Minutes prior to meeting Adam, the bulky ship was sailing across the star ocean in search of new ventures. They were a group of prospectors, miners who go out into the vastness of space in search for excavation and mining sites.
Their work was generally more dangerous than those of regular miners, but their pay was also that much higher. It still does not change the fact that they were at the bottom rung of employees, however. As such, each prospector team has a designated Supervisor who oversees their work and reports their progress to the higher ups of the Starnet Company.
While the prospectors needed to be strong to brave the unknown dangers of space, the Supervisors were required to be strong. It was part of the promotion requirements for employees to rise up the corporate ladder.
For Supervisors of prospectors, they were generally at Orange Rank which was just above the Red Rank where all the common rabble belong including the prospectors. This ranking not only served as their corporate ranking, it also reflected their actual power level.
On board the hulking mining ship, the Supervisor Jeor was busy playing a popular game on his portable gaming console. Of course, both the console and the game were provided to him for free as benefits for being a Supervisor.
It might seem quite generous of the Company, but that was until you realise that the game was a gacha game designed to get players addicted and spend all their money on it. The Company was milking even their own employees for profits.
And like any good employee, Jeor was a literal addict. He could not get by a single day without playing this game, even just to complete his daily tasks and pull on the regular banner with one free ticket. And that was why he needed to work.
He had been on this crew for nearly a decade now, and while it had been going well, he would really like to get transferred to a better and luckier crew. They had recently set off from a new-found planet rich with Vitacor, a vitality-filled mineral that is one of the major resources that Starnet Company deals in. Well, calling it rich was an understatement since the whole planet was basically just made entirely of it.
And no, it was not Jeor's crew who discovered it, but some other lucky upstarts who already got rewarded generously for their magnificent find. Apparently, due to how great a discovery it was, they would be given 1% of the yearly profits made from this planet for 100 years.
But while the other employees, especially the prospectors and miners, were busy being envious of such a treatment, Jeor pitied the poor fools instead.
He had been with the Company for long enough to know that they do not share. They are never that generous. If they do something generous, it was for an ulterior motive and Jeor could already guess that in about month, the team who discovered that planet will be 'promoted' and disappear entirely. That was how unforgiving the Company was, how selfish and greedy the people at the top were. Even a measly 1% would not be allowed to slip through their grubby fat fingers.
That was why Jeor did not concern himself any further with the news. Instead, he urged his crew to look for other mineral deposits nearby. A huge planet being made entirely of such a rare and precious mineral resource is not a normal phenomenon.
There must be something here that had caused it. And if it was strong enough to change an entire planet, then there must be some lingering effects outside of it that might have potentially affected other celestial objects.
The crew had been searching for over two weeks now. So far, Jeor's guess was correct. They have made quite a bit of money from finding small clusters of Vitacor deposits, but it was just barely enough to profit after spending on fuel for the ship.
The Company likes to keep its labour force leashed, so rather than providing better ships that run on more advanced energy, they were stuck to using conventional engines and fuel. Of course, this was conventional by interstellar standards which was still more advanced than human technology as evidenced by the ship's ability to warp through space in lightspeed.
Although Jeor was dissatisfied with his current status, there was nothing he could do about it. The Starnet Company was not just a business, it was literally a Dominion ruled by an Overlord.
Overlords are two ranks higher than Lords meaning they have already brought at least 100 star systems under their rule. And it was rumoured that the Owner already had close to three hundred star systems. No one knows who the Owner is, but everyone knows that the leaders of the company are all Warlords with about fifty star systems each.
How could Jeor ever hope to compete with monsters like them? No, all he wanted was to rise up to at least Green Rank to get a sizable income. Then he would work for a few more years before retiring.
Green Rank is the minimum for retirees to receive their pension and Jeor wanted to reach it to live the rest of his life in comfort. So he really needed these small ventures to net him quite a profit which was why he was fine risking getting little to no profits on this recent exploration in search of what he believed to be a golden goose. And finally, it came as he hoped.
"Sir Jeor, we found something!"
One of the crew spoke on the ship's internal communications channel that let his voice be heard in every corner of the ship. Jeor's head rose sharply as he quickly left his game to head to the bridge. There he saw the display on a large monitor showing an asteroid quite some distance away.
The mineral deposits on the asteroid was the very same Vitacor that they have been harvesting for the last two weeks. Again, Jeor was correct. The minor chunks that they had been collecting were just crumbs that broke off from the main thing that was drifting far away. And this asteroid might not even be the only one there was, but for now, it was all he had to focus on.
"Head straight there! We need to secure that asteroid before anyone else gets to it. Scan for life signs while you're at it."
Even in his haste, Jeor did not forget to be thorough. It was how he had managed to survive and rise to his current rank. They were the tenets that he lived by. And so, following his instructions, the crew scanned the surroundings of the asteroid for any signs of life while preparing to warp. They found nothing. It was completely free for the taking. With a nod of his head, Jeor sat down and fastened his seatbelt before ordering the team to warp.
The distance they had to travel was quite far so for the next thirty minutes, the mining ship was just speeding through the warp tunnel. They could not see anything outside as space was bent and twisted around them.
Even the ship's sensors could not pierce through this thick murky mess of space which was why they did not know that just ten minutes before they arrived over the asteroid, someone else had already landed his ship on it and began devouring the whole thing.
When the mining ship finally exited the warp tunnel, the first thing that the crew saw was a huge mass of turquoise minerals leaking an aura of vitality albeit faintly. The Vitacor on this asteroid was not very pure, but it was not hopeless.
In fact, this was still above the regular quality that could be usually found. Vitacor tended to be easily polluted with impurities after all. So the crew was already feeling ecstatic at their huge harvest. Jeor's face, however, was set to a frown.
He remembered clearly the size of the asteroid shown on the sensors before the warp jump. It was much bigger than what they were currently seeing. It should not have decreased in mass in such a short amount of time, especially in this nondescript region of space where there was barely anything.
The closest celestial bodies to this place were just random debris with no worth whatsoever. No people would come here, especially not someone who could reduce the size of an asteroid in under thirty minutes.
Then Jeor saw the ship that seemed awfully advanced in design, even reflecting the colour of the Vitacor in its surroundings to meld in. With such a function, Jeor was certain that there was an explorer who had somehow stumbled upon this asteroid while Jeor's crew was warping in. His eyes scanned the whole asteroid, not even waiting for the mining ship to scan it, and he found what he was looking for.
On the far end of what remained of the asteroid, a titan of a man stood dauntlessly, gazing at the mining ship as though having already expected their arrival. His face was expressionless, at least to others, but his gaze made Jeor's heart tremble.
It was like he was gazing into a star. It only added to the intimidating aura naturally produced by his seven meter tall body that was clad with not a single piece of cloth whatsoever.
Jeor quickly took rein of his emotions. He knew that this strange explorer was powerful, but he believed that the man should know when to back off. And facing the Starnet Company was definitely the right time to do so. So with a voice of confidence and authority, Jeor spoke to the man through the ship's anti-vacuum communications system.
"Sir, you have trespassed on Company property. We will need you to get off the asteroid and come with us for questioning."