Chapter 46: Skinner

                Pathless waved his hand, and said carelessly, “You will get it when you see him later, Old Mo isn’t even human.”

“You… Always saying bad things about me behind my back.”

Right after Pathless’ words, Han heard the industrial s.h.i.+p’s hatch door open, and someone with messy hair and wearing thick black goggles spoke as he walked down.

Han found out in surprise, Old Mo really isn’t human, he’s in thick armor with only two hands exposed. He has very long nails, just like hard eagle claws. He’s covered in grey scales, and his body size is far larger than humans too, approaching 3 meters.

This must be Skinner Old Mo. Although he’s not human, but just like Han and Pathless, he spoke Milky Way’s common human language. Right now, Milky Way already has its unified language and writing, and since Earth is a new comer to the Milky Way Alliance, different languages still exist based on where you are from on Earth. For instance, as Han, Cheng Zhong, Li Qi and other friends from China still speaks Mandarin when they are together, but they all speak Milky Way’s Unified language during other times.

Pathless saw Old Mo is here, he smiled and said, “When did I say bad things about you, you are not a human.”

Pathless turned around and explained to Han, “Old Mo belongs to Kui race, a very rare race in Milky Way. They were born on a planet that’s really radioactive, so they originally have very high tolerance to radiation.”

“Later, Milky Way Alliance wanted to take over the planet due to its rich nuclear resource, and since Kui is a small race, they couldn’t defend against the invasion of a large human army. So, the Kui race got scattered. And due to the fact that they have high resistance towards radiation, a portion of them became skinners.”

“This Old Mo has been wanted by Milky Way Alliance for a long time so if you need money one day, just chop off his head and hand it in and you can redeem quite a large bounty.”

Old Mo has really good temper, he didn’t get angry and he stopped beside Pathless and Han.

Pathless was very straightforward, “Old Mo, this is Han, he wants to buy some equipment from you.”

Old Mo nodded and pointed at the nearby small mountain of equipment, “Too be honest, due to the heavy nuclear pollution on this planet, all my equipment here are contaminated and that’s why they are so cheap. After s.h.i.+pping them back they still require some processing to be useable.”

Pathless added, “Old Black knows a few things about processing, you just have to buy something that neutralizes radiation that’s all.”

After Pathless and Old Mo’s explanation, Han finally understood, the so-called skinners are not merciless outlaws, but just someone that uses robots to clean up battlefields.

For example Old Mo, he belongs to a rare race and lives in difficult conditions under the oppression of the Milky Way that’s dominated by humans, that’s why he made the risky move and started this kind of business that can get him killed.

Right now, United Government of Earth has 10,000 official members, they are all elite espers picked from the entire planet, the majority being 3-star espers with some 4-stars as well. According to plan, Han will need at least 10,000 3-star battle suits and 10,000 weapons.

During a large-scale battle, aside from battle suits, espers usually wear another layer of alloy armor in order to strengthen their defense. Rarely being able to find a low-price supplier like Old Mo, Han of course wants to finish buying all the equipment at once.

Usually, 3-star battle suits are around 100,000 GC each, armor and weapon depends on quality and material.

Han thought for a bit, weapons and armors don’t have to be exceptional quality, but buying battle suits is quite troublesome. Battle suit is the most foundational equipment, not only must it have good defense, capable of entering water or s.p.a.ce and maintaining life, it also needs the flexibility of being able to adjust when wearing, too loose or too tight are all not good. They require an advanced degree of technology to manufacture, and it’s also costly to make. Even these contaminated second-handed battle suit are still not cheap.

Han and Old Mo negotiated, Old Mo considered for a while and finally said, “How about this, 3-star battle suits I can sell them for 8000 GC each, and then armor and weapon, including s.h.i.+pping, I will charge another 2000. That’s my bottom price.”

“As for my 4-star battle suit, I only have around 10, I will charge 1 million GC. During the time of that war, high level soldiers were all concentrated at the center of explosion, so the equipment leftover on the battle field are usually from soldiers of average and lower rank, the high rank equipment were mostly destroyed with those high level soldiers, so they are rare to find.”

Han saw Pathless nodding slightly on the side to show his approval of this being a good price, so Han agreed to the deal. It costed 101 million GC to buy this s.h.i.+pment of equipment, and if Han were to buy it from legal galactic market then it would cost at least a billion or two.

Then Han thought about the problem with s.h.i.+pping, Old Mo laughed and said, “I’ve been cleaning this battle field for many years, there shouldn’t be too much stuff left over. Later, I will tidy up the items you ordered and s.h.i.+p it to Earth myself, and then I will head to another battle field.”

Han and Old Mo were still talking about s.h.i.+pping arrangements while a large group appeared from the distant. It’s a group of hardworking robots that goes onto the battlefields to retrieve equipment. They stopped at the camp ground and started sorting the equipment they retrieved.

Han became very interested in the system of control Old Mo has in place. Although Old Mo came from the Kui race, he still can’t tolerate the high radiation at the center of battlefield, and he had no choice but to stay on the outer ring. He still can’t expose himself to the radiation too much, so he always take baths with medicines regularly to make sure that he doesn’t die from a prolonged exposure to radiation.

As for the robots, they aren’t afraid of anything and they don’t understand what it means to be tired.

If robots aren’t banned in Milky Way, Han really want to buy one too.

“Old Mo, where did you get those robots?” Han asked curiously.

Old Mo laughed and said, “From a junk planet. The robot were destroyed after the ban, but there were a portion of the parts still on that planet so I resembled them. Unfortunately, these robots had logic chips installed before, and they were taken out before the robots were destroyed.”

“There’s a big difference between the robots with and without logic chip. The ones without has very basic intelligence and they only understand to follow orders. If the robots have a logic chip installed, then it becomes just like a human, capable of smiling and thinking.”

Old Mo also told Han that to avoid being copied, Milky Way Alliance took away all the logic chips and sealed it at a highly secured location.

It is said that logic chips are also something left behind by the pre-historic civilization, and it is impossible to be produced under the current level of technology that humans possess. So, as long as Alliance doesn’t remove the seal, then Milky Way Galaxy will never have truly intellectualized robots.

Han listened and thought emotionally, using large quant.i.ties of robots can significantly improve human’s production capability, and it’s such a pity that they were sealed away.

Old Mo saw Han asking so many questions about robots, he laughed and said, “You are really interested in robots?”

Han nodded rapidly.

Old Mo said with great sentiment, “Me too. Ever since I was a child, I already became obsessed with robot technology. These robots are not just tools that I use to clean up battlefields, they are more like families that I know will never betray me.”

“If you like them, I will let you lead a group and explore the ancient battle field later.”