Reborn With A Technology System In A Fantasy World-Chapter 279: Deceitful Adrian

Greg’s eyes narrowed and his easy-going demeanor immediately vanished. He pointed his long, green finger directly at Adrian’s left hand.

"That ring. Take it off. Now."

Adrian hesitated, before trying to resist.

"Why?" he stepped back and covered the ring with his other hand. "It’s my personal property. There’s nothing illegal in there. Just supplies."

Greg’s expression didn’t change, but the air in the corridor suddenly grew impossibly heavy. He projected his aura, aiming to bring a lesser being to their knees instantly.

To Adrian, the pressure felt like little more than a stiff breeze. It was uncomfortable, but hardly debilitating. However, he knew his role. He groaned and his knees buckled slightly as he clutched his head.

"Fine!" he gritted out. "Fine. Take it."

He pulled the silver band from his finger and dropped it into Greg’s waiting palm.

Greg immediately interfaced with the ring, his own PAD projecting a holographic list of its contents. He scrolled past the mundane items; spare tools, nutritional packs, a change of clothes with a bored expression. Then, his eyes lit up.

"Aha!" he exclaimed triumphantly, looking at Adrian with a mix of disappointment and vindication. "You little thief."

He tapped a command, and a containment field materialized on the floor of the hallway. Inside it, the contents of the ring were dumped out. It was a gruesome sight.

The mangled, charred, and oozing carcass of a Void Ravager spilled onto the deck plates. It was a mess of blackened sludge and bone, reeking of decay.

"Attempting to smuggle a Void Carcass?" Greg scoffed, kicking a piece of the black sludge. "You really thought this would work in my watch?"

He shook his head, clearly unimpressed by the rookie’s greed. Then, a frown creased his forehead as he looked closer at the remains. He used his baton to prod the sludge. "Wait. Where’s the crystal?"

Adrian shrugged, leaning against the wall and looking bored. "Probably got vaporized when I cut it in half. Or maybe it was defective. I don’t know. I just grabbed the biggest chunk I could find. Figured the carcass was worth something as scrap material in the Undermarket."

Greg sighed, facepalming. "Unbelievable. You destroyed the most valuable part to smuggle the garbage."

"I’m confiscating the beast and the ring as evidence. Consider this your first and only warning, Project_Prometheus. Try this again, and you’ll be facing a tribunal. Do I make myself clear?"

"Sure," Adrian muttered. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Greg deactivated the containment field, storing the carcass and the ring in his own dimensional storage.

Adrian didn’t wait for a dismissal. He walked past the Escort and returned to the cockpit. This time, he didn’t head for the co-pilot side. He slid directly into the pilot’s seat, his hands settling on the haptic controls.

"We’re heading to the next mission sector," he stated flatly over his shoulder.

Greg, irritated by the nonchalance followed him in and took the co-pilot’s seat. He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You think you can fly now? Watching me do it once doesn’t make you a pilot, kid. This isn’t a hover-car."

"Let’s find out," Adrian whispered.

The engines engaged with smoothly as Adrian took control. The ship didn’t lurch; it glided out of its holding position with a grace that belied the immense power of its thrusters.

Adrian’s fingers danced across the holographic interface, inputting complex navigational vectors faster than Greg could track.

The next target was close, a mere ten-minute jump away. As the X-77 shot forward, entering FTL with a seamless transition that produced almost no inertial drag,

Greg watched with widening eyes. Adrian didn’t fly like a rookie. He flew like a veteran ace who had spent decades in the cockpit. He corrected for micro-gravitational shifts before the sensors even registered them, pre-adjusting the shields for radiation bursts that hadn’t happened yet.

"Not bad," Greg muttered, hiding his impressed surprise behind a grunt.

***

The next fifteen hours were a race of efficiency.

They moved from system to system, a white streak of death cutting through the outer rim sectors. Adrian treated the mission list not as a series of life-or-death struggles, but as a checklist.

In no time, he had cleared all the way to the nineteenth mission.

"Okay, stop," Greg finally said. "The next set of missions is deep in the Outer Rim. And frankly, I need a nap."

Adrian scanned the local chart and found a safe harbor. He navigated the ship into the dense shadow of a large, stable iron-nickel asteroid, powering down the main drives and switching to silent running. The hum of the engines died, replaced by the soft whir of the life support and the ticking of the cooling metal.

"I’ll be in my cabin," Adrian told Greg, unbuckling his harness.

The alien, who had already pulled out a data-slate and was engrossed in what looked like a romance Webnovel, just waved a dismissive hand.

Adrian walked down the short corridor and entered his small cabin, locking the door behind him. The room was spartan: a narrow bed, a small desk bolted to the wall, and a wardrobe filled with generic Concordat clothes.

He didn’t bother changing out of his clothes. He sat on the edge of the bed, turned off the lights, and closed his eyes.

He had a dilemma. He desperately needed to access the Factory to process his haul... But leaving the cabin was a massive risk. If Greg decided to check on him and detected his absence, the game was up.

He decided on a compromise. He would only send only his consciousness into the Factory. And at worst, he could easily take control if anything happens.

’Visit Factory.’

The darkness of the cabin dissolved, replaced instantly by the familiar white light of his workshop. Adrian stood in the center of the room, looking down at his own hands. It’s been a while he entered the Factory without his body, and the realness to his original still amazed him.

A feeling of giddy anticipation rose in his chest as he walked to the worktable, where he emptied his spoils.

Dozens of Void Crystals poured onto the table, each of different colors, shapes and sizes. All glistening like stars.

Adrian’s eyes glistened as he looked at the pile. To anyone else, these were just batteries. To him, it was the periodic table of a new universe.

He had the fuel. He had the knowledge. He had the tools.

"Time to make something nice," he whispered, a creator’s smile spreading across his face as he reached for his tools.