Chapter 50 Doubling in size.

Seeing the elf, who was trying his best to keep his composure, and losing badly, surprised both the human and the Cheroni.

Terelen turned to them and fell to his knees, bowing his head to the floor.

-I beg of you, sell me the red set of this jewelry.

Andrew's and Aelita's jaws hit the floor.

-I will trade the most expensive items and modules at my disposal for this jewelry.

The elf continued, not raising his head.

Andrew was the first to come to his senses.

-Get up, and tell us what is going on.

He said, walking to the elf and helping him to his feet.

-These sets of jewelry were stolen from our imperial palace, they belong to the daughters of the king-emperor of my race.

To be more specific, these were their engagement jewelry sets, and the King-emperor himself proclaimed that whoever found the set, will be able to marry the princess that the set belonged to.

The red set belongs to the third princess, we have known each other since childhood and we have loved each other for many years, but I'm not of the nobility, so there was no way for us to be together.

However, having this set, I will be recognized, and we will be able to get married.

Terelen, explained the situation while tears continued to flow from his eyes.

-So if you marry the princess, you will also have the right to the throne?

Andrew asked, not wanting to get mixed up in politics.

-No, the king-emperor has many sons, so they will be next to the throne.

All I want is to marry the woman I love and get her out of the Imperial Palace to keep her safe.

The elf explained.

He didn't have to add that the palace was a very dangerous place, especially for the royal descendants.

-It's your choice.

Andrew said to Aelita, snapping her back to reality.

The girl was surprised as all hell when she saw the merchant's actions and heard his story.

She was deeply moved by the lengths he was willing to go, for the woman he loved.

-In other circumstances, I would just give it to you, seeing how much you love that princess, but we need many things, so I will trade it for the best workshop module you can offer me.

She said, hoping that she didn't overdo it.

- I will provide you with a tier 4 level 5 workshop module with all upgrades available for that tier and level.

Aelita gasped, hearing what she would be getting for the jewelry.

-Deal.

She said.

-Thank you, this means much more than you may ever know.

The elf said, smiling happily through his tears.

-I just hope, that both of you can find happiness and treat each other with respect.

Aelita said, happy that she could help this elf get his partner.

-I swear, I'll do everything to make her happy.

Terelen said, emotionally.

It took a few minutes for Terelen to get his composure back and continue with the trade.

Aelita was more than happy to sell the education capsule, knowing that it would be used for her people.

Other than that, the rest of the trade went smoothly.

Andrew and Aelita bought many new modules and some upgrades, along with many items.

Luckily the research for the combat command module was finished just as they were picking the items from the list so they added it to the shopping list.

Thanks to the helium 3, Andrew just sold they didn't have to worry about the budget.

Each container was sold for 1,5 billion credits, and added to the half a billion they had saved up, they now had almost 8 billion credits to spend.

Knowing that they added more modules that they would need and ended up spending almost 3 billion credits, the other five, they decided to save up for now.

Terelen was more than happy with this transduction, it was the biggest one he had since he became a merchant.

As a gesture of appreciation, he even volunteered to clean the bodies from their station, which both of them appreciated.

The whole thing took a little over three hours, in which time all the merchant ships got repaired and the other two went to visit the other stations in the system.

When it was time to say goodbye, Terelen bowed to them again thanking them profusely, for their trade and the help they offered.

Once he left, both Aelita and Andrew got busy storing the items they bought and the ones that were delivered, as promised the week before.

The best thing they both got was the space armor, thanks to them they would be able to go inside the ships without worrying about any floating pieces of metal, and Andrew could use it as battle armor if he ever needed to fight inside the station again or inside a ship.

Other than that it was the usual mix of food clothes, seeds, and some upgrades, that they would need to install, and a replenishment of their ammunition for the cannons and the rail-gun.

The only exceptions were the weapons, Andrew got two Tasers, one for himself and the other for Aelita, and he also got a sub-machine gun, FN P-90.

It was shorter than an AK, which made it easier to use inside the station or a ship, and it also had 50 rounds in every clip, not to mention that it came with the whole set of accessories, including a suppressor, flashlight, laser sight, and all the others that were ever made for this weapon.

Sadly, he could not get his hands on any grenades, and he would love to have some stun grenades at the very least, but for that, he needed to do research.

For the moment they both stored their things in their beginning modules, to avoid making a mess.

Just as they finished moving everything the modules they bought arrived in a flash of light.

There were so many of them this time, that they were taking up more space than the station itself.

But many among them were meant for the substations, as Andrew wanted to have at least 10 of them, to continuously supply him with resources.

Other than that, there was the combat control module, that he just bought, another 24 point defense cannon modules, the 3 railgun modules, 2 tier 2 shield generator modules, and tier 4 level 5 workshop module, that Aelita traded the jewelry for, tier 4 education module with the virtual reality training upgrade, that Andrew wanted, with it, he could train himself in combat simulations and learn martial arts, while at the same time, he could simply download the knowledge he needed into his brain, there were limits, but even so he would finish the high school in less than a week thanks to this module.

Other than that they also bought 150 solar power modules,60 drone recharging modules, 20 resource processing modules,90 shield generator modules, 5 drone control modules, 14 drone manufacturing modules, 10 resource distribution modules, a fitness module for Aelita, 5 personal storage modules, now they would have three each.

2 research modules, 2 computer core modules, an armory module for Aelita, 20 Component manufacturing modules, and 1000 Mid-sized storage modules to be used as the storage cubes.

They also replaced the damaged modules, one of which was bought by the merchant as they wanted to study the boarding capsule used by the pirates.

With that, their station more than doubled in size and almost tripled its firepower and shield strength.

Not to mention the resource capacity, which reached over 562,000 tonnes.

With all of that, Andrew was now more than sure that he would not need to fear anyone in this system, and the other station masters were left far behind.

However, the thing that brought him the most happiness, was the solutions for the regeneration tank, now all he needed was to set everything up and get treated.

-Aelita, please rearrange the station again, you have a free hand on this, but make the storage modules easy to disconnect and connect.

He said, making the girl smile from ear to ear.

-I will do my best, but we might need more construction drones for this.

She said excited at the opportunity to redesign the station once more.

-You need more, then just order more, I told you that long ago.

He said, shaking his head, and carrying some of the solutions to the medical module.

Not that he intended to use it immediately, but just to make everything ready.

Before he entered the tank he wanted to be sure that everything was ready and the station was protected as once he started the treatment, he would not be able to get out before it was finished.

Aelita designed the new station in less than two hours before she showed the design to Andrew.

The new design placed everything other than the resource-related module on top, as this design made it easier to connect and disconnect the storage modules while focusing the defenses on the more important modules.

-If we buy another batch of modules like this one, I will have to redesign the station to separate levels for every type of module.

She said while explaining her concept to Andrew.

The human was impressed by her design, it made the station into a cube-like shape with power generation and defense rings around it.

With this design, the station was fully covered by the shields and the cannons and railguns could fire at anything around them.

Along with the thermal sensor upgrade, they bought, it was now almost impossible for anyone to sneak up on them, even if they had stealth technology.

-We shall see about that in the future for now let's build this thing.

Andrew said and uploaded the design into the drone control module console.

Thanks to the new manufacturing modules they were able to produce all the drones they needed for the remodeling before Aelita even finished the design and now they all rushed to do their job.

With the additional drones, the whole thing took only two hours and in the meantime, the substations were also built.

Sadly they didn't have enough drones for them yet so they would have to stay put for the time being.

The moment the station was ready, Andrew ordered the production of 4000 new drones, to get the substations to work as soon as possible.

Along with that, he began another research, which cost him 60,000 tonnes of resources, and it was the hangar bay research.

This was needed not only to produce the fleet but also to unlock the space dock module along with the shipyard modules.

The other research he was conducting right now would end soon, but he would have to wait for the resources to start other ones, and with the addition of two new research modules, he would be able to research many fields at once or focus on one field, to speed up the research.

There were still many things to do, like towing the ships or their remains, near the station to see if there was anything worth salvaging, sending more cubes to the working substations, sorting through and storing the items and equipment they bought, and looking for the optimal spots for the seven substations that would be sent out the next day.

Both Andrew and Aelita were busy for the rest of the day.

Before they even knew it, it was way past their usual time to go to sleep.

They were tired, but happy, with all the work they managed to accomplish.

After some food and a shower, they only managed to embrace each other before falling asleep.