The Mech Touch novel Chapter 913

As a pair of armed security bots escorted Ves out of the lifeless office of the Artificial Intelligence Corps behind, he lamented the lack of merits he received. For a Virtual Rear Admiral, Ordoth sure belied the stereotype that all admirals of the CFA possessed enough wealth to buy out the entire Komodo Star Sector!

"What a miserly dwarf." He muttered.

The revelations from the AI revealed much but left more questions behind. At the very least, he finally learned the origin of the Mech Designer System. Somehow, it didn’t really quite live up to the name of the so-called ’Metal Scroll’.

Perhaps the Great Betrayal inflicted serious damage on the System. Ordoth did mention that the Five Scrolls Compact thought it got destroyed in the outbreak of fighting that went on at their Great Temple.

If this was true, the Five Scrolls Compact likely didn’t expend more effort than keeping their eyes out for the Metal Scroll. This afforded Ves a measure of safety, but as long as a senior leader of the Five Scrolls Compact ever scanned his blood, they’d know what he possessed!

One alarming fact was that Ordoth immediately declared him the holder of the Metal Scroll. This told Ves that the blood test not only identified that he possessed a Sacred Scroll, but the long-lost and presumed destroyed Metal Scroll!

He should keep his head down from now on. At the very least, he shouldn’t let some random stranger take his blood sample.

As Ves wandered down the decks of the expansive but sand-ridden battleship, he vainly tried to get a grip on the tangled web of interests that intersected with his life, the Starlight Megalodon and human civilization.

He quickly became overwhelmed. Mental and physical fatigue piled up on his shoulders like a sack of bricks.

"I need a break."

He detoured from the Research Department and shuffled all the way to Mr. Longhorn’s cabin. His stomach started to rumble, so Ves dug up a nutrient pack stored in a small pantry. He studied the labeling of the bag of industrially-processed food.

"Huh. This nutrient pack was made before the Age of Mechs!"

He chuckled at the realization that he held a piece of history in his hands. The nutrient pack had been manufactured in enormous batches at the end of the Age of Conquest when the CFA and MTA first came into prominence. That must have been shortly after the Big Two rebelled against the Five Scrolls Compact and made off with the Fire Scroll.

Going by the standard date, this nutrient pack was more than four-hundred years old! Going by how much time the nutrient pack actually endured, this pack actually rested inside the pantry for more than thirty-one-hundred years!

"A more than three-thousand year old nutrient pack. How good will it taste?"

Nutrient packs were theoretically meant to last forever. Their packaging not only shielded its contents from air, light and moisture, they also did a decent job at repelling cosmic radiation and other weak decaying influences that normally spoiled all kinds of food.

A popular rumor on the galactic net even claimed that a slow, peculiar fermentation process occurred inside the packs. This fermentation process happened so slowly that the taste only became noticeably more sophisticated after several centuries!

Nutrient pack afficiados even bid millions of credits to obtain specific brands and flavors!

"I could easily auction this nutrient pack for ten million credits." He appraised.

Of course, right now Ves was hungry, so he ripped open the pack without hesitation. He sought out a spare fork and separated a chunk of dry, dark brittle substance that was supposed to taste beef teriyaki.

"Here goes nothing."

He swallowed the chunk and savored the taste. His eyes glowed a little as he experienced a complex explosion of mellow tastes. Even though he needed to swallow some water to compensate for its dryness, he still experienced a rare form of nirvana! _{ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com}

The transcendent eating experience caused him to momentarily let go of all of his worries. He forgot about all of his concerns and concentrated purely on the wondrous flavors impacting his taste buds.

He took an entire half hour to consume the ancient nutrient pack. He enjoyed the eating experience so much that he neatly folded the packaging before respectfully chucking it into the trash chute.

After that, he crashed into Mr. Longhorn’s bed and slept like a baby.

When he woke up, he felt completely refreshed. Though his worries returned to burden his mind, he regained his mental strength, allowing him to face his challenges with confidence.

"Let’s put aside the galaxy-spanning conspiracy and focus on what’s happening on the ship."

Right now, his comrades still depended on his efforts. He also accumulated a veritable shopping list of goodies that he wanted to redeem from the Starlight Megalodon. The handful of merits the virtual rear admiral bequeathed him barely slaked his thirst.

"At least it brings me halfway to exchanging for a KC-3333 priming agent." He murmured.

Before he started his long shift at the Research Department, Ves intended to sound out both a virtual geneticist and a virtual exobiologist.

He always felt a bit apprehensive towards meeting one of the latter because the Exobiology Department belonged to the captain’s faction, which enjoyed a hostile relationship with the Mech Department which Ves partially hailed from. Calabast warned him not to trust members of the opposite faction.

In this, the list of names that Ordoth sent to his CFA comm started to show its value. It mentioned a dozen or so virtual individuals along with how much they knew, which wasn’t very much. Nonetheless, by saying a specific passphrase, these compromised AIs would hopefully cut him some slack and remember who they really served.