As Metro City was basically the golden land for prospective entrepreneurs, setting up one's own company was actually rather simple.
All Ludo had to do was provide his personal details to the city registry, perform a criminal background check, and setup a business bank account.
Oh, and to choose a name for the company.
Ludo didn't really care too deeply about having some deep meaning name, or something flashy — so he just went with something simple.
"Blue star Technologies Ltd… There, that sounds good enough."
It was obviously a reference to outer space and more specifically, Earth's tendency to look rather blue. Such a harmless name couldn't possibly link him to the Galactic Terminal, or the recent meteor strike that was already circulating on the morning round of the news.
Hundreds of companies of similar naming conventions already existed both locally and internationally.
If Ludo were to gave gone to the city hall to do everything in person, he could have had it all set up and done by the end of the day. But he was too lazy to head all the way over there and mindlessly wait hours in line, and simply sent his online application off instead.
It would take up to a week for everything to be processed online.
Ludo wasn't pressed for time anyway, so whether he had the company registered today or in a week didn't make a different to him.
He could set up everything he needed for the company without actually needing the company to exist yet.
With all that said and done, he hit upload to the city registry before sending all of it to the back of his mind.
"Now to the real business." His eyes lit up as he turned to look at the Galactic Terminal hidden away in his arm.
With just a thought, its interface revealed itself to him.
It was time to earn some easy money!
Now with an internet connection, Ludo opened the Language tab on his Galactic Terminal and let it run wild through his laptop.
The reaction this time was much more intense than before, and he could quickly feel his laptop reaching its maximum temperatures after just a few seconds!
"Ouch! Sh*t!"
Even touching made him recoil from the slight burning sensation on his fingertip…
But despite his fears that it might even fry his laptop (that he didn't even own; the company did), he had no intention of stopping it.
He would endure to the end if he had to, as earning credits through uploading all the known languages was much more important to him than paying the company back for the damages.
At worst it'd just be a few hundred dollars in compensation.
Finally, after a whole minute passed and the laptop damn near frying all its internals, the Galactic Terminal had finished uploading all the different languages.
"Yes! It's time to see just how much I earned!"
He excitedly checked the notifications from the Galactic Terminal.
[Upload completed… Estimated total value of 7150 unknown languages discovered comes to 8172 credits. Would you like to see a breakdown of prices and factors affecting value?]
A similar screen presented itself to him, giving him a feeling of déjà vu.
But the figure displayed on the screen only left him slack jawed.
"Holy cow! That many languages exist on Earth alone!? Over 8000 credits?? I'm rich!"
The excitement didn't last long, and he quickly settled down.
He tried to see if he could upload anything else from the internet, and even boldly attempted to upload the entire internet itself! But there was no response from the Galactic Terminal. It seemed that only Earth's languages held any interest to it; everything else the internet had to offer wasn't interesting whatsoever.
Still, in the end he was quite satisfied!
After all, while 8000 credits might enable him to buy a whole Nuclear bomb, compared to the potential of the Galactic Terminal and the trading hubs, it was nothing but a drop in the ocean. After all, the technology for creating nuclear bombs was listed in the millions of credits…
"With this amount to my name, my options for choosing the first technology to purchase are much broader than I'd previously expected…"
Ludo previously didn't even think he'd earn enough to be close to buying the thermonuclear bomb.
'I need to consider my options carefully though… I need to choose something that doesn't draw any unwanted attention, while at the same time offers enough potential to be profitable, enabling me to scale my company into other industries, which is where the real fun will begin…'
Currently, all different kinds of sectors were offered to him when he browsed through the trading hub the first time, with some more broad ones like Energy, Weapons etc.
Choosing a weapons technology was completely off the board for the time being, as things like that were strictly controlled, and all kinds of questions would be asked if he suddenly wanted to start selling them.
Ludo filtered through many different sections of technology that he thought would either draw too much suspicion towards him, or had unwarranted risks involved.
Eventually, he found himself left with only a few options, most of them originating from the Virtual and Computing sections.
Choosing a technology from there would bring the least amount of suspicion towards him, as he already had a background in that sector.
People wouldn't look twice if someone with a Masters in computer science released a product in the computer science field.
'Hmm lets see here…'
[Virtual AI Assistant — The latest iteration of AI technology developed by the Uvwari Civilisation, at the cusp of being a Middle level 1 AI technology, but not quite there yet. This AI can be used for anything from providing extremely detailed, accurate research and data by scouring the local net in just seconds — to even being able to pilot top class rocket-powered spaceships with ease. But for more advanced spaceships needing greater calculations for orbital mechanics, it would prove quite inadequate.]
[Offer Price: 500 credits per unit, or 7500 credits for the technology.]
[HALIA - 'Home AI Lifestyle & Infrastructure Assistant' — A Domestic AI management suite controlling home devices, personal drones, and security. A rather simple but effective AI, capable of completing mundane every day tasks, but not that efficient at more taxing jobs.]
[Offer Price: 80 credits per unit, or 2000 credits for the technology.]
[Next Gen encryption software — An encryption program capable of fending off cyber attacks from most attackers, with only extremely powerful supercomputers working day and night for weeks on end having the possibility of cracking it. However, completely ineffective in the face of an attack of a Quantum computer.]
[Offer Price: 80 credits per unit, or 5000 credits for the technology.]
These were the final three technologies that Ludo had filtered out of the countless ones available in the trading hub.
Ludo had already noted that their descriptions were subjective and catered to the civilisation level of the user that browsed through them. As obviously the 'Extremely powerful supercomputers' described in the encryption software's description was from the perspective of Earth.
Of course, they all came from the Basic level 1 trading hub, as even with his recent windfall of 8000 credits, items from the Middle level 1 trading hub were far too expensive for him to consider at the moment.
'Which one do I go for…'