Chapter 136: Xandar

To read up to 20 chapters ahead: https://www.patréon.com/SlyOW

-------------

Xandar was the capital of the Nova Empire, one of the strongest forces in the Galaxy, and even in the universe at large.

The capital thus had to represent their prestige.

Edward's first impression as he arrived on Xandar was… grand. The Nova Empire was protected by the Nova Corps, whose headquarters Edward could see from where he was.

The Nova Empire was a militaristic empire, and was led by Nova Prime, their supreme leader. Edward wasn't here to judge them though, so after taking in his surroundings, he moved toward what he believed to be the city's center.

Edward had no problem navigating in the city as he had long learned Xandarian, and so he could read the hologram signs and listen the people around him.

Before long, Edward found himself in front of a store, one that sold maps. Although he knew Markar was relatively near Xandar on a cosmic scale, that was too vague, so he needed to find where exactly it was.

Also, finding a ship would be good, Edward could travel in space by himself if he wanted to, and at a pretty decent speed too as he could warp space when travelling over great distances, but space was boring. Besides, a good ship would be much faster than him, and time was of the essence.

As he entered the shop, he saw all kinds of items on both sides, and an alien male standing behind a counter. The alien man looked at Edward's attire, and upon not recognizing it he decided to be polite as he asked, "I do not seem to recognize you, and new clients are rare in my line of work."

The shop Edward had gone to was known as the Broker's Shop, and the alien in front of him, the Broker, specialized in high end items, often not looking at their origin. Meaning he bought and sold stolen items.

Edward had come here with a purpose as he took out a vial, and said, "I am here for a few things, selling and buying. This is what I would like to sell."

Edward handed the vial to the Broker, who observed it for a few seconds before asking, "All I see is blood. I can't see anything special to it with my eyes only. Would you care to enlighten me?"

Edward smiled and revealed, "This is blood that belonged to a Red Lantern."

The Broker's face changed as he nearly dropped the vial, his eyes opening wide as he asked, "Are you sure about that?!"

Edward nodded and said, "You probably have equipment to check it's authenticity. It was taken from a Red Lantern known as Graxus, and it was taken fresh. In the middle of a fight he lost, too."

The Broker's hands started shaking in excitement as he put down the vial in fear of breaking it, and took a strange looking needle, connected to a device.

With Edward's permission, the Broker opened the vial, and dipped the needle into the blood. No blood was siphoned though as after a few seconds a bip was heard from the device, and the Broker's face turned into a smile.

His excitement was understandable, the blood of a Red Lantern was a hot commodity. As one of the Lantern Corps, anything coming from a Red Lantern was extremely rare as a single one of them was capable of bringing havoc on most planets, and taking anything from them was rare.

As for this blood, if it came from any other Lanterns, it wouldn't have much worth, but Red Lanterns were special. Unlike other Lanterns, they didn't just wear their ring on their finger, their very heart was transformed to hold the power of rage, and circulate rage-filled blood through their body, reinforcing it and making it much more potent.

This made a Red Lantern's blood unique, and very powerful. It could be used in a variety of ways, and there was a high demand, but a low supply.

Moreover, when a Red Lantern fought and their rage accumulated, their blood would receive a boost for a moment, so this blood was really rare. Edward had picked it up from Graxus after he was defeated. The others also had taken some of his blood for analysis, although not much.

After looking at the vial for a few more seconds, the Broker asked, "How much would you like for this item?"

" Eight million units."

The Broker remained silent for a few seconds, contemplating, before saying, "I believe this is a reasonable price for such a high quality product. Fine, you have a deal."

He took out eight engraved pieces of metal, each worth one million units. Eight million units was a great sum, if he wanted to Edward could probably buy a high end house on Xandar and live for a few decades lavishly without a worry.

Edward played with the units in his hand as he said, "Now that's done, I would like to buy a few things. Information about Markar, as well as Terra."

The Broker nodded, and a hologram appeared before him. After a few seconds, he asked, "Do you have any device to record the information?"

Edward shook his head, and the Broker took out a rectangular object with various pores. He branched it to his desk, and said, "The device is only worth ten Units, let's say it's on the house. Information on Markar will be 2000 Units, and Terra will be 100 000 Units. Let's make the numbers round and offer those for Markar too. So it will be 100 000 Units."

Edward was surprised at the price, and asked, "Why so expensive? Terra is not even a Type 1 civilization."

The Broker smiled and said, "Sir, please do not insult my intelligence. You obviously are from Terra, and for someone from that planet to enter Xandar sneakily and without raising any alarms, you know better than anyone why information on Terra is expensive. Or should I say, Earth?"

Edward was not offended at his words, and smiled instead as he asked, "So that's what the scanner at the entrance did." he handed one of the one million units chips he was given, and the Broker quickly gave him 9 smaller ones, each worth 100 k.

Edward then infiltrated his Spirit into the device, and much like with a book, copied everything contained inside into his mind. This involved a certain level of technomancy, which Edward did not study too much, but had enough knowledge of to use skilfully.

His face turned grim though as he read the information about Terra. News of the Ancient One's death had already spread to Xandar, and thus had undoubtedly reached other places. The time they thought they had was even lesser than he thought.

The Broker also knew about this as this was hot news, and thus offered, "The magicians of Earth are quite renowned in the Galaxy, you could move to another planet if your magicians offered your services to a higher power, like the Nova Empire."

The Broker was Xandarian, so although he was into shady businesses, he still proposed something that would benefit his home. Edward shook his head though, and said, "It's fine. Last thing, do you know where I could find a ship that could go to Markar?"

The Broker thought about it for a moment, before saying, "Normal travelling agencies wouldn't dare to take the risk to go there, so your best shot would be to head to the bounty hunters' gathering spots. Some of them should be willing to take the risk, if paid well enough."

Edward nodded, and thanked the man before walking out. The Bounty Hunters' gathering spots were not hard to spot, as most of them dwelled in bars, waiting for bounties to be updated. Since it was also the place where he could post a request, Edward headed there.

But as he arrived and was about to post a bounty, he heard something interesting.

"What do you mean your ship is the fastest in the Galaxy? Not only is my ship faster than yours, everyone knows the fastest ship in the Galaxy is the Millennium Falcon!"

Shocked, Edward turned to look at the origin of the voice, and saw a man in his thirties. The people around him were looking at him with confusion, and who could blame them?

Star Wars was not something that had spread to the universe, only people of Earth knew about it, so how could they have head of it?

Analysing the speaker with his Chi Sense, Edward felt that the man was indeed human, although there seemed to be a trace of another power in his body, so he probably wasn't completely human.

It was strange for a human to be here, Earth didn't have the technology to easily travel in space yet, so how could a human from Earth become a bounty hunter here?

However, as Edward was about to go see the man, he saw the bounty hunters walk off, confusing Star Lord, but his attention was soon swapped to a green skinned woman approaching him.

Seeing how focused on the woman he was, Edward decided to drop it for now and instead went to post his request, still keeping him in his Chi Sense.

But barely a few minutes after Edward put up his bounty, he saw the man, whom he learned was called Star Lord, and the woman, Gamora, walk out.

Before they could go too far though they were attacked by a pair of bounty hunters. One was a giant living tree, not unlike an Ent, while the other was a talking racoon. Strange, but this was a space civilization that spanned over several galaxies, so… meh.

However, Edward was a bit troubled as the fight quickly escalated, and the Nova Corps was brought over. A man came in flying from the sky, and he quickly knocked out the several fighters with energy beams.

The Nova Empire managed to attain it's current status thanks to it's Nova Corps, who all had access to the Nova Force. It was unknown where the force came from, nor what exactly it's nature was, but what people knew was how strong it's power was.

The different members of the Nova Corps had access to different portions of the force, but even the lowest ranked members had enough force to heighten their capacities considerably. Among their capabilities was flight, gravity manipulation and energy manipulation.

It wasn't very precise, and they probably had more abilities, but they weren't made pubic, and Edward wasn't omnipotent, so he stuck to that.

So facing the Nova Corps, Edward weighed his options. He was curious about Star Lord, and could defeat this Nova Corps soldier with relative ease. However, it wasn't really worth it. Not only was there a planet's worth of Nova Corps around him, he only held some curiosity toward this Star Lord.

For now, the most important thing to do for him was to find a pilot who would lead him to Markar. And coincidentally, as he watched the four ruffians get escorted away, he felt a familiar presence enter his Chi Sense, and approach him.

A smile on his face, Edward greeted in a casual voice, "You have some balls coming here, aren't you scared of dying?"