would just send them some bots according to whatever contract they offered. Instead and I should have seen it coming they sent an automated cease and desist letter. It wasn't even a letter it was an email. Claiming that my 'Art' used their robot's likeness. Luckily this wasn't 'Art' it was a render of a functioning blueprint, I did make sure to file a trademark on it and no one there said a thing about it looking like an already existing robot. Not to mention that the internals were all different. I even went out of the way to point out the differences on the trademark so that anyone who looked at it wouldn't be able to claim otherwise.

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My reply to their rude letter? Of course I sent them the trade mark and told them I'll be heading to their competitor to ask for the startup cash. I didn't go to their competitor in the first place because they didn't have a line of cleaning robots. But it seemed they had seen my trademark on the bot as when I sent my offer they instead asked for the rights to use the blueprint. It was an offer to essential rent out my blueprint to them and I would get some cash until my trademark expired or until they stopped making them. Less than if I just sold them some bots every month but it is enough with plenty to spare to work on other ideas I have been having. I rushed through making an online bank account before I agreed to them, but luckily with a 'I am not a bot' which I couldn't help but feel was quite ironic I was able to make myself one. They didn't ask for any detailed Identification as long as I put some money into the account before the end of the month, so I am not officially a human again. This did bring up the issue of my name, I couldn't remember it. I had to go with the generic and totally original name of 'John Smith' I would have gone with 'John Doe' but 'Doe' was one of the Beastmen clan names that would have had someone investigating me trying to see if I was some sort of illegitimate human child or something.

Back to the issue of the coalition, If there was one way to get these guys off my metaphorical lawn it was money. I sorted out what I needed first and spent some money to buy the crystals that the blueprint called for. They were called Mana crystals, my gamer brain had me know what exactly this implied. They used magic to power all their stuff, I remembered how that ship in orbit could fire lasers off in any direction without any obvious weapons. It was a magical attack that I had seen. I was incredibly excited to get a look at these crystals, I wondered what actual magic would be like. But first I would have to have someone pick up these items.

Now, how do I get someone stupid enough to walk into a military base for a delivery that isn't for them but for a mech the size of a house living in the lake? My resort idea was more a joke idea, but if I hired someone to deliver the last of the construction materials to a building site nearby... Where I could pick them up at night with my own construction drones. Plan in mind I quickly sorted out the paperwork for my own company and purchased the land on the other side of the mountain from the lake. It was a better spot for the resort anyways as it was closer to the spring, I would have to actually construct the resort incase someone started asking questions. Which means I need someone certified to oversee the drones as they constructed a building. My construction drones didn't have the same faults that the ones on the market did so whoever got this job is going to be doing absolutely nothing.

I looked around for options and found a man. He was a beastman from the nearby city, he was certified for the job but his wife died so he had to quit his job to take care of his daughter. I decided to hire him, I would be keeping him around he could do other jobs for me after this one. How did his wife die? Well, a monster attack. Like they have ships in orbit but monster attacks are still a thing? A search about monsters was very informative. It turned out that monsters had mana cores, the larger and more dangerous the monster the larger the core. There was some process that they turned the cores into the crystals I am after.

I sent the unfortunate man a message explaining his job and that he was encouraged to bring any family members to live on site. There was really no reason for him to decline, sure enough when he came home from his current work and picked up his daughter he sent an email back explaining he would love to have accept the job. I whipped up some generic documents that would get me all the information about him that I would need to start paying him. Then another explaining for him to pick up the last of the building supplies and that there would be a place for him to stay with his daughter on site.