After resting for a day at Polaris Star Port and letting the family engineers do their work without being watched over every second, Aurelian finally bought the last two clues he had been waiting for.
One was for the ecological ship.
The other was for the purple shipgirl.
He bought them one after the other without dragging it out, because both had already reached the point where waiting for either was pretty much useless and just ti-consuming and boring, since the point difference would not be much.
The ecological ship clue turned out to be stranger than he expected.
It was not hidden in so old battlefield or buried in a dangerous region.
It was sitting in a scrap ship recycling yard.
So scavenger team had apparently dragged it out of a wreck field sowhere and sold it off like it was just another oversized transport hull waiting to be cut apart and sold for pieces.
From the look of the clue, the people who found it either had no idea what an ecological ship was or simply thought it was a weird cargo vessel and did not care enough to look further, which, to be honest, he is not surprised, as there are not many general ecological ships out there for reference.
The recycling yard workers did not seem to know either.
In a few days, the ship will be sent to the dismantling platform and chopped into parts, which will either be sold as a bundle deal or lted for raw tals.
Aurelian was not even that surprised after thinking about it for a mont.
Ecological ships were too rare and too niche. Outside major naval institutions and the biggest families, most people would probably never see one in their whole lives, much less recognize one on sight.
Fortunately, the yard was connected to a system with a stargate.
That made the whole thing simple.
The second clue was different.
It was not a ship at all, at least not yet.
It was a complete piece of purple source material hidden inside a rough stone in an ordinary gambling-stone shop on a neighboring world.
According to the clue, it was the largest rough stone in the place, ridiculously overpriced compared to the others, which was why it had been sitting there unsold for a long ti.
In ten days, if no one bought it, the shop owner would cut it open himself and only then realize that he had been sitting on a complete purple source core the whole ti, which is sothing that is able to summon a ship girl.
Aurelian read that part and gave a quiet breath through his nose.
That kind of luck would no longer happen to the shop owner.
The two clues were both easy enough to act on, and unlike the graveyard trip, neither required a long operation or a dangerous entry.
The purple source material ans that a completely new shipgirl or a historic one, depending on where the source ca from.
The clue did not specify, but he is fine with either, as a purple shipgirl is already a good enough option and not sothing he will miss.
Aurelian then started planning to get both of them before the two ships being refurbished are finished.
This ans he is on a ti crunch.
Without wasting ti, he set out the sa day and completed both acquisitions in a single, clean run.
The recycling yard did not know what they were selling.
The gambling-stone shop owner did not know what he was losing.
By the ti Aurelian returned to Polaris, he had both the eco-ship and the rough stone in hand, and the whole thing had gone smoothly enough that it almost felt suspicious.
Back aboard Black Crown, he dealt with the rough stone first.
Astra and Rhoswen stood nearby while he opened it, not because they understood what he had found through his own ans, but because they were also curious about the reason why he bought this overpriced rock, which no one wanted.
He made several clean cuts into the stone, and before long, the real thing inside beca visible.
A complete purple source material core shone as it announced its arrival.
Even before he touched it, the color alone was enough to show what it was.
Rhoswen stared at it with interest.
"So this is the new sister?"
"Possibly," Aurelian said.
Astra, as usual, looked more thoughtful than excited, but even she did not hide her interest.
Aurelian placed his hand over the purple source core and let his commander network reach inward.
It did not happen all at once.
At first, there was only a faint reaction.
Then a clearer one.
Then the unmistakable sense that sothing on the other side had noticed him and answered back.
That was enough.
The first step had succeeded.
The activation process was stable.
What it needed next was not a full shipyard or a giant ceremony, but an incubation environnt.
Fortunately, he already had one that could do the job.
The Nanoforge Recovery Pod he had set aside earlier was perfect for this sort of thing, so he placed the purple source core inside and sealed the chamber, leaving the awakening process to continue safely while the rest of the fleet kept moving around it.
Once that was settled, there was nothing urgent left on that side.
The repaired carrier was still days away.
The repaired supply ship needed a little more ti.
The monthly cycle still had not fully turned over yet.
So for a rare mont, Aurelian found himself with sothing close to free ti.
He used it the way he usually did.
Training.
Cultivation.
Keeping his body from becoming the weak point that slowed down the rest of his growth.
He stayed aboard Black Crown while the docks kept working and while the purple source core rested in the pod, and during that quiet gap, the first good news ca sooner than expected.
The ecological ship was finished first.
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