Chapter 3922 Salivating Reward
Although Master Dervidian was an annoying older gentleman who tried to push his Transhumanist ideals a bit too eagerly, to Ves the mecher had suddenly turned into the spirit of charity at this time!
With just a couple of sentences, Master Dervidian settled the matter of remuneration and compensation in a verdict that clearly favored Ves and the Golden Skull Alliance!
Aside from escaping any culpability for any alleged crimes and misdeeds that the alliance had committed, the Larkinson Clan and its allies were also entitled to the full MTA merit value of the phasewater that they had to submit!
Though the MTA acted a bit domineering by forcing the Golden Skull Alliance to surrender the vast majority of phasewater that its task force had plundered from Purgatory's natives at great risk and danger, Ves did not truly mind giving that much phasewater away.
He was well aware that holding over 2 metric tons of phasewater at any time was just asking for trouble!
The Larkinson Clan simply wasn't big and powerful enough to store that much phasewater safely. Even if the expeditionary fleet returned to the Vulit Star Node right away and deposited all of the valuable substances in some sort of bank vault or something, the clan would still have a big fat target on its back!
All kinds of greedy troublemakers would come out of the woodwork and enact their designs on the Larkinson Clan in order to steal away a couple of hundred kilograms of phasewater here and there. Ves simply couldn't withstand all of the heat of possessing so much valuable materials all at once!
In contrast, exchanging the bulk of it for MTA merits was much safer. Unlike phasewater, merits weren't transferable, so it was much harder to 'steal' it away.
Additionally, as long as Ves was willing to pay a price, he could exchange a portion of his newfound wealth on different forms of protection that would be sufficient to make the Larkinson Clan untouchable for the time being.
MTA merits were not just money. It represented one's relationship with the Mech Trade Association. The more MTA merits anyone had accumulated, the more the mechers treated them favorably!
It was never a wise choice to attack a person with a lot of MTA merits on record!
Of course, Ves did not intend to retain much of the MTA merits that he was about to gain.
In his situation, it was much better to convert intangible wealth into tangible strength and development!
As long as Ves was willing to spend big, he could instantly accelerate his personal development and the development of his clan by a couple of decades!
Better tech, exclusive knowledge, greater might and expanded access to exclusive services were just a couple of the benefits that he could obtain for himself and his people.
This was his golden opportunity to entrench himself in the Red Ocean and build a solid foundation for the Larkinson Clan!
As long as his clan managed to digest all of the goodies exchanged from the MTA, the Larkinsons would become stronger than ever!
Ves wouldn't have as many concerns anymore when his expeditionary fleet ventured into the deep frontier half a decade later!
Compared to all of these gains, Ves was not so eager to hang on to 2 metric tons of phasewater.
What could he and his fellow Larkinsons possibly do with all of that jazzed-up liquid substance?
It was impossible to swim in it! Any pool filled with this potent exotic would generate so much dimensional instability that those who dove into it would have their bodies torn apart before they even touched water!
The Larkinson Clan did not possess the expertise or infrastructure to fabricate warp drives or superdrives by itself.
Perhaps the Larkinson Biotech Institute might be able to develop a potential application for phasewater by successfully reverse engineering the Phaser fish-whale organs in its possession, but this was a dubious and unprofitable venture.
Retaining a hundred kilograms of phasewater was more than enough for the Larkinsons. They could transfer a part of it over to various companies in order to obtain superdrives and minidrives, both of which would massively upgrade the mobility and versatility of their starships and important mechs.
The remaining phasewater could be put in reserve or be used to trade for lots of money or important favors. freewebnøvel.com
As Ves thought about how to spend all of that wealth as wisely as possible, Master Dervidian activated another projection that listed out the terms he mentioned in the form of a ready-made contract.
"Let us go over the agreement to ensure that every party will be satisfied." The man said.
The two proceeded to do just that. Even though they had just made a quick verbal agreement, the enormous amounts of phasewater and MTA merits involved in this exchange made it extremely important to get everything right.
Neither of them wanted to make a mistake at this juncture!
The contract drafted by Master Dervidian was extremely thorough and went into plenty of detail about all of the exact events that took place in Purgatory and the Garimel System.
It took half an hour to review all of the points. Although Ves found all of this bureaucratic nonsense to be boring, he was not careless enough to skip over these proceedings.
"There is an important reason why we must go over each and every point in detail." Master Dervidian explained to Ves. "Aside from making certain that the written contract conforms to what we have agreed, we must also ensure that it does not leave open any vulnerabilities that others may exploit."
Ves frowned. "What do you mean by that, Master?"
"Do you believe that everyone from our Association will agree to treat you leniently? While it is officially within my discretion to decide how to handle this incident, there are… other institutions that may wish to interfere and overrule my decisions. For example, they can make use of the fact that your actions inadvertently led to the release of Moby Dick as a reason to levy punishment on you. They can rightfully confiscate the phasewater that you have obtained in the phase whale enclave without giving you a single MTA merit in return."
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