Daniel couldn't wait to ask questions, but Almony didn't seem to be mentally stable at the moment so he decided to wait, since she had nowhere to go anyway
not knowing what to say Daniel looked at her and asked "are you hungry?"
Almony nodded and Daniel brought her to the kitchen and said "the only thing I know how to cook is boiled spidercrab legs, do you want some? or do you prefer to see what's ready to eat in the fridge?"
almony absently looked out a window and said "whatever, it's fine"
Daniel of course wouldn't let this occasion to feed someone delicious spidercrabs slip away
soon a big pot of water was boiling and a maru brought to the kitchen two spidercrab legs 1 for Almony and 1 for Daniel himself that was feeling snacky
thankfully being back home Daniel didn't have only salt to rely on, and with some spices, and some butter, he was ready to eat with relish
in the meantime, Almony was looking at the kid that was cooking while smiling evilly and for a moment started to worry about what he was going to feed her
in a futile attempt to distract herself from the big bombs that dropped in her lap today, almony was trying to understand who Daniel was, he looked like a 7-year-old kid, but his mannerism and colloquialisms weren't those of a kid
of course, being part of a civilization that lived in space, she was not a stranger to the famous old monster disguised as a kid, but Daniel gave a peculiar feeling, that did not match the descriptions she received
but if he really was a kid, where were the adults, why was he alone in this big castle?
today was an unusual day at the specter castle, Phoebe and Joseph were still recuperating in seclusion, in the vault dimension, while Vincent was at work since a federation doesn't run itself
so the only adult remaining was Sophia who was busy, refining the pills she gave to Phoebe and Joseph after their ascension, basically, Sophia was restoking and couldn't bother herself with a fourth-stage cultivator
the fact that they are gentle and understanding with Daniel who can't cultivate, shouldn't trick anyone into thinking that a powerful ninth-stage cultivator would bother thinking about a fourth or even a sixth-stage brat
so Daniel was in charge of the guest, in any case, he wasn't defenseless and Almony had been asleep the whole time and had no idea about Daniel's puddle ability, so there were no risks of information leaks
back in the kitchen, the spidercrab legs were cooked perfectly and a little butter parsley and garlic gave a whole new profile to the already rich and flavorful meat
Almony too ate with relish after some hesitation, unaware of the origin of her food, singing praises to Daniel for his cooking
after a filling meal, Daniel brought Almony to the decked area at the back of the castle and invited her to sit down, it was finally time to ask what he wanted to know
this was as far as his bedside manner went, Daniel was too curious to be willing to wait any longer
so after sitting down Daniel said "I wanted to ask you about the biomechanical technology, most of your ship was already eaten and I failed to retrieve any data"
Almony looked at him and said "I don't know much about it, I was being trained to take over from my mother as commander of the fleet, I don't know much about our technology, but I do know some basics and am able of simple repair but that's about it"
Daniel was a little disappointed, Almony was a dud but at least she knew a little something
Daniel said "I would appreciate it if you can share the little that you know"
Almony started explaining "well, from what we are taught this technology goes back to when the skurian home planet still existed, more than 3000 years ago a brilliant scientist was born in our race, but being a male he was self-destructive and almost brought about the end of all skurians in less than 500 years"
Daniel raised a brow and asked interrupting her "what do you mean being a male"
Almony realizing the cultural difference explained "skurians look similar to humans but belong to an entirely different race, the reason skurians are now an all-female race is that we resorted to genetic engineering to eliminate the possibility of a male being born, male skurians are unable to be functioning members of society as they have two extreme defects, the thirst for power and lust that's still unmatched in the known space"
Daniel started thinking "without any proof just by her words it's difficult to believe that they would be so different, there's a high chance that this is just what they are taught from birth, after all, she has probably never seen a skurian male even counting the years of suspended animation she shouldn't be older than 100 herself if the males were really like that the females should be too, they aren't two different races just two different genders" than asked "what did that skurian scientist do?"
Almony continued the story "after he created this technology he used it to climb to power, creating an exaggerated harem and killing many who dared oppose him, the few survivors were so desperate that they unleashed biological weapons, and when that wasn't enough went for the nuclear option, finally killing him"
Daniel said "mmh I see, but this doesn't seem much different from what humans did and do to each other"
Almony responded "I didn't live in that era so the details are unknown to me, anyway, the exaggerated harem mentioned before did not die with him, even if most of them hated him they were not happy about the other faction either, because of their actions billions of innocent skurians died in the crossfire, so those women took control of their late "husband" technology and finished what he started"
Daniel thought "I can already imagine the rest, blame the male, struggle for power, and end up as different tribes"
Almony was continuing the story "after the opposition was eliminated and they took control of the skurian government, the relentless male skurians started to try to climb the power ladder by looking to marry these ex-harem members that now controlled the world, but their actions were met with disgust, soon later they stopped trying but a new organization was born looking to take back the power from the females regardless of their good reforms and legislations"
Daniel thought "sounding more and more like propaganda, similar to the idiot's on retak but instead of pollution, they are trying to hide sexism"
Almony continued and said "sadly soon tragedy struck, nobody expected the Hive creatures to appear and attack our world, in the past, we would have been able to defend ourselves from those first weaker invaders, but after all those struggles, the population was a fifth of what it was originally and most of our military resources were expended, the ex-harem members blamed the male's unreasonable behavior, took all the female skurians they could on board their ships, and fled from the hive fleet before the planet was completely surrounded"
Daniel nodded and kept listening to the story
Almony continued "soon different opinions appeared and the 10 that were once the queens of the harem ended up creating different factions that later became tribes, some wanted to find a new planet, some wanted to live like pirates, others wanted to join other civilizations, but one thing was the same for everybody, no one wanted to give birth to a male, so like other people take vaccines against diseases, our scientist created something similar to prevent the birth of male skurians"
Daniel thought "so not completely but I still guessed most of the story" then said "mmh and what can you tell me about the biomechanical technology apart from its origin story?"
Almony realized that she went a bit off track and said "I don't know the process to create the biomechanical cells that are at the basis of it, but you have the heart so harvesting a few that are still alive and cultivating them shouldn't be hard, you just have to feed them an organic liquid compound that has a neutral ph and they will multiplicate easily"
Daniel was already happy, back in the cloudtrain lab, a part of Tickles was already working by remote
Almony in the meantime continued "the real hard part is finding a charged solid form of carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure that it's peerless, for example, to grow a heart as big as the one you have, the basic carbon crystal should have been at least 4 or 5 kg"
Daniel was already shaking in excitement, he had to find a way to charge them but crafting peerless diamonds was a piece of cake for him
Almony's explanation was reaching the sauce "basically it all starts with the cells and a charged carbon crystal that is of course guided by a biomechanical life diagram to grow into what we want based on how big the core crystal is, the heart you have even if it was still alive, wouldn't be able to grow a ship as big as my mother's but it could grow many different types of smaller ships"
Daniel instantly deflated, where would he get a biomechanical life diagram from this dud Almony, she was even proud of being trained for command and was clueless, couldn't he exchange a skurian scientist for this useless person
while Daniel was "taking care" of Almony, a mediatic storm was tearing through the Sun Federation
the causes were many, a little was contributed by some minor events, but there were 2 big scoops, the breakthrough of the specter couple, and news about the legend of the wandering robot's
the breakthrough was expected for a while now, many photos were published, especially of the victorious couple enveloped in the light of origin energy, and fans were happily conveying their congratulations online
but some weren't, the water army of the various spies and some curious citizens were asking the specters for a statement about the wandering robot's legend
it all started after a participant of the refining competition previously organized by Phoebe, published a foto of the old maru on the stage with the subtext "doesn't this look similar to the legend"
that's all it was needed to tip the scales of public opinion, until this moment, there were many guesses about whom was behind the legend, after all, the quilin v just worked as a deliveryman and the popular opinion was that they were the Sun Federation secret cannon fodder or something like that
now there was proof, as Phoebe had said herself that she had brought the maru, it was confirmed that the specter family was related to this, even if the public still didn't know in what capacity, they knew the specter's had the answers they were looking for