Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

"Ah? It's possible the person has long since died in a corner somewhere, how do we find them?"

The captain didn't seem to care about this issue at all: "Whether we find them is not important; what matters is that we looked."

"So with the universe so vast, where do we start?"

"The nearest place."

The Mining Space Station welcomed its first visitors after being abandoned for thirty years.

Meanwhile, Chen Ming, with a machine gun that could be mounted on a small support point, was standing on the Space Station's ubiquitous horizontal elevator, heading towards the Space Station Administration.

A few days after returning to the Space Station, he had already found time to test what needed attention regarding the batch refurbishing of weapons during actual operations.

Today just happened to be his turn to be on duty at the maintenance workshop, so he didn't need to go out for field tasks.

So Chen Ming simply entrusted the task of watching the workshop's entrance to a newcomer who stayed behind with him.

He himself skipped his shift, pushing a small cart and bringing the brand new machine gun to the Administration Building to meet the plant manager.

If it weren't for Chen Ming's prior report that the workspace underground at the Administration Building needed the machine gun to conduct tests, and that the machine gun only had a bare cannon without ammunition.

The security would definitely have stopped Chen Ming.

But at least he still managed to bring the item inside successfully.

Brought it outside the plant manager's office.

Chen Ming knocked on the office door and entered after receiving a response.

The plant manager sitting behind the desk looked up, and upon seeing Chen Ming, said somewhat unexpectedly: "Oh, it's Xiao Mu. What brings you to me suddenly?"

Chen Ming didn't waste words and pulled the small cart into the office, saying: "Manager, take a look at this."

The plant manager, even more surprised, glanced at the machine gun a few times and asked: "What is this? A new weapon you bought? What about it?"

"This is one of those second-hand weapons you assigned to me earlier."

The plant manager immediately stood up, walked to Chen Ming's side, and carefully examined the machine gun.

Watching it, he couldn't help but squat down, reaching out to touch it, confirming carefully as he said: "Is this really second-hand? It looks too new."

"Wait a moment, oh... I remember now, you mentioned to Old Wu that you had an idea about refurbishing weapons, right?"

The plant manager said, seeing the weapon's concealed corner, where the weapon's serial number was recorded.

He had some impression of this number, which could prove that this weapon was indeed one of the second-hand, recycled weapons he had previously assigned to Chen Ming.

The plant manager suddenly chuckled helplessly and said: "Old Wu and I couldn't figure out what you wanted to do, but it turned out our skills were lacking."

"So you brought this to me, wanting to cooperate with the maintenance workshop to make money by passing off old items as new?"

Chen Ming nodded and said: "Yes, because I knew I couldn't accomplish this alone, even with the technology, so I first found a way to join the maintenance workshop and then discuss it with you."

"Otherwise, I wouldn't even get to see you, let alone talk about other things."

The plant manager suddenly stood up.

He had confirmed that with his technical skills, he couldn't differentiate between Chen Ming's repaired weapon and a newly produced one.

And since Chen Ming was confident in doing this, it was unlikely there would be any issues with deceiving others.

"So, did you plan to make money this way from the start?"

"Yes, it's just that something unexpected happened in the middle."

"Was the 'unexpected' part when you used a civilian mining ship to blow up four commercial ships, brought back half of a Dusk destroyer, and made a fortune, right?"

"More or less, but that was my captain's doing."

Upon hearing this, the plant manager recalled a conversation he had with Old Wu, the hardware store owner, a few days ago, and said: "Oh right, it was your captain."

"But not much difference; you've certainly made your money. But since you've made money, do you still need to stay here?"

Chen Ming understood what the plant manager meant, and with a tone as if it was only natural, said: "There's never too much money. I've already paved the way here, not using it would be a loss."

The plant manager looked Chen Ming up and down and accepted his reasoning: "True, then let's talk business."

"What's the cost for refurbishing this stuff?"

"My labor cost, plus the most basic materials needed for repairs, that's all."

"How is that any different from having no cost?"

Chen Ming shrugged, without answering the plant manager's question.

And the plant manager was well aware Chen Ming wouldn't tell such a lie that would make himself lose out.

So after brief consideration, he said: "In that case, all your previous tasks are canceled, no need for you to do tasks like battlefield cleanup or bringing in newcomers."

"You just need to receive the recycled weapons daily and perform refurbishing of this quality; you can use the maintenance workshop's equipment at will."

Chen Ming interjected, saying: "I don't need to use the workshop's equipment; my ship has my own workshop, and I can work on the ship."

"I see, so how's the efficiency using your own equipment?"

"With this type I brought, I can refurbish fifty a day."

"How many?!"

"Fifty."

This wasn't the upper limit of weapon repair speed, nor the upper limit of Chen Ming's spiritual power, but rather the limit he stated fearing disbelief.

The plant manager then quickly calculated in his mind.

The value of a regular civilian small ship weapon is anywhere between fifty thousand to two hundred thousand.