Legend of the Supreme Soldier - Chapter 511

quot;Uhh… Wait… Never mind…” he muttered, shaking his head right after the out-of-the-place question. “No way, yeah, no way. The Xue Lai clan is also in a sticky situation now, no way they could have someone here for treasure-hunting… Although that model bears a resemblance to Xue Lai’s model a lot…” He pondered.

His confused sight fell upon Shang again but this time, the expression changed, “Wait, is that… no… impossible… forget it…” he thought deeply with his eyes partially shut.

“We aren’t from Xue Lai,” said Ye Chong, with a tilt made towards the man. “Do you recognize this mech?” The man’s statement was truly intriguing, Ye Chong had been fairly curious of Shang’s identity the whole time.

“Huh? Uh, umm…” His eyes grew clear, “I think I made a mistake, sorry.” He looked at Shang again, “I don’t recognize this mech, not at all. That aside, how did you guys find this institute in the first place?”

Ye Chong, a little disappointed, sat up and briefed the man his adventure there.

“Mhm…” Nodded Kui, “It is not easy to make such judgement at times like this. I’m certainly impressed by your decisiveness. You’re pretty much a hero, one with a fortune too.”

Ye Chong had no interest in the compliment, he just took a look around, “Anyway, what had happened here?”

“We got attacked,” Kui replied expressionlessly with slight grief in his tone. “About 6000 red-tailed beasts came to the place we did not manage to hold them outside. They intruded the base and a massacre happened. Nobody had survived, I presumed. Until now we still have no idea of how these beasts discovered our secret base. I guess they smelled us, but who I’m kidding with?” Kui’s eyes reddened, he became choked in tears.

“Why none of you seek assistance from the outside?”

“Nah, we aren’t as lucky as you, hero boy.” Shook Kui, “Our transmission towers were destroyed by the red-tailed beasts upon arrival. We could not send anything out. It was a long defense war that lasted for months and we thought time would be on our side, that someone or some ships would notice the warring here and come to rescue, but no one had come. There was indeed our army camping near the planet, but they were fully unaware of the existence of this central base.”

There were regrets in his word.

Upon recalling the chaotic moves by the Consortium recently, Kui’s words made sense to Ye Chong out of sudden.

“I see…”

“What did you see?” asked Kui.

Ye Chong then briefed Kui the terrible actions taken by the Consortium in Gray Valley. Kui could not help but to feel even more remorseful, as he began wailing and thrashing a little.

It took a while before Kui became calm again, he stood up, his lifeless eyes gazed upon the ruins of the once-magnificent, “Well… Looks like it’s the end for the Consortium,” he muttered.

Ye Chong did not reply. The Consortium was no longer what it used to be. It was an organization with only name by then. It was evident as this very ruin was formerly the center of the Consortium, the consolidation of all their forces, the core of the entire research magnificence, and it fell, as the war arrived uninvited. It was only natural for Kui to have such dramatic reaction upon seeing such a formidable organization being wiped out unknown to the public.

“Well!” Rose Kui, “Let’s go. I’ll show you around. I’ll let you see the area with the best, the topmost, the highest end technologies in the entire Gray Valley. It should not look shabby even compared to the the core of the Aristocrats! The laboratory of Consortium!” He turned away with the last bit of pride.

Ye Chong followed the proud man, as curious he was towards the mysterious consortium.

The security was pretty tight there, as they had to hold their steps before a locked gate every 20 meters. Kui turned his face to Ye Chong, “This is the only pathway to the laboratory. And hardly anybody knows the code.”

“So what are you in the Consortium?” asked Ye Chong, with instinct screaming at him that Kui must not be a simple subordinate in the Consortium.

“Me?” Hah! I’m just an engineer,” replied Kui indifferently.

Just an engineer? Likely story. It sounded like a blatant lie to Ye Chong, but he did not see the point in pursuing it. He moved on with another question, “Why did your organization decide to build the center here?” There was nothing peculiar about Spectre. To Ye Chong, Spectre was just like the other planets, he could not see the point of investing so much time and money on building a base here, especially when the Consortium worked so hard on fabricating horrifying rumors just to keep people away.

“Well, this has always been the biggest secret of the Consortium but there’s no longer a need to make it a secret, not anymore, I guess,” said Kui casually. “At first… Mhm… probably some time before the Gray Valley has been established… we discovered something here.”

“What was it?”

“We found a handful of Teardrops and a very unstable phenomena, a distortion window.” Kui’s description reminded Ye Chong a lot of the underground cave where he also discovered a few Teardrops and the distortion horror.

“Regarding Teardrops, it need not to convince people of its rarity I believe. We were more interested in the window. The Consortium was fully invested in Space Science researches. And clearly a spatial distortion phenomena would be a hidden shortcut to the other galaxy, also another galaxy unknown to the people would be a giant treasure chest to be opened. You know about the Aristocrats, don’t you?”

Ye Chong nodded.

“All the three Aristocrats owned a shortcut that would lead them to the Five Galaxies, respectively. And these 3 pathways were also an unstable spatial distortion phenomena when they were first discovered. Perhaps you were unaware of this, it’s alright, it’s a major secret among the Aristocrats, not many residents of He Yue knew it,” smiled Kui.

“I know, I am from the Five Galaxies, after all,” nodded Ye Chong.

Kui nearly tripped himself upon hearing the statement, “You’re a resident of the Five Galaxies? Which?”

“Fal.”

“Oh?” Kui took a careful look at Ye Chong, “Not bad. You were able to come this far. Though, how do you associate with the Aristocrats?”

“Not much of an association.” Shook Ye Chong, “I was being hunted.”

The interest intensified on Kui’s expression, “Hunted… huh? Well, you must be really something that the Aristocrats could chase you all the way here. And you survive well too. Which of the Aristocrats?”

“Hah…” Ye Chong smiled bitterly, “All three…”

Kui was stupefied and he laughed out loud, “Ahahahahaha! Man, you have such luck. All three families want you dead? Hahaha! Seriously I wonder what you have done that it could drive all 3 families this mad!”

“They were too strong…,” said Ye Chong briefly, “And I felt threatened of my life.”

“Well…” Shrugged Kui, “Let’s not talk about that. No point of dwelling in the past. You are in luck now, the Aristocrats are too busy to even track you. Still, it almost felt impossible for you to get back home now.”

Ye Chong was speechless. That had always been the pain in his heart.

“And here we are,” reminded Kui. “This is the room where we store the chips, containing every report, the outcome of our researches. Well, they’ll be piling dust anyway so feel free to take any if you like. Every research was a brave and tremendous attempt by the researchers who drained themselves completely for their passion. Some even took their whole life just for a small piece of report. If they knew their life effort eventually became part of the ruins unknown by the people, I guess we won’t have a fine reunion when I met them in heaven,” said Kui, a little sentimental.

Ye Chong was astounded.

It was … a giant library of microchips. A sea of them specifically, in all sorts of colors, labeled by an array of categories, stored chronologically as well as based on the field involved.

Ye Chong could see at least 300,000 microchips there,

“Hehehe…” Shang was there, stunned. yet his beeps formed unintelligible giggles, “Ye, we’ll be rich. We will be rich!”

Ye Chong’s breaths intensified. He was sort of a researcher after all and he certainly recognized the value of these data streams. These would be strength, the greatest strength and wealth, that one could use to build a family as competent as the Aristocrats.

“If you want to know the exact number of chips here, sorry, I don’t know.” Kui sounded really depressed, “We started from Space Science, then Mechanical Researches, and then the Biological Science today. We almost have every scientific field covered. We even have a breakthrough in our latest research but well… you know what happened. An annihilation, as if a punishment from the heaven…”

Ye Chong’s once excitement had also been assaulted by the raining tails of the crimson beasts, the bloodshed of the researchers.

“You sure are interesting,” smiled Kui as he looked at Ye Chong’s expression.

“Why don’t you give me some recommendations?” asked Ye Chong. There were too many chips here, he really would appreciate someone giving their opinion on the choices. Well Kui should be fine with this, if he truly intended to give him the chips, that is.

“Uhh…” Kui flinched and hurled a smile promptly, “Okay, what do you need?”

“Which field do you guys have most researches on?”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmm… At first, we focused on Space Science, as I’ve said, then Mechanical Science, did you see the mechs out there? Yup, those are our creations.”

“Nah, keep those,” shook Ye Chong. Space Science was too foreign for Ye Chong’s comprehension, while Mechanical Science? It was interesting to see those gold fighters flying out there but they were not the best mechs out there, especially when compared to the aces of the Aristocrats.

He was a mechanic after all. He believed he could build a better mech if he had sufficient materials.

So yeah.

ui looked at Ye Chong with an unreadable expression, “Well, looks like you know your stuff!”

He continued, “We got interested in biological research about a century ago, and made great discoveries.” He sounded modest, but Ye Chong could see that he was filled with pride.

“I’ve always been interested in biology since I was young. I believe that life is the world’s greatest mystery, and the pinnacle of all secrets.” Kui looked nostalgic as he recalled, “That’s why I’ve been involved in the field since I was very young. In the end, I ended up in research just as I wanted. You can’t imagine how much better we are in biology compared to other people. We have a lot to catch up in spatial science and mechanics when compared to the Three Aristocratic Families, but even all three of them combined will not be a match for us in biology.”

Kui sounded proud just then, and a little arrogant.

Ye Chong said nothing. He did not doubt Kui’s claim. The Three Aristocratic Families were not known for their strengths in biology. Ye Chong knew little about biology, but he was familiar with one field that was intimately related to biology, and that was alchemy. Lunatic Guan’s extraordinary alchemy skills still continued to amaze Ye Chong. He still could not figure out the Guan Family’s auto-analytics mechanism that Lunatic Guan came up with.

Nevertheless, he did not approve of Kui’s declaration that biology was the world’s greatest mystery. The way he saw it, every field of knowledge had its own intricacies, and it would be meaningless to compare between them. Kui’s view was too biased.

“Have you studied biology before?” Kui asked.

“No, but I’ve learned alchemy for a while.”

“Alchemy?” Kui grew excited, “Not bad, not bad, alchemy is a branch of biology.”

He lowered his head in thought, mumbling to himself, “Perhaps, giving it to him will be a wise choice.”

Ye Chong did not catch his expression. He was still talking to Shang.

“Ye, this guy is definitely not some average Research Consortium engineer,” Shang warned Ye Chong, sounding certain of himself.

“Why do you say that?” Ye Chong asked. He did not see anything particularly outstanding about Kui, apart from his easy going demeanor.

“Humph, there are too many signs of suspicion! How would a normal engineer know so many secrets?” Shang noted disapprovingly, then laughed, “But Ye, don’t worry about it for now, he’s not looking to mess with you yet.”

Kui seemed to reach a decision then. He looked up at Ye Chong and said, “Come with me.”

Kui walked out of the memory chip room and entered another corridor. The corridor went downwards. A travellator moved them along the corridor.

Kui turned back to Ye Chong and said, “Better keep that. You can’t fly in here. If the system detects any flying objects, security will automatically retaliate.”

“He’s right,” Shang whispered to Ye.

Ye Chong obeyed and withdrew Shang.

Ye Chong and Kui stood on the travellator as it brought them further down along the sloping corridor. On both sides of the travellator were exhibits separated from them by glass. All kinds of weird flora were within these glass chambers. Ye Chong recognized some of them, but not for most of them.

Kui had his head lowered, fully absorbed in whatever he had in mind.

Ye Chong watched the plants passed by in a daze. There were many real life specimens here that he had never seen before, which he recognized only through Lunatic Guan’s chip. This was a learning experience for him.

Alchemy was something quite different of all the skills that Ye Chong had picked up. He had not spent much time in it, but instead had relied on Lunatic Guan’s auto-analytics mechanism to overcome most of the obstacles he came across. However, he realized that alchemy was a very useful skill, and had always appreciated the opportunity to learn more when it presented itself.

“How many do you recognize?” Kui asked from behind him.

“115,” Ye Chong answered without delay. He was always sensitive to numbers, a habit he picked up from Mu.

“115?” Kui sounded surprised. “You know that many?”

Ye Chong replied, “Yes, but I’ve only seen 52 of them in real life. The other 63 are from a memory chip my teacher gave to me.”

“Who’s your teacher?” Kui looked agitated.

“Her name is Guan Ling.” Ye Chong was surprised that he remembered her name at all. The silhouette of the woman with a wine glass in her hand, leaning lazily against the door frame as her eyes gazed outwards, lost in thought, came to his mind unbidden.

“A beauty, lost at a young age,” Shang sighed.

“Guan Ling?” Kui looked like he was trying to recall something, and then it came to him. He looked even more surprised as he said, “Guan Ling … You mean Guan Ling of May’s Night Ridge on Guang Hua?”

Now it was Ye Chong’s turn to be surprised. “You know her?”

Kui did not answer him. He was studying Ye Chong closer, not quite believing it, “You are Guan Ling’s student? You truly are Guan Ling’ student?”

Ye Chong nodded,”If you mean Guan Ling of May’s Night Ridge on Guang Hua, then that’s right.”

“Wonderful! Wonderful! Haha!” Kui was almost jumping with joy, “Haha, and I was worried you might not have the basics! So you’re Guan Ling’s student! The Heavens smile upon me, now all my work will not go to waste! Haha!”

Ye Chong could not understand Kui’s excitement, and repeated his question, “You know her?”

It took another three minutes before Kui finally calmed down. “I’ve been to the free space zone when I was younger. That’s where I first heard of Guan Ling. She was very famous in the alchemy circle in the free space zone, it’s a pity I’ve never met her in person. I’ve studied a few of her products. She is truly an amazing alchemist. I was worried that you might not have the basics, but there’s nothing to worry about now.”

Basics? Did he mean basics in biology? Ye Chong was confused.

“Shang, do you think he’ll just give it to me?” Ye Chong asked Shang in his mind.

“Who knows? Sigh, it’s not a photo album anyway. People nowadays are losing their creativity, look at the lousy gifts they come up with …” Shang mumbled in complaint.

Ye Chong realized that he was asking the wrong person.

He asked Kui directly, “What are you offering me?”

Kui paused a bit before laughing, “You’re blunt, but I like that!” He then smiled teasingly, “You’ll know when you see it.”

The travellator moved them forward at an even pace. Ye Chong estimated that they had covered about five kilometers.

Kui was beginning to look pale. His chest was no longer bleeding, but the skeleton within was exposed. The flesh around his wound was beginning to turn gray.

Kui saw the look Ye Chong was giving him and smiled easily, “Don’t worry. The product’s reliable, there won’t be any accidents. We still have two hours, plenty of time.”

Ye Chong was silent. Underneath Kui’s easy demeanor was so much regret and dissatisfaction.

Suddenly, Ye Chong thought of something. “How are you related to the incident on Zhou Jian?”

Kui’s gaze turned sharp. “How’d you know it is related to us?”

This was the second time Ye Chong saw Kui became alert abruptly. The first time was when he saw Shang. However, he was not afraid. “I was there at Zhou Jian, and saw some of you from Gray Valley.”

Kui’s gaze softened. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes betrayed the pain he felt in his heart. He recovered soon and said, “That was an accident. A virus accident. A core member of the virus experiment group was isolated from his colleagues. We were too busy with the experiment to notice. By the time I realized, that member had already left and went into hiding. Nobody thought he’d escape Gray Valley to the He Yue Galaxy. We kept looking for him, but to no avail. We heard of the incident soon after it happened, but it was already too late.”

Kui whispered in a low voice of this little known secret.

“I see,” Ye Chong nodded and said nothing else. What Kui said better matched with what he knew.

He did not do anything to Kui. It was not his place to get involved. Besides, the Research Consortium was almost completely gone by now. The last member, Kui, had only another two hours left to live.

“We’re here,” Kui said.

They still had to pass through three passcode protected doors to reach their destination.

This was the most peculiar laboratory that Ye Chong had ever seen. There were many mech parts, and all kinds of odd culture containers. Some of them were huge, holding something that was barely visible inside. There were also many other apparatus that he had never seen before.

“This is the Research Consortium’s most important and forefront technology,” Kui explained solemnly, “I don’t know whether it’s the right decision to give them all to you, but I don’t have much time left, and I have no other choice to make.” He looked at Ye Chong and said earnestly, “I believe that you’re capable of continuing our work here.”

Ye Chong was baffled. He could not understand Kui.

Kui took Ye Chong further into the lab without another word. Ye Chong could feel the reverence the man had for his mission emanating off him.

The further they went in, the more cluttered the place was. Ye Chong’s interest deepened. He could see that many of the culture containers had mech parts in them. There were mech mechanical arms, mech mechanical legs … These mech parts had tissue growing all over them. Some were plant based tissue, and some were muscle flesh.

Kui did not slow down as he went further in. Ye Chong could only set his curiosity aside and followed.

“This lab has been here ever since the Research Consortium was born. The spatial window is also here in this lab. All these years, the Research Consortium has ventured into many fields of research, but no matter if we’re talking about spatial technology, machinery or biology, all the best works come from this laboratory. Only the top scientists can enter this lab. It’s the dream of every researcher in Gray Valley to step into this place. It is a symbol of prestige and true capabilities.

“You see how messy the lab is? Can’t do anything about it. All of our best research works are here. Anything you see can be highly valuable, so no one dared to touch them. No one has ever figured out what exactly we have here, much less talk about the value of these things. That’s how the things start to accumulate over time, ending in up what we see today. Of course, another reason for this was that all the people who made their way in were very busy! No one wanted to waste time cleaning up someone else’s mess.”

Kui said all of these with a mixture of pride and helplessness. The lab was in such a mess that Ye Chong found it difficult to decide where his next step should be. He could even make out some ancient machinery items, their dull luster telling of the long history behind them.

“Hey, Ye, look’s like a treasure trove in here. We have to go through this place thoroughly later! Tsk tsk, leaving them behind in this secluded place is such a waste,” Shang’s eyes glowed like a miner who saw gold.

Kui was not aware, of course, that a greedy someone was enticing the solemn looking Ye Chong right at that moment.

“In some ways, the Research Consortium is over,” Kui sounded devastated, “but I wouldn’t want these things to be forgotten just like us. They are the result of hard work from so many people. It’ll be truly regretful if they vanish from the face of the universe just like that. I’m not a researcher myself, but I can understand this at least.

“You are a hero. Haha, perhaps you don’t think it suits you, but that’s how I think it is. It’s not too bad, losing to you. Of course, it helps that you’re not from one of the Three Aristocratic Families. More importantly, I have no choice! Haha!” Kui laughed heartily, and Ye Chong could sense no sadness behind it.

“This base is yours. Take your time to explore around, find anything that interests you. I believe that there are many things that you will find curious and exciting. I had wanted to pass over to you the Research Consortium’s allies. After all, the people may be gone, but the Consortium can still live on. However, forget about that. Those people are all mediocre but ambitious fools. When I heard you talking about what they had done, do you know what I felt?” Kui turned to look at Ye Chong.

“What?”

“Humiliated! Furious!” Kui’e eyes glowed in anger as he spoke through gritted teeth, “Those useless b*stards! They’re smearing the name of the Consortium! Arrogant fools, all of them. And when danger strikes, when their strength is needed, they all refused to step up. Cowards! They are the Consortium’s greatest embarrassment! Their actions are unforgivable!”

Kui waved his arms around as he growled with intensity.

Ye Chong watched Kui in his emotional state without a word. The Research Consortium’s members were useless, that was true. He knew that the Consortium would forever lose the confidence of the people, and never recover their former glory.

Half a minute later, Kui finally calmed down. “Those untrained civilians could win against the red-tailed beasts when they’re with you. You’re stronger than me in this. If that’s the case, I’ll be at peace knowing that everything is given to you. I know that, with everything in here, you will rise so much faster. Leave the useless failures to themselves.”

Kui suddenly frowned then, “Let’s move faster, I don’t have much time left.”

The two of them quickened their pace, and soon reached a very large culture tank.

The container tank was about 15 meters tall and 10 meters wide. Inside was a murky solution, where a large humanoid shaped figure of about 10 meters tall was submerged in. The culture tank was connected to many colorful tubes outside. The tubes were connected to the tank on one end and other devices on the other end.

Kui looked up at the tank, speaking as though in a trance, “You see that? That’s the result of our latest research.”

“What is it?” Ye Chong was a little taken aback.

“A mech!” Kui smiled mischievously, then turned around to make adjustments on the apparatus around them.

“It’s not fully formed yet? Sigh, there’s not enough time,” Kui muttered to himself as he studied the apparatus. His hands moved quickly as he worked.

The solution inside the culture tank drained away rapidly. Through the transparent walls of the tank, Ye Chong finally had a good look at what was inside.

This was not a mech, this was a human!

A 10 meter tall person! The face had strong angled contours, an aquiline nose, thick lips and dark eyebrows. The eyes were tightly closed. It was like a strong and huge giant.

There was a very archaic looking black helmet worn on its head, with a tall red feather rising up tall from the helmet. The body was covered with a layer of form fitting black colored armor, which made it look like the God of Death came from hell himself. Its wrists, elbows, waist and knees were decorated with a bright red flower. This did not tone down the intensity of the humanoid’s appearance, but made it look even more enigmatic and treacherous.

Was this really a mech? Ye Chong was deeply shaken.

“What’s your choice of weaponry?” Kui observed Ye Chong’s expression, pleased with himself. “Originally, we wanted to make it an armor of gold and bright red, which suits our style more. However, we later find that the black colored alloy improves the physical properties of the armor a lot more, and made the armor more compatible with biological substrates. That’s how the black colored alloy came to stay. However, since pure black is the Ye Family’s signature appearance, we decided to add these Hell Blossoms. These represent death and chaos.”

“We prepared an array of weapons for the mech. Heh, those fellows just do what they want. Look at that, almost all of those are its weapons. Someone even made it a weapons backpack, which can hold around six weapons at a time.

“It’s the beginning of a new age! It’s a bio-mech! First of its kind in the universe! Three generations have worked on this project, culminating into our success today! We started out with plant based matter since it’s structure is simpler, but we gave that up later for more advanced life forms. This mech is the one we’ve been working on. The skeleton is made of metals with the best physical properties. We then grow muscle tissue over the skeleton using culture growing techniques. The bio-mech is more flexible than mechanical mechs. Its fingers are almost identical to a human’s. The skeleton frame is not exactly like a human’s, as we have improved upon it in many ways. Based on well-established principles in mechanical mechs, we produced an original skeleton frame design that preserves the agility of the human form while improving its structural integrity. The muscle tissue is modified with a virus, giving it 30 times the strength of normal alloys, and 5.52 times the flexibility of human muscle tissue.”

Ye Chong listened to the shocking figures in a daze. Even Shang was rendered speechless.

“Information relay is via neurons, much faster and accurate compared to photon circuits. The neurons are connected to the mech’s bio-photon processor. This bio-photon processor is the only one that we made successfully. It’s powerful, and you’ll exactly know how powerful it is once you try it out. Besides, even though it’s a powerful photon processor, it does not result in a PSI.” Kui took a glance at Ye Chong.

“The armor is grown with muscle tissue, which greatly enhances its defensive functionality. Its holographic scanning system, comms system and all that are the latest from the Research Consortium. Many of them are just fresh out from the lab oven. This mech is the essence of the Research Consortium’s most advanced skills and knowledge.

“It can go up to Mach 30! Compared to the Three Aces from the Three Aristocratic Families, it doesn’t differ by a lot! This bio-mech may not be the fastest mech in existence, but its power for short ranged movements has no equal! This is attributed to the unique muscle tissue of the bio-mech. Unlike mechanical mechs that mimic life, this bio-mech is the real thing. It moves like a real life animal, the king of close range combat!

“You may not know this, but the Research Consortium spent almost a third of its research budget on this project. The schematics and design for the bio-mech has been modified for no less than three dozen times. Its every muscle tissue, every armor piece, every piece of skeleton, was the highest achievement of the Research Consortium.

“Its name is – Celest!”

elest had shocked Ye Chong beyond words. It basically overturned everything he believed in about mechs. This mech was new territory.

“Cough cough!” Abruptly, Kui coughed violently, and brought Ye Chong back to the present. He turned to see Kui’s chest rising and falling rapidly, his face reddening quickly.

“It’s time,” Kui smiled at Ye Chong, returning his gaze.

For some reason, Ye Chong felt deeply sorrow for the man. He watched quietly, not knowing what to say.

Kui’s expression turned solemn and he spoke, ignoring his condition, “Celest is not invincible, though. There isn’t enough time, and it’s not quite completed yet. Take off the armor on its leg and have a look.”

Ye Chong did as told, and saw exposed metallic structure underneath the black armor. The metal structure was half covered by muscle tissue, but the other half was exposed and shining with a typical metallic glimmer.

“According to the schedule, Celest needs another 15 days to complete. However, I don’t have much time left, I can’t see it completed.” Kui looked at Celest with an unreadable expression. He was equal parts dismayed, regretful, proud and hopeful.

“Take it,” Kui smiled at Ye Chong, “Celest is yours, our legacy will live on. You must take care of it, the leg will be its weakest spot. Moreover, maintenance work on Celest will be tricky. You have to study enough biology to know how to do it, or the bio-mech will be useless if it’s too heavily damaged. Don’t worry about minor scratches since it can heal itself, much like actual living organisms.”

“Thank you!” Ye Chong bowed to Kui respectfully.

Kui waved away his gesture, “Don’t worry about it. Take care of the mech, and unleash its true potential. And, if you’re interested, expand on our work. I will be eternally grateful.”

“I will,” Ye Chong said. His voice was soft but resolute.

Kui smiled, satisfied. He took out three memory chips and a ring from some hidden corner. “These three chips contain the bulk of the Consortium’s research work in three different stages across time. The chips are made of special biological material and have a large memory space. They can only be read with a bio-mech, Celest’s bio-photon processor. Haha, all the mechs out there are fakes, to confuse outsiders. This is Celest’s dimension keystone. Take it. But first, you have to enter Celest and activate it. Take anything in here that catches your eyes.

“Look,” Kui pointed towards the mainframe computer in the lab, “All the information is there. You can check it out yourself. This ring unlocks the information.”

Celest’s dimension keystone was a simple metal ring. Ye Chong put it on his finger, and the ring tightened immediately like a life animal, latching on to his finger. He could not take it off now.

“The dimension keystone has other features. A lot of our work on spatial science is incorporated into this dimension keystone. You’ll find out more when you try it out yourself.” Kui was pale as a sheet by now.

“Cough,” he coughed out a mouthful of blood.

“It’s time,” Kui smiled wanly, “I’m so lucky to have met you.

“Live well.” Suddenly, Kui fell backwards.

Ye Chong was surprised, and quickly stepped forward to catch him.

Ku had stopped breathing. Ye Chong felt something slippery in his hands. He looked down and found that Kui was already bleeding everywhere. His skin was cracking all over into many tiny slits, where blood began to flow out.

Kui’s pulse and breathing stopped.

Ye Chong put him down. Right after that, the man’s body immediately burst open like a balloon. His bone and flesh exploded into a mess.

The blue poison was strong, that was for sure. Ye Chong looked at Celest. The bio-mech stood with its eyes closed, like a magnificent warrior. He looked back at Kui’s ruined corpse and felt sorrow for him.

The joy of obtaining Celest was dampened by Kui’s death. However, Ye Chong recovered quickly, and began to inspect the bio-mech.

The more he looked, the more surprised he was.

He realized then that the Research Consortium was at the forefront of biological sciences.

Celest’s pilot cabin was at its chest. Unlike the metallic pilot cabin in normal mechs, Celest had a pilot cabin made of organic material. There were modified plant substrates and compound materials used everywhere in there. The pilot cabin’s oxygen supply system was unique. A kind of plant that Ye Chong had never seen before made up its main structure. It could produce large amounts of oxygen, maintaining the balance of air composition in the pilot cabin. The insides of the pilot cabin were covered with these green plants. They exuded a nice, faint scent that was refreshing.

The most interesting part of the mech was its bio-photon processor.

It looked nothing like any of the photon processors that Ye Chong had seen before. The object was a semi-transparent hemisphere, suspended on top of the main control console, made of some unknown material. It was soft like taffy, and malleable as well. For example, it could stretch out into a thin, flat disc to display images.

If a memory chip was put on top of it, the photon processor would engulf the chip and display the information within.

Aside from the usual controls, the photon processor can be accessed directly via brain waves. Placed beside the pilot’s seat was a helmet. Through it, the pilot can communicate directly with the photon processor and even control the mech through the helmet.

However, this novel method of using brain waves required the mech pilot to be mentally well trained. Ye Chong felt that a mentalist would be able to better make use of this bio-mech. He himself had no talent in skills of the mental sort.

The weapons were just staggering.

He felt like he was looking at a weapons exhibition. There were all sorts of them, from archaic weapons to modern laser based weapons. There were too many for the mind to absorb. The weapons were mostly in black and red. It seemed that the researchers had put in a lot of effort to make the weapons look matching with Celest. Many of the weapons were either carefully polished or decorated with patterns, mostly out of aesthetics. Longer weapons like the archaic lance and spears were either foldable or could be easily disassembled.

Ye Chong also saw the weapons box that Kui mentioned. It looked like a black colored emergency medical box. On top of the box was a large, red flower. The weapons box had an auto latch that could be secured to a slot on Celest’s back. The pack itself could store up to six weapons. When in combat, the weapons could be accessed from the sides of the box, making it very handy.

He picked a black colored lance of archaic design, a dark red colored alloy sword, a diamond shaped shield, a laser cutter, 20 auto lock-on shurikens, and a small sized egg-shaped light grenade launcher.

There was a slot on Celest’s wrist, which could hold two parrying spears. Han Jia’s daggers were taken, while Celest’s original daggers were left behind.

Shang also had a huge makeover. The G-Z was relinquished in exchange for a high accuracy sniper rifle, Pierce. Shang commended its shooting accuracy and impressive rate of fire.

Celest also had a cutting edge engine. It was suitable for both short bursts and long distance flight. The only thing Ye Chong thought regretful was the fact that the engine ran on conventional energy sources.

This was not a big problem. Ye Cong had a few teardrop mineralites on him still. Just one would be enough to solve his problem. Ye Chong had wanted to modify Shang’s energy source as well so that he could run on teardrop mineralite. Shang’s body structure was unique, and any modifications would require all kinds of equipment. That was an issue that he could not solve before. However, here he was now, in the most advanced laboratory of the Research Consortium. What more could he want?

Han Jia was heavily damage. The mech already had many tiny cracks on its structure in the beginning. After that intense battle in the Calamitous Asteroid Belt, it was now close to breaking down. Ye Chong thought that Celest was an impressive mech, but Han Jia was still easier to use. However, upon closer inspection with the equipment around him, Ye Chong found that the mech was now beyond saving. It was not only the exterior that was damaged. The mech’s internal parts, such as the engine, were also showing many cracks that he could not hope to repair.

Ye Chong was surprised to find Han Jia so heavily damaged. He knew that the mech was in bad shape, but the severity of it left him taken aback. He had been flying in a mech that could have broken down at any moment. The thought left him with a chill down his spine.

Han Jia was the mech that he had used the longest. All these years, he and the mech had conquered powerful foes here and there. However, it was now time to retire it. Ye Chong suddenly thought of Kui. If Han Jia had a conscious mind, it would probably count itself luckier than Kui.

When Ye Chong realized what he was thinking, he was surprised that such a bizarre idea came to his mind.

He took out the teardrop mineralite in Han Jia. The teardrop mineralite was truly the pinnacle of all energy sources. It remained largely unchanged after such long usage.

Now, Ye Chong faced his next obstacle.

Celest’s unique structure presented a challenge. Ye Chong knew little about the bio-mech, much less how to modify its engine to use teardrop mineralite.

He recalled then the bio-photon processor in the pilot cabin.

“Perhaps it’s worth a shot,” Ye Chong thought to himself. Celest’s pilot cabin was at the mech’s chest, where the armor was thickest. Ye Chong slipped into the pilot cabin and approached the photon processor. It looked like liquid metal, or a chewy candy. Ye Chong found the photon processor’s appearance odd.

Ye Chong held the teardrop mineralite in his hand for a moment, hesitated, then finally placed the mineral on top of the bio-photon processor.

The bio-photon processor engulfed the teardrop mineralite quickly, like a slug eating its meal.

Crack crack crack! There was a series of faint noises. The bio-photon processor glowed suddenly in a rainbow of colors.

“Structure evolution commencing,” Ye Chong heard a cold voice spoke.

“Skeleton fortification complete!”

“Structural fortification complete!”

…

The cold voice spoke again and again from the bio-photon processor. The pilot cabin was changing rapidly. The green plants growing along the walls turned a brighter green. The controls altered into a more comfortable texture. The bio-photon processor itself changed the most, the semi-transparent glob now a fully transparent crystalline hemisphere.

Ye Chong still had a shred of calmness left in him. He spoke to the voice, “Commence full inspection of the mech’s structure immediately.” He needed to have at least a general understand of Celest as soon as possible.

The bio-photon processor replied sternly to Ye Chong’s order, “Commencing.”

When Ye Chong saw the numbers displayed on the bio-photon processor, now changed into a holographic screen, he was shocked once again.

The teardrop mineralite had been moved to the engine. The original energy storage space was no longer there, having been rendered obsolete by the bio-photon processor in favor of the teardrop mineralite, and therefore relinquished. Celest’s incomplete leg grew new tissue quickly, triggered by the vast energy source it received. The bio-mech was now fully completed. Its muscles and the external metal armor fit into each other seamlessly, providing a whole new level of defense.

The original muscle tissue was also triggered to evolve by the teardrop mineralite. Under the bio-photon processor’s assessment and modification, Celest’s body structure was now enhanced.

Since the armor was also able to absorb energy, it now shined in a polished jet black, like molten black metal.

After some calculations, the bio-photon processor found that the remaining energy in the teardrop mineralite was enough to for Celest to fly for another 62 years. This meant that Ye Chong did not have to worry about its energy source for a long time to come.

It was a pity that there was not enough space around him right now. He would have liked to test the mech.

After that interesting series of changes, Ye Chong did not do anything more to Celest. He had not figured out what happened just now. Celest was a mystery to him. This was new territory to explore. What he did just now was just a lucky guess. He would not try it again.

Shang’s modification works were also progressing rapidly. The lab was well equipped, offering advanced machinery that would never be found outside. Shang would have been able to fix his arm had there been enough coraplatinum. Unfortunately, the rare metal was not found in the Consortium’s inventory.

Ye Chong regretted it very much. Fixing Shang was his greatest dream. He thought of the huge mass of coraplatinum in the sunken starship in the free space zone, and felt like jumping straight into the sea to get it.

However, even escaping Gray Valley was a problem for him now.

Ye Chong quickly composed himself once more and began to search the lab with Shang.

Arwa’s fleet had entered the Calamitous Asteroid Belt. Arwa was not the only one who had been into the Calamitous Asteroid Belt. Mech pilots from Gray Valley and the He Yue Galaxy would often brave the journey in their younger days. This risky endeavor offered them combat experience, allowing them to improve faster. More importantly, they would do anything to get the money to fund their journey, be it in mech repairs or buying more advanced mechs. Many of the mech pilots came from a poor background, and had to work dearly for their dreams.

The Calamitous Asteroid Belt was deadly. Almost every mech pilot would hear the same story from their seniors. Nonetheless, many were brave enough to enter the place. Mech pilots would enter either solo or in groups, but they would usually keep near the edges of the asteroid region.

Their mechs were not like Ye Chong’s, equipped with almost infinite energy. Hence, they had to stay near the edges. Starships were still the default choice for long distance space travel. No mech can achieve long distance space travelling without a starship.

However, no one had ever heard of a starship entering the Calamitous Asteroid Belt. That would be suicidal! Rocks were flying everywhere in the asteroid belt, enough to destroy even the strongest hulls. With the massive structure of a starship, avoiding the rocks would be impossible. That was what made the journey dangerous.

Entering the asteroid belt with a starship fleet was even more unimaginable.

However, in just a short space of time, two starship fleets had already entered the Calamitous Asteroid Belt.

No one knew if Sir Jay’s fleet survived the journey, but now Arwa’s fleet was already following his footsteps.

Arwa’s experience was not enough to guide him in this journey. He would need his wisdom and trust from his people.

Like Ye Chong, Arwa was not short of followers. The young genius tactician was a hero of the common people. He was widely respected in Gray Valley, especially amongst the middle lower class. Countless young people viewed him as their role model.

Before Jay appeared, Arwa was the most famous young man in Gray Valley. However, Jay’s appearance had robbed him of the people’s attention. Now, the only person who could be on the same level as Jay was Arwa.

Arwa approved of Jay’s assessment of their situation, and later facts came to prove his judgment. His fleet members trusted him even more after that. They called him and Jay as the Twin Stars of Gray Valley. People commended him and Jay, calling them Gray Valley’s last hope.

In fact, there were also many people who disagreed with this sentiment, especially Arwa’s supporters. They thought that Jay was a genius in truth, but still lacking compared to the experienced Arwa.

Whenever his subordinates vented their frustrations about this, Arwa only smiled.

He knew exactly how strong Jay was! He was a truly formidable opponent. In fact, he believed deep down that of the two of them, Jay was probably more likely to bring everyone to victory.

This was a humbling thought. Arwa was a generous man who thought little of fame and self-interest. However, underneath it all was a sense of pride that few knew about.

This was their first day in the Calamitous Asteroid Belt. So far, the fleet progressed slowly and smoothly. No one slacked, however. They all knew that this was just the beginning.

As expected, they faced tremendous pressure on the second day. This was apparent from the casualties they suffered.

Arwa remained calm. Underneath his amiable appearance was a resolute heart. Whenever Xiao Wan watched his not-quite-handsome profile, she would feel a touch sentimental. The man was much wiser beyond his age.

Arwa knew that his fleet had a strong advantage that Jay’s fleet lacked.

They had long range weapons.

Jay’s fleet had almost no long range weapons. While this allowed him to face the red-tailed beasts more easily, it would render them powerless in the asteroid belt. Arwa’s fleet had long range weapons, powerful ones, and this made their journey in the Calamitous Asteroid Belt much easier.

Only large rocks could damage the ship’s hull, and their weapons allowed them to destroy these large rocks before they hit.

However, the threat of the Calamitous Asteroid Belt was far more severe than Arwa and his fleet mates could have imagined.

They were not aware of how Jay’s fleet had pushed their way through the rocks, creating stronger currents of asteroids in the place that were far more dangerous than before.

It was only on the third day that they came to realize this mistake.

heir fleet travelled along the edge of a huge asteroid whirlpool. Arwa had noticed it fast enough, then ordered the fleet to react in the nick of time for them to escape the pull of the massive whirlpool. Nevertheless, the incident had cost Arwa 62 starships.

It all happened in just under 10 minutes.

An even more pressing issue for them was to avoid the whirlpool by going around it. This extended their three-day journey to five.

No one knew how much these two extra days would cost them. All of them, Arwa included, were grateful for their narrow escape.

They suffered heavy casualties on the third day, when the rocks around them were too dense for their weapons to handle. The asteroids breached their safety parameter and crashed onto the starships. Arwa had not fortified the ship hulls, and this oversight costed him dearly.

The seemingly tough hulls of the starships crumbled easily under the impact of the asteroids.

Arwa’s heart ached as the starships exploded, one after another. Each starship carried a few hundred people in them!

His face turned paler and paler. Xiao Wan watched and sympathized with him, but she could not say nothing to console him. There was nothing she could do about their situation.

No one knew that, despite Arwa’s pale expression, he was still as determined as ever. He knew that this was the time for them to persevere.

Ye Chong played around with the dimension keystone in his hand. Kui had said that Celest’s dimension keystone had other uses.

The dimension keystone was a fine thing. The Research Consortium did not specialize in spatial science, but they had some incredible results. This dimension keystone had incorporated almost everything they knew in spatial science, including the most practical ability of dimension storage. This dimension keystone was the epitome of dimension storage technology.

The Research Consortium had only began to dabble with spatial science when it was the field’s golden age in He Yue Galaxy. The Three Aristocratic Families had focused mainly on mech dimension keystone technology, but the Research Consortium chose to study dimension storage.

The Three Aristocratic Families had prospered due to their choice of specialization. The Research Consortium, however, were not rewarded for their efforts in the field. Nevertheless, their dimension storage technology was also one of a kind, like Celest’s dimension keystone.

Celest’s dimension keystone could be used to store large objects. It was more advanced compared to the dimension keystones designed by the Three Aristocratic Families. In terms of storage, the keystone had its own interesting features. The dimension keystone technology that the Three Aristocratic Families worked on were based on a one-on-one relationship – a dimension keystone can only be linked to one mech.

The Research Consortium’s dimension storage technology was based on one-to-many relationships. This meant that the same dimension keystone could be linked to multiple objects, and transfer them into the alternate dimension.

Dimension storage technology was in some sense a very useful mechanism. However, the cost was high, and the new approach meant that they were not able to establish stable one-to-many relationships for dimension storage just yet. Later on, the field matured, resulting in well established dimension storage technologies today. However, the Research Consortium had missed the opportunity to surpass the Three Aristocratic Families by then.

Ye Chong did not know how much stuff this inconspicuous metal ring could hold.

He found that, the better something was, the more people liked to make them look mediocre.

No one would have guessed that the inconspicuous metal ring was such a priceless treasure.

Ye Chong began to search the lab.

Kui had said that the lab was the center of all research in the Research Consortium since its founding. This place was home to the best products of every generation of Consortium members. Ye Chong translated that to mean that everything in the lab was gold.

He started out by picking them out slowly, but in the end found that there were too many things here, and he did not recognize most of them. The ring on his finger did not so much as beeped, like it was a black hole. He decided then to just store everything away into the ring. He did not know how many things he had taken in the end, much less what they were.

However, there was one thing he could be sure of – they were all good stuff.

He even took away all the equipment in the lab.

He also threw away his bag and put his belongings into the ring. It was safer that way, after all.

Ye Chong was like a locust plague, scouring the place clean. The lab was huge, and despite moving quickly, it still took him awhile to clear all the things inside. These were things accumulated over hundreds of years by the Research Consortium! Later, Ye Chong worked almost mechanically. Where at first he would be pleasantly surprised when he recognized something useful, he now worked without thinking.

He stopped abruptly, and looked in front of him.

There was a black circle floating not far ahead of him. He had reached a corner of the lab without knowing it.

The black circle was almost identical to the one he had seen before. The first two times he saw the black circle, unpleasant things followed. In the fIrst time, he nearly died in the underground cave of an attack, and the second time he had saw a red-tailed beast appeared.

He recalled what Kui had said. They had first found teardrop mineralite and an unstable spatial window right here.

Could this be the unstable spatial window?

Ye Chong knew nothing of spatial science. He did not even know what a spatial window was. His mind was filled with questions.

What was beyond the spatial window?

The black circle hovered eerily in the lab.

Ye Chong decided to circle around the black circle. Who knew if it was dangerous!

Best to be careful.

Ye Chong wanted to go around the black circle because he saw more things in the corner. He wanted to keep those things in his ring too. The circle looked eerie, but Ye Chong thought he should be safe if he left it alone. After all, the circle had been here for years. If it was dangerous, the Research Consortium would have put safety measures in place.

Ye Chong walked around the black circle without incident.

He looked down and began to go through the items in the corner. It was a secluded corner, the things there were already gathering a thick layer of dust, a sharp contrast to the sparkling clean outlook of the other parts of the lab. This was curious. He did not pull all the things into his ring right away, but crouched down to inspect them instead.

At that moment, unbeknownst to him, the black circle behind him began to alter.

The black circle began to expand, then contract, expand, contract …

It pulsed rhythmically like a human heart without a sound. Ye Chong was absorbed in whatever was in his hands at the moment and did not notice anything amiss behind him. He was surprised at what he found. The object he had in his hands was strange. He had never seen anything like it.

A light blue colored fungus grew on a pink colored colloid object.

The fungus looked weird. It had thin tendrils, like human hair. The tendrils did not lie down, but instead swayed in the air like seaweed in water. Ye Chong did not recognize this organism. Lunatic Guan’s chip had no records of anything like it.

Could this be some new species?

Ye Chong carefully brushed away the dust and took the entire rubbery object.

Behind him, the black circle had switched from pulsation to gradual expansion. The two-dimensional black circle now expanded like a balloon towards it surroundings.

Ye Chong put the pink colored colloid and the unknown blue fungus into his ring and stood up.

Suddenly, his vision turned black.

The black circle had swallowed him whole. Immediately after, the darkness began to shrink inwards, growing smaller and smaller.

Right after he finished modifying his engine to run on teardrop mineralite, Shang noticed that he had lost contact with Ye Chong. By then, the black circle was already a black dot in the air. It exploded in a bright light and disappeared.

Shang gasped, “Ye!” He was out of the modification workshop in an instant.

When he reached the laboratory, it was already empty.

Shang searched like crazy for Ye Chong around the entire base, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Ye Chong had simply vanished into thin air.

Ye Chong only felt his vision darkened. He fainted in the next moment.

When Ye Chong opened his eyes again, he was stunned!

All around him was a large stretch of greenery. This was a forest. The large girth of the trees told him that this was a well preserved primary forest.

How could this be? There was no forest on Spectre! Ye Chong had asked Shang to scan the entire planet before he set foot on Spectre. They found no signs of life on that barren planet.

Now, he found himself in the middle of a dense forest.

What happened? What had happened to him? Ye Chong looked at his hands in disbelief. The ring was still on his finger. The pink colored colloid and blue hairy fungus that he kept at the last minute were also intact.

Ye Chong tried to withdraw Celest.

The bio-mech appeared before Ye Chong. Its tall figure gave Ye Chong a sense of control and security.

Just as he felt the tension eased, he realized abruptly that he had lost contact with Shang. That made him panic. He tried desperately to call to Shang, but got no reply.

About 10 minutes later, he gave up trying. There was no reply from the mech. He knew that he was separated from Mu and Shang once again.

Ye Chong felt horrible.

It felt worse than the last time. Much, much worse.

How did he come to this place? How did he got separated from Shang? He knew nothing about his situation. He knew nothing, and he had nothing to work with. This made him felt terrible about it, since he did not know how to find Mu and Shang now.

Two hours later, Ye Chong finally picked himself up. It was very rare for Ye Chong to be affected for so long.

He set aside the issue of Mu and Shang. His priority right now was to find out where he was.

He withdrew Celest and climbed into its pilot cabin.

Celest’s appearance had changed a lot after taking in the teardrop mineralite. The only thing that remained the same was his solemn face. Ye Chong gave the order for the bio-photon processor to activate its scanning system.

Celest opened its eyes for the first time.

This was a huge forest. Animals were abound. However, Ye Chong did not recognize any of them. He also found that the forest was divided clearly into two regions.

A dark and thick mist separated the forest into two parts – one was full of light, and the other was under the dark shade of the mist.

The dark mist seemed to produce a strong electrical interference. Celest could not probe the dark region.

“Unidentified flying object found,” the bio-photon processor announced suddenly.

…

Today was Ban Meng’s first day flying. As a beginner who had just passed his test, he could only fly in the beginner class Wood Kite. He was not bothered by it, however, since he could only afford a Wood Kite. His dream was to fly, high up into the sky. As a physically robust but mentally simple fellow, flying was not an easy task.

Ban Meng was strong and muscular. No one would challenge him in a fight. However, he was severely lacking when it came to parapsychic abilities. He would not have had the skills to pilot a Wood Kite without working as hard as he did.

Ban Meng was the lowest end model for beginners. It had the shape of a bird, and was made up of 125 pieces of splitbark wood.

Ban Meng carefully maneuvered the trackball. His parapsychic senses were so weak that he could just barely fly the Wood Kite with the lowest end control device that was the trackball.

When Ban Meng was a kid, he had once saw a some airshow pilots execute all kinds of air performance tricks. Ever since then, Ban Meng began to dream of flying one day.

To fly, he would have to get a flying license. He had not heard of anyone who could fly without the aid of some aircraft. Even the strongest parapsychic could not do that. However, when little Ban Meng found a dream for himself, he was told that he had no talent in parapsychic abilities.

His own history proved that beyond doubt. He was physically strong, much stronger than his peers. However, he had no talent whatsoever in parapsychic abilities. Even though little Ban Meng was simple minded, he was also very stubborn. Fortunately, his family was able, not too poor, and could accept his chosen direction in life.

In school, Ban Meng was teased by his classmates. It was simply too funny to see a 17-year-old only just cleared to fly a Wood Kite!

All the aircrafts operated on the same principle – the pilot flies their vessel with a trackball. Usually, a qualified pilot would have to satisfy two requirements. Firstly, the pilot must be skillful enough in parapsychic control and aircraft maneuvering. Secondly, the pilot’s physical condition must be able to withstand the act of flying. Ban Meng had no trouble with the second requirement. He was strong as a horse. Even his teachers advised him to switch to combat class.

It was the pilot’s parapsychic strength that controlled the trackball. This was Ban Meng’s greatest weakness. Despite all the effort he put in, he did not have enough inborn talent. If anything, he had only upgraded himself from a weak afterglow to a tiny candle in a huge room.

Nonetheless, he did not give up. His teachers sympathized with him and were often lenient. It was simply unfortunate that parapsychic abilitywas an innate talent that could hardly be improved by one’s efforts.

Little by little, Ban Meng labored his way to success, as he finally earned the license to fly a Wood Kite.

The Wood Kite wobbled as it flew. Ban Meng was in its pilot cabin, tensed all over. He was focused entirely on controlling the trackball. He knew that he was already way off course.

…

Ye Chong saw the odd aircraft. It looked like it was made of some kind of wood, which was weird. Such a primitive aircraft can only be found in museums where he came from. The gray colored wooden panels formed the aircraft. Ye Chong thought it was strange since the wooden structure looked terribly unsafe to fly in.

A wooden structure could not withstand high speed flight, since it had very low endurance.

Ye Chong also found it odd that, while the aircraft was not moving very quickly, it was already stretching the limits of the wooden structure.

Ye Chong considered the aircraft for a moment, and decided to bring it down first.

Zing!

An auto lock-on shuriken shot out of Celest’s weapons pack and flew straight towards the large wooden bird.

Bullseye.

There was a loud sound of impact.

The wooden bird disintegrated into pieces midair. Next, Ye Chong saw a man in the middle of the wooden scraps, free falling and screaming for his life.

Zing! Another shuriken spinned its way towards the man.

…

Ban Meng was completely caught off guard by the attack. He did not know why his Wood Kite suddenly went into pieces in the air. Was he cheated by the aircraft trader? He was furious by the thought!

However, he was swallowed in panic in the next moment. He felt himself falling and began to scream without knowing it. The wind bellowed loudly in his ears. He could not hear anything else. There was only one thought on his mind – he’s dead! He was going to die!

Just when all hope seemed lost, he felt a force on his neck, like something was pulling him backwards!

Wham! There was a low rumble, and he felt all the wind forced out of his chest.

Bang! There was pain on his back. He had hit on a tree branch.

Before he could scream again, another strong force gripped on his shirt, suffocating him. His body shook, and his fall was stopped forcefully.

The entire incident caught him off guard. He was only an ordinary 17 year old teenager, untrained for situations like these. He was still confused about what had happened to him.

When he gathered himself, he found himself hanging high up in the air.

He was more than a dozen meters above the ground. The discovery scared the life out of him. He could not help but prayed, “Dear God, please help me!”

Fortunately, his position seemed to be relatively stable, and that comforted him. Now more in control of himself, Ban Meng decided to try to get himself down to the ground as soon as possible. Falling down from this height would definitely kill him!

He looked down again and noticed that somewhere down there, a black haired man was studying the broken wooden parts of his Wood Kite.

“What’s so interesting about a Wood Kite?” Ban Meng thought to himself.

quot;Huh, that’s not right, maybe this person saved me?” Ban Meng realized then that he did not know how he came to stop falling. He looked behind him and was shocked by what he found.

A huge, black colored nail or something had pinned him onto a tree through his clothing.

Ban Meng swallowed with difficulty. He felt a chill running down his neck. If the black object had been off course by an inch, his head would have been gone.

Perhaps this person had really saved him. Ban Meng considered it for a moment. He may look like a brute, but he was capable of being reflective.

…

Ye Chong studied the broken wooden parts of the wooden bird thing. He was surprised, having never seen any aircraft like this one. The gray colored wood felt light in his hand, but they were tough material. He knew this from their pieces on the ground. The parts may all be disassembled, but each wooden part was still undamaged.

This, to Ye Chong, was incomprehensible. Ye Chong had used his first shuriken in attack mode. It was a powerful weapon, capable of tearing through normal mechs. Even advanced mechs would not be left unscathed.

This wooden bird, however, still had all its wooden pieces intact despite losing its structure. The material was strong, that much was clear.

Ye Chong tried to bend one of the wooden boards with his hands.

…

Ban Meng saw something he had never seen before. The man down below was bending a five-centimeter thick splitbark wood into a semi-circular arch with ease.

How – how was that possible?

Ban Meng stared with bulging eyes, speechless. He had never heard of anyone capable of doing that. He could almost hear the sharp creaking sound from the bent splitbark wood.

This was too scary! Was this man from the wild or something?

Crack! The splitbark wood in the man’s hands broke into two.

Ban Mang stared at the man below like he was a monster. He had no words to describe what he was seeing!

…

Ye Chong frowned. The wood was hard! Harder than normal alloy, in fact. No wonder it was used to build the aircraft. The material was strong enough. Ye Chong knew exactly how strong he can be. His force just now would have broken an average alloy panel into pieces.

The gray colored wood in his hands had broken into two, the edges in an almost uniform zigzag line.

“This is a suitable material to build a mech,” Ye Chong thought to himself. It was strong enough, and more importantly, it was lighter than skeletons. A mech that was built from this material would be very powerful.

On the other hand, he did not know about the other properties of this wooden material. He would need specialized equipment to study it. Physical properties of the material were only the beginning in the list of things to check before deciding if it was suitable for mechs.

Suddenly, Ye Chong saw a spherical object amidst the heap of wooden material.

Huh? What was that?

It looked a lot like the bio-photon processor in Celest’s pilot cabin, although the latter was more transparent. Ye Chong picked up the object and immediately noticed another difference. The bio-photon processor was fluid, almost like liquid, but this semi-transparent ball was hard, like a kind of mineral.

“What’s this?” Ye Chong lifted the round object in his hand and looked up at Ban Meng.

Ban Meng answered reflexively, “A trackball!”

He suddenly realized that the man was actually looking at him, so he cried out, “My hero, please let me down!” He smiled in a flattering manner. This man he was dealing with was definitely no ordinary person. He was probably a sharpshooter. Ban Meng had heard that experts usually behave weirdly. He did not want to be on the wrong side of this man.

Hero? Ye Chong suddenly thought of Kui. Kui had called him that. However, the man with a big heart had already returned to the ashes, full of regret and dissatisfaction.

The thought reminded him of his being separated from Mu and Shang, and that squashed whatever curiosity he was feeling right then.

Ban Meng suddenly felt some movement from his shirt. He looked back and was shocked! The black nail thing was moving like an animal, trying to get itself out of the tree.

“Aaaahh – !” Ban Meng shrieked with his piercing voice. The black nail thing released itself from the tree. Ban Meng felt the pull from behind him loosen, and then began to fall.

Ye Chong took a glance at the screaming Ban meng and caught him easily.

Ban Meng had his eyes shut and was still screaming shrilly. It was such a sharp voice that even Ye Chong could not handle it. He pushed, and Ban Meng was flung away like a sandbag, his scream following him.

Ye Chong focused back on the semi-transparent ball in his hand. What was this trackball thing for? Ye Chong could not figure it out.

Ban Meng finally found solid ground directly under his feet, even though it was a puddle of mud. He stopped screaming and stole a careful glance at the man. He must be very strong, to throw him away so easily. It would take an expert to do that.

“What is the trackball for?” Ye Chong asked simply without looking at Ban Meng, but his tone demanded compliance.

“To control the Wood Kite,” Ban Mang answered carefully. “Are you testing me? You’re testing me with common knowledge? You think I’m retarded?” Ban Meng thought with reproach.

“So it’s called Wood Kite,” Ye Chong thought to himself. More questions came to him – how was this trackball used to control the aircraft. Was it a new kind of photon processor?

Ye Chong could not understand it at all. It seemed that he would have to rely on the young man before him.

“What’s your name?”

“Ban Meng,” Ban Meng replied. He had never thought of himself as timid, but whenever he looked into the man’s eyes, he would shudder involuntarily.

“Where is this?” Ye Chong looked around him, a completely unfamiliar place to him. He knew nothing about this place. This was definitely not somewhere he had been before.

“It’s Duality Forest, of course,” Ban Meng said with a pout.

“Duality Forest?” Ye Chong searched his memory, but could not find anything close to it. Through Celest, he had seen how the forest was divided into two by a dark mist. That must be where the name came from.

“Where’s the nearest city?” Ye Chong asked. If he could find the nearest city, he would be able to find out his exact location. All his problems would be solved then.

“Yedda,” Ban Mang answered cautiously.

Ye Chong frowned. Another city he had never heard of. He had a bad feeling about this.

Seeing Ye Chong frowning made Ban Meng’s heart skipped a beat.

“You, lead the way,” Ye Chong pulled Ban Meng up and said. Ban Meng was lost. He did not know what to do next.

“Directions, now,” Ye Chong said without expression.

Ban Meng felt his heart skipped another beat. He quickly said, “To the west, just go straight to the west, cross a river, and you’ll arrive at the city.”

Ye Chong withdrew Celest, which was hidden somewhere out of view. He then pulled Ban Meng along and began to run.

“Waah!” Ban Meng’s piercing scream started again. Birds flew out from the treetops, startled.

Ban Meng saw the trees went past him in a breeze. The headwind was strong enough to keep his eyes from opening comfortably. He was utterly shocked!

Fast! They were too fast!

He shuddered. How could any human move so fast? This was faster than him in his Wood Kite. Moreover, the man leaping from tree to tree so deftly that it was just hard to believe.

Ban Meng could not describe his feelings right then. His mind drew a blank. Ye Chong carried him by the waist, so he was facing downwards. The ground drew close and retreated repeatedly as they advanced.

After a short while, he was beginning to feel nauseous, so he shut his eyes.

Gradually, he calmed down. He realized that the man was not actually aggressive. At the very least, he did not hurt him.

“Is it this one?”

Ban Meng opened his eyes and saw a huge river. It was about a hundred meters wide. The current was strong, bringing up waves on the banks. The river was lined with trees, and the shore was made up of weathered oval stones.

Ban Meng stared in disbelief. How was this possible? How were they already here at Raging Waters?

In Wood Kite, he would need at least two hours to reach this river. How did this man arrive here in half an hour? Was he using an aircraft?

Ban Meng’s eyes instinctively went to Ye Chong’s legs, and saw only a pair of daggers.

He looked back up at Ye Chong. The man’s face was still devoid of expression, as though the demanding journey did not affect him at all. Even his breathing was even.

“Is it this one?” Ye Chong looked calmly at Ban Meng and repeated his question.

Ban Meng’s eyes met Ye Chong’s, and his heart squeezed.

He was about to reply when Ye Chong seemed to notice something, then abruptly threw him to the side.

Ye Chong turned around quickly and looked.

In front of him was a strange animal that he had never seen before. It was the size of a cow, and had two red eyes that gleamed ferociously. Three legs supported its body, and one of it was stepping on a rock. On its head was a curved horn, black with rings of yellow on it. On its back was a tail, covered with spikes.

“A tribos!” Ban Meng cried with a trembling voice.

They were doomed! He never imagined they would encounter a tribos. This was sheer bad luck! Ban Meng felt hopeless. Only a full armed shooter could triumph against this fierce creature. The animal can move very quickly, and no human was a match against it.

The leg of the tribos that was stepping on a rock suddenly pushed, and the animal lunged at the man.

Ban Meng wanted to close his eyes, but he was not fast enough even for that.

What happened next happened so fast that he could not react in time to them.

The man’s figure blurred.

Strip! There was a soft but clear sound, like paper shredding.

The man appeared behind the tribos out of nowhere. Ban Meng did no see how he got there, even though his eyes never closed.

Splat! The tribos, which was already in midair during its lunge, fell heavily on the river bank.

The tribos lay on the river bank unmoving, like it was dead. From where Ban Meng was, he could see a thin line of blood on the tribos’ neck.

A few seconds later, blood sprayed out of the wound like a burst from a high pressure pipe. The pebbles on the bank were dyed red.

Ban Meng stroked his own neck unconsciously as he watched.

This incident was not even worth mentioning for Ye Chong. The so-called tribos was the typical example of an enemy that was all bark but no bite. Be it in terms of speed, strength or strategy, the creature was far more inferior compared to the red-tailed beast.

He walked to Ban Meng and said, “Where to next?”

So cool! That was so cool! Ban Meng could worship this man like he would a God. He believed that even their own expert shooters would not be able to kill a tribos so easily when unarmed.

An idol, definitely an idol! Ban Meng could see the halo above the man’s head.

Sweep! He felt a strong force moving him, and then he was sent flying.

Splash! He traced an arch in the air and landed in the river. All the fanciful thoughts he had were thrown out the window.

“Waaahh – Save me! There’s man-eating fish in here -”

…

They finally reached their destination.

Ye Chong looked up at the strange city before him.

The sky was busy with all kinds of aircrafts flying around. The aircrafts were odd. Even Ye Chong with all his experience with mechs had never seen anything like them. Some of the aircrafts looked like the one Ban Meng was in.

The people in the streets threw suspicious looks at Ye Chong.

Ye Chong was wearing something unusual. He was also carrying Ban Meng, who was drenched and covered with mud and grass. It was hard to go unnoticed like that. Ye Chong looked around him and realized the problem immediately.

“Where’s your house?” Ye Chong dumped Ban Meng on the ground.

“My house?” Ban Meng jerked like he was electrocuted. “What’re you thinking, man? Look, we don’t know each other very well. I answered everything you asked about, I cooperated, and didn’t give you any trouble. So why don’t you just let me go …”

Ban Meng was almost crying as he pleaded. Ye Chong’s actions informed had him that it was in his best interest to cooperate, and that was what he did. He was afraid that Ye Chong would harm his family, so he could only beg for mercy.

“I’ll be staying with you for awhile,” Ye Chong said, succinct as ever.

“Staying with me?” Ban Meng was surprised. He looked Ye Chong up and down, but found the man looking back without any sense of embarrassment at all. He recalled how strong the man was, and forced down whatever words of rejection he wanted to say.

“How long?” Ban Meng asked carefully, He would not want a troublemaker in his home. Besides, it would be hard to make him leave later.

Ye Chong thought about it for a moment. “Three months.”

“Three months!” That was too much for Ban Meng. “No way, bro, my family is poor. Why don’t you try asking the rich people? They have more than enough to spare, and with your abilities, I don’t think they’ll even think of rejecting you … ” Ban Meng was pleased at himself for coming up with that one. He was never one for being smooth with words. Perhaps the day’s adventure had triggered something in him.

Ye Chong said nothing. He only raised an eyebrow and eyed Ban Meng’s throat for a bit.

Ban Meng felt a chill that ran down to the depth of his soul. Visions of the tribos with its red eyes and bleeding neck came back to him, and he shuddered involuntarily.

Heavens! How could he have forgotten who he was dealing with?

Ban Mang panicked. This was his first time dealing with someone so strong, and did not know what to do now. However, he did not want to bring Ye Chong back to his house. The man spelt danger!

Ban Meng tried to speak up about it, but when he saw the man’s eyes turned colder and colder, he blurted out, “No problem! No problem at all!” The moment the words came out, Ban Meng wanted to slap himself.

“Lead the way,” Ye Chong said without expression and turned away, his eyes flashing with a hint of mischief. The truth was, if the young man had really rejected him, Ye Chong would not really kill him. He would make him suffer a bit, though.

Ye Chong suddenly felt like he was one of those antagonists in the movies that Shang told him about. This made him miss Shang again. The mech was annoying like hell, but Ye Chong thought of Mu and Shang like his brothers. No one would hate their own sibling for being annoying.

“I wonder how they’re doing?” Ye Chong wondered with a sigh.

Shang had ordered for the entire fleet to land on Spectre. Ye Chong had vanished from the base, so the source of the problem must be around there somewhere. Shang would not leave without getting some answers.

Besides, the underground city had plenty of resources and was well hidden. It was perfect for their hideout.

Shang had also ordered for the remains of the mechs and red-tailed beasts on Spectre to be dealt with. After a sandstorm, all traces of the battle between both sides were gone.

The widely praised fleet led by Jay vanished silently, just like that. People thought that they perished in the Calamitous Asteroid Belt.

Arwa’s fleet survived the Calamitous Asteroid Belt. Although his fleet suffered heavily, it did not stop him from becoming a legend!

Many people requested to join his fleet, and his reputation rose to a whole new level.

He did not know that right after he made the warp jump, a group of people were hidden on the nearby Planet Spectre, watching their every move.

Everyone thought that Jay, a man who could potentially become a legend, had vanished along with his mysterious fleet in the vast expanse of outer space.

Who knew when they would reappear again?

Ban Meng led the way listlessly, ignoring the strange looks he was getting from the people on the streets.

“As long as you cooperate, your family will be safe,” Ye Chong said plainly. His abilities backed his words.

Ban Meng jolted in reassurance, but quickly lost his optimism. He cursed inside, “F*ck, my family be safer if you’re not around!”

He did not say them out loud, however. He led the way with a slouch.

Ye Chong studied his surroundings with interest. Everything here was new to him. He saw no metals around him. Most of the things were made of wood. As a result, the buildings were not tall. Most of them reached up to three storeys only.

“Why is there no metal here?” Ye Chong asked Ban Meng.

Ban Meng replied offhandedly, “Metal? What’s that?”

Ye Chong had nothing to say to that. He considered the problem, and held out his dagger for Ban Meng to see, “Something like this.”

“They’re heavy!” Ban Meng took the daggers and studied them closely. “This dagger’s material is strange, so heavy …” He put this hand to the sharp edge of the dagger.

Ye Chong wanted to warn him, but he was too late.

A drop of blood bled out from his finger. He hissed. “It’s sharp!”

“What is this? Why is it so sharp?” Ban Meng looked more lively now and asked Ye Chong curiously.

“You’ve never seen it before?” Ye Chong asked.

“No, never,” Ban Meng replied with certainty.

Were there really no metals around here? Ye Chong found it incomprehensible. Metals are everywhere. Even Archipelago, the secluded backwater, had metals. How could there be no metals here? Was it because there were no metal ores, or because the people here had not learned how to extract metals from the ores?

s Ye Chong considered the issue, he saw Ban Mang toying his dagger with great interest. He said calmly, “The dagger, you can have it.”

“Really?” Ban Meng was overjoyed.

“Yes.” Ye Chong still wore an emotionless expression, but Ban Meng felt like kissing the man. Ye Chong’s daggers were not top of the line, but were in fact only extras. Guardian’s daggers were first class, but since he had given Guardian to Rui Bing, he could not possibly keep the daggers for himself.

“Then what do you use for cutting here?”

“Laser blades.” Ban Meng now had a different impression of Ye Chong. The latter looked like a careless man, but was in fact quite observant. Since he gifted him such a precious item, the man must not mean harm to him, else he would not have offered this unnecessary gesture. After all, their different in strength was too great. Ban Meng now paid more attention to Ye Chong’s questions, but he could not help but wonder – did this man know nothing at all?

“Laser blades? Let me see one.”

Ban Meng fished out a block that was about two fingers wide.

Ye Chong took it and studied the thing. His fingers wrapped comfortably around the block, which was probably made of some kind of unknown type of wood. The block was about 10 centimeters long, and a centimeter thick. It was in a light green color, with a hook on one end and a green colored rock near it. On the other end was a red button.

This was a laser sword!

Ye Chong recognized it instantly. The green rock must be the energy source, while the red button would activate the sword. Ye Chong pressed the red button. As expected, a white colored laser shot out from the other end, long and thin like a sword.

The white laser sword looked solid. The edges of the laser were well defined.

Ye Chong crouched down and traced the laser blade lightly on the ground. He did not feel any resistance in his hand, but the ground already had a deep mark in it.

What a powerful laser sword! Ye Chong’s face betrayed nothing, but he was shocked inside.

Laser swords were not exactly high tech stuff. Ye Chong had used them before. Nevertheless, there were technical difficulties with making them, such as controlling the energy channelled into the weapon and the focusing of this energy. The more focused the laser energy was, the clearer the edges of the laser sword. This would result in better and cleaner cutting results.

These technical difficulties had long plagued the improvement of laser swords. Based on what Ye Chong knew, no laser sword could be focused so accurately. This was why most advanced mechs preferred ally swords instead of their laser counterparts.

Besides, when laser swords were used in battle, the materialized laser blade itself could be unstable. However, when Ye Chong tried to cut the ground with the laser blade he had, the blade did not waver at all.

This was a highly advanced laser blade!

“Hey, you two, you’re destroying public property. That’s a penalty of 30 ao!” An old woman in a red shirt approached them menacingly.

Ye Chong turned and looked at the old lady.

Ban Meng could feel his head explode. Heavens! How could he be so careless? This old lady’s going to die! If the man was offended, then …

Ban Meng could see the bloody aftermath in his head. Blood would color the streets today.

“Whatcha looking at? What? You gonna argue? Lemme tell ya, this grandma’s been here on the streets since 30 years ago, hehe, and I’ve never seen anyone make trouble here! You’re too young to mess with me, little boys,” the old woman glared at them as she pulled up her sleeves, showing the tattoo of a green dragon on the wrinkled skin of her arms.

Fck! They’re truly fcked now! Ban Meng lost all hope he had. He knew that the stranger from the woods was not open for negotiations. The tribos was killed like it cost him nothing. How would he stand being scolded like this? The legendary characters of great strength had always killed whenever it pleased them. They treated life like it was worth nothing at all.

If this man started a massacre, his life was over! Heavens, whichever deity was listening, please save him!

“Money, get your money.”

Ban Meng kept his eyes shut. He dared not watch. It would turn bloody, for sure.

“Get your money!”

Huh, wasn’t that the voice of that cold hearted man? Ban Meng realized, and opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was Ye Chong tilting his head at him and calmly signalling for him to pay up.

The old woman was still glaring at them. Ban Meng quickly said, “Alright alright alright! Money! Money!” Ban Meng quickly took them out of his wallet.

It was unexpected, really, that the man was actually not as bad as he thought. Ban Meng had heard of how famous experts usually a bad temper and would intimidate the weak.

“Hmph, that’s more like it,” the old woman snatched the money off Ban Meng’s hands and stuffed a penalty ticket into them.

Ye Chong did not seem to be perturbed by the incident. He turned to Ban Meng and said, “Let’s go.”

Ban Meng stole glances at Ye Chong as they made their way to the former’s house. He could not figure out the cold stranger.

The two of them travelled the rest of journey in silence.

“Well, here we are,” Ban Meng said in a whisper. It was a three-storey building, with a courtyard about 200 square meters wide.

Ban Meng pushed through the door and announced, “I’m back.”

“Meng Meng is back! Why’re you back so late today?” A woman’s voice asked from inside the house. She came to the door, and turned out ot be a beautiful middle aged woman. She wore an apron, with her hair tied up into a high bun. She was surprised to see Ban Meng’s sorry state. “What happened? Weren’t you flying with your Wood Kite today? How’d you end up like this? Did something go wrong while you’re flying?”

“That d*mned store keeper, he sold me a spoiled one, it disassembled while I was in the air!

Ban Meng explained through gritted teeth. He did no know that his Wood Kite was destroyed by the cold man behind him.

“Long as you’re okay!” Ban Meng’s mother got a small towel to clean his face.

When she was done, she noticed Ye Chong. “This is …”

“He’s a classmate. His parents are outstation, so I asked him to stay with us in the meantime.” Ban Meng lied easily with his eyes open. Ye Chong was surprised.

“Aunty,” Ye Chong greeted her politely.

“Come in, come in! We’ll gladly have you, make yourself at home, don’t be shy!” Ban Meng’s mother had never seen his strange outfit before, but she greeted Ye Chong warmly. Ye Chong’s expression had changed by then. The lines on his face no longer looked so cold and hard. Instead, his face had softened, and his lanky figure gave the impression of a bookish young man.

Ban Meng stared a Ye Chong in disbelief. He could not understand how the cold stranger could conjure up this image of a meek young man, like he was simply harmless.

Ye Chong ignored the stare he was getting from Ban Meng and followed the latter’s mother into the house.

It was hard to discern if the furnishings in the house were of what quality or style, and Ye Chong could only ignore all the unfamiliar things lying around. Now was not the time to investigate them.

He sat quietly like a well behaved young man.

Dinner was sumptuous. Ban Meng’s father was always busy with work, so he ate with some haste.

They gave Ye Chong a room of his own.

When it was only him and Ban Meng together upstairs, Ye Chong quickly pulled Ban Meng into his room. It was only then that Ban Meng saw traces of the man who could kill a man, no, kill a tribos, without blinking.

“What do you want?” Ban Meng tried to stay calm.

“I have a question,” the meek young man now looked like the cold stranger he first came to know.

“What is it?”

Well, where should he even begin? Ye Chong was troubled. Everything here was unfamiliar to him. He remembered Ban Meng’s Wood Kit then, and thought – safety first!

First, he needed to know who or what could pose a threat to him.

“Who’s the strongest person here?”

“Strongest? You mean Yedda. Well, let me think, it should be Duo Ka. He’s a Level 6 shooter!” Ban Meng said uncertainly after some thought.

“Shooter? What’s a shooter?” Ye Chong continued with his questions.

“Heavens, boss, are you from outer space? Don’t you know what a shooter is?” Ban Meng shouted unnecessarily loudly. He quickly quieted down at Ye chong’s raised eyebrow.

“Err, how do I explain a shooter? Shooters, they have the strongest parapsychic control. They shoot without missing, the strongest warriors in the world,” Ban Meng explained the best he could.

Ye Chong had an inkling now. They were long range fighters. It should not be surprising, given how advanced they were in laser tech. Ye Chong frowned at the thought, however. If their laser tech was so advanced, their laser guns must be very powerful. Close range mech pilots dreaded the threat posed by long range mechs and their weapons.

What was parapsychic control, though?

“What is a parapsychic, hmm, how should I put it? If you have parapsychic abilities, you can use it to control aircrafts and even weapons.” Ban Meng waved around as he explained, but did not quite explain the concept.

“Demonstrate it for me,” Ye Chong said.

Ban Meng blushed at his own incompetence in parapsychic control, and said with difficulty, “My – my parapsychic sense is too weak.”

“I see,” Ye Chong switched topics, “Do you have weapons here?”

“Weapons?” Ban Meng jolted in surprised. “What are you planning?”

“I want to see them.” Ye Chong thought Ban Meng’s overreaction was weird.

“I don’t even have the lowest level flying license, how can I have any weapons? To own a weapon, you have to obtain at least an intermediate level flying license. Your parapsychic control must also be above Level 4. More powerful weapons will have stricter requirements,” Ban Meng explained.

“Where can we get the weapons?” Ye Chong asked.

Ban Meng shook his head. “You don’t have a license, people won’t even sell them to you.”

“I can steal,” Ye Chong said easily. He was surprised that weaponry was controlled strictly here. Where he came from, mechs could be bought anywhere and by anyone.

Poor Ban Meng looked pale. He swallowed heavily and said, “You really shouldn’t. Every weapons store has a judiciary police station right beside them. The officers are all very strong. Criminals are shot to shreds the moment they come close.”

“If that’s the case, we’ll need to plan accordingly,” Ye Chong seemed to consider the possibility.

A madman! Definitely a madman! If this man really went to rob the weapons store, they will be in big trouble! Ban Meng quickly said, “No need to rush! I have a friend with single barrel heatgun, I’ll show you tomorrow.”

Ye Chong thought about that for a moment, then nodded, “Alright.”

“What level is the Wood Kite that you flew today?” Ye Chong thought of something else.

Ban Meng blushed again “The lowest.”

Ye Chong nodded, thinking through the facts. The local technology was indeed unique. Even the lowest level aircraft could only be disassembled by his shuriken attack, and not be blown to bits. Ye Chong did not underestimate the Wood Kite or the laser blade he saw. On the contrary, he treated them cautiously. He did not know what else in this unfamiliar place could threaten him.

Besides, he still did not quite the whole parapsychic thing that Ban Meng talked about.

“Get some rest.” Ye Chong’s words sounded like a grant of mercy to Ban Meng.

(The next day.)

School, to Ye Chong, was a place that was much easier to understand.

They looked about the same no matter where he went. This particular school was not too big, but Ye Chong could see all kinds of aircrafts here. He could tell from Ban Meng talked about it that this school was only an average one, neither at the top nor at the bottom in ranking.

He also noticed the way many students were giving Ban Meng mocking or condescending looks.

“Do they not like you?” Ye Chong asked.

“Probably,” Ban Meng answered with affected casualness.

“Why?”

“No reason, other than the fact that I want to be a pilot despite being weak in parapsychic control.” Ban Meng was used to his situation already, but Ye Chong could still make out the disappointment he felt in his voice.

“Why not switch careers? You’re more suitable for combat,” Ye Chong suggested.

“Combat? What use is there for combat? It’s a useless skill,” Ban Meng said disapprovingly.

Useless? Ye Chong thought that was a strange assessment. Combat was not useless. Even in the Five Galaxies where the profession was slowly disappearing, combat experts were still recognized as a treat for mech pilots. He Yue’s Ye Family and the Sang Tribe were even famous because of their combat expertise. In the free space zone, combat and alchemy were the two most mainstream professions. This was the first time he had heard of combat being described as useless.

“Who told you that?”

“Everyone in the world knows it. Parapsychic control is the only measure of one’s true strength. People without parapsychic control are useless,” Ban Meng shook his head and said with confidence, “The weakest student club we have in school is the combat association. Hehe, it has only three members. Anyone from the shooting club can win against all three of them single-handedly.”

Ye Chong did not bother to argue for the advantages of combat.

Ye Chong followed Ban Meng into his class, and Ban Meng could only go with the flow. The cold man would not follow his advice just yet. Ban Meng’s classmates saw him bring a stranger into class, and threw him looks of bafflement. Ban Meng could only brace himself and ignored them.

“Hey, lil’ Ban Ban, you brought a friend?” A guy with a weird hairstyle approached them. On his scalp was a strip of hair running in the center from the front to back. The look he gave Ban Meng was not friendly.

The guy turned to Ye Chong looked him over. “I say, brother, why’re you with this piece of sht? You a piece of sht too?”

The class roared with laughter at that, and Ban Meng’s face flushed.

Ye Chong looked like a bookish, meek student by all means. No one would have guessed the strength he had in him.

“Watch your words, Duo Fei! Don’t think you’re so great just because your dad’s a Level 6 shooter, you’re just relying on your old man’s reputation!” Ban Meng talked back with a red face.

Duo Fei’s father was Duo Ka, the only Level 6 shooter in Yedda city. Duo Fei had always been proud since he was young, and did not like people suggesting how he was only relying on his father. Duo Fei smiled coldly, “Okay, Ban Meng, I see that you’ve forgotten your place in the short time since we’ve last met. Hehe.”

He walked away with a cold smile after that.

The other students in class watched Ban Meng in surprise. They never imagined that Ban Meng would actually talk back, given his usual submissive behaviour. Little did they know that Ban Meng was actually afraid that the ignorant people around him would offend the ruthless stranger, so he went out of his way to prevent that from happening.

Ye Chong and Ban Meng sat in the last row. Ye Chong was not interested in such childish confrontations, much less be offended by them. The way he saw it, if you had a problem with someone, you should just take him out, simple as that. A battle with words had no practical value.

“Why didn’t you just fight him?” Ye Chong asked Ban Meng, and added, “You don’t have to look out for me.”

“Of course I wasn’t looking out for you!” Ban Meng cursed inside. Not even everyone in the class combined was enough to bring down this man. Ban Meng was afraid that Ye Chong would kill everyone in school. He would be in so much trouble if that happened.

“He’ll lose if he fights you,” Ye Chong deduced from the two student’s physical outlook.

“What’s the use of fighting? He has a license, and weapons. It’ll be easy for him to kill me,” Ban Meng said, disagreeing with Ye Chong.

“Then you should kill him first.” Ye Chong’s words were a chilling reminder to Ban Meng that his decision to interfere earlier was the right one. This man had probably killed people, repeatedly.

The teacher entered the class right then. He was looked like an average joe, middle-aged.

The teacher did not so much as glanced at Ban Meng and his new friend before starting the class.

Today’s class was on some techniques in parapsychic control.

Ye Chong listened in for a while before realizing what parapsychic control actually was. Parapsychic control was very similar to the mental skills that mentalists had. Parapsychic control focused on concentration, but mentalist training emphasized more on a diffused way of mental control. Nevertheless, the two operated on the same principles.

Knowing this, Ye Chong felt that he should be even more careful now. It was hard to predict the powers of skillful mentalists. He knew this from experience. How difficult would it be to fight against a professionally trained combatant with mental abilities like these? Ye Chong could not be sure.

This was a very dangerous world. He should lay low and stay inconspicuous – that was Ye Chong’s first conclusion.

quot;Student next to Ban Meng,” said the teacher as the sharp eyes zapped to Ye Chong’s side abruptly, “Answer the question : Is Tertiary Control the optimum choice of all controlling methods? Justify your answer.”

Ye Chong collected his thoughts and gave his answer gradually, “No, I believe it is not, as Tertiary Control, despite its advantage of multiple connective control, is not as superior as Primary Control in terms of concentration and liberty, but I believe Tertiary Control is unique in its own way…,” Ye Chong’s voice trailed off.

Ban Mang’s eyes were wide as his jaw. The students were astounded, even Duo Fei had a brief astonishment in his disdain.

“Right. Your understanding might be slightly different from the textbook answers, but you managed to provide us a brand new angle on this issue. Impressive,”complimented the teacher.

Ye Chong sat down calmly.

“How the hell did you know that? You told me you don’t know parapsychic at all!” ranted Ban Meng the moment Ye Chong got himself seated.

Keep acting! Keep acting you pretentious snob!

Glared Ban Meng.

“I just so happened to know it,” replied Ye Chong casually. It was Huang Baiyi’s works, he wanted a fitting apprentice to be his successor after all. It was a shame that Ye Chong did not have the necessary talent and more importantly, the interests to master the neurokine studies, even though Huang Baiyi pumped everything he had discovered all these years right into Ye Chong’s head. So Ye Chong was technically a genius on paper, but not in the neurokine battlefield.

School day was long and it was finally over. Throughout the whole day, Ye Chong seemed to be the dead serious student compared to Ban Meng. Other than the occasional antisocial moments as he interacted with the other students, Ye Chong appeared to be the expert in other fields. It usually only took a keyword from the teacher before he made pronounced association with the technological system he had learned for years.

One’s unfamiliarity in a field was mostly due to the lack of association, the crossing point between two different systems, like technology and culture for example. Once the point had been found, Ye Chong had a much better understanding on the rules and regulations here.

Well, the most helpful, as well as the most essential information should be the location – where exactly was Ye Chong? And how was he supposed to get back to He Yue from here? The classes were not a problem to Ye Chong but he had to get home one day.

He gave it a thought and felt great suspicion of that black disc, the distortion disc, the odd “spatial window phenomena” Kui claimed. But how did it work? He had been walking around the edge for long yet something just had to happen at the worst timing.

There must be something going on in there.

Unfortunately, Ye Chong was not gifted in Space Science. The long chain reaction of Physics formula were beyond his comprehension.

So there remained one sole task at the moment – he had to make himself a part of this place, as soon as possible, to ensure his survival before he made it back to He Yue at least. Then from there he would begin plotting an actual escape plan or perhaps trying to contact Mu/Shang.

The class bell was wailing.

“Come, I’ll show you the weapons,” said Ban Meng, a little relaxed upon seeing the hyperactive child beside him acting normal today.

“Mhm.” Ye Chong got up and followed Ban Meng to the otuisde.

“Hmph.” Duo Fei did not seem pleased of the two boys getting along.

…

Sauntering on the street, Ye Chong was seemingly serene, without that panicked look-a-round when he first arrived at this city. Ban Meng, meanwhile, was ahead of him, appeared to be pondering as his head lowered.

“Yup, we are here.” They were at a rather quiet corner of the city. There was a lawn, or perhaps a garden, an isolated ground from the hustles and bustles.

That was when Ye Chong felt something.

Beep!

A silver crane flew towards them!

Light grenades showered the ground.

Ye Chong squinted his eyes as time began flowing slow. The world had become a slow-motion, the sound of light grenades faded out as his gaze converged upon the flying crane, on which fine linings like a spiderweb were formed.

The Jie expert was leading the show today.

That was Ye Chong’s exclusive move.

He could discern every firing in his eyes, the orbits, the shapes – traveling like a logical, mathematical calculation before him.

The spiderweb vanished upon the breeze and his pupils relaxed.

Boom! Crash! Boom!

The grenades bombarded the surrounding, veiling up the dust, smudging choking the two boys.

“Duo Fei! Dang it!” said Ban Meng angrily. He recognized that crane! The Silver Arrow! He knew Duo Fei would seek revenge for the humiliation he got today!

Good-for-nothing boy is sure good-for-nothing.

Thought Ye Chong as he looked at the silver crane.

Like really, if you have problem with Ban Meng or me, why don’t you just get down and fight immediately? Save both parties’ time, plus, this method of assassination could do barely a thing to us.

Ye Chong did not really perform evasion, since as he had said, he would be hardly hurt by these grenade showers. Moreover, the smudge would give him a good camouflage.

“Which silly brat is messing up MY place?” The thunderous voice bombarded , as a beauty with brownish long hair stood with a stomp behind them. She was wearing a leather camisole, revealing the bouncy pairs as well as the fair, lean long legs which contributed to her enchanting curves in that tight apparel. The crimson lips were clipping a lighted cigarette as her slim arm wielded a broad tube about her height.

“Ugh!” She spat the cigarette, as she lifted the clearly heavy tube over her shoulders. Her eyes were glaring like an owl.

“Get the hell down here, right now!”

And a beam was fired from the tube, all the way towards Duo Fei’s crane.

Meanwhile, Duo Fei was still in his triumphalism from the victory of social service of putting the trash at the right place, as his smiley eyes fixed upon the dirty face of Ban Meng. “Sometimes trash needs to learn his place,” he muttered as he was going to pilot the crane away.

But who knew? A broad beam just passed the right wing of the crane.

Duo Fei, upon the sound of explosion, looked at the ground.

Holy Dopamine! A woman was lifting a fearsome looking cannon, cussing him in the worst anger he could imagine.

A hand-carried single barrel light cannon? That was real heavy firearm! Silver Arrow would be joining the ground if it got hit by that blast!

Duo Fei frantically accelerated his crane and ran away.

Geez! Why are there so many lunatics on the street today? Duo Fei seriously begged for a wormhole to send him somewhere lightyears away.

“Dang it. It’s been so long that my sense got numb. I actually missed that b*stard!” cursed the beauty as she slammed the cannon to the ground.

Crash! The ground cracked like the aftermath of a meteorite fall. One should be able to imagine the weight of that handheld whale now.

“So why is this twerp here?” said she, ignoring Ban Ming, her eyes focused on Ye Chong.

“My cousin, my beloved sis, I am just inviting my friend to see your masterpieces. He has passion for weaponry,” said Ban Meng.

Yes, that was Ban Feng’s cousin, named Kristen.

“This twerp?” Kristen did not sound impressed, “You are telling that this pea-sized kiddo wants to check out my weapon? With the breadth of his arm he can’t even hold hand of a lady throughout a Sunday movie night, and he wants to hold a cannon? You’re kidding me, right?”

She approached Ye Chong, in a confrontational manner, “Kiddo, go play with your action figure or something. These weapons are dangerous.”

And Ye Chong could feel an aroma crawling into his nose.

Well, it appeared that the lass did not intend to let Ye Chong in, so he began pondering… he thought about a way to go in, whether the simple way or the complicated way.

Mhmm, he seemed to fancy the complexity better, since well… the simple, straightforward manner of him doing things always got him in the way eventually.

“I believe it could be appropriate to recognize the requirement of matching the weapon-type to its user’s physique but I also believe there is no absolute correlation between them,” said Ye Chong, like a bookworm on an academic debate.

“Oh c’mon sis, you got to show us,” pleaded Ban Meng, simply because he did not want the walking bomb beside him to blow up at the moment.

“You seem to know something, eh, twerp. Why don’t you get free huggies from me, awww you cute little thing!” Kristen, ignored her cousin again, reached out to Ye Chong, feeling like to squeeze the little boy into her gorgeous spheres.

And Ye Chong quickly took a step back, dodging the seductive grip of Kristen.

“Oh?” Kristen seemed impressed, “I did not expect you to be a platonic lover. I like you,” said Kristen as her arms wrapped upon her spheres, with a suggestive smile, “Well, if you want to view my weapons, it’s all here. As long as you behave… for starters, lifting this with one arm, like me?” She pointed the ground-shattering cannon she used just now, Kristen gave Ye Chong a proposition.

“This?” Ye Chong tilted his head.

“Yes, this. I love strong man who could lift things like a superhero.” She winked, the smile had brewed into something else…

Hah! Of course this. I can’t be asking you to lift me a toothpick. Nerds like you will never be able to lift this cannon. It’s a heavy firearm about 150 kg, probably thrice of your weight, which only beefy men could wield fine, or maybe a monster like myself. Please, Ban Meng, if you want to bring guests over, bring the real deal alright? At least the boy is cute, let me teach him some lesson.

Ye Chong walked towards the cannon and bowed. He did not lift it right away, instead he gave a careful observation first.

It was indeed a powerful cannon, but it lacked dexterity, as well as the necessary frequency to make it applicable in all war scenes.

That was Ye Chong’s comment.

Meanwhile, Kristen was waiting that drama to happen, as she looked at Ye Chong. She presumed that quiet staring by this boy a clear sign of lack of confidence.

After analyzing the strength of the weapon, Ye Chong already had a judgement in his mind. He reached his hand upon the cannon. A simple lift, “Is this what you want?” He looked at Kristen, he did it.

Kristen almost lost her eyeballs as astonished by the scene, “H-h-h-how???”

Ban Meng sneered, the indifferent boy was pretty strong alright? His cousin would soon face doom.

Ye Chong stared at Kristen calmly, contrary to how Kristen looked at him like a monster. Well, Ye Chong was confused of the meaning of the trial since 150kg was not considered lightweight but not exactly super heavy either. In He Yue galaxy, almost everyone could lift such weight, especially the Sangs, who probably could lift it like a school bag.

So why the shock? Ye Chong was bewildered.

“Oh my lord, so you’re actually an expert. I can’t believe my eyes would fail me one day.” A mocking smile from Kristen, her face cold like the hail. Towards the drastic expression change, Ye Chong was still calm, with the cannon in his grip.

“Fine,” she said and gave an unfriendly stare, “Come in.” And she led the guests in.

The whole room was filled with different weapons.

“Look, once broken considered sold,” said Kristen coldly, which after that she stormed out of the room. She still had works to do on her desk outside, as she put on her blue working uniform and a cap.

Ye Chong was having fun touring the never-before-seen weapons before him, while Ban Meng had nothing else better to do than sitting at his reserved quiet corner.

Ye Chong picked a weapon up and very soon after he placed it back.

After moment, he had a conclusion in his mind. These weapons were all wooden. Though it might sound unimpressive compared to the metallic giants out there, these wooden weapons were not toys. They seemed to be made out of extraordinary woods… which bestowed them excellent physical attributes almost competent as the alloys and they all prominently shared a characteristic – a great compatibility with energy condensation.

So probably that was why these energy firearms were all wooden. And yes, Ye Chong did not miss any weapon. There was in fact no metallic weapon inside the room. Well, it was a little odd, did the place produce no metal at all? He felt like investigating this at some point.

He was presented with an array of energy firearms but Ye Chong had hardly used one before. He did craft it once, Farqua for Mu/Shang was his work, though under Mu/Shang’s supervision. That session alone was sufficient to educate him the very basic of energy firearm.

The structure of such weaponry was not complex yet it produced amazing projectile. He was not sure if it was because of the characteristics of these woods, but these firearms did appear to be much smaller than he imagined while they also used a kind of partially opaque crystallization as the energy source. Ye Chong had never seen such crystallization before. Although the energy content was far lower than Teardrops, it was far greater than the batteries used in the armory of ships from both Five Galaxies and He Yue Galaxy.

Such a strange place…

e Chong could not help but to shake his head. Design-wise, there was nothing particularly stunning about the these energy based weapons. The striking performance should be because of its superior materials. And regarding those, to be frank, Ye Chong had never seen such bizarre-looking woods and crystallization, while they did convince Ye Chong that they could be the best candidates to produce energy based weapons.

Nevertheless, he felt it was a total waste of decent materials when they were used to make such weapon type, especially when the design was poor to begin with. It was never humanistic to begin with. It looked crude, there was not even an aiming assisting device installed on every weapon. No wonder they were meant for spiritual shooters, nobody could aim their arrows even at a giant without neurokinetic aids.

Certainly the marksmen well-trained on their parapsychic would be perfect for this overly innovative weapon. They would need no assisting device in aiming. Their powerful spirits would be more than enough to help them reveal the enemies within the proximity at the shortest time possible, while producing firing at a humbly 100% accuracy.

But that was only if the enemies were within the proximity.

How about a distance farther away from their proximity?

Ye Chong had always been fighting in the galaxies, where wars between spaceships and mechs in the void were so far the most common, in which each unit would be easily over few hundreds, even thousands kilometers away from each other. Would this weapon-design be practical? He remembered Huang Baiyi once taught him that, the chance of somebody expanding their parapsychic senses hundreds meters beyond their proximity would be hardly 1 / 120,000,000. Even the teacher himself could only sense things at most 60 kilometers away from him.

Well, perhaps, the Mentalists here might be godlike but only godlike. They could have performance like a god but they were still human and there would always be a limit in the anatomy, a slope hindering the growth at a point, where it would be too hard to further improve their spiritual sensitivity.

Furthermore, the designer should be focused on maintaining the performance of the weapon while minimizing the demand on the user’s mastery, or the weapon would have no point to exist. It was the thumb rule that every weapon designer should abide by. No use of create a giant toothpick that was too hard to use.

“Mhm? Not of your taste eh?” ridiculed Kristen, which shocked Ban Meng awake.

Ye Chong did not lift his head, he just gently placed the weapon down. “Just checking it out a little,” he said.

That was when someone came to knock on the door.

“Who the-” Kristen frowned as she stormed towards the door.

“Greetings, Ms. Kristen,” greeted a man with his partner. The man was in a dark-green patterned skirt, standing next to a lady in a pretty chivalrous attire.

Kristen’s brows loosened, “Mr. Mo, what brought you here?” Mr. Mo was a wealthy merchant, well-known for his gentle and courteous nature in the city.

“Ms. Kristen.” Mr. Mo smiled, “This… is a friend of mine. She just got back from the Mist, well you see, she might have gotten back alive, but her weapon was damaged during a fight with the beast. So she wishes to get a fitting weapon from a talented designer, so we came to you, Ms. Kristen, you are known for your god-given hands. I hope our visit did not cause you any inconvenience.”

“Hmm…” Kristen gave a nod, “Well, if it’s Mr. Mo’s friend, then it’s my friend too. No problem. Well, all these are available, take any you like. But before that, as you know, I don’t do purchases here. I only do trades. So you’ll need something special to exchange.”

Mr.Mo took a look at the lady next to him, who nodded as she replied, “Alright, I wonder if you are interested in the amapolla wood…” Her voice was hoarse and deep.

“Amapolla?” There was glow in Kristen’s eyes, “Okay, no problem. Pick anything you like.”

The lady nodded and began browsing the weapons on the rack in silence.

She had rapid eyes, it was as if she was seeking that fateful moment of connection with one particular weapon among the crowd, instead of actually inspecting them. Well she did take a few of them to have a look but she, like Ye Chong, would place it down right after. A few minutes lapsed and she looked at Kristen.

“That’s all you have?” She sounded disappointed.

“Uhhh…” Kristen halted for a moment, “Sec.” She walked to the other room and brought out a few boxes onto the table, “These are the precious of my works. Some of them were my old masterpieces.” She opened up the boxes and the lady expressionlessly moved to the table.

This time, instead of a quick window shopping, she gave a careful inspection on every piece. She would give a grip, a brandish, a caress before placing them down. 10 minutes lapsed, “Well, you have good weapons but they do not fit my hands well,” she shook.

Kristen was feeling helpless. She would love to grab that amapolla wood but it was very difficult for a shooter to get a weapon that felt nice to the grip. It almost felt like a real need of fate or fortune sometimes. Nothing technical there.

“Is there… anything else?” asked the lady as she looked at Kristen with expectations. Those masterpieces were indeed excellence so she seemed more interested now. She was truly in need of a fitting weapon.

Kristen wanted to shake her head and cancel this deal remorsefully but something came into her mind – that imagery where this strange boy also shook his head upon seeing her crafts. Perhaps…?

“I’m sorry. I have no other weapons here.”

“I see…” The lady was literally disappointed, “Well, can’t help it I guess. At least I manage to behold these masterpieces today.”

“BUT!” The tone changed drastically on Kristen.

“Ms. Kristen, do you happen to have one more thing in the drawer?” The lady returned to her attentive self.

“Perhaps, he could help you out,” said Kristen, with her finger pointed at Ye Chong.

Wow, poor boy.

Ban Meng was terrified by Kristen’s behavior. It seemed like she got a new target to shoot, and it was the cold-hearted man too. Someone would be hurt, really soon.

The lady looked at Ye Chong in bewilderment, “You mean… this young man?”

“Yes. This young man seems to have a unique understanding on weaponry. Perhaps he could give some help,” said Kristen.

Ye Chong was not astonished by the plot twist. His expression remained frozen. And it was this frozen expression that convinced the lady that maybe the young man was in fact a master craftsman in disguise.

“Hello, sir. I wonder if you could help me out?” she asked, with a formal bow upon Ye Chong.

“How much?” asked Ye Chong after a moment of consideration with his head tilted, “How much is amapolla wood?”

It was an unexpected question which resulted a total dead silence in the next 30 seconds.

It was unexpected because a real professional craftsman would not ask such silly question. Premium materials like amapolla wood were obviously something that not a man could afford simply because he had enough money for it. No mechanic would ask a question like this! Only an outsider, a novice, a layman would question the value of amapolla.

Like really, if he doesn’t know the value of amapolla, how would he possibly be a good craftsman?

That was what everyone had in mind.

“Well.” Kristen was the first to react, she said, “If you could get that piece of wood, I’m willing to buy it with 1,000,000 Ao.”

Hmm… sounds expensive?

Ye Chong lacked the concept of the value of Ao but it looked like a colossal amount. He did need more pennies in his wallet, compared to some precious piece of wood from nowhere, considering how he had a full inventory of premium materials in his ring.

“Okay,” said Ye Chong.

The girl, upon realizing the whole intention of Kristen’s little gesture, could feel the blood fading away from her cheeks. The atmosphere was cold, as her eyes popped at Kristen.

Kristen too had a pale expression, with regrets tinting her face. She could sense it! The upheaval in the atmosphere, the brewing blizzard, this lady, she must be an expert, at least a Level 5! Only somebody Level 5 and above could exert such pressure! She was playing with fire the whole time?!

Ban Meng was looking for a rathole at the corner just to make sure he could run away in time.

Mr. Mo was calm, as expected from a merchant, but there was somebody else, unaffected by the storm.

That was Ye Chong.

Mr. Mo was naturally unaffected since he was in a kind of association with the lady. But Ye Chong? The boy who did not even comprehend the value of amapolla wood was actually feeling nothing in the atmosphere?

The lady was finding this boy strange as she withdrew her expression.

The atmosphere lightened, as calming as before.

“I would need to borrow the facilities here, the materials too,” said Ye Chong.

“Alright.” Before Kristen the owner could give her approval, the girl had already nodded her head and replied. She then glanced at Kristen who acted like a poor scalded kitten by then.

“Any requirements for your weapon?” asked Ye Chong.

“Penetrability. High frequency of shooting, with sufficient accuracy. Adaptability in different climates,” she stated her requirements.

“What about sizes? The weight?”

“Not too huge, preferred it portable, a weight less than 40kg.”

“Are you left or right-handed?”

“Left! I’m left-handed!” The lady sounded a little excited now, well that was probably why she could not find a fitting weapon without a hassle. She was left-handed and weapons for left-handed person were hard to find to begin with.

“Lay both of hands, with arms wide spread.”

The lady obeyed the request and spread her arms across, “Alright, done,” said Ye Chong after a quick glance.

Kristen was stunned by the conversation between this layman-looking boy and this clearly talented shooter. She never imagined of having such inquiry before a purchase. She usually just made whatever that popped up in her mind and placed the products on the rack for the customers to choose.

Ye Chong went to Kristen’s seat before. He would need the materials here.

His gaze first laid upon a pale blue stick on the table, about 90 centimeters long, with white glitters across the body. He observed that most weapons on the rack were made out of such wood.

Well, be it the name or the functionality of these materials on the table, Ye Chong had zero knowledge regarding them. So he played safe anyway, starting from the common material.

The lady was not impressed by his choice. Speckled blue fir was a pretty common wood in the market, almost every standard weapon was made out of such wood. There was hardly any advanced, premium weapon when this wood was involved, since its tolerance towards energy firing was not high, so it would work like a toy, to be frank.

Ye Chong was silently calm.

He was not aware of the capacity of this piece of wood, so he intended to first figure out the maximum energy tolerance of this wood. The method would be simple, obviously he had to carry out an experiment.

The methodology was rather simple. He would be carving a simple circuit over the surface of speckled blue, then he would trigger the flow of energy from the crystallization, and he would amplify the energy flow during the process.

Yes, little bit more, okay, more…

Boom!

The speckled blue broke into two.

Okay that would be the highest energy tolerance, which was a bit surprising to Ye Chong to be frank. It was a rather high figure, much higher than the alloys he had seen before. That explained why all the wooden firearms now!

Now that Ye Chong had gotten the figure, he had a plan.

He did not utilize any of the facilities available, since he was not familiar with them. The outcome would not be optimum if he used an unfamiliar apparatus, especially those facilities were parakinetically demanding. They required much more careful handling due to the enhanced sensitivity of humans under parakinesis.

“Where’s my dagger?” asked Ye Chong towards Ban Meng at the corner.

Ban Meng hurriedly took out the dagger and threw to Ye Chong.

Once the dagger was withdrawn from the sheath, Kristen was immediately overwhelmed. No one at the place had noticed the bit of shock going on in her pupils.

It was a dagger made out of something she had never seen before. The people were shocked into silence, as they could hear their intensifying breaths.

Ye Chong lifted the dagger and gently scratched the surface of speckled blue randomly.

The films of the chipped wood fell off the place.

Ye Chong was concentrated, as his hand danced across the wood, yet like a machine it crossed the surface, with accuracy like manufacturing machine. The films of wood were all identical. It was the accuracy that captured the attention.

Within twinkling of eyes, the speckled blue had transformed into a smooth, flawless rod in Ye Chong’s hand. The body was polished, the fair white spots were like the cherry blossoms on spring.

That was not it. Ye Chong intended to hollow the rod, so he could make it an actual cannon tube, which was the trickiest part of the entire crafting process, since the inner wall must not contain any flaw to ensure proper energy transition.

He cautiously crafted a circle at the cross-section of the rod.

Be it the lady or Kristen, with their enhanced senses by parakinesis, both of them could see the detail in Ye Chong’s craft and certainly they were again amazed by it. It was a perfect circle, that almost felt like he drew it with a precise geometric apparatus, and it was just a simple cut promptly from his dagger.

Ye Chong then drew a similar circle at the other side.

The depth of the cut, the diameter, the shape of the circle, everything was precisely identical. It was astounding!

Ye Chong then put the dagger down and reached his hand into the pocket, looking for something.

It was a curious sight, as the people wondered what Ye Chong would be pulling out from his pocket.

Well, the reality was… there was nothing in his pocket. It was just his typical smoke and mirrors, a camouflage to what he was doing. The thing he wanted was resting inside the dimensional keystone.

So he just dug into the pocket, which eventually gave him a bottle of dark green fluid.

Everyone was confused yet fascinated at the same time, as they looked at this half bottle of fluid.

It was actually a very strong corroding agent, which was obtained on one of Ye Chong’s adventure in the Consortium base on Spectre back then. Ye Chong was familiar with such agent, he created Liquid of Shang after all.

Rather than figuring out on “how” to hollow the tube, Ye Chong had an idea on “what” to hollow the tube.

Only if he had Liquid of Shang, with its excellent capability, a simple drop could have fulfilled the task for him. Well, he was not aware of the name of this green bottle, he knew it was a corroding agent merely because of the warning label on it. There were a rack of them back in the base, but Ye Chong could not bring everything away, so he just picked a random bottle.

Fortunately, the bottle had a dropper at the cap, which saved him a lot of trouble. The curiosity intensified so much that everyone could not help but to reach their neck like a giraffe, popping their eyes just to see what the heck was going on.

Oh, before hollowing the tube, he got to test the capability of this agent. So Ye Chong stacked 3 pieces of speckled blue he took from the table and he dripped the agent.

Ssssss…

Sizzling was heard as a column of green smoke rumbled. The board was being corroded at a perceivable rate. The board was then pierced, with an irregularly shaped hole which reached all the way through even the table itself.

A horrified gasp could be heard in the room.

Such corrosion!

Kristen, Mr. Mo and Ban Meng had a colorless face by then, even the lady was feeling uneasy at the sight.

Ye Chong was a little surprised but his expression remained unchanged.

He pondered for a moment before he finally made his move.

Using the dropper, he first sucked about 15 drops of the agent.

His left hand rested with the wooden rod standing. His right hand holding the dropper and with extreme caution, he pressed the valve of the dropper.

The atmosphere was intense. Whether it would become an invention or an accident, it all depended on this very drop now.

A thin stream of liquid flowed out of the dropper.

Before the liquid reached the cross-section of the rod, Ye Chong replaced the dropper with a speed of lightning.

The people could see nothing than a brief afterimage.

And that was the last straw to the lady’s crumbling serenity. Her expression changed!

The withdrawn right hand returned to its position, clipping the rod to support the other hand this time.

The stream of liquid was traveling in slow motion in Ye Chong’s eyes.

It dripped, it landed and touched the surface, the gradual sizzling was heard again.

Ye Chong began rubbing his hands.

Chnnngggg!

The rod started vibrating, as the resonance bounced all around the room.

The lady had lost the colors on her face at last.

The rapid spinning rod allowed the liquid to contact and corrode the surface uniformly. Ye Chong’s eyes focused upon the rod as his rubbing hands tried to control the angle and momentum of the rod.

Such technique would complicate anyone on strength control, even the master of strength control himself.

It almost looked like an acrobatic performance in the eyes of the people.

The hollowed space of the tube grew deeper and larger, the sizzling grew louder.

And out of sudden, silence returned.

Ye Chong stopped rubbing his hands and took a careful look at his craft. The inner wall had a satisfyingly even surface. To be frank, he was not particularly confident in this exaggerating performance. But really he could not summon a whole table of professional apparatuses right from the keystone, it probably would frighten the people and cause havoc, so he succumbed to this pretty crude, primitive method instead.

He liked his tube. It looked fine.

After the most challenging step had been done, nothing else should stop Ye Chong. He already had a blueprint of the beam shooting circuit in his mind. He decided to go for the not-so-complicated design that would produce a decent projectile, with a twist of course.

He had to make a few changes, considering how this gun would use no battery but a tiny light crystallization. He would revolve the circuit about this crystallization and pick the most common trigger he observed from all the weapons here. Regarding the more effective trigger, he lacked the necessary research for it. He also needed to reverse the circuit so it would fit the left-handed lady.

Throughout the entire process, Ye Chong had only used his dagger and the corroding agent. He used nothing else.

“Done,” said Ye Chong, as he calmly presented his craft to the lady.

t was a long slim tube which the white spots scattered like powder snow upon the sky blue body, about 1.65 meter in length, 34 kilograms in weight, of a condensed structure which could be disengaged into several parts that could be again combined into different forms of miniature firearms. A fancy mix-and-match design that could be equipped on one’s arm, thus the convenience of shooting upon free will. The weight of the miniature version had hardly 8kg weight which also contributed to portability.

“Do you have a place to try this out?” said the lady, with intense expectation brewing inside her. She had never seen such revolutionary design before, it was extremely foreign to her eyes yet miraculously fitting to her hands. She had the urge to test the strength of this new weapon she was bestowed upon. It was that passion every shooter like her had which drove her. “Is there any place to test shooting?” said she loudly.

Kristen was shocked back into reality, she nodded hurriedly, “Yes, yes, yes, come with me!”

They arrived by the basement under her lead. She unlocked the gate and turned on the lights, “This is the shooting room, the standard setup.” She gave a brief introduction before retreating herself to the “auditorium” at one side with the rest of the crew who were equally interested of this strange-looking weapon.

Into position! Without further ado, the lady raised the gun and made her first shot promptly.

A stream of red beam about breadth of one’s thumb struck the very center of the bullseye. Her accuracy as a professional had been justified, still she could not hide that excitement of a little girl on Christmas as she hurried her way to the front to remove the bullseye from the attachment. She was there to examine the strength of the new weapon, likewise the others. “Such strength!” Astonishment filled Kristen’s words upon seeing the charred edges of the pierced center.

A standard setup was the typicality in most shooting rooms, where bullseyes were made out of nubis stones which had a mediocre energy-absorbing attribute, perfect for making bullseye but not protective shield due to its brittleness. People used such material to examine the capabilities of an energy-based weapon.

And that red beam just penetrated a 5 centimeter thick bullseyes made out of energy-absorbing stones.

The few spectators froze upon the astounding sight.

Mr. Mo could not help but to compliment dramatically, “I might be considered a novice when it comes to weapon but this ray gun has earned my fondness. Such masterpiece.”

The lady lowered her head, caressing that gun with a unique appearance lovingly. It needed no word to describe her joy at the moment.

Ban Meng coveted that new toy, he continued marveling at it mindlessly, unaware of the stream of saliva dripping off his mouth’s corner. Kristen, his cousin had her mentality shattered to the ground, the invention of this ray gun had utterly deconstructed what she knew about weapons for the past few years. It was only a stick made out of speckled blue yet it actually impaled a piece of nubis stone. She could not believe her eyes, reality was standing right there. She was the witness to every step, every flick of finger the lady made. The mystery intensified… she could not help but to have questions overloading her head.

How comes it could make such strong shoot? What is that structure? How the heck did it even work? What are the effects of this strange design? What is the concept behind it?

She could even imagine the shape of each component involved, however, she could never replicate the design. It was of techniques she had never seen before, it was of foreign structure design, everything was unfamiliar to her, even the way the boy crafted the gun was something revolutionary. These were so new that she realized, to her horror, that she hardly learned anything from this master craftsman.

And that was when the lady performed a multi-shot which landed across the bullseye like a shower. None of the beams had missed. It was a goddess’s accuracy that had mesmerized everyone at the scene, well, except for our craftsman, Ye Chong. He was terrified since he realized how the lady could be a highly skilled parakinetic shooter and it would be a hard nut to crack if he did not have Celest by his side. His schemata ran wild, piecing together a feasible plot to handle such opponent.

“Mhmm…” The lady placed the ray gun down with satisfaction, she loved its portability and the hand-on experience, everything felt truly made for her, that it almost felt like a part of her.

“Here is your reward, as promised.” The lady passed Ye Chong amapolla wood with a hint of respect in her hoarsely spoken words. The amapolla woodpiece was about size of one’s palm, a grayish brown with cravings like the shell of the turtle. It was totally different compared to what Ye Chong had seen in the workshop. He could feel the weight the moment the wood was placed onto his hand. But, other than the strange craving and the slightly greater weight in comparison, he could not tell anything extraordinary about this wood.

“Oh, allow me to introduce myself,” said the lady formally, “I’m Sha Ya, a Level 8 shooter.”

The moment the title was mentioned, the atmosphere seemed to have frozen.

Ban Meng felt he was in trance upon hearing the rank. Did a Level 8 shooter, an almost-mythical figure just walk into his cousin’s place and begin walking around and actually performed her skills? He nearly pinched his cheeks to confirm he was not dreaming.

Kristen had never regained her color since the last shock. A level 8 shooter? Were her ears acting up? She was impressed of her courage, that she virtually offended a Level 8 god!

Ye Chong remained expressionless. He was not aware of the meaning behind that title.

Ye Chong’s indifference did not enrage Sha Ya, as she took out a piece of golden leaf from her pouch, “This is plucked from the Darkniss. A token of appreciation for your great work.”

“Golden leaf?!” Everyone was so close to making a leap, even Mr. Mo.

The golden leaf was reflecting the world in amazing shine, where the veins could be clearly discerned, as if the finest gold craft of a piece of leaf. But Ye Chong could tell it was not a sculpture, rather it was truly something offered by nature.

It should be from a highly “metalized” plant.

“Thank you,” said Ye Chong as he took the leaf, now a little intrigued of the “Darkniss” Sha Ya mentioned.

“I should be the one thanking you.” She looked overjoyed, “I have been searching for a fitting weapon and I can’t believe I’ll ever lay my hand on one.” Her words were sentimental as she recalled the journey she took in search of her weapon.

“Alright, I have to go now. I’m staying at Bisley City. If you need any help, don’t hesitate, call me up. Asking someone on your behalf works too,” said Sha Ya, well, she was in fact the right person to provide solid help.

Ban Meng fired his stare of pure envy at Ye Chong for this inhuman boy was actually able to win over a level 8 shooter’s friendship. It was as if dreams.

“See ya.” And Sha Ya left. Ye Chong walked to Kristen and lifted the piece of wood. “Let’s trade,” he said.

Ye Chong, with his pocket full of a million ao and a new ally in his social circle, led Ban Meng back home. Ban Meng had become one of Ye Chong’s believers by then, he was overawed by Ye Chong’s capabilities.

“I need a house. Large and somewhere isolated. Would you help me?” asked Ye Chong abruptly.

“Uhh… let me think…” Ban Meng began searching for the matching item in his mind. That sounded sufficiently a good news to him, he would never want a potential explosive to follow him home daily. It would be great if he could send this walking bomb somewhere else.

Then a place came into his mind.

…

They took a few detours and finally stopped by one house.

“How about this place?” asked Ban Meng, as he looked at this particular house which fulfilled Ye Chong’s requirement – it was spacious, about 3500 meter^2 including the lawn, while being at a quiet corner of the region close to the Duality Forest. He could not imagine any visitor frequenting here. It was a pretty good deal too – 100,000 Ao and it was all Ye Chong’s.

“I like it,” Ye Chong nodded expressively.

“Of course! Let Ban Meng make the choice, it’ll never go wrong!” responded Ban Meng proudly.

“Right. You can go now,” ordered Ye Chong the guest-vanquisher.

“Geez, that fast?!” Ban Meng sobbed, “Fine, good bye.”

And he left.

The quiet home was very quiet again.

It was rather empty as there was nothing else than the few pieces of furnitures. Well, that was what Ye Chong desired. He needed a place to sleep and store his loots.

He quickly deployed Celest which stood there solemnly at his service. Ye Chong hopped into Celest and performed a thorough scan to see if there was anything suspicious.

To his relaxation, system returned no detection of any form. He had finally some me-time and actual security to think about his next move.

What would be my priority? To find Mu/Shang of course.

Where’s Mu/Shang? They must be at Gray Valley.

Well, if that’s the case, I would have to first return to Gray Valley, or He Yue galaxy at the very least. Only then I would have the slightest chance of reuniting with Mu/Shang or the Sangs if I have to. Next, we shall reconnect the pathway connecting both He Yue galaxy and Gray Valley.

Alright, the ultimate goal would be to return to either of the regions.

But then… how should I do it… Hmm…

Wait…

Ye Chong remembered the three microchips Kui gave him, which contained researches by Consortium involving Space Science, Mechanical Science and Biologic Science. And he did mention something about Space Science that interested Ye Chong. Perhaps the answer lay within that chip.

He took the chip out and slid it into the processor of Celest.

“Reading…”

“Welcome to the Directory.”

“Please select from one of the available processes:

Ye Chong dazed at the prompted interface. He had zero knowledge regarding Space Science, it would take forever before he mastered the basics, he had no more time to initiate his first Space Science class.

“Perform Simulated Calculation,” stated Ye Chong.

“Error : Database not found. Database required for operation,” replied the processor coldly.

Ye Chong sighed, “Create database.”

“Command received. Creating database, estimated time remaining : 5hours 30minutes.”

And Ye Chong rooted himself at the seat for the next 5 hours and 30 minutes, finally after that, “Perform Simulated Calculation – Ways to Travel to He Yue Galaxy.” Somehow Ye Chong could feel his heart twitching by the little searing anticipation growing in him.

“Creating the necessary platform…

…

Creation completed!”

“Inserting the given properties…

…

Insertion completed!”

“Simulation performing…”

“…”

“Calculation completed. Estimated time needed: 32years 5months 23days.” The time length was so unexpected that Ye Chong’s mouth remained partially open.

THIRTY TWO years?! He could not accept that… It would be too long to fix anything…

Ye Chong was blown at first, but he took a breath and calmed down, “How to reduce estimated time needed?”

“Processing…”

10 seconds later, “Matching Solutions found:

“How to enhance memory processing ability?” asked Ye Chong.

“To enhance memory processing ability, you could:

Enhance the capacity? The preposterously vague idea was immediately scrapped. Ye Chong was too unfamiliar with such avant-garde mechanism. He could not even find the sealing board to unscrew.

He could add in more processors by producing them but… he naturally did not excel at it.

“How to produce processor?”

“Error: Insufficient information.” The reply was not helpful…

And that was when Ye Chong recalled the second microchip that contained Biologic Science researches. Well, a standard photon processor might sound far-fetched at the moment, but he could have crafted a bio-photon processor like Celest’s. The chip should contain the necessary information. He quickly replaced the chip and booted the interface.

“Welcome to th-”

“How to produce bio-photon processor?”

“To produce bio-photon processor, you would need…”

The reply was also extremely helpful. Most materials mentioned were unavailable within his grip, especially when most of them required additional handling like cultivation.

Well… he got to build a biological science lab then… It would be a major project, still he had to complete it. To never give up on even the slightest hope was his motto since childhood.

The saving grace was he scavenged everything useful from the Consortium at their central lab back then, including those technological fascinations, or he would have to really start from scratches.

Though bestowed with fancy technologies, there were still lots of works to do.

The kingdom of organisms, the flora and fauns, were already different across regions, let alone across planets and across the galaxies. Most materials used by the Consortium could not be found here, especially samples of a few organisms.

The first feasible move would be to establish a working database which contained attributes of the native organisms at his place. But before that, there was one last thing he got to do first. Security, security, security. He might have not detected anything, that did not guarantee he would be safe from unwanted attention in the future. He would not want to be pointed with a parakinetic firearm before he even began assembling the new processor.

He first examined woods like speckled blue using the facilities available. He was able to identify that speckled blue had three times the energy compatibility compared to most metals. That was not it, Ye Chong had also performed other examinations and the conclusion? It was earth-shattering! All these plants were excellent on both energy compatibility and physical attributes, which made them few of the best materials to produce any sort of machines. The downside however, was the poor compatibility with circuit… which justified the non-existent photon processors here…

After understanding the attributes of these materials, Ye Chong could finally produce a stronger and a more efficiently designed weapon.

Ye Chong made bulk purchases on the mentioned materials, including the “honorably mentioned” speckled blues. He began a massive production.

With these utilities he got from Consortium, he no longer would need to rely on dagger to carve simple weapons. His efficiency accelerated the progress significantly. It only took him 7 days to produce over 100 types of weapons.

He then installed these firearms at all corners of the lawn, while equipped them with an advanced detection system. Any unauthorized personnel or “thing” would be destroyed immediately.

A real tactical annihilation!

The installation points were all after Ye Chong’s careful calculation which formed a firewall that covered the entire region. No blind spot while being tenacious. Most of them were the real heavy firearms, they were heavy to be carried around but they would be perfect for a fixed point tower defense. A prime example would be the Spheric Beam Scattered Launcher, which launched 160 spheric light beams in one wave thrice per second, covering up proximity about 4 meter^2.

It was the flawlessness of this firewall that made any intruder defenseless. It was a densely layered security which was unknown at one glance. The penetrability of these beams were much stronger than the little toy gun Ye Chong made for Sha Ya and the detection system further enhanced their accuracy.

The only problem was… the defense matrix would need a processor to provide command. Celest’s processor? That intelligibly expressive processor? Maybe not.

He then succumbed to one processor previously installed on one supportive unit in his inventory. It was not a powerful processor but was more than enough to take charge of basic matrix management.

Now, he could sleep at last.

Area 9 meters away from his accommodation was his territory.

The day seemed to be ending.

But his work had just started.

e Chong decided to make this his biology research laboratory. After some basic fortification works, the lab was now secured. This allowed him to devote his attention to other matters.

Ye Chong left the lab in Celest. He did not head for Dual Forest, but went upwards instead. Celest climbed higher and higher into the sky. Everything on the ground receded further and further away.

Ye Chong wanted to do a full scan of the planet to help him gain a general understanding of the native environment.

Suddenly, a light beam came out of nowhere, directed towards Celest.

Ye Chong reacted swiftly. Celest twisted its body in the air, and the light beam narrowly shot past the mech’s body.

“Unidentified flying object!”

“Unidentified flying object!”

“Unidentified flying object!”

…

A series of alarms ear-piercingly blared. Dozens of varying flying vessels could be seen on the holographic screen, heading in that direction.

Old Wei was 41 this year, and a Level 4 shooter. He was at an age where shooters were in their prime. Today, he had planned to visit Dual Forest with his friends to gather some ashram grass. Their group was strong despite having only a few members since they were all Level 4 shooters. Besides, having worked together for years, they were now a solid team that performed more effectively than most other groups.

Suddenly, Old Wei received a parapsychic message from his friend, “Look, what’s that?” Shooters usually communicate with each other via parapsychic messages. There were many advantages to using this method, especially during combat. It was the most direct and clear way of communicating with each other.

Old Wei could sense the strong emotions of surprise in his friend. He knew that his friend must have found something interesting. It was not uncommon to see unusual things in Dual Forest.

The other five in the group received the same message at the same time. The seven flying vessels made a turn together in perfect coordination.

Old Wei now saw what made his friend gasped in surprise!

It was a giant in black armor!

The giant was at least 10 meters all, and it was shooting up fast into the sky, like a rocket.

Old Wei was shocked. As a Level 4 shooter, he was no stranger to unusual things, but this was his first time seeing such a large giant human. The black armor seemed to be made of an unknown material. The eerie red flowers on the armor looked like blood spilled in midnight. The black pack on the giant’s back also had a huge red flower on it. Old Wei felt a chill ran down his spine. He felt his heart clenched tightly.

The giant’s eyes were half lidded, like it was looking out afar. Were they looking for something, or simply staring out hollowly?

The most shocking thing was, the giant could fly! Old Wei did an estimate, and found that the giant must be faster than his own flying vessel at maximum speed.

“Heavens! What’s that?” Someone exclaimed.

“Yea, what a huge giant, and with armor too. Tsk tsk, that’s awesome!”

“Look, guys, there are many others who’ve seen it now. Let’s go get a closer look.” Indeed, with such a huge giant materializing in the air, it was hard to go unnoticed. Many flying vessels were now trying to approach the giant.

“Sure!” “Alright!” The suggestion was welcomed by the rest of the group.

Old Wei could not help but interrupt them, “We should still be careful. Safety first. We’ll back down if anything looks weird.” Old Wei could not understand why he said these words, but he was aware of his own nervousness.

“Yes, Old Wei’s right.” This came from their captain, Re Guming.

The seven flying vessels flew towards the giant in battle formation. Right then, they saw someone shooting at the giant.

“Is he crazy?” Everyone cried out in an uproar. No one knew what the giant was. Shooting it like that would only be a show of hostility.

What would that shot cost them? Everyone began to worry. An experienced shooter would never make such an idiotic mistake.

The captain, Gu Reming, spoke in his deep voice, “It’s a bunch of playboys. They’ve always been reckless. Let’s not get involved. They’re in for some deep trouble.” Gu Reming spoke coldly. They did not think highly of these so-called playboys.

Everyone in the group trusted their captain’s assessment. Besides, they could tell from the way the giant avoided the shot so easily that it could fly well. The more experienced shooters all stayed back, watching from afar. They could see that something was wrong, and did not want to be there when the giant retaliated.

The playboys got even more excited when they found no one else competing with them for the giant. They showed off their fancy tricks in the air as they closed in on Celest, still trying to shoot the mech.

The playboys may be nasty, but they were still a powerful bunch. Most of them were at least Level 3, and there was even a Level 5 among them. Besides, they had the advantage in numbers.

Their flying vessels were also of top quality, more powerful than the average shooter’s. In the next moment, Celest found itself dealing with a full blown laser assault from all sides.

It was impossible to not be angry at this attack that came out of nowhere, but Ye Chong kept his calm.

His hands were a blur on the controls.

The giant in armor extended its limbs, twisting its joints in odd angles and avoiding all the lasers directed at it.

The giant was wrapped in bulky armor, but its body moved easily like it had no bones inside. Its limbs twisted in impossible angles, defying all reason.

Old Wei was shocked. It was like seeing a huge, brutish man with a bearded face that bulged at all the wrong angles, but the face was smiling gently like the man did some delicate sewing with a needle in hand. In short, it was like watching a paradox.

The rest in his group were also stunned by what they saw.

“That – that’s a monster!” Someone blurted out.

“What a strong body!” Someone commended.

“Someone’s going to suffer,” said their captain solemnly.

A bright purple flying vessel with two pairs of wings was doing some difficult stunts in the air, making flips and turns like an airshow pilot. The Snakeshot, Big X, Lateral Shift and other magnificent displays would usually be seen only in practice flights.

The pilot was showing off his multitude of dazzling tricks.

Ye Chong thought it odd that the purple flying vessel was flying around it but not attacking.

However, he had no intention of asking the other party about it. The flying vessel was already within Celest’s range of attack. Ye Chong flung out his shuriken without hesitation.

The fast spinning weapon was very destructive. It also had auto lock-on technology to make it fatal.

Zing!

A black dot shot towards the purple flying vessel.

When the shuriken came within range of the pilot’s parapsychic sense, he noticed it right away. The purple flying vessel did a turn and avoided the attack, quick as a bird.

How could such a slow weapon hit a Level 5 shooter? The purple vessel’s pilot was proud of himself. He was also the strongest shooter in his team. As a qualified shooter, they would not be hit by something so slow. Parapsychic sense was fast as lightning. Shooters faced the threat of laser weapons from their enemies that could come at any time. Such a slow moving weapon must be an inferior product, it was no wonder he could avoid it so easily.

Just as the pilot was basking in his own success, he noticed that the black dot had made a turn as well and was now heading towards him again.

Huh? How did that happen?

No matter. The pilot maneuvered his flying machine skilfully and avoided the black dot once again. The black dot was slower than his own flying vessel, and much more slower compared to his parapsychic sense. The young man was confident that the weapon would never hit him.

Suddenly, the black dot came within his parapsychic sensing range again. He was still the target of that weapon.

The young man began to realize that something was wrong. He could sense the black dot more clearly by now, and could make out what it was. If he was really hit by that spinning object … A vision of his flying vessel exploding in the air came to him.

Impossible! He was scared by the vision. He was a Level 5 shooter. How could he be hit by the slow moving plaything? What a joke!

Perhaps due to his nervousness, the pilot did not avoid the attack so gracefully this time.

An innocent, tiny mistake was deadly in his situation. The shuriken gave him no chance. It followed the purple flying vessel closely, closing in the distance until they were only 30 meters apart. The Level 5 shooter could now sense every detailed structure of the shuriken with his parapsychic sense.

However, he was no longer at ease as before. Despite being hailed as a natural born shooter, he did not have much real life combat experience. Usually, he would only fly around with his playboy friends. Ever since he was born, he had never suffered any fallbacks. Most of Yedda knew of the playboys and their background, and would leave them alone.

They never knew how cruel real battles were, compared to their make-believe practice battles.

The pilot felt an immense pressure on him like never before. It was suffocating him, and his flying vessel did not obey his wishes as keenly as it usually did.

Some people would fight back when under pressure, while others would break.

This pilot was obviously not of the former. He was now feeling afraid, very afraid.