《The Atropos Schema: Why would they want to conqueror earth?》


 Why would they want to conqueror earth?

    <So, no dangerous animals, and no dangerous plants,> Samantha said, as if she was ticking off a box on a form. <That wouldn¡¯t be enough to draw the attention of another faction. What kind of mineral resources does your planet have?>


    I thought for a minute. ¡°We have gold, platinum, silver, diamonds¡ª¡±


    <Boring, useless, niche, useless¨C>


    ¡°Why would gold be boring?¡±


    <Any alchemist worth his salt can turn lead into gold. If you had lead you¡¯d at least have some flexibility, but lead¡¯s too common to be worth much. Anything else?>


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    ¡°Rubies?¡±


    <That¡¯s better than diamonds at least>


    ¡°Hang on, is this where it turns out ¡®worth his salt¡¯ is literal, rather than just a figure of speech?¡±


    <Of course it¡¯s literal. Why else would I talk about an alchemist being worth his salt? During acclimatisation most salt is converted into mana, and¨C>


    ¡°It¡¯s just¡­ we have oceans of salt water. And bi¨C¡±


    <''Salt water'' meaning a mixture of primarily salt and water?!>


    "Or course, w¨C¡±


    <Oceans¡­ of salt¡­water. Yes that¡¯d do it. That¡¯d get the Dune faction interested¡­And the Merfolk. And the Alchemist Academy. If you have those riches, why did you thing anyone would be interested in the gold?>