chapter 65 Almony Valmont (work in progress)

soon everyone came back in the decked area of the specter castle, Sophia started to tend to their injuries, or better to Joseph's, Phoebe was also beaten up and tired but hers didn't really classify as grave injuries

in the end, they found themself in this situation because the breakthrough came abruptly, if they had time to make preparation it would have been much easier

after all, Phoebe and Joseph weren't casual seventh stage who barely reached the peak, they sat in that throne for a long time waiting for Daniel

Alexander said "all well what ends well, but at the same time this raises serious doubts about the Specter family future"

Vincent froze for a moment, he knew far too well what his father Alexander was saying "indeed, now that they are eight-stage cultivators there are only two people in the specter Family that are still below it and can continue the bloodline, one is in prison, and the other may not grow old enough to have any descendants"

the happy occasion soon turned dark, every other member of the specter family was at or above eight-stage, both those in seclusion in the vault, and those outside in the universe, leaving only Vincent's sister the sixth stage Wilhelmina that was imprisoned, and Daniel that may never be able to have children

everyone present understood this too well, it's for that reason that Obelix before it was too late had already fathered a soccer team, like his father before him and so on

every one of these old people had pushed Joseph and Phoebe to have kids, but they waited until the last moment and barely managed to make one, not that Vincent and Sophia did any better

Andrea decided to try to defuse the situation and said "think positively, if Daniel manages to grow enough he doesn't need to be restricted by the similar stage rule, he can have children with any woman at or below the seventh stage"

it wasn't much of a consolation, but it did give some hope to the bleak Specter Family future, in the end, they were still numerous enough for now, but without the ability to generate new blood could they really refer to themself as a family, or would the Specter castle become the Specter retirement home

the problem was that Daniel that heard all of this had no intention of having children, in a moment of panic he remembered some of his biology classes and said "I can make a donation but the problem is yours after" obviously referring to in vitro fertilization before walking away

Daniel felt that if he stood here these people would get more dangerous ideas

Alexander who could let everything slip off him and doubted Daniel would still think the same in the future after he found a girl he liked said "you didn't show us Tickles ability"

Daniel's steps froze he threw out Tickles and then kept walking away while sending instructions to him

Tickles looked back at its master in his scaly dog shape and nodded and then turning around said in his usual mechanical voice "my ability it's complicated, I can eat technology, and other than knowing everything about that technology that I ate, I also grow a little, but we haven't been able yet to identify the rules behind it except for the fact that more advanced it's the technology, the more time it takes for the ability to recharge"

everyone nodded soon later the storage cloudtrain opened and a maru brought out a biomechanical heart

tickles went to it, activated it's ability and nothing happened

the maru brought back the heart and brought out a right glove

Tickles tried again and the result was the same, after flashing gray light at it nothing happened

Vincent asked "it's everything ok?"

Tickles said "I don't know, I thought I couldn't use the heart because it's part biological but this glove shouldn't have any biological parts"

the maru brought back the glove and brought out a crystal screwed in a metal base that Daniel had previously hacked into, but kept because of the superior data storage technology

Tickles once again used its ability and finally, it worked, the crystal disappeared with its metal base, and Tickles surprisingly grew another 500 grams

Daniel back in the kitchen didn't expect that hard drive to be as advanced as the phaser cannon it really surprised him

soon a problem appeared, after the update finished Daniel realized that he didn't receive the starchart data inside, the next time he want's to consume something he will have to make sure to hack in the harddrive first and copy the data

the participants of this meeting didn't really understand what happened but they saw the small scaly dog-shaped Tickles grow bigger and understood that the ability worked but had no comments about it

it was kind of underwhelming next to Daniels portals, they couldn't realize the potential of this ability as cultivators

they were convinced that it would take tens of thousands of years for Daniel's technology to reach their level

as the meeting was adjourned before going back to Daniel, Tickles gave itchis to Andrea, Obelix, White, and Alexander, completing the close family and friends distribution

Daniel in the meantime made some quick math in his head and realized that Tickles was now 1 kg and 550 grams, at the same time he was wrecking his brain trying to find an explanation because the glove and heart didn't work

in the end, Daniel realized that he could think of only two reasons, they were either too advanced for Tickles to handle, or somehow they both had biological components and Tickles couldn't consume them for that reason

to confirm or deny he had to find a less advanced Biomech object to test the ability on

thanks to this thought Daniel finally remembered the poor Almony who was still stuck, sleeping in a jar

after going fishing and getting distracted Daniel didn't think about her and Sophia kept waiting for him to go to her

luckily it was already the next day, Joseph and Phoebe were resting while they consolidated their eight stage cultivation

so Sophia was free and soon Daniel found her and brought her to see almony that was in a storage cloudtrain

Sophia looked at the sophisticated piece of machinery and asked "do you know how this works?"

Daniel said "no idea, but the soul shard that was in the biomechanical heart gave me the instruction on how to properly open the jar"

Daniel arrived in front of it, pushed a series of buttons, than pushed a lever, the liquid inside the jar started to disappear absorbed back by the machine

a red light stated glowing on Almony's body and soon later the cover opened exposing almony who started breathing again

but she didn't wake up, Sophia came fort and fed her a white pill, before using some energy to help Almony consume it

at this point Sophia put some simple clothes on her and said "let's move her to a guest room it should take some time before she wakes up, she has to recover from the aftereffects of the poison and the suspended animation state"

Daniel nodded they put Almony in a random room and left her there, before going back to their own business

the next Day, soon after lunch, Almony started to awake, but the prolonged suspended animation left her in a dizzy state, she still had to recover from

after a couple of minutes, Almony barely managed to sit up, luckily she was a fourth stage cultivator or she would have needed much more than that

at this point Daniel had already been warned by some nanites he had left in the room and soon walked in

Daniel said "goodmorning, do you talk the universal lenguage?"

Almony was shocked by the kid, but still said "what happened? where am i?"

Daniel nodded and said "good, communication won't be a problem, you are on verulus, capital planet of the Sun federation, I found you in a crashed ship, buried on an unnamed deserted planet in hive territory"

Almony asked "how many years has it been?"

Daniel said "the ship must have been buried for more than 200 years, before that I have no idea, the soul in the mechanical heart barely managed to told me some basic stuff before it dissipated"

Almony said "more than 200 years" somewhat troubled, after all for a skurian 200 years weren't peanuts

she soon thought of something else and asked "wait you said Verulus, how distant is it from the Danorius galaxy"

Daniel said "the Danorius galaxy became part of the hive territory 500 years ago, what's the last thing you remember?"

Almony's eyes opened like saucers, she thought it was something more than 200 years and suddenly it's more than 500

Almony thought for a moment than said "i was poisoned by the leader of a rival tribe, my mother put me in suspended animation and said she was going to bring me to someone who could cure me, was there anything around me?"

Daniel said "the only two things intact were your jar and the biomechanical heart the rest was either eaten, recycled or exploded with the planet"

Almony said "the planet exploded?"

Daniel replied "it was suicide, not my fault"

Almony at the moment could only ignore everything that wasn't useful to finding out what happened and asked "can you show them to me"

Daniel nodded and told her to follow him, while walking Almony looked around, there were no sights like this where she came from

the skurian pirates are divided in tribes and every tribe controls a fleet of ships, but they live their life in these ships and only go to planets to raid or exchange supplies

soon they arrived at the memory palace and a cludtrain section detached from the ring and came down, as it opened Almony could see the heart and the suspended animation chamber

Almony looked at the heart and said "with this dimension it should be a cruiser or a frigate, my mom's was the flagship it has a much bigger heart, I hope she's ok"

than she walked to the chamber and looked around "this was the booty of an assault to a trevician ship, what's this?"

she found a hidden drawer on the side, Daniel had analyzed the system's of the jar but he never looked for a physical hidden drawer

opening it, Almony extracted a little rectangular device and exclaimed "it's a com-link, do you mind if i use it"

Daniel said "knock yourself off, but unless it's powerful enough for intergalactic communication don't expect a response, you are at the center of a seven galaxies cluster"

Almony nodded but had to try anyway, activatimg the comm-link she said "here is Almony valmont, i repeat this is Almony Valmont of the valmont tribe does anyone read me"

she waited for a couple of minutes but no one answered so she tried again

and after another couple of minutes again

Daniel saw that she was on the verge of crying and said "i told you, the Sun federation wouldn't allow pirates to live in their territory, you're people are probably too far to be reached"

Almony calmed a little and said "maybe youre right"