Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 1706, Chapter 1702: The Wheels and the Decisive Battle of Wine

He is quickly adapting to his new identity.

This new identity should have been that of a teacher, but in this era, it was called a priest, a title the person involved loathed, yet forced to accept reality. After the fleeting collapse of the Greek guilds, and before the Enlightenment and Renaissance, clergy were a group possessing knowledge; knowledge meant wealth—a universal phenomenon on this planet. In the West, such organizations were called churches; in the East, they were called powerful clans—this was the knowledge Captain Miller had gleaned from the Emperor's library. The so-called library was actually a tablet computer Diana had given him, storing a vast amount of knowledge he had never encountered within the American education system. This would be all the textbooks he needed for his future work, including sociology, not considered a science, as supplementary reading for *The Unified Truth*.

As the high priest and the emperor's envoy, he received a considerable amount of hospitality, though it was almost overwhelming. The tribe, a semi-agricultural, semi-gathering, semi-hunting society, upon receiving the emperor's gifts, offered a portion of them as a gesture of hospitality and respect to the high priest. The tribe invited Captain Miller across the shallow irrigation canal to their communal hut, built of mud bricks, and presented him with their most precious food, packaged in earthenware jars.

But Captain Miller simply couldn't swallow the greasy, mutton-smelling fat.

In this era, fatty foods were considered the best, and bread was simply ground barley flour and acorn flour using primitive stone mills and baked. After a period of drying, it was easy to break your teeth if you weren't careful. Captain Miller found that almost the entire tribe was watching him, their gazes unbearably fervent, and he couldn't refuse their enthusiasm. Fortunately, the Mesopotamian people of this era had already mastered relatively primitive brewing techniques, which was the best news Captain Miller had heard from the guards that day—although he didn't find the bubbling, cool brown liquid he had imagined. When the guards gently pointed to a clay pot, Captain Miller realized that the thick, semi-solid substance in the pot in front of him was what was known as barley beer.

Under the watchful eyes of the entire tribe, he could only haphazardly stuff a few pieces of boiled fat and lettuce into his mouth, then scoop out a piece of primitive beer from the earthenware pot with a small earthenware bowl, and swallow all the food in one gulp. Immediately afterward, all the women of the tribe began to cheer and sing. The guards sent to protect Captain Miller told him that the women were celebrating the acceptance of their offering to the beer goddess Ningkasi. Smelling the muttony odor emanating from the earthenware pot, Captain Miller ultimately decided to respect the local folk beliefs and offer this meal to the beer goddess Ningkasi. Even the primitive beer, without bubbles, only solid and a small amount of clear liquid, was better than the unpalatable bread and the greasy, gamey chunks of meat.

The children, the "sacrifices," also attended the gathering, surrounding Captain Miller while trying to distance themselves from the guards around the campfire. The Emperor left half of the caravan near the agricultural tribe, not too far, not too close, along with two guards, one of whom, Hammurabi, was responsible for Captain Miller's safety. The other half of the caravan, carrying sheep, headed towards the nomadic tribe. Captain Miller had no idea what the Emperor intended—he noticed that not only the children, but even the adults in the tribe were avoiding the guards. The firelight, reflected off the golden armor, increased the brightness of the entire clearing by several percentage points—a phenomenon considered a miracle. The women of the tribe quickly left after placing pottery jars filled with food far in front of the guards, without lingering. No matter how Captain Miller tried to persuade them, the two guards showed no interest in eating; they simply stood there, like ancient, unchanging rocks.

He also discovered that the children who were "sacrificed" had no intention of returning to their original families.

The children chosen by the emperor possessed basic logical abilities; in fact, they were already aware of their status as sacrifices. Now they were burnt offerings, property of the gods, not their original families or tribes. No matter how reluctant they were, they would be driven away—even if they weren't sacrifices, in the eyes of their original families and tribes, exchanging a few children with little labor capacity for a fairly large flock of sheep was a good deal; at least the flock could allow the tribe to survive for a few more years. With changes in the natural environment, wild sheep flocks gradually shrank, so humans in the Ubaid era had begun domesticating cattle and pigs, though both were attempts made after the tribe had a food surplus—even when Captain Miller, using his newly learned vocabulary and gestures, stammered for the children to return to their parents, he only received weeping. Captain Miller could only share with the children the bread, mutton, and soup made with lentils, wild peas, and plenty of wild ginger and salt in the earthenware pots beside him, trying hard not to look at the expressions of the guards not far away.

He knew he had definitely done something stupid that would be laughed at.

As this dinner, which could be called a "feast" or a "holy communion," came to an end, everyone except Captain Miller was quite content. The air was humid and hot, with endless moisture evaporating from the cooling earth and condensing again in the chilly night air. Captain Miller was lost in thought, worrying that tonight's feast might evolve into some kind of fixed religious ritual thousands of years later, before dismissing his own thoughts as ridiculous. Just as he was planning to get a good night's sleep in the caravan, away from the damp ground, the eldest man of the tribe approached with several boys.

Through the translation on the data panel and the jumbled gestures, he roughly guessed what the other party meant.

"You want wheels?"

Captain Miller pointed to the caravan, receiving only a jumble of head-shaking and bobbing. Then came more gesturing, pointing downwards, patting their chests, then the boy's shoulder, along with a piece of wood and a polished round stone brought by several boys. The stone rolled around on the ground, while the boys continued gesturing with the wood, muttering incoherent words—in the Mesopotamian plain, wood was an extremely precious material, and the price the Imperial Guard paid for building the caravan was an entire forest stretching as far as the eye could see on the plain—something Captain Miller only later learned. Although the climate here was humid, salinization was quite severe.

"You want to learn how to make wheels?" Captain Miller glanced at the Imperial Guard. He spoke in English, which none of the Obeids understood. He concluded, "Okay."

"Okay." The boy repeated the word awkwardly, a smile spreading across his light brown face, as if he had discovered something new and interesting. "Okay."

This was Captain Miller's first task: teaching the Neolithic Ubaid how to make wheels. In any case, he was pleased to see that these time travelers hadn't brought war to this era.

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War will never stop, nor will those who carry it out.

A dull thud came from behind the armor in front of her, the hissing of metal being squeezed and melted even briefly drowning out the roar of the engine that was shaking the ship. Tita pulled the switch, and the heavy armored hydraulic front hatch of the assault transport slowly opened. A small amount of air rushed out from the gap, and then the heat from the engine crashed in like an invisible air hammer.

As the executor of this war, Tita was the first to step out of her compartment and enter the space station, followed closely by Aura, the leader of the heavy weapons squad, while the other androids provided cover for each other with perfect tactical maneuvers. The space was extremely empty; everything unattached was sucked into space by the negative pressure, including the alien creatures. A few unfortunate creatures clung tightly to anything they could get their hands on, and when they saw the Sisterhood, the latter generously provided them with several explosive bombs. The environment here was near a vacuum, but the artificial gravitational field still firmly held the fragments of the alien creatures to the deck.

Perhaps it was some kind of automated emergency procedure, or an order from a skilled space commander, but the space station reacted with lightning speed. Before the Sisterhood's initial boarding assault team could even leap onto the platform, the airtight doors on either side of the compartment and in front of Tita had already closed. She had no doubt that behind those three airtight doors, the alien forces on the space station had already organized a defensive force—they were now facing the most dangerous situation in space warfare—they knew nothing of the space station's internal structure, and had no way of obtaining relevant intelligence; even the prophets in the immortal city beneath Rome could not foresee what they were about to face. This also meant that they could not directly assault the enemy bridge, paralyzing their defenses and energy centers. Dragging the boarding operation into a protracted war would mean defeat for the attacking side.

"Magnetic combat boots locked! Heavy weapons team, provide cover for the installation of the thermal bomb!" She then switched the communication channel, "This is the first landing point, report on the situation at other landing points."

"Fire broke out at the second landing point."

"Establishing a third landing point."

Dita leaned her boarding shield against her lap. She raised one hand, gesturing for the assault team to plant the molten metal bomb and quickly retreat. "Prepare to detonate. Assault team, prepare." The flash of the molten metal bomb detonation was enough to blind anyone looking directly at the blast; molten metal sparks, accompanied by a deafening roar and billowing smoke, rained down in all directions. Dita raised her boarding shield, her other hand gripping the longsword given to her by the Emperor. "Charge in! Slaughter these alien bastards!"

Tarian Cassius paced back and forth, cursing incessantly.

He saw the enemy boarding the space station through the monitoring equipment. He was certain that these attackers were not bio-engineered beastmen from the Dark Order, nor were they other competitors from Hala coveting the Cassius family's property, but rather an armed force he had never seen before. He considered a possibility, a possibility he repeatedly dismissed in his mind, but as more and more information gathered on the bridge, this possibility gained weight on the other side of the scale.

The room was incredibly noisy; almost every creature capable of vocalization was expressing its thoughts, and even the purified, cool, and constant-temperature air did little to calm them down. "Shut up! All of you, shut up!" he yelled. "I told you, calm down! It wasn't Thanos attacking us!"

"Cassius, you made a promise to us!" another Kree growled. "You promised that Ronan had abandoned C-53!"

"It wasn't Ronan who attacked us!" Tarian Cassius scanned his so-called allies in the Alliance. These foolish and short-sighted creatures thought he was only trying to plunder resources before the arrival of the Dark Lord Thanos, and that even "Raider" Ronan only cared about this planet because of a traitor.

No, these are not the true values ​​of Planet C-53. The real value of Planet C-53 comes from a rumor circulating among collectors from unknown lands—that Planet C-53 possesses a "hidden blue gem." It is because of this rumor that the Dark Lord Thanos planned to come here. This rumor justifies spending one-fifth of the Cassius family's liquid assets to purchase and restore this ancient research space station—he called the planet the "hidden blue gem" to confuse the rumors and prevent other investors from discovering the truth.

"Ronan has abandoned planet C-53; he won't be coming back."

Who attacked us?

"They might be intelligent beings from C-53."

"Tee!" the Kree clicked his tongue dismissively. "The intelligent life on that planet isn't even able to leave this star system! They can't even escape their orbits!"

"The data is outdated!" Tarian Cassius retorted bluntly. "Yon-Rogge once crashed a fighter jet on planet C-53. Perhaps that jet led to the technological advancement of planet C-53..."

"Whatever!" shouted another alien, dressed in a magnificent golden robe and resembling a Kree in appearance. "Let's get this over with!"

"I have already dispatched the Cassius family's defense forces to repel the invaders, Councilor Bonarian." Tarian Cassius waved his hand, thoroughly fed up with arguing with these short-sighted creatures. "After repelling the invaders, you will need to increase investment," he said. "I previously advised you to increase investment and purchase fighter jets, but you refused, believing that Planet C-53 was incapable of resisting. Now the situation has changed, but Planet C-53 could not possibly accumulate a powerful space fleet in a few dozen standard years. We only need some fighter jets and defensive firepower to solve the problem. Now, please leave the bridge; I will command the defense forces to repel the invaders."

"We'll have the escort force join the defense," Senator Bonarian said with a smile, his malevolent eyes fixed on Tarian Cassius. "But we're not going anywhere until the invaders are repelled. This space station is our entire investment, and you, as the executor, have Yiwu to protect our property, don't you?"

Tarian Cassius took a deep breath, seeing the same distrust in the eyes of the other investors in the alliance. These people didn't trust him, fearing he would abandon them. "Very well, thank you for your help," he forced a smile. "If the defenses fail, I will offer you a final toast—when we lose everything, we will die gloriously, and before that, we will gain unparalleled savage power—it's a tradition of the Cassius family, and I have the honor of sharing it with you."