Epic of Ice Dragon: Reborn As An Ice Dragon With A System
chapter-1792

Because we had to start exploring for the Quest, and also because everyone was hungry, we had no time to waste, walking around the District surrounding the Central Plaza and seeing all the signs. The first requirement was visiting five of these shops, so that's what we were going to do really quickly.

"There's sure a lot of shops here!" said Benladann. "It's such an interesting place!"

"Though I don't know what to say about that place, look," Miranda pointed elsewhere.

There was a restaurant that showed some really weird and disgusting looking food resembling a green ooze covered on strangely shaped little, purple-colored limbs.

The majority of the clients were slug-like aliens, so it wasn't something the humanoids ate that much anyways.

"We're definitely not going there..." I nodded.

There were apparently five restaurants in here, we decided to go for the one that looked the cleanest and with the most appealing food out of them.

"I suppose that one over there looks fine," I said.

"Yeah, they got sandwiches and weird purple fries!" said Benladra.

"Is that some type of cake? I want to go there," said Kate.

It was a shop where most human-looking aliens went to, so it was the best place for us, they had burgers, hot dogs, fries, and other things that resembled a bit normal, although made of entirely weird ingredients.

"For now, let's visit a few other shops first though, for the Quest,."

At the same time, I decided to visit the other shops and see what they had.

The first shop I visited was named "Larry's Metal Scrap Shop" and as the name implied, the person inside, a slug-like alien named Larry, sold all sorts of metallic scraps.

"Woah, there's a lot of stuff here!"

Benladra and Kate ran around the store, looking at all the scrap metal. Most of it looked like garbage at first glance, but there were some solid, huge plates of metal around.

There were also parts from machines and also guns and bullets were being sold, all sorts of rusty weapons, they weren't in the best conditions.

"Hm? This is..."

However, aside from some of the garbage, there was something that brought my attention, a huge azure colored stone sparkling with little stars inside...

"Hmm?"

The slug-like alien slowly opened his eyes as he was smoking from a pipe, glancing at me as he noticed I was looking at this stone.

"You must be new around here, I don't remember yer face, son," he said.

"AH, yeah..."

"That stone, are you interested in it?" he asked. "That's an unrefined Starlight Stone. They refine these into the little jewels we use as money. It's huge and expensive."

"How expensive?" I wondered.

"At least worth a million Starlights," he laughed. "I doubt you can afford it! But you're free to watch all you want."

"Hahah..."

So this is what they refine into the jewels, huh?

"Where exactly are these refined from?" I asked the old man.

"Hmm? Don't tell me you don't know something so basic?" laughed the slug. "Starlight Stones are found inside of Asteroids or Meteors that orbit the Local Galactic System. It's a really needed resource to power all our space-faring machinery and such... Hmm, but in the last centuries the Starlight Stone had become rarer because the greedy bastards have mined everything in the nearby systems. So everyone moved to this planet like two hundred years ago."

"Oh so that's how it is..." I nodded.

So it's really like the damn Wild West, with people "colonizing" a new land, this planet, looking for new opportunities. It seems that the thing people do the most here is mining these Starlight Stones from the many Asteroids orbiting this planet.

And as the day became darker, I noticed that there was indeed an enormous ring of Asteroids around this planet, it was incredible.

"This Solar System has three damn stars! It's a terribly hot place for us Slugens," sighed the old man. "Water is rare too, so we prefer to stay in closed doors to not dry out... Cactus Juice is abundant and cheap for the most part though, so we can sustain ourselves with that, hoho."

The old man drank some of the cactus juice he had at his side.

"I see... So this planet... Everything is a small colony, huh?" I wondered. "Sorry for asking these things, we just got here after all so we're pretty confused and know very little." "Hmm, I see," nodded the slug man. "Well yes, it has been two hundred years since we got here but the Starlight Stone Mines are very huge, I predict that the colonies will remain for another five hundred years maybe. By then we'll all be dead, and our great great great grandsons will be around, hah! Such is the life in this Galaxy. We're all just survivors in the great scheme of things. Most people in this planet are all refugees, did you know?"

"Is that so?" I wondered.

"Yeah, yeah, phew..." Larry sighed, as he smoked some more of that pipe. "Long, long ago, like two... three thousand years, there was this big Intergalactic War between two enormous Galactic Empires. The Garlach Empire and the Sudestrum Empire, they came from two different, faraway Solar Systems, having conquered so much space land, they thought themselves as invincible until they met one another... And that's where it all went to shit." "Did they destroy planets?" I wondered.

"Not just that, they blew up entire stars, it is said they weaponized suns themselves as weapons to kill each other, they simply couldn't stand the thought of another great empire living alongside them," said Larry. "Hundreds of stars were extinguished, thousands of planets destroyed. And the survivors that managed to escape into the stars had nowhere to go, survivors of a great war... At the end both Empires destroyed each other but, the aftermath of such a war left the entire Local Star Systems on utter poverty and chaos... Colonies from all around the galaxy had to gather together to survive, trying to find ways to extract resources and fuel ancient technology they scrapped from the two empires. These people... they had no idea about space traveling, you know? So it was a very confusing, and very hard times... Or so

said my great grandpa."

To think so many things happened...

This trial, isn't it way too damn complex?!