Chapter 132: The Visit

Arriving at the school gate, they did not have to wait long. As soon as the Type II Land Tiger armored vehicle descended, Myron and DeQuincy jumped on board.

"Where have you decided to go for fun?" David asked with a smile, looking at his four friends as they were about to head out.

"We're going to have a feast. I heard that the West City Hotel has a new chef who specializes in cooking Level 1 Zerg meat. Let's go there!" Myron, always well-informed, suggested loudly.

"Other than the reinforced meat, all other parts of a Zerg require detoxification. If the preparation isn't handled perfectly, we'll all end up in the hospital!" DeQuincy strongly objected the moment Myron made the proposal.

"It's still early for dinner. I heard that the Titan S600 transport ship awarded by the city government is already parked at the spaceport. Why don't we go check it out?" Jim chimed in with a smile.

"That's right! It's a mid-sized transport ship; I'm so envious!" Myron's eyes lit up, and he nodded repeatedly.

In this era, owning a personal starship is the dream of every young person. However, only a very small number of people can truly achieve this dream. It is not merely a matter of money, but also a requirement of social clearance—and E-level clearance is not easily obtained. Even Myron and Jim, the leaders among the second generation of Perrin City’s military and political elite, could not own a true private starship.

"Alright, let's have dinner on my ship instead!" David agreed without hesitation. Regardless, a ship is only fun when shared with friends, and he was curious to see their reactions to his peculiar vessel.

"David, the material of your ship's hull seems wrong!" Jim, who had studied various steel alloys, caught sight of the hull material the moment he stepped off the armored hover-vehicle and approached the Titan S600.

"Good eye. The Titan Consortium modified this ship before delivering it to me," David said, genuinely impressed by Jim's observation; he hadn't noticed it himself when he first arrived.

"Has the Titan Consortium gone mad?" Daly, who had walked up to the hull to examine it closely with his eyes and hands, was equally rattled. He exclaimed in disbelief.

"What's wrong with the material?" Myron stepped forward, tapped the outer hull, and asked, puzzled.

"This material is the same as that used for the Type II Land Tiger armored vehicle!" Daly replied, looking at Myron as if he were a complete layman.

"So what? It's just the same material as the Land Tiger, isn't it?" Myron, failing to grasp the implication, said nonchalantly.

"The Type II Land Tiger is the main battle vehicle of the Rock Planet military. Each one is worth over a million credits, and that's not even counting the various weapons equipped on it or the value of the Krypton crystal fuel core. What do you think a Land Tiger is?" Jim could no longer hold back and spoke bluntly.

"Then..." Myron finally understood. He pointed at the massive Titan S600 transport ship and asked, stammering, "Then this huge vessel... the hull alone must be worth tens of millions of credits?"

"Not necessarily. The Titan Consortium has its own mining sites, but the hull alone would cost no less than twenty million credits, possibly even more!" Jim explained calmly.

"That's impossible. The city government only paid less than three million credits to order it. How can this be?" Myron looked at the Titan S600 in disbelief.

Jim, Daly, and DeQuincy all turned their gazes toward David, waiting for his explanation.

"Don't look at me. I don't really understand it myself. Someone from the Titan Consortium approached me—a Mr. Boon whom I met in Laber City—and the Consortium modified the ship and gifted it to me," David said honestly. He truly did not understand it; the Titan Consortium had spent so much on him that he began to suspect they were simply handing him credits.

"Hurry up and open it! I want to go inside and see!" Myron shouted impatiently.

As David operated the controls, the elevator slowly descended, revealing the exquisite decorations within.

"God, what am I looking at?" Myron lunged at the elevator, touching the ornaments and shouting in excitement. David checked his surroundings, relieved that no one else was nearby to be startled by Myron’s behavior.

"Blue crystal gems, sky gems, flame-red gems, aquamarine, tiger's eye, purple blood stone..." Myron named each gem as he touched it; it was clear he had received systematic training in this field. Although DeQuincy did not act as overtly as Myron, he was clearly captivated by the decorations and was admiring the elevator as well.

"The interior also uses specialized steel synthesized with Level 1 Zerg shells. The Titan Consortium really has gone mad!" Jim and Daly’s eyes were fixed on the main structure of the elevator. The intricate, decorative patterns of the elevator were made from the same high-grade material as the hull. Using super-alloys for the exterior was to ensure the ship's structural integrity, but using them for the interior was an extreme waste. Using slightly inferior alloys internally would have had no impact on the ship as a whole. Of course, that was just their perspective. For Bonner, the heir to the Titan Consortium, credits were never an issue, and materials were even less so. He only had one requirement: for things to be built exactly according to his vision.

"Let's go inside first!" David coughed lightly to remind them.

Myron reluctantly withdrew his gaze, then wiped his shoe soles on the ground with deep regret before carefully stepping onto the elevator.

The group reached the cockpit, and just as David had expected, even Jim and Daly were completely stunned.

"This is a Titan S600 transport ship?" Jim turned to David, asking skeptically. Although he hadn't seen a real Titan S600, he had seen the promotional advertisements. Even if the ads had embellished the interior, they bore no resemblance to the cockpit before them. Aside from the station for the smart driving butler, the rest of the space looked every bit like a luxurious bedroom.

Myron looked at the floor; he recognized it as an ultra-luxury brand of floor tiles, each piece costing nearly ten thousand credits. But compared to the large bed, the value of the tiles was negligible. The trademark on the bed frame displayed a brand famous throughout the Interstellar Federation: "Cromwell." Such large pieces of furniture rarely made it to combat zones—partly because of the high value of top-tier brands, and partly due to the logistical nightmare of transport. Shipping such a bed from elsewhere in the Federation would involve not only interstellar travel but also passing through multiple blockades, with the shipping costs alone being enough to purchase the item all over again.

"David, I want to see the rest of the ship!" After touring the cockpit, Myron’s eyes locked onto the door behind it.

Two hours later, the five friends sat in chairs beside the swimming pool, enjoying a dinner prepared by the smart butler.

"Where was the program for this smart butler purchased?" Myron exclaimed between bites, "After eating dinner made by this butler, I feel like the food from the chefs in Perrin City is just garbage!" He knew David wouldn't know where the program came from; he was simply venting his emotions.

David was also dining on the ship for the first time, and he was extremely satisfied with the butler's culinary skills. However, looking at the meat on his plate, he felt a flicker of doubt: where did this fresh meat come from?

"Chef, where did this meat come from?" David asked the smart butler, whom he had nicknamed "Chef," as it stood by to serve them. Ever since he tasted the incredibly delicious dinner, he had renamed the butler; such an extraordinary machine deserved a dedicated name.

"Master, 'Chef' possesses 126 types of meat genes and can use the ship's energy to synthesize 126 different types of meat," the smart butler replied.

Hearing this, all five of them stopped their cutlery in mid-air, staring blankly at the butler. Even David, who didn't know much about the world, understood that the technology to synthesize meat from genetic sequences was used only in the medical field, and it was an incredibly expensive procedure. Only a few super-pharmaceutical groups in the Interstellar Federation possessed this technology—yet here, it was being used to generate food.