Chapter 23

Mysterious Merchant

“I can’t just wait for more technology points…”

Zhao Yu decided to confirm his title as soon as possible. That way, he could obtain more technology points.

...

Of course, he did not consider option 2. On the other hand, option 1 was a little extreme. He wasn’t really planning on destroying the planet that he came from.

“Let’s choose 3!”

[Selection complete. Title: Mysterious Merchant]

[Mysterious Merchant: You can obtain additional technology points as a reward for trading with alien civilizations. (The amount of technology points obtained will not exceed the maximum amount of technology points required to create the traded item.)]

“Note: The content of any transaction is limited to the product. It does not include the scientific theories and related technical principles required to create it.”

After studying carefully, Zhao Yu finally understood how trading as a mysterious merchant worked. Basically, he could only gain technology points that he spent. Take Xiaotian, for example. He used 20 technology points to build the first one and zero for the other ones. This meant that he could only obtain 20 no matter how many Xiaotian he traded.

Another thing. He could only trade physical products that had already been manufactured. He couldn’t trade knowledge or information. While he had already reached level 1.99 in mathematics, physics and other basic sciences, he had to keep the theories and skills to himself.

Say, if other civilizations wanted to learn about the kind of technology Zhao Yu possessed, they’d have to buy his products to study them on their own. For example, if some aliens wanted to learn how to craft his star destroyer cannon, they’d have to buy one from him and then figure out how to build one by looking into it.

“The system seems to be afraid that I’ll sell my technology to Earth…”

[Hint: The previous host unconditionally supported the native civilization of Earth. He eventually died due to unnatural causes.]

“I see!”

Zhao Yu understood something. The system was afraid that he would die too quickly, so it gave him many restrictions to prevent him from making rash decisions. In a sense, this cautiousness of the system proved his suspicions right. When interacting with Earth, he must not expose his true identity.

“I used to be an Earthling. This is my most important secret. Letting others know that means I lose…”

And what are the consequences of losing? Zhao Yu didn’t even need to think about it. The host before him died, and that’s how he became the new host.

All things considered, Zhao Yu could not help but feel that he’s made the right decision. Fortunately, he had been cautious all these years. Even Uncle Da, the butler, and the nine androids did not know his background. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them. He just knew too much about how one could get another to spill out all his secrets.

Besides, his Level 1 moon car had a population limit of 10 absolute loyalties, which were all tied to the butler and the nine androids.

If the system hadn’t mentioned this function of absolute loyalty, he wouldn’t have built any artificial intelligence.

This was because Zhao Yu would often forget that Uncle Da and the nine people were androids and would only treat them as real people.

“Before I trade with Earth, I need to think about how I am going to introduce myself. I don’t really need to tell Earth who I really am, but I need to make up a story that’s believable enough…”

Zhao Yu understood one thing very well. If earthlings decided to investigate his base, they would know that there was barely anyone alive living inside of it. There was no civilization, no population, no development. It was a base that appeared out of thin air.

“So I can’t really just say that I am a human who lives beneath the moon’s surface…”

“I’ll have to stick with the story of how I’m an alien…”

Zhao Yu rubbed his chin as he tried to perfect his story.

“I … No, we came from a distant planet. Because of an accident, we fell on the moon…”

“The spaceship is damaged. It can fly for a short distance, but it can’t travel a million light years back to its home planet. Actually, I can’t say that…”

“Since we are an advanced civilization, it might just be possible for our spaceships to reach the speed of light. Or, instead of traveling at the speed of light, I can say that we travel by teleportation or through wormholes…”

“If that’s the case, it is probably more convincing to not say that we can travel at the speed of light!”

According to Uncle Da’s assessment, the average technological level on Earth was only 0.75. Zhao Yu’s basic technologies had reached 1.99 points, which was already very high compared to Earth. That being the case, Zhao Yu didn’t know too much about the science behind the base car and the system. If he was to make up a story, he might have to leave out all the technical jargon.

“So I can’t say stuff about our spaceship being able to travel at the speed of light. Whatever, I’ll just say that there’s a technical problem with our spaceship. I’ll tell Earth that we can’t leave for the time being and leave all the rest up to their imagination…”

“As for why there is a base on the moon, I’ll just say that it’s meant for repairing the spaceship. That should be enough!”

Zhao Yu thought a lot, but in the end, he felt that it was better to say as little as possible to increase the room for negotiation. It’s better to remain mysterious than to have an overly-detailed story that had too many loopholes.

Now that he had come up with his origin story, Zhao Yu began to think about something else. He wanted to make plans on how he was to trade with Earth.

“I won’t give them any military technology for now. I can’t teach them how to create breathable environments in space, either. If I do, they might try to create settlements next to my base…”

After thinking about it carefully, he realized something. Since all his technology points went to develop his military, he didn’t really have much left for developing other aspects, such as improving his living standard. Sure, he had developed games and greenhouses, but that was only because he was bored. Truth be told, everything other than his weapons were no more advanced than what’s on Earth.

But hold up. Zhao Yu’s eyes lit up when he accidentally glanced at his watch.

“We can trade this. Projection touch watch!”

This was the technology that Zhao Yu discovered when first transmigrated to the moon. He got it because he wanted something to replace his phone, since its battery ran out pretty quickly.

The watch had all the functions of a mobile phone, and most importantly, the screen could be projected into the air for touch control.

“System, if I want to trade this watch, how many technology points can I get back?”

[850 technology points]

“850?”

Zhao Yu was stunned for a moment. When he first built this watch, he did not spend so much money.

After thinking for a while, Zhao Yu began to look for all the prerequisites needed to build the watch.

After a series of comparisons, he finally gathered 850 points.

It did not include the seven basic technologies and the secondary research institutes.

He only had the technology points he had spent on the construction of the four major factories, the optical touch manufacturing plant, the ultrasonic sensing plant, the infrared imaging system analysis plant, and the signal data processing plant, which were required to manufacture watches.

“These four major factories were all built by me, and they are actually included in the watch technology tree…”

“Then, if I trade for other goods and use these factories, can I return the technology points repeatedly?”

[No]

The system responded in a rather brash manner.

Zhao Yu scratched his head. He thought that he had found a quick way to make a lot of technology points, but whoever designed the system must have had it all figured out long before he did.

This meant that no matter how he traded, the maximum amount of technology points he could get was fixed unless he continued to develop new technology.

“850 points. That’s not bad…”

Zhao Yu looked at the ten detection devices that he had selected previously. Since he’s built them once already, building more of them wouldn’t cost him any technology points.

Then 850 points would be enough for him to build 10 detection devices. Not only that, he would still have some surplus to prepare for the factory needed to build the spaceship.

After solving this problem, Zhao Yu began to ponder again.

“I’ve decided what my products will be. Now, what do I want in return from Earth?”

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