Chapter 41 Training "You can never guess where she will land next"...
The explosion caused by the holographic equipment shot straight up to the ceiling, directly blowing off the steel roof on top of the base!
Tan Wenshu calmly put down the teacup, opened the hole in the protective net, waited for the ceiling to fly out, then calmly closed it and called Yao Yin.
"I know, I'm on the way." Yao Yin hung up the phone simply and clearly.
The spreading smoke and ash were quickly cleaned up by the vacuum cleaner that had been set up long ago. Xu An and Jie Shuqin walked towards the door while coughing wildly, covered in dust.
"No, Xu An, how can you even blow up a holographic device!!" Xie Shuqin was almost on the verge of collapse, and in her heart she was frantically lashing out at herself for having offered to be the head of Xu An's mecha teaching class.
Xu An, knowing he was in the wrong, supported her guiltily, trying to shrink himself even smaller. After finally reaching the door, they both dodged to the side simultaneously. The next second, Feng Lan kicked the door open.
"Are you okay?"
Xie Shuqin congratulated herself on her quick escape and said speechlessly, "Sure enough, only the captain, who had just woken up, was nervous. Everyone else is used to it."
Xu An turned his head away silently, not looking at her complaining eyes.
Feng Lan was still a bit dazed. To be more precise, he wasn't even awake yet. He had been lying in the training base, testing his [Dissolver] abilities, but due to his severe injuries, he had been unconscious for five days before waking up, only to be awakened by this noise.
"Feng Lan, come back!" The nurse's scream resounded throughout the base after the explosion. Feng Lan trembled suddenly and subconsciously hid behind the ruins next to him.
Xie Shuqin blinked: "Captain, what are you doing?"
"To test the [anti-matter] ability, you need to inject an illusion test agent. The person who receives the injection will see the person or thing they fear the most in the illusion." Xu An glanced at Feng Lan, who was frantically signaling to them that he was not there, and shouted with a smile: "Captain Feng Lan is here!"
"You you! Xu An!!!" Feng Lan wailed as he ran. The nurses who heard the voice leaned over like frontline workers and rushed over like a gust of wind.
They even had a clear division of labor, with everyone connected to the communications system and reporting Feng Lan's location at all times.
Xie Shuqin looked at him and couldn't help laughing: "Xu An, you are too mean."
Xu An shrugged: "Who told him to force me to take the theory test like this? You have to eat the fruit you sow."
"Speaking of the theoretical class exam..." Xie Shuqin looked at her with a smile.
Xu An looked at this familiar expression, and inexplicably felt a chill on his back, "What do you want to do?"
Just as she was about to run, her wrist suddenly tightened. Xu An looked down and found that a strange thread was entangled between her wrist and Jie Shuqin's.
"I asked Dr. Yin to install it on purpose." Xie Shuqin looked at her proudly: "The biological line is connected to the chip. If I don't want you to leave, it will appear and tie us together. Xu An, just go to the theory class honestly~"
Xu An looked at her in surprise, feeling a little sad: "You actually stabbed me in the back?"
"It can't be helped. After all, if you don't get 97 points in theory class, you can't enter the mecha. This is also for your wish of driving a mecha." As she spoke, Xie Shuqin pulled the rope connected to the chip and slowly walked towards the theory class training room. "Let's go to class!"
Xu Ansheng was forced to attend theoretical classes for a whole day without any motivation. Whenever she felt sleepy, the head class leader would knock on the table with his hands, which was even faster than the hands of the lecturer.
Every time Xu An tried to make excuses to Jie Shuqin, she would imitate his smiling face and say, "Study hard and make progress every day!"
Xu An: “…”
She finally realized how much she deserved a beating.
Fortunately, Xu An still ran out under so many eyes, but before he ran far, he met Feng Lan who also ran out, behind a trash can.
The two immediately agreed that whoever hadn't seen the other would go in opposite directions. After walking a few steps, they ran into the nurses and teachers who had caught up with them.
The alliance just now was broken in an instant, and the two of them pointed in the same direction at the same time.
Nurses and teachers, you looked at each other, and finally, a group of nurses took Xu An to the classroom, and a group of teachers took Feng Lan to the hospital.
Xie Shuqin supported her face with one hand and watched Xu An being brought in slowly.
Xu An looked at her pitifully and said, "Believe me, I went to lie down in the toilet."
Xie Shuqin patted her hand with pity, then handed her 865 multiple-choice questions and 164 experimental questions. In her devilish voice, she said, "Finish them today."
Xu An wanted to go with her to the holographic simulation cabin inside the mecha.
After seven days of cramming in theory classes, Xu An finally bid farewell to the miserable theory classes with a score of 97, and then returned to A061 amid the incredulous gazes of the freshmen.
When the door opened, Xu An felt the air was fresher. He took a deep breath and suddenly smelled a faint stench in the air.
Xu An immediately covered his nose, "What is this?"
The person next to her replied, "The research institute can't store the newly collected alien excrement, so they put it here first."
Just as Xu An was about to stride into the room, his legs suddenly turned 180 degrees and walked towards the theory class classroom.
Xie Shuqin silently took out more than 800 sets of test questions behind her.
Xu An turned straight again and said to the man with a smile: "Thank you for your hard work."
But despite the unpleasant excrement, A061 has undergone a major renovation.
The cargo conveyor platform that originally creaked was not only wrapped with a new robotic arm, but also had human thermal sensors and automatic unloading robotic arms installed above and below the platform. When the team members first saw it, they all felt that the porters would be unemployed.
Several two-person mechas shining with silver light were standing at the entrance of the steel gate, with a pair of folded steel wings behind their humanoid figures.
The lower edge of the wings was covered with jets, and there were small magazines and firing ports in the front and back, which Xu An had never seen on a single-person mecha before.
"The biggest advantage of a two-person mecha is that its powerful operating mechanism can support the simultaneous activation of all attack methods. However, its control room is also very different from that of a single-person mecha." Xie Shuqin saw her interest and introduced: "You have also seen it in the holographic equipment these days. The control room of a single-person mecha is more like the cab of an ordinary loader, mainly relying on the buttons on the console in front of the operator..."
As she spoke, Xie Shuqin suddenly felt something was wrong. She looked at Xu An and said, "I always thought you had poor balance, which was why you blew up the mech so easily. But a single-person mech relies solely on buttons. The only thing that requires balance is the push handle during flight, but there's no such function on a holographic device...Xu An, did you blow it up on purpose?"
Xu An shook his head: "I didn't."
Xie Shuqin's mouth twitched: "It's so obvious when you lie."
She pulled Xu An aside and said, "There's no one else here. Tell me why you deliberately blew up the mecha? Don't tell me you have a grudge against Dr. Yao."
"...That's not the case." Xu An couldn't help but think of Yao Yin, who had a blank expression on her face and a dead look on her face, carrying a toolbox around to work overtime. "I was just saying hello to my friends."
"You still have friends." Baili Yunle, who was passing by, said coldly.
"Tsk." Xie Shuqin kicked him, "Are we dead or something?"
Baili Yunle suddenly realized: "Who is her friend!"
Feng Lan grabbed his neck and dragged him inside: "Let's go, little arrogant, the meeting has to start!"
Baili Yunle laughed angrily, "Don't let me pick you in the sniper trial!"
Seeing them walk away, one humming a song and the other angrily, Xie Shuqin also put her arm around Xu An's shoulder and said, "Seriously, what friend? The one on the ground? That little alien?"
Xu An paused, glanced at her, then rolled his eyes and said lightly, "Do you think those wings look good?"
"Hmm? Which wings? They're not very pretty, but they're quite practical. They can rotate 360 degrees." Xie Shuqin was stunned for a moment, then asked, "Have you named your little alien yet?"
Xu An was relieved at first, but then he lowered his eyes and replied to her somewhat unhappily: "No, you pick one?"
"Why not call her Xiao An? She's furry and cute, just like you."
Xu An was fine with the first half of the conversation, but when he heard the second half, he suddenly looked up at her and blinked: "Huh?"
Xie Shuqin skipped towards the meeting room in a good mood.
Xu An followed closely.
Not long after taking her seat, she heard the sound of the commander's military boots. Ran Yue rarely came to the A061 conference room, and she had never come in such a formal manner.
After everyone was seated, the assistant beside him slowly projected a floor plan onto the big screen.
The site depicted in this plan is located underground, connected to the surface by four long corridors. The entire building presents a network of tunnels, with each floor divided into smaller chambers. The right side of the building, near the freshwater area connected to the ocean, gives the impression that it could collapse at any moment.
Yao Yin, with heavy dark circles under her eyes, casually tucked her short hair behind her ears and enlarged the drawings one by one.
"This building is located 88 meters above the ground on the east coast. It's connected by a network of corridors. The main areas, starting from the bottom, are the core area, food storage area, and garbage disposal area." Yao Yin zoomed in on the corridors. "Interestingly, the corridors are one-way, indicating that this building has very frequent transportation needs. And judging by the width of the corridors, they can easily withstand the passage of a gravity object. Because these passages crisscross underground, we call it an ant nest."
Such a developed passage would be built underground. If the ant nest was still operating, it would be very dangerous inside.
Feng Lan said in a deep voice: "Can you find out when it was built?"
"This place is quite a distance from the base, and the detection radar can only estimate the time to be roughly between 50 and 150 years."
If it is a building on the ground, it will definitely be abandoned after experiencing the riot caused by the alien species. But if it is underground, it is hard to say. After all, the concentration of bromine mist underground is very low, and alien species rarely drill into it.
Yao Yin knew his concerns, so she generously took out Yin Xiangrong's test report. "According to the biological research institute's test, the biological fluctuations inside are very strong, and it is estimated that there are 200 living organisms."
"Tsk." Baili Yunle rubbed his head. "Aren't we just delivering food to this thing that's been hungry for nearly a hundred years? We have to knock twice and say hello before entering?"
Xie Shuqin rolled her eyes. "The ant nest is controlled by AI. Do you expect it to open the door for you? You might as well just blow everything inside up into the sky with a cannon."
"With the base's current weapons, we can't destroy the entire building directly from the sky." Xu An's eyes were fixed on the seaside area. "Besides, this place is close to the sea. If we bomb it directly from the ground, it might be submerged by the sea."
Yao Yin nodded. "Yes, so if you want to know what's going on inside, you have to sneak in. And you can't use firearms or ammunition casually, lest the temperature and fog become too high and cause the building to activate self-destruct mode, drawing seawater in."
"Once the seawater, which is full of radiation and viruses, rushes in, we won't be able to survive even if we wear protective suits."
Baili Yunle sighed: "So we are not just here to deliver food, but also to contribute to the land reclamation project."
"Stop making sarcastic remarks." Jie Shuqin glanced at him.
After seeing Yao Yin nod to indicate that she had finished speaking, Ran Yue turned her gaze to Feng Lan. "This is the first time the base has discovered a building that may have experienced the incarnation of alien species. We may be able to detect clues to the origin of the alien species, which will be of great significance for the subsequent battles with the alien species. Everyone, please be prepared. We still have to go there."
The three of them looked at Xu An silently, then nodded solemnly.
After everyone had dispersed, the three men immediately dragged Xu An into a small dark room and blocked him up, as if they were going to fight.
Xu An blinked, pulled out a chair and sat down casually, leaning towards the table behind him, looking at them: "What are you doing?"
Seeing that she was not anxious at all, the three of them looked at each other, no one knew what to say, but they were so anxious that they wanted to overturn the table behind Xu An.
"Xu An." Xie Shuqin spoke first: "Not everyone in the base accepts aliens now. If there really are alien origins in the ant nest, and the base mistakenly killed innocent aliens... this..."
"It's okay." Xu An smiled: "I also want to know where the alien species come from."
Xie Shuqin was stunned: "Xu An?"
Baili Yunle was also a little surprised and couldn't help but look at her a few more times: "What do you mean? You don't even know where the alien species came from?"
Feng Lan's expression also became more serious. "Xu An, did you reveal the address of the ant nest to the base? Just like last time, you deliberately gave us the chip, revealing the information about the humans and androids on the ground and asked us to find them? And this time, the method is to use those three blown-up holographic devices?"
"I told you." Xu An's eyes flashed, and he lowered his head, looking even more sinister in the dark. "I just want to know who I am."
"You are an alien species. Did you guess this yourself?" Jie Shuqin asked.
"No need to guess, you'll know at a glance." Xu An looked up at the sound, tapping the crystal core on the side of his neck that was glowing blue, and looked at her quietly. "I think someone used [Dissolution] to extract my memory. To verify my guess, I've tried many ways to lose my memory, including injecting excessive amounts of anesthetics and releasing superpowers on a large scale, but none of them felt the same as this."
"I'm sorry to drag you into this. I just want to know who I am and who the aliens are."
The three of them were silent for a moment.
"So this is why you stayed at the base? Driving the mecha is just an excuse?"
"That's the main reason. We're using the mecha because there are so many other creatures inside. If a conflict occurs, it could easily cause a collapse and cause seawater to flood back." Xu An looked at them with a frank gaze, and for a moment he was even a little obedient. "Inside the mecha, you won't be immediately affected by the seawater. This is the only way to get in."
"If you trust me, you can teach me how to fly a mecha. If I can make it out alive, I will tell you everything. Or..." Xu An lowered his eyes and smiled, "You can also install an in-body sensor for me..."
Before she could finish her words, a warm embrace suddenly came towards her, carrying the scent of green grass. Xu An was stunned for a moment, and stiffly raised her head from Jie Shuqin's arms, and saw Baili Yunle with a hand on her shoulder, and Feng Lan turning on the light not far away.
The crisp sound of the switch reached his ears, and the room lit up instantly. Xu An blinked uncomfortably, and then he felt that the person holding him was trembling slightly.
"Did it hurt?"
Faced with Xie Shuqin's sudden words, Xu An was still a little unresponsive. He looked at the round light bar above his head and slowly remembered what she had just said about trying to lose memory.
"Not bad." Xu An said softly.
But the more she said this, the tighter she could feel the person in front of her hugging her. Then, the other two people put their arms around their shoulders, and she heard Baili Yunle's voice: "We have to investigate the origins of the alien species anyway. That's our mission, so we'll just help you this time."
Then came Feng Lan's voice: "I can even use this to trick the Commander into giving me several mechas and equipment. Not a bad deal! After this mission, I'll treat you to dinner!"
Baili Yunle stared at him with wide eyes. "Hey, Captain Feng! Are you finally giving in this time? I want to eat at the one in the central area. I've been craving that for a long time!"
Feng Lan pretended to chase him away: "You? Still in the central area? Go eat some potatoes!"
"Tsk." Baili Yunle looked at the snickering Jie Shuqin and Xu An with a wronged look, muttering to himself, "Alright, alright, potatoes are fine too, but how many potatoes do you owe me? This time, I'll treat you enough!"
During the fight, Xu An looked out the window from afar.
It was now daybreak, and the base was suspended above the troposphere, with the scorching sun overhead and blue-white clouds beneath.
Xie Shuqin followed her gaze, propped up her face with one hand, and murmured with a smile, "This color is really beautiful. I wish the wings on the mecha were this color too."
Xu An was startled when she heard the voice, and felt a slight chill behind her. She was silent for a moment, then hesitated and said, "You seem to like wings very much?"
"If they were white like clouds, but with a faint blue hue in the sunlight, almost like they were glowing, I think everyone would love them." Xie Shuqin looked at the horizon and reached out toward the window, as if for a moment she herself were floating in the sky. "Besides, with wings, you can fly anywhere you want."
Xu An looked at her and said, "...if you drive a falcon, can't you fly too?"
"Perhaps the difference between them is that one is bound and the other is free."
Xu An didn't reply for a long time until the chip sent a communication asking her to go to the mecha training base, then she slowly stood up.
The two of them quickly arrived at the base. When Xie Shuqin once again stood in front of the projection screen showing the trainee's mecha operation status and felt Xu An's poor driving skills again, she was about to collapse.
She looked at the holographic projection that was twisted extremely strangely, and screamed silently in her throat.
"Xu An! Walk, not jump! Move your left leg, not your left hand!!"
"Ahhh why are you messing around again!!!"
"That's a jet!!! Don't move!! Aaaaaaah!"
Before Xie Shuqin could stop shouting, it was drowned out by the sound of the jet being turned on.
Then, Xie Shuqin witnessed the gravity body driven by Xu An crashing into the gate of the mecha training base three kilometers away at a speed of 240 kilometers per hour.
The world was silent for a few seconds.
Then the door staggered and fell down, raising a cloud of dust half a person high. The A061 member on duty calmly picked up the broken door and the lying Xu An, and calmly called Yao Yin.
Yao Yin calmly answered the call from the Mecha Training Base, calmly said "I understand", and then got off the train at the Mecha Training Base station carrying the toolbox that had been prepared long ago.
Xie Shuqin looked at Xu An, who was only scratched, and the mess on the ground, sighed heavily, then opened the chip and filled in the results of today's training.
"May 7th was a sunny day. Student Xu An performed three exercises: gravity body start, arm swing, and walking."
"For the first item, Xu An pressed it ten times, but each time he perfectly missed the activation button. Fortunately, I had locked the self-destruct button."
"In the second event, Xu An successfully completed both simultaneous and cross-arm swings, but it seemed like his head was also exerting force."
"Third, Xu An successfully made the humanoid gravity body twist like a non-human. I think she could participate in a gravity body dance competition or use this move to confuse alien species, because you can never guess where she will land next."
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The author has something to say: Today was the final exam in tennis class where we played 30 balls in pairs. My roommates said that every one of my balls landed in a place they didn't expect.
But fortunately, my goddess did not give up on me. I finally passed the 30-ball mark when I applied for the exam for the eighth time. I love my goddess.
My hands hurt so much that I can't type anymore, but I've finally finished it. I was a bit rushed, so there might be a lot of typos. Feel free to spot any bugs.
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