chapter 74 Itchy vs Teddorian space station (work in progress)

as he kept working on improving the batteries, one thing became clear to Daniel, creating technology that used common materials was way harder than using rare materials, especially after he managed to create a much more powerful battery with the same materials he always used, which were just enhanced by lightning elemental energy using an elemental crystal

for Daniel it was no longer a surprise that the powerful civilizations were completely or almost completely based on cultivation, it was simply much easier to get better results with a little crystal that could be bought for cheap online than by studying in depths these commonplace minerals

of course, he never thought that cultivation was easy in any way, he still saw it as seeking death to reach immortality, what was easier was finding a way, a lot of cultivation resources were interchangeable, if you don't have this use that, it could be a little less or a little more effective but it worked anyway most of the time

on the contrary, the pursuit of science and technology required extreme precision, even two almost identical minerals, used in the exact same way, could have completely different reactions, Daniel tried and created some fascinating explosions among the failures

at this point Daniel understood that it doesn't matter how many brains you have or how fast they work, a solid foundation of knowledge is worth more than all the gold in the world, and Daniel had built some flimsy structure that was far from being a foundation

it wasn't his fault, in the Sun Federation technology was a hobby of very few people and the books in Rose's tablet contained some helpful knowledge, but it was all over the place, a mix of advanced and basic books spanning too many subjects, leaving entire sinkholes to fill, practically until now, Daniel had examples to follow or Tickles's cheat, but at this point, he had hit a wall

but this wouldn't change his research direction, this battery made with the lightning crystal was better but ultimately useless, as the itchy explorers wouldn't have easy access to elemental crystals on other planets, so he just had to keep trying to push these common minerals further

and that's when one good piece of news managed to reach him and lightened his mood, the itchy he sent to infiltrate the Curombian Civilization, by secretly attaching itself to Urk Tariza while she was fleeing the premises of the press conference, was about to reach one of the space stations that was used as a spaceport and border control to check whoever wanted to pass through and reach the teddorian home planet, Tendor

soon he would be in the heart of a technology-based civilization and he needn't be gentle with it, this would go a long way to enhance all the knowledge he was missing, Daniel was already counting the chickens before they hatched

Urk Tariza had spent all the time sulking while they were traveling back home, what was supposed to be a small victory against a much stronger civilization was reduced to nothing in a few words, and her leader had already unleashed his disappointment on her on the subspace communication channel

as she stepped on the space station Tariza already knew that she was going to be demoted soon, or in the worst case scenario even fired, she had one job, and because she couldn't shut herself up not only she failed, she brought down her entire civilization with her, marking them appear as ungrateful wretches

after a few steps, Tariza passed through an archway just past the airlock, and the thing lit up like a Christmas tree, a deafening alarm started to sound and that entire section of the space station was entering an automatic lookdown while some guards pointed their weapons at her

at the same time, Daniel was enjoying some fish and chips with his family for lunch, while watching the scene through Itchy, he smiled and immediately ordered itchy to escape through the floor

a hole big enough for itchy to pass through was too small to be seen with the naked eye, but as a small silvery puddle fell from Tariza's left boot a guard saw it and immediately alerted his captain and arrested Tariza who seemed to be an accomplice

Daniel was controlling Itchy to keep running through the spaceport walls, he was looking for one specific target, a ship to escape on the planet, where he could hide and wait for the chance to infect some systems and liberate some knowledge

but they wouldn't make it so easy, that entire section was on lockdown and because of that there was no way for any of the ships that were docked here to be released, so Daniel needed to find one in another section without being found or they would lock down the entire spaceport

in the operation center of the space station, a rugged old teddorian officer, Captain Pert was barking orders to his people, while watching a small blue dot pass through solid walls in their scanners, but it didn't matter how fast they sent the enforcers, they couldn't even catch a glimpse and failed to identify the invader

as itchy kept "running" through some crew quarters he saw a personal device, and immediately jumped on it trying to access information, hoping for a map of the space station, but all he found was filthy things, games, and personal correspondence, so he kept running

while itchy infected the personal device, in the operation center the blue dot had completely disappeared, Captain Pert immediately sent the guards that were already panting from all that running to that room but just before they could open the door, the dot appeared again jumping in the next room

after hopping through enough walls, and finding some more useless information, Itchy reached a hangar full of small fighter ships shaped like stretched pyramids with wings, too bad he was still in the looked section and they were firmly anchored, still, he infected some and looked through the databases, finally finding among other things, what he was looking for, the map

Daniel had been very lucky since the pilot of a small fighter could have to jump in and go at any second there was no security directly on them, as there were guards outside the door to the hangar, and a special key card was needed to open the door, but their pride was their downfall, being too sure of their technological superiority brought them to see only cultivators as a possible enemy making them vulnerable to technology itself, they hadn't made preparation for a wacky thing like itchy

but the Teddorian friends weren't standing still, the enforcer group who was following itchy all this time thanks to the space station's internal sensors arrived at the hangar, and since they saw before that the invader at disappeared momentarily after entering a device, they opened fire with explosive weapons on their own fighters, under the orders of Captain Pert

the Teddorians still hadn't identified itchy, but at the same time they were the kind of bunch that would shoot first and ask questions later, for all they knew they were under attack, and sacrificing some fighters would cause a ripple only in the heart of the engineer that will have to fix this mess, as for the hangar it was built strong enough to sustain that kind of damage as it was one of the station's weak spots, it will only require some repairs

Daniel frowned as the small fighters started a chain reaction destroying everything in that hangar, at least a hundred fighters destroyed like that, but Tickles was not that easy to kill, such an explosion just dispersed him, and in less than 30 seconds it had already regrouped and started running again, this time with purpose as he knew where he was going

still under Daniel's control itchy infected a turbo-lift to hide his energy signature, and traveled to the far end of the station while hidden, reaching a far away hangar

jumping out itchy divided and infected as many fighters as he could for a total of 17, as the Teddorian crew reacted starting a lookdown it didn't matter anymore, itchy used 16 of the fighters as spears to open a hole in the external hangar doors and escaped with the seventeenth picking up the nanites that were splattered on the door

they were finally out but a new problem arose, the space station's weapons were already pointed at them and many fighters were exiting other hangars in pursuit, but itchy had one advantage, it was still inside the spaceport shield

itchy gathered on one of the fighter torpedoes, and shoot itself at a vital system of the spaceport, thanks to the map, he knew how to hit where it hurt the most

as the torpedo was flying some teddorian pilots tried to take the hit for the sake of the station but failed miserably as itchy modified the course at the last second to avoid them, crashing straight inside their shield generator

captain Pert at this point had started praying, the Teddorians had actually almost gotten rid of all religions, and as their technology improved there were fewer and fewer who believed in a superior power, but at this moment all Pert could think of was his grandma praying for the family to stay healthy and encounter good fortune when he was a kid

but the explosion everyone expected never happened, the torpedo was used just as transport, and itchy bore a hole and entered the shield generator, while he was there he started a catastrophic overload of the system before fleeing to the nearest turbolift

then just to slap the desperate Teddorian crew he arrived at the same hangar as before, stole another fighter that was knocked out of the clamps by the explosions before the lookdown could be completed, and escaped again from the same hole as before

with many fighters following and shooting at him, he dodged all he could, while waiting for the fated moment, and soon a powerful light show appeared, and the shields went down, part two of the escape plan was complete