Ning returned to his room and lay in his bed as he thought of what to do next.
There were over 250 years before he needed to arrive next to the black hole. That was plenty of time considering just how many space stones there were for him to simply take with him.
"Should I play the game? It sounds like a long game to be honest," Ning thought.
"Why do you want to go with the research vessel anyway?" Saphandra asked.
"Just to see how they work and stuff," Ning said.
"When are they leaving?" Saphandra asked.
"Uhh… System?" Ning asked.
<FRS Icefall will leave in a week. However, there is another one ready to leave right now to a place about 40 lightyears away.>
"Oh, let's just go in that then. We should be able to get back rather quickly since it is so close," Ning said.
Without any more thought, Ning teleported onto the ship that was leaving and quickly dominated the minds of all 15 people that were there.
The ship was called GRS Ultra II. It was a research ship whose captain was a woman named Greina, who surprisingly had a face full of hair.
Not just her face, but her arm and neck also showed quite a bit of hair. It was like she was a monkey that didn't fully evolve. However, she didn't have a tail at all.
The other crewmates were similarly unique with some having horns, some having multiple eyes, some having weird skin color, and some even having armor-like protrusions on their skin.
"Where are we going, captain?" Ning asked as the ship slowly got out of the hanger.
"We're going to JMS Yilka, master," Greina said.
"MS?" Ning gave a confused look. "Is that… a mining ship?"
"Yes, master," she said. "We've received a message the that ship is facing some sort of problems with their readings. We need to go check what is happening."
"They can't solve it themselves?" Ning asked.
"They can for normal problems, but not this one, which is why the research team is going specifically," the captain said.
"I see," Ning said.
"Everyone get ready. We will jump 20 years and sleep the rest of the way through," the captain said.
"Actually, no," Ning said. "We'll jump the entire 40 light-years distance. I can fix the heating problem."
Ning said so and walked to the room at the back where the Space Drive was kept.
As soon as he reached there, the captain spoke through the system. "We're ready, captain," she said.
"Good, Jump!" Ning ordered.
The ship was instantly covered in silver light from the front to the back, and in the next second, Ning felt the slight turbulence that came with teleporting.
The man in the room quickly changed the cylinders in the Space Drive and once again they teleported away.
Ning stayed there waiting until they teleported close to 20 lightyears. Then, he asked the system to revert the machine back to how it was.
Then again, they teleported over 40 lightyears away to arrive at a location where the mining ship was.
Ning left the room and arrived at the bridge where he looked outside the spaceship. The ship moved quickly through space, moving towards the mining ship that was about 20 minutes away at its current speed.
The ship was inside a glowing nebula of blue and yellow and it slowly made its way toward a star in the distance that was slowly getting brighter and brighter by the minute.
As they proceeded, Ning noticed something black flying in front of the star that blocked it for a couple of seconds.
As they got closer, Ning realized that he was looking at the planet from the side and could barely see a sliver of what was being lit up by the star.
"Oh, that's the mining ship?" Saphandra asked when she saw a ship floating in space above the planet. It was but a speck when compared to the entire planet.
Still, when they got close, Ning couldn't help but be shocked at just how massive the ship was. That only made him more surprised at how large the planet itself was.
"Captain, I'm getting some illogical readings," one of the lieutenants spoke suddenly.
"What's going on?" the captain asked.
Just then, the screen on the ship lit up as someone was trying to communicate with them.
"Pull up the communication," the captain said.
"BZZZ… Cap… BZZZZ… This… BZZZ… pull… BZZZZ… send… BZZZ… side… BZZZZ…"
The man on the screen spoke something, but the connection wasn't clear at all.
"Clear up the message," the captain ordered.
"I can't, captain. The message is being affected before it even gets to us," the lieutenant said.
Ning looked around and saw that things were getting serious. "System clear up the message."
<Yes>
Suddenly, the man on the screen reappeared once again. Only, this time he was clear, and nothing was broken or missing.
"This is the captain of JMS Yilka. This planet in front of us has an incredibly strong magnetic pull, so you will need to put on your anti-magnetic shields and send the ship going sideways before falling into orbit. You will not be able to park otherwise."
"Oh! Lieutenant, pull up the anti-magnetic shields," the captain ordered. The lieutenant did as ordered and a bright green shield appeared all around them as the shield even covered what was outside.
However, the screen still showed the outer regions through a camera.
Ning watched the ship slowly descend sideways on the planet and slowly started circling it multiple times before they found an orbit to move on.
Once that happened, they slowly switched the orbit until it lined up with the mining ship and after an hour, they finally reached the mining vessel.
The mining ship was over 500 times larger than the research vessel, so it completely swallowed up the research ship.
The group disembarked and the captain of the met up with the captain of the mining vessel.
"You arrived quite quickly, captain," the other captain said.
"Of course, it looked like an emergency," the captain said. She and the others followed the mining team to see what was wrong while Ning slowly followed them from behind as he looked around at the many ships that were in the hanger.
"What seems to be the problem, captain?" Greina asked.
"I'm not sure myself, captain," the mining vessel's captain said. "A few weeks ago, we suddenly started seeing weird numbers on our depth perception equipment."
"We think that it was caused by the magnetic fluctuations of the planet down below, but we cannot be sure as our Anti-magnetic shields were active the entire time," the captain said.
"Hmm, do you not have spare equipment?" Greina asked.
"We do," the captain said. "But without any idea on why we suddenly lost the equipment, we cannot swap it out. We are currently stable in orbit, but if we were to try and switch it up without our depth readings, we might end up in a catastrophic disaster. Especially in a planet like this with a very strong magnetic field," the captain said.
Greina looked out onto the planet. "I hear this planet is about 88% metal huh? No wonder it has so much magnetic activity."
She turned around to the captain. "Worry not, captain. We will figure out why your equipment was damaged very soon."
"Our engineers will try and see if they can fix your faulty equipment. In the meanwhile, we will go down to the planet and get some readings to see if it is the cause," the captain said.
"Thank you, captain," the captain said.
Ning watched from behind, looking at how the federation worked with each other, and he had to admit they were quite professional.
'So they mine metal from this planet, huh? I wonder how that works,' Ning thought. Did they mine from up here? Or did they send ships to get the people to work down there?
3 of the people split from the group and went on to check the equipment, while the rest returned to the ship.
Ning returned back to the ship which escaped the mining vessel and went down to the planet the long way round.
The anti-magnetic shields that protected them by creating a magnetic force of their own made it hard for them to penetrate into the planet, but gravity did the job anyways and pulled them in.
The ship landed on a rocky, metallic surface and the captain gave the order. "Everyone that was born on a planet with a gravity acceleration of fewer than 14 meters per squared second will remain on the ship," she said. "Everyone else, wear your spacesuits. This will be a tough mission."
The magnetic field alone was so strong, but the gravity on top of that on a planet with mostly metal would also be incredible.
Not to mention, the winds would also be dangerous, and being this far from the sun, the planet was bound to be cold.
The crew mates wore some very tough space suits, but Ning didn't need to worry about that.
When the door opened, one by one, they all walked out of the ship and then out of the anti-magnetic field.
Ning didn't wear any suits and walked on his own.
He walked out of the anti-magnetic field and suddenly, felt the intense gravity of the planet. However, he couldn't give mind to it at all as he heard something that he hadn't expected to hear at all.
The system suddenly spoke.
<All Conditions have been fulfilled.>
<Congratulations. You have now Unlocked Magnetic Energy.>
<You can now absorb Magnetic Energy.>
