It all started out fine.

The situation was admittedly urgent, but it was also far too exciting for Luca to spend much time lamenting anything. More importantly, the little money-grubber had already successfully convinced himself that this arrangement was infinitely better than spending actual money.

After all, he wasn’t buying anything.

Technically.

All they had to do was provide materials of equivalent value.

Or enough materials that collectively totaled that value.

What a wonderful system, right?

Wrong.

Because nobody had quite stopped to consider what trading for materials classified as "legendary" would actually entail.

...Legendary?

To be fair, that particular naming convention came from his more experienced brother.

After everyone finally saw the material that had reduced Luca to drooling in excitement, the blonde had immediately decided that the colored borders needed categories.

White was Common.

Green was Uncommon.

Blue was Rare.

Purple was Epic.

And the golden shiny ones?

Legendary.

It was a perfectly reasonable system.

Unfortunately, it also meant they were now staring at a legendary material.

"..."

"You want to go with this one? Really...?"

Calling it unassuming would’ve been impossible.

In fact, the material was so eye-catching that Kyle somehow locked onto it almost immediately despite an entire wall being covered in floating holographic tiles.

Countless resources were displayed across the projections, many of them unlike anything that would normally grace the documents passing through his experienced hands.

And yet, for all that variety, everyone’s eyes eventually found their way to the exact same thing.

The material simply stood out that much.

The image showed a golden metallic mass that sparkled as though someone had spent centuries polishing it.

At first glance, it resembled gold.

That impression lasted all of two seconds.

Because the listed properties were nothing like gold, this was no soft metal.

The displayed values were comparable to—and in some categories even exceeded—the materials currently used for the armor plating of their advanced biomechas.

And this seemingly perfect material was labeled as Zelunium.

The name meant absolutely nothing to them.

And if they were to believe the number displayed beneath it—

[APPROXIMATE RARITY: 100%]

—then this was exactly what Luca had been searching for.

Not eighty percent.

Not ninety-nine percent.

A full one hundred.

And while there were other golden-bordered materials scattered across the walls, this was the one Luca thought suited his brother best.

Of course, they would still need to find additional materials of a similar caliber since, realistically speaking, one couldn’t possibly build a mecha out of a single material alone.

But if the bridge’s evaluation was accurate, then this material might as well be nonexistent within their known sphere of access.

Exactly the sort of thing that could make replication nearly impossible.

Now, had Jax been present in the room, he likely would’ve congratulated everyone on a successful trip, praised the power of wishes, and then reminded them to set alarms for the next 11:11.

Unfortunately, Jax was nowhere nearby as the redhead was currently occupied with other... strenuous matters.

Which meant that, instead of receiving such unwavering optimism, what Luca and Ollie were left with were the two towering paragons of skepticism who most definitely thought that this was all far too easy.

Unfortunately, their gut feeling wasn’t completely wrong, because only moments after Luca excitedly declared that he’d go and get a sample—

"AAAAAH!"

An anguished cry suddenly echoed throughout the room.

The sound startled everyone badly enough that the blonde’s hair antenna nearly detached itself from his precious head.

"!!!"

For a good moment, it was as if the clouds had rumbled atop the crumpled-looking dungeon owner.

But what even had him reacting as such?

Well, apparently, on what was now very obviously a scale, he had generously placed a large bag of Lumen Crystals. The plan had been simple enough.

First, acquire a decent amount of Zelunium for testing. Then they could determine whether the material was truly as amazing as it appeared on paper.

A reasonable, practical, and overall solid plan.

But imagine Luca’s surprise when he excitedly looked toward the opposite side of the scale to see how much Zelunium he would be getting in return, only to discover that the answer seemed to be nothing.

Well, not technically nothing.

D-29 immediately informed him that there was, in fact, something on there.

A microscopic one.

The system sounded rather pleased about it too, proudly reporting the exchange value as though it were a remarkable achievement.

From D-29’s perspective, there was nothing strange about that amount. It was a legendary material, after all. And if it glowed, sparkled, and was awarded such a prestigious title, then shouldn’t it be respectably rare?

Luca, however, had a very different opinion.

The little mechanic felt extremely faint.

It was so small that he couldn’t even see it on the scale.

It wasn’t even the size of a fingernail.

And when he attempted to adjust the exchange to receive roughly a fingernail-sized amount of Zelunium instead—

Well.

Safe to say, that was how he ended up on the floor.

"Brother!"

Ollie looked alarmed as he crouched beside him.

"Are you okay?!"

The blonde immediately began fanning him.

"Maybe we should just choose a different material! This doesn’t seem very cost-efficient!"

"No!"

Luca looked genuinely pained.

"But brother, it’s perfect!"

The little mechanic’s complexion had gone noticeably pale, yet his eyes continued burning with determination.

"It’s really the perfect material!"

He pointed toward the display.

"Even if it asked for gold or diamonds, I think we’d still have to try!"

To his surprise, his husband actually spoke up.

"Gold and diamonds?"

The Prince looked mildly puzzled.

"Wouldn’t those be considered rather common? Sure, gold would be more difficult to find than diamonds, but even so, they’re definitely far more common than Lumen Crystals."

"Huh?"

The ex-pauper, who couldn’t have possibly imagined such a scenario back when he was struggling so much, blinked at those words as he momentarily forgot a very important detail.

"They’re common?"

"Yes," Xavier replied patiently. "Such metals and gems were traditionally considered precious prior to the space exploration era. So even now, luxury goods are still often associated with high-purity gold and precious gemstones."

He paused.

"But if you remove factors such as purity, clarity, cut, color, and carat value, then finding something that fits the bill wouldn’t be difficult."

"!"

Luca suddenly sat upright.

The movement was so abrupt that it startled the rest of them.

"Oh!"

His fist immediately struck his palm.

"How could I forget?!"

The little mechanic looked genuinely shocked at himself.

"Back in Tesseris, things like that would’ve been completely different!"

His thoughts began racing.

"Happenings like neutron star collisions would’ve been extraordinary news there."

Luca’s eyes widened further.

"But here..."

"We actually have access to space travel! So people likely wouldn’t find it unusual!" Xavier nodded as his little wife finished piecing everything together.

He wanted to be honest, so Luca wouldn’t try hauling out precious gems, though he also hoped the rather bleak reality wouldn’t discourage him too much.

However, to his surprise, the earlier despondent chipmunk—as if getting a second wind—stood up, ran up to him, and said, "Wow! Thank you, my husband! You just gave me an idea!"

"...?"

"Have you thought of something, brother?!!" Ollie asked, also curious as to what had got Luca bouncing back that fast.

"Hopefully! I’m not sure if it’d work, but after hearing that correlation, shouldn’t the reverse be true?"

"The reverse? Of what?"

The blonde, however, wouldn’t receive a verbal answer. Instead, he got to witness as Luca rushed to put back everything else he’d initially prepared, only to pull out what had to be roots.

"Is that...?" Kyle asked.

"Titanroot fibers!" Luca flashed a wide smile as he placed an amount that they’d typically use to create one biomecha.

And to his absolute delight, on the other end of the scale, there was suddenly a visualization of a pile of Zelunium that leveled up to his brother’s head!

"!!!"

"BROTHER! OH GOD! What just happened?!"

Ollie was genuinely shocked.

Not that Titanroot wasn’t valuable.

Because it absolutely was.

In fact, if people ever learned just how important Titanroot was to them, and that they had somehow managed to cultivate their own supply, entire wars would probably be fought over access to it.

Yet even knowing that, the blonde still found it difficult to process what he had just witnessed.

Somehow, a resource that served as the very foundation of an entire race’s existence had ended up being valued less than a pile of roots.

Wasn’t that at least a little ridiculous?

"Actually, I think any wood would do," Luca admitted with a slightly sheepish smile.

"What?" Ollie blinked. "Wood?"

"Hehehe, yes, brother."

Luca rubbed the back of his neck.

"It seems the people back in Tesseris were right at least about one thing."

"...?"

"They did say that once you leave the planet, a lot of precious minerals would stop being quite so precious. I once overheard that they even wanted to look for Espers who could maybe help with establishing outerspace mines."

Now, that part made sense to the blonde. At least up until his good brother continued his explanation.

"But there was one thing they always talked about not finding."

"What?"

"Wood."

The answer immediately caught everyone’s attention.

"Actually, from what I remember, they still hadn’t found any signs of life elsewhere in that galaxy."

Luca said it casually, almost as though he were recalling an interesting story from childhood.

But unbeknownst to him, Xavier, Kyle, and Ollie were far too invested in absorbing everything he was saying.

"No other signs of life?" Xavier asked.

"Not that they knew of. Though to be fair, they couldn’t exactly be certain." Luca shrugged. "The farthest they’d gone was the moon."

"Brother! Which moon?"

"Huh? Which one?"

There was a bit of lag while the information was processed and the returnee remembered how many moons actually existed around them.

"Oh! As in that planet’s only moon!"

The three attentive men exchanged looks.

One might wonder how they could be unaware of something so basic, but a large part of the reason was that they generally avoided bringing up that place unless Luca chose to do so first.

For one, the topic tended to raise their blood pressure.

And for another, they didn’t want to burden Luca with their own disdain toward certain people from Tesseris.

As such, they simply listened and absorbed whatever information Luca felt comfortable sharing whenever he chose to talk about it.

Unfortunately, every time Luca spoke about Tesseris, they somehow walked away with more questions than answers.

Fortunately for the perplexed group, the dungeon owner’s attention had already shifted elsewhere.

"But if they’re right, then this is amazing!"

His eyes drifted back toward the scale.

"With something renewable like Titanroot, wouldn’t we be able to get a decent amount for trial and error?"

Wait.

"T-trial and error?"

Ollie’s expression immediately stiffened, his eye sockets frozen in place while his eyeballs darted around in panic.

Such words sounded far too ominous for him!

A moment ago, he’d been trying to process the revelation that the people who had hurt his brother didn’t even know just how vast the world around them truly was, yet still dared to act all high and mighty when they couldn’t even detect other lifeforms beyond their own planet.

The sheer audacity had the blonde furrowing his brows in anger and frustration.

However, all of that vanished from his mind after hearing something extremely alarming.

Trial and error.

Specifically, Luca saying trial and error with that expression.

The blonde knew that look.

It was the same look his brother had before performing feats that inevitably left one young Mylor going through some sort of existential metamorphosis.

He’d be considered lucky if he could still remember his own name by the end of the day.

So could anyone even blame him for reacting like so?

Slowly, Ollie’s gaze traveled across the countless materials displayed throughout the room before settling back on Luca.

His genius mechanic of a brother was already looking around excitedly, clearly calculating possibilities.

At that point, the mop decided it was the perfect time to switch careers. Maybe his true calling was to be a great and loving housewife?

Ahh, and he sure was right to worry...

For with a different kind of spending power, one particularly crazed brother was handed the keys to his personal hell.

No, wait! It couldn’t possibly be too late to switch, right?

RIGHT?!