Chapter 22 In space with a junkyard ship

It didn’t take me too long to make it to the elevator. It seems like there was no way to enter this floor of the station with my current permissions. This arm where my ship was docked at was apparently connected to Floor 13, which seemed to be a warehouse floor of some sort.

Now that we had more access to the web of this station, we got even more information. Mostly, I let Lola handle it, but the general information on the station itself was incredibly interesting.

Apparently, this station started operating when there were two floors and only four arms where ships could dock.

It took my universal translator a bit to figure out all the dates and make sense of it for my understanding. It was a surprise to me when I finally saw that this station started operating nearly 8,000 years ago. Damn, that was a long time.

It also seems like they have been constantly building up this station ever since, bringing it to the 100-plus floors it currently is. The original floors have been completely redone—now the first 2 floors are dedicated to the main city of this station. The next two floors below are also completely residential, so I think that the first four floors are actually for the main city. They're probably connected in some ways.

There were also entire floors just for water storage, and over half were completely dedicated to warehouses to store the tremendous amount of trade that was going through this station every year.

Finally, the elevator opened up, and I stepped in with about ten others. There were already a few waiting, but there was plenty of space.

One thing to note was that there wasn't any elevator music. The elevator moved quite fast, but each floor was 100 metres in height, so it still took some time. While we continued to ascend, I continued to look through the general information.

There were pictures and videos of the city itself, but it was hard to understand how big it really was. Some were already turning around, and I figured I would do so as well. This was one of those elevators where the doors opened on both sides.

When the doors opened, some were confused because they were still standing and waiting for the other door to open.

One of the aliens that had two swords on its hips, and kinda reminded me of a walking rhino, made some sort of noise that I was pretty sure was laughter. But I didn’t have the universal translator key, so I didn’t know exactly.

Yet I wasn’t paying attention to that. Because I could now see the entire city.

I had seen the pictures, but it was still hard to believe that in the space station there was a full city completely packed with buildings. It was like a metropolitan area that, funnily enough, they seemed to have no buildings higher than eight stories—except a few buildings in regular intervals that stretched all the way to the ceiling.

The ceiling itself was displaying a planetary sky. Currently, it seemed to be near night. There must be millions upon millions living here.

Currently, I was overlooking the entire city, quite close to the ceiling, which gave me an excellent vantage point. The majority of the architecture was quite utilitarian, but there were some buildings obviously made to not look like rectangles, especially in some areas.

From this high up, the floor was almost about 180 metres below, and 12 metres above me was the ceiling. There were stairs that led down, also other elevators.

There were also stairs and elevators that led into the ceiling, and I quickly figured out that that was where their transport system for the city was located at.

Apparently, there was an entire metro system in the ceiling, and those buildings that stretched all the way to the ceiling were the stations that you could use to get down to the city floor.

I could also see flying vehicles, but all of them were using propellers. That would make sense—you wouldn’t want to use something with propellants in a closed system like the station.

There also seemed to be vehicles on the streets, but a lot of the place seemed to be only for walking. It was nice to be able to stretch myself and walk properly here. I had missed that cooped up on the ship for so long. So I decided to take the stairs down.

“Lola, are there more than one Adventurer Association's registration compound?”

“Yes, there are quite a few. They are at the edges of the city, mainly near where a lot of arms connect to the station. There is also a main compound further inside the city. I will display that location for you and the one that you are currently heading towards.”

Two buildings were highlighted. One was about a 20-minute walk away, the other was quite near the centre of the city. Now that I focused more on the details, the city seemed to be split into three parts, as there were different types of architecture, and the buildings as a whole had a different kind of vibe.

“Lola, can you explain the differences I’m seeing. The city seems to be split in half, with one entire half being similar, and then the other half being split into two—all of those areas meeting near the centre plaza, it seems like?”

“Give me a few moments.”

I continued to go down the stairs, but I was alone in that—no one else seemed to be taking the stairs. Eventually, Lola got back to me.

“So, the edges of the city are quite mixed, but at a certain point, the three main areas are split between factions. The largest half are the corporations. The other half is split between adventurers and more independent businesses.”

“Can you get me a list of general establishments available in those three sections?”

“Acknowledged.”

As Lola worked on that, I made it to the city floor. My legs were burning a bit from that walk, but my exhaustion was leaving me quite fast. I wondered if there were any training facilities here, because they seem to be able to manipulate gravity so well, there could be places with higher gravity so I could train with a bit more resistance.

The city floor was like any other city. It had streets, although those were completely metal—like the sidewalks. I knelt on one knee to check out my boot so I could hide the fact that I took a scrape off the sidewalk. I wanted to later figure out what kind of metal it was made out of, because it was obviously not something I was familiar with.

To my surprise, I also saw water handling systems for handling rain. Did they actually have simulated rain here?

As I walked and searched the web, I found that yes, there was actually a weather system. Apparently, no one quite liked it, but the simulated rain was used to basically clean the buildings—otherwise the dust would accumulate too much.

There were more and more aliens walking around the further into the city I went. All of them looked so different, yet most of them still seemed to be walking around on two legs and mainly also had two arms, or something similar that could function to manipulate their environment.

I was used to the gangs and underground world, as I needed to interact with them quite a lot during my life to get the needed resources to keep me alive. So it didn't take me long to notice the signs that there seemed to be something similar here. If it was already happening this close to the edge of the city, then I’m guessing the entire place had quite a high presence of this kind of organizations.

That was actually a relief. That meant that I should be able to do business here without interacting with the corporations—and more specifically, selling stuff that I should not be able to sell. But that was for later, after I’ve fixed the ship and hopefully been able to make some upgrades.

Most of the traffic seemed to be transport vehicles that just moved on rubber wheels. Seems like that invention was too good not to be thought up and in general use in other worlds. A lot of the buildings here seemed to be residential, or at least half residential, because everyone seemed to be selling something down here, and I’m guessing the entirety of the city was like this.

I kinda wanted to keep exploring and understanding how this city functioned, but I had made it to my destination. It was a shorter building but also wider, taking up the spot of four regular buildings. It is four floors high, while the buildings around here usually were six. One floor was also about a metre higher than back on Earth.

This part of the city also seemed to be more for the medium-sized species like me, so most likely the size of the floors fluctuated depending on where you were. The concentration of people walking around was a lot higher around this building, and there were a lot more people walking about who had more medieval-type weapons. There was even someone with a bow.

There were also a lot of people with proper firearms, so I guess magic could actually rival firearms even if you used medieval-type weaponry.

That was something I wondered about, because walking around with heavy weaponry was against the law, but if a mage was capable of being stronger than weaponry—at least at the gunpowder stage—then why were they even allowed into the station?

“Lola, can you also figure out the power and strength of individuals? When I have registered as an adventurer, we should have access to more databases.”

“Acknowledged.”

There was nothing else to do but go in. Once again, there were lines and receptionists. It wasn't hard to figure out in which line I needed to stay, as apparently many were trying to become adventurers. The line I was in was not very, let’s say, stable.

The other lines were obviously for people who were already adventurers. They were all calm and looked like they knew what they were doing.

Some of them were also demonstrating their powers, one person was flipping around a small knife without ever having to use their arms. One was also playing with fire like I’ve seen some play with coins, making them dance over their fingers.

It was fascinating to see real magic, but what was happening near the receptionists and overall in this line was really distracting. Almost everyone seemed fidgety, always looking around like they were hiding from someone. At the front of the line, almost everyone needed to be dragged away by muscly-looking guards and thrown outside the building.

I did not quite understand what was happening, but it made the line move quite fast. Behind me, there were already a lot of newcomers acting similarly to the ones in front. At that time, I was the only one that seemed to be calm.

This place was quite loud, as it was connected to a full tavern-type sort of area, so only when I got close to the receptionist could I finally start to overhear what was being said.

The receptionist seemed to be tired, and with every new person, he said the exact same line.

“Please show me your ID. I remind you, if you are from the station and you do not have a sponsor, you cannot register as an adventurer, even if you are a mage.”

That line was said so monotonously. Every person seemed to present papers—yes, physical papers. The receptionist looked over them, scanned them, and then every time said the exact same thing.

“Unfortunately, I could not verify your sponsor’s identity. Please come back with your paperwork properly filled out.”

Sometimes it took the receptionist a bit longer to say that. Sometimes he said it immediately when he looked at the papers. Some—especially the ones where the receptionist took longer—got mad. And not once had I seen a person actually be approved.

Finally, it was my turn.

“Please show me your ID. I remind you, if you are from the city and you do not have a sponsor, you cannot register as an adventurer, even if you are a mage.”

“I don’t have any physical ID, but I have a digital station one, given to me when I docked to my ship.”

The receptionist blinked its eyes—it had four—and then, for the first time, I think he actually properly looked at me.

He lifted his wrist, which had a similar device that every receptionist seemed to have, it beeped. He looked toward the display on his desk, which was hidden underneath the table.

“Yes, everything seems to check out. Would you like to register as an adventurer?” he said, and I actually think he was happy that he was able to say something else, but that was a complete guess. Unfortunately, I didn’t have this species' key. He was using the main language of the station, so I didn’t need his species-specific key to understand what he was saying.

It would be nice to have a good universal translator key for every species but that doesn't seem to be an easy thing to do, at least not safely.

“No, I don’t want to register just as an adventurer, but as a space adventurer. With my ship Forward Horizon, registered as an adventurer ship.”

Once again, he started to look and interact with the display. He seemed to be a bit surprised, but I wasn’t entirely certain. Still, I’m guessing the way his eyes widened meant surprise, like it did with my species. That seemed to be quite universal from what I’ve seen.

“It seems that everything is in order for that. First, you would still need to go through the regular adventurer registration process, and afterwards you could register your ship. Please follow—wait, you have an AR system. Just give me a moment. Done.”

I received a direction package guiding me further into the building, where I needed to complete a few tests and then fill out a lot of paperwork.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you as well. And here—this is the paperwork you would need,” the receptionist answered while handing me some papers. But then his shoulder seemed to deflate as he said, “Next.”

I looked over all the papers. It was a significant stack. The ones at the top had a little bit more heft to them than the papers below; they seemed to be for the test results. I looked through all the papers and made a video file of them and sent it to Lola. Although paper was the wrong word, they were made from some type of plastic-feeling fiber.

“Lola, can you go through the papers and figure everything out?”

“Acknowledged.”

It was a short walk down a corridor before I made it to the correct door. There didn’t seem to be any way to signal someone that I was waiting, so I just knocked. There was some noise from the other side, and eventually someone opened the door.

“Yes?” an alien similar to the receptionist said.

“I’m here for my test,” I said and showed him the paper. He seemed to have been cautious, but he straightened up and opened the door fully when he saw the papers.

“Oh wow, an actual test. Come on in.”

At the centre of the room, there was what I could only describe as a magical crystal. It was quite long and narrowed near the ends, but otherwise, it looked like a magical crystal.

“Let me calibrate the device. It’s been a while since we’ve done this.”

It took him a while to fiddle with some levers and switches, but about a minute later, he indicated toward the crystal.

“Please, place one of your hands—those are hands, right?”

“Yes.”

“Put one of those on the crystal, please.”

“What does this actually do?” I asked before I put my hand on the crystal.

“It will measure how much magic you actually have and confirm that you are a mage.”

Placing my hand on the crystal, I felt it was quite smooth, but it flicked between being hot and cold. It wasn’t uncomfortable. The crystal seemed to glow ever so slightly more than before.

“That’s good enough. So, you are at the very beginning. I remember being at that stage. Here, give me that paper.”

I did so, and he started to write on it while at the same time talking.

“So, you are what we call G-rank. That means that you are at the very beginning of your journey as a mage, but it is also confirmed that you are a mage. The ranks are G, F, E, D, C, B, A. Those just represent the size of your magic core. Yours is the smallest, but everyone starts at that.”

He then handed me back the paper.

“That it from me. Go to the next test. There, you will find out what innate ability you have.”

Now that was quite exciting. As I exited and closed the door, I only needed to walk to the next door and knock. Basically, a similar interaction happened.

“You know, it’s been a week since the last time someone made it this far,” he said while configuring a device that looked like a white box.

“Yeah, I was wondering about that. Why are so many trying to be adventurers but not being allowed to register?”

“Yeah, it's the station's rules. You need someone that's an adventurer to sponsor you because so many adventurers were complaining when they picked up new party members here that none of the adventurers knew anything about combat or even what it meant to be an adventurer.”

“To raise the quality of adventurers you could hire from this station, this type of law was made quite a while ago, so actually people who were qualified to be adventurers would be able to register.”

“But wouldn't there be a kind of a test to show that you could fight or at least help operate an adventurer ship?”

“Oh, there are—and in fact, it's quite easy to get those qualifications, but you would need to pay a decent amount of mana credits. But more specifically, you would actually need those skills, which most don't have.”

That sounded crazy to me. If you could get those qualifications, why would you try to fool the system by faking those documents I saw absolutely everyone trying to do. But my intuition wasn't triggering here—perhaps I couldn’t read aliens or was missing something. Yet what he was saying didn't seem to be false.

Perhaps Lola could figure it out, but right now that doesn’t matter. What mattered was that I didn’t need those qualifications because I was a ship captain.

“Please place both of your hands on the cube and channel your innate ability, trying to influence the cube.”

It was a good thing that I had practiced that. Otherwise, it would have been quite embarrassing if I wouldn’t be able to do it. Once again, nothing seemed to happen, but a moment later the device did start to make some noises.

“Let's see... I’m sorry, it seems that you have a looting-type ability. It is a variant, so perhaps it has a quirk that would make it viable.” Was he looking at me with pity?

“You see, a lot of abilities are not standard. They have their own quirks from person to person, and this device can't figure out those differences from the base ability.”

I was a bit confused because a looting ability sounds amazing.

“Wait—why is that bad?”

“Oh, you don’t know? Well, I guess I have the time to explain. Here, sit down,” he said while pointing at the chairs for the table he was obviously using to fill out paperwork and use his computer.