'For the time being, there's nothing I can do about a possible future alien invasion that may just be my irrational fears speaking up. Right now, I should just focus on what's right in front of me, and take things one step at a time.'
Still, he didn't completely put aside his fear.
If one Galactic Terminal could find its way to Earth, who knows what else could?
"Both civilisation and personal permission at Level 1 Basic? Access to only Level 1 Middle and below?" Ludo rubbed his chin.
He wasn't quite sure what the Galactic Terminal used to differentiate levels or how he could possibly increase his own personal and civilisation level, but he put that aside for the time being.
[Trading Hubs (Level 1 Basic - Middle)]
[Buy]
[Sell (Locked)]
He didn't know what he was expecting when he set everything up with the Galactic Terminal, but he was very pleasantly surprised by the 'Trading Hubs'.
Didn't this mean that he could potentially purchase some advanced alien technology from who knows where out in space?
It was only after looking further into it that his suspicions proved true.
The whole time, his face was glowing with excitement.
And the functionality of 'Credits' also quickly became clear to him.
They were the currency of the galactic society where the Galactic Terminal came from, and every trade in the Trading Hub used this as the medium!
He ignored the greyed out 'Sell' option for now, as he doubted that Earth had any technology that was worth buying…
Just taking a glance at the vast trading hub had already left him breathless. All sorts of technology he didn't understand were listed, but just from some of their names, he knew how valuable they would be on Earth.
He first browsed through the Level 1 Basic trading hubs, where most of the technology there was on par with or slightly above what was commercially available to the public on Earth.
Ludo knew that the governments across Earth likely kept the more advanced equipment and technology to themselves to use militarily first and slowly release over the coming years as newer technology is developed.
It was highly likely that Earth already had a decent amount of the technology offered on the Level 1 Basic Trading hub, but that didn't take away from Ludo's surprise.
[L98Ab-1 Thermonuclear Bomb — Using a combination of Nuclear fission and Nuclear Fusion, the primary fuel is lithium Deuteride for the fusion stage of the explosion, with Plutonium used for the initial fission explosion. Maximum power output expected to be between 80-110 Megatons. Developed by the Opachi Civilisation.]
[Offer price: 5000 credits per unit.]
He could even buy a whole nuclear bomb, of the most destructive kind as well!
Ludo was thoroughly shocked.
And the price left him with a lot to consider as well.
For just 5000 credits, he could potentially buy himself a thermonuclear bomb and unleash havoc anywhere on Earth — though he would never do that, the possibility was there.
Did that mean all it would take for him to exchange for a nuke was to upload all of the known languages of Earth to the Galactic Terminal?
After all, uploading just 5 languages had given him 11 credits. As far as he knew, there were over a thousand known languages...
And even if he might be left a few credits short, there were still much cheaper options too with smaller destructive capacity — though this 'smaller' was still on the scale of megatons…
'This is… crazy!'
Glossing over all the crazy kinds of weapons and bombs that were on offer, he opted to look at some of the more peaceful and less harmful technology — ones that could potentially benefit society as a whole.
Everything was conveniently organised in to different sectors, with Energy, Transportation and Vehicles, Virtual and Computing, Weapons and Defense, Communications…
Though, the more Ludo scrolled, the more he realised that his initial assumptions were way too narrow.
All of these sections themselves were still under the guise of one larger, singular section simply titled 'Technology'.
Exiting out from the technology section, Ludo found a few others floating there amidst the unassuming screen of the Galactic Terminal.
At the top, there was a category simply titled:
[Raw & Exotic Materials]
-> [Ores, Metals, Natural minerals, etc.]
-> [Non-natural Materials]
Ludo rubbed his chin and decided to open up the first option, and dozens — even hundreds of listings unfolded beneath it, each accompanied by their own holographic previews and descriptions.
He didn't even want to get into what he was seeing at the moment, as there was only a few like iron, copper, gold or a few other basic transition metals one could find on the periodic table that he recognised back from his high school chemistry classes.
Though he couldn't tell whether they were good prices or not.
Raw, unprocessed iron, for example, seemed to be dirt cheap at just 0.05 credits per ton. Of course, he could see the reason for this. Iron minerals were already abundant on Earth, so he could imagine just how common it was out in the galaxy.
Hell, scientists had already found hundreds of asteroids in the solar system alone that held enough value in raw iron and other minerals to break the entire world's economy if successfully mined.
It made sense to Ludo for iron to be priced so low. But he could also smell an opportunity arising…
'I bet I could make a get quick rich scheme if I bought low on the trading hubs but sold high back on Earth…'
Sadly, Ludo knew that was just a pipe dream.
For things like this, he'd have to prove where he had procured so much raw minerals, and if he had an excuse prepared for that, then he'd need to find another one to explain how he'd mined so much of it, transported it, or why there weren't any previous spending records related to such excuses.
Simply put, he had no cover story.
'It's such a shame… Even with just my measly 11 credits, I could buy over 200 tonnes of raw unprocessed iron. Damn, what a lost opportunity!'