CHAPTER 83: CHAPTER 65: EXCUSES AND ALARMS_2

"Collecting them for research is worth it, and you can never have too many."

"Actually Dusk has been collecting human ships in various ways too, for the same reason."

"But since the Space Station just had a battle with Dusk, the retrieval price will definitely be a bit lower. You might want to talk to the manager about it, he should be in charge of these things, but..."

Old Wu suddenly lowered his voice and said, "You can also talk to Old Wu; the price he offers will definitely be higher than the Space Station’s."

"And for that Sentinel, the Space Station isn’t short on these things, so it definitely won’t sell."

"As for Old Wu... I really don’t know if he collects this stuff, you should ask him yourself later."

Chen Ming imagined the lazy figure of the hardware store owner and replied, "Okay, but I remember the owner saying he’s collecting for someone else. Is it okay to compete with the Space Station for business like this?"

"And I don’t seem to see any Space Station ships in the dock; don’t they need maintenance?"

Old Wu answered without a second thought, "Old Wu will handle his own business; you don’t need to worry."

"As for those ships... the department responsible for fighting is separate. They have their own docks for their ships."

"And even if their ships break down, they don’t need repairs because they’re not managed by the Space Station. All combat ships are distributed from above, and broken ones are taken away with new ones sent down."

Old Wu knew his explanation would prompt questions, so he directly explained, "So usually, they aren’t assigned a Maintenance Master, or rather, each of them knows a bit of basic maintenance, just enough to get by during a fight."

"How can you let combat personnel do the hard work of cleaning up the battlefield? So this kind of task ends up being our job."

Chen Ming processed what Old Wu said, suddenly sensing a business opportunity, and asked, "So what about those damaged ships?"

"What are you thinking? It’s okay to grab a few parts or equipment from the ones floating outside; Old Lu will probably turn a blind eye."

"But those ships that are brought back are accounted for, there’s an inventory list. It’s not that easy to take advantage from them."

Old Wu suddenly lowered his voice again and said, "Even if there’s someone skimming profit, it won’t be our turn. Just collecting the scraps outside should be enough, even though it’s a bit troublesome, at least we can earn quite a bit."

With Old Wu’s warning, Chen Ming naturally didn’t say more.

"Okay, so what’s today’s task?"

Old Wu set off and said, "Come on, the ship is ready. It was just taken out from the warehouse; Old Lu just went over to start it."

"This cleaning task is going to take a few months. Once it’s done, we won’t have to go out every day."

"You can just sit in the office, and later you might be asked to do some things like training newcomers. Given our situation, it shouldn’t be too tiring."

Old Wu suddenly chuckled and said, "If you’re often sitting in the office, I can have another place to escape to when I skip work usually."

In the depths of the maintenance plant.

The manager and Bald were already geared up, waiting by the engineering ship for Old Wu and Chen Ming.

But seeing the number of people present, Chen Ming couldn’t help but ask, "Just the four of us?"

Old Wu explained to Chen Ming again, "We need someone on duty at the maintenance plant, so I left Xiao Wen behind. I initially thought your skills would make you more efficient working outside, but if you want to stay and guard, that’s fine too."

"Let’s forget about that."

"Alright, let’s go, get on the ship."

The four of them boarded the ship through the open hatch.

As soon as he got on board, Chen Ming immediately took control of the ship.

With his prior experience controlling half of a Radiant Level ship, controlling this engineering ship, which was probably between a destroyer and a guard class, didn’t cause Chen Ming much trouble.

He quickly adapted and confirmed the condition of the engineering ship.

This engineering ship was an internal vessel used by Sinda Corporation.

More complex and versatile than those he had piloted before, it was more like a small mobile maintenance plant.

Even so, the new engineering ship only had slightly more maintenance capabilities than those from thirty years ago.

Chen Ming fully understood the engineering ship in just ten minutes.

What happened next was somewhat surreal for the other three on the ship.

After the engineering ship set off, the four of them were supposed to work together to clean up the battlefield.

But as they worked, the others found their tasks dwindling.

Almost all the tasks were handled by Chen Ming, who didn’t even seem flustered, as if what they needed to work hard on were things Chen Ming could do with ease.

Old Wu had no objections to this, happily slacking off in a corner of the engineering ship.

The manager and Bald mostly just kept watching Chen Ming.

They both had professional maintenance skills and had learned from the basics, completing the company’s education and training step by step.

Yet seeing Chen Ming work gave them the feeling they were not in the same league.

Though they could do everything Chen Ming did and even do it well, achieving his terrifyingly smooth pace and consuming such short time seemed beyond ordinary reach.