Chen Ming stood outside the "black market".

Looking at the bustling commercial street in front of me, I couldn't help but say, "This place is not what I imagined."

Old Wu knew that Chen Ming was just expressing his feelings, so he walked in first, waved to Chen Ming and said, "It's different, so let's go in and take a look first."

Chen Ming followed.

Observing the goods in the large stores on the black market street.

The cargo included a variety of advanced weapons and equipment.

Among them are military weapons produced by Tachyon Technology, which uses cutting-edge technology as its core design concept.

At the same time, there are also many weapons and equipment with obvious military characteristics.

The weapons of Sinda Corporation are not very common, probably because the main direction of Sinda Corporation's research and manufacturing of weapons and equipment is to ensure average quality while producing in large quantities at low cost.

Most people who come to places like the black market definitely want to get the best, so the weapons of the Sinda Company are not very popular.

Chen Ming was envious of those tachyon technologies and military products, but he was not in a hurry to buy them.

He just read along, wrote down things that might be useful to him, and then confirmed and compared them at the end.

Although he has about 30 million yuan in his hands now, it is really not much, and he must be frugal.

As Chen Ming was walking, he suddenly said to Old Wu next to him: "I thought the black market should be more secretive, or it could just be an online platform."

"Online? Who knows what's being sold online? Here, you pay and get the goods, and if there's a problem, you can solve it right away. Isn't that great?"

"There are quite a few good items here that have never been used."

"What you mean is that there are also second-hand refurbished ones for sale."

Old Wu spread his hands and said, "If you buy refurbished goods and still can't recognize them, then that's the buyer's fault. After all, no one will recognize them once they leave the black market."

"Um."

Chen Ming responded and continued to look around. Second-hand goods were also something he had to pay attention to.

In addition to looking at the weapons displayed in the store, he was also paying attention to some people.

Some of the pirates were disguised, but Chen Ming still recognized them as having bounties on them.

They walked openly on the streets of the black market without any trouble from anyone.

It looks like the government is trying to have the best of both worlds: pirates and bounty hunters.

After all, pirates and bounty hunters are big consumers of high-end weapons.

After Chen Ming saw a pirate with a certain bounty for the third time, he couldn't help but ask Lao Wu: "Can we target other people here?"

"What do you mean? Robbery? If you want to die, don't take me with you."

"No, it's pirates."

"pirate?"

Old Wu glanced at the people around him and saw a few ordinary pirates in disguise.

But he shook his head and said, "No, any use of force is prohibited on the planet. You can't do it."

"It's hard to fight even if we leave the planet. We definitely can't fight inside the star system because of the patrol team. Didn't you see that patrol team on the way here? A patrol team led by a cruiser."

"If we really want to take action, we have to wait for the right opportunity and wait for the person to voluntarily leave the galaxy."

"But if you can't squat in advance, it's easy for others to enter the channel first, and then run away at the fastest speed."

"There is a speed limit in the waterway. If someone runs away first, it will be difficult to catch up. If you want to take action, you must prepare in advance."

"If you really have an idea, I also know where the information is sold here. Do you want to go and take a look?"

Chen Ming just mentioned it casually after seeing it. Since Old Wu had mentioned so many problems, he didn't have to do so.

So he just said, "Not yet, let's buy something first."

"Then let's go."

Chen Ming continued to pay attention to the goods in the shops on the commercial street.

While checking the goods, he was gradually moving deeper into the center of the black market district.

Came to the most prosperous place in the black market.

Here, Chen Ming could even see several shops that covered an area as large as a city square.

Of course, the shop itself is a commercial building, and the open space outside occupies a larger area.

Goods are placed in these open spaces just like in commercial buildings and shops.

But they were not weapons and equipment, but some intact spaceships.

All of these spaceships are standard military spaceships that have not been castrated, and they come from all kinds of manufacturers.

Chen Ming even saw a Yuhui Lumen-class destroyer, which was obviously being sold as a collectible.

Such a black market that openly sells military spacecraft and various controlled items to ordinary people is right under the nose of the star region government, and the most prosperous place in the star region is blatantly violating the law.

There were even government guards helping to maintain order, which clearly demonstrated to Chen Ming the thin legal concepts in the fringe star region.

This place would never be possible without government endorsement.

Moreover, Chen Ming's gaze lingered for a while on a brand new Centurion-class ship for sale.

The military should also be involved. The spacecraft was definitely not paralyzed or abandoned, but was transported here right after it left the factory.

Although other companies also have ships for sale here, since the company's ships are already sold to the outside world, it is difficult to be sure whether any company is really involved.

After passing through the most prosperous area in the black market selling spaceships, the place ahead was almost the same as the one Chen Ming had passed before.

If I continue reading, I will spend too much time on the road.

So Chen Ming turned around and went back to the place where the spaceship was sold, and started from the opposite direction step by step to confirm what he needed.

First of all, you can't buy a spaceship.

Because Chen Ming is actually doing fine with the spacecraft at the moment.

Three destroyers plus six frigates are enough to deal with many situations.

If there are more, I really can't take it.

However, Chen Ming felt it was necessary to add new weapons.

Because the weapons he had were a bit biased.

Energy weapons on medium-sized load-bearing points include ion beams and tactical laser cannons.

Live ammunition weapons include the Ripper, the "Noise" Cannon, and the Assault Chain Gun.

The small energy weapon only has one instant-fire HPD laser cannon, which is also a point defense weapon.

The best small live ammunition weapon is the military's lightweight acupuncture weapon.

Others like the light assault gun and Vulcan point defense gun on the Mule class are better than ordinary civilian-grade weapons, but they are only better.

Then add an electromagnetic javelin converted from an individual weapon.

That leaves missile-type weapons.

There are two types of small missile weapons. The Fire Snake focuses on locking onto missiles and can adjust its trajectory on its own, tracking the tail flame of a spacecraft and hitting its engine, causing it to be paralyzed or even destroyed.

There's also a Reaper torpedo, but it's not very practical to use.

Although there is only one medium-sized one, it is at least a Gladiator-class Cyber ​​SRM missile with extremely strong shield-breaking capabilities.

In general, these are the weapons Chen Ming currently has.

It seems like a lot, enough to cover every combat environment you need.

But in fact, there is still a lack of a weapon that can end the enemy spacecraft by breaking its shield.

Energy weapons certainly don't count.

This is because energy weapons rely on excellent output and radiation energy amplification ratio to gain advantages.

Unless the energy output exceeds a limit, such as the Tachyon Spear, it is still difficult to have powerful destructive power.

Therefore, the only way to destroy the spacecraft is with live ammunition and missiles.

At least destroyer and escort-class ships can only rely on these two to destroy the ship in most cases.

Almost all of the weapons Chen Ming currently has on hand are used to break shields and armor.

But destroying a ship requires something completely different than destroying shields and armor.

Weapons that are good at penetrating armor may not be good at penetrating the structure of a spacecraft.

Like noise.

This is a multi-barreled revolver cannon that fires small, high-speed armor-piercing shells.

While ensuring that kinetic weapons are highly effective against shields, they also have a strong ability to break armor.

And then, nothing happened.

The design of the armor-piercing projectile determines that it can only penetrate armor and cause certain damage to the outer structure of the spacecraft, and it is difficult to cause sufficient damage to the interior of the spacecraft.

Another weapon, the Ripper, uses armor-piercing high-explosive shells, so it is better than the noisy armor-piercing shells.

However, because it is an armor-piercing high-explosive shell, its actual destructive power and armor-piercing ability cannot compare to purely single-type weapons.

The shield-breaking ability is also somewhat weak due to its armor-piercing design.

So the Ripper is okay for dealing with pirates with weak armor and fragile structures, but it won't be very effective against targets with heavy armor and shields.

Unless you are fighting pirates, the possible result in the end is that the shield and armor of the enemy spaceship will be broken, but there is no way to completely destroy the spaceship, put an end to the enemy, and give the enemy a chance to breathe.

Just like the time when Chen Ming fought the pirates.

Because the Centurion was under direct fire from six spaceships, it could only activate the Damping Field Defense and could not use the Ripper to counterattack.

As a result, Chen Ming could only rely on the excellent performance of the Fighter Kai itself and its radiation energy system that could almost catch up with that of a destroyer, and on the shield-breaking capabilities of the Cyber ​​SRM missile and the shield suppression capabilities of the ion beam to defeat the shield of the Pirate Mule-class.

Then the problem arose when working on the engine.

Chen Ming could only rely on the overloaded power grid and the high-energy focusing device to strengthen the ion beam to barely destroy the Mule-class engine, and it could not even be considered destroyed.

In addition, the Gladiator Kai and Centurion are just spaceships and are very easy to be restrained.

In the future, when a fight breaks out and there are too many spaceships, Chen Ming will not have any chance to attack the engine from the flank.

If the engine cannot be paralyzed, the termination capability of the spacecraft Chen Ming has will be even worse.

Even dealing with pirates with the slightest surprise would cause problems.

This further proves that Chen Ming currently lacks a terminal type weapon that can quickly cause damage to the spacecraft structure.

Although the Reaper torpedo can be considered a type, and it is also very famous.

But its number is very small, and its actual combat effectiveness remains a mystery. Whether it can perform well depends entirely on luck.

In fact, Lude's suicide ship is very suitable for finishing the attack on the spacecraft, but the cost of the suicide ship is higher than any other means of attack combined. It can only be used as a trump card at most, and it is impossible to rely entirely on the suicide ship to fight.

Therefore, after Chen Ming actually fought and realized the problems in the battle, he urgently needed this kind of excellent weapon of the finishing type.

Among them, there just happened to be one weapon that met all of Chen Ming’s needs.

Tachyon Technology's Focused Charge Flak Cannon.

A semi-energy, semi-live ammunition weapon, each warhead is a grenade loaded with special charged material.

The warhead is quickly charged during firing, and when it actually hits, there is not only the explosive impact of the grenade, but also the arc generated when the internal charged material is destroyed.

The grenades alone have a powerful destructive power against the structure of the spacecraft.

The arcs generated by charged materials can have a huge impact on the shield.

Although its effect on armor is average, Chen Ming could not expect a weapon that could not only break shields, armor, but also destroy structures.

The best weapon Chen Ming has found is one that can effectively destroy structures while also having an additional effect on shields.

It just happens to make up for Chen Ming's current situation.

However, this type of charged anti-aircraft gun is a weapon installed on a medium-sized load-bearing point, and its price is quite outrageous.

Five million for one subject, ten million for two subjects.

With Chen Ming’s current wealth, he can only afford to buy two.

Who can bear to see their assets shrink by one third in an instant?

The price would have been even higher if Chen Ming didn't need the extra spare ammunition.

Moreover, Chen Ming has no idea how to modify the weapon developed by Tachyon Technology and can only use it.

Because Tachyon Technology's weapon design concept is different from Sinda's low-cost large-scale mass production.

Chen Ming could find those designs of Sinda Company's spacecraft weapons that were actively weakened in order to ensure mass production.

But Tachyon Technology's weapons are all designed as cutting-edge weapons, and Chen Ming couldn't find any areas where he could enhance them.

This is actually good news, indicating that the weapons produced by Tachyon Technology are at least of guaranteed quality.

It also made Chen Ming realize once again his technical shortcomings.

Not only cutting-edge technology, but also the energy weapons and semi-energy weapons technologies commonly found in Tachyon Technology, so Chen Ming had better find a way to learn more technology to prevent himself from being completely blind to technology in the future.

It just so happened that all he had to do now was spend a few minutes refurbishing his weapons every day, so he definitely had the time.

Since he has to learn this, Chen Ming can actually learn some more advanced knowledge.

For example, cruiser-level knowledge.

Chen Ming had never come into contact with a cruiser-class spacecraft and had only learned theoretical knowledge, but he felt that one day he would be able to control a cruiser in the future, so it would not be a disadvantage for him to learn it.

In addition, Chen Ming can also learn from Yu Hui's technology.

However, there is a big gap between Yu Hui's technology and that of humans.

At most, it can be used as a reference, and it may come in handy when modifying the afterglow spacecraft.

Just when Chen Ming had a lot of ideas in his mind because he bought something.

Old Wu suddenly patted him on the shoulder and said, "What are you thinking about? Sign the order."

Chen Ming suddenly came out of his thoughts, said "Oh", and signed the contract with the government's seal and endorsement.

The weapons will be delivered to the designated location within an hour.

The merchant will contact Chen Ming at that time.

After walking out of the store selling charged anti-aircraft guns, Chen Ming began to think about the previous problem again.

As he was thinking, he suddenly asked Old Wu next to him: "I was wondering if there is any way to learn new technology."

"You still need to learn this technique now?"

"There are many people with better skills than me. If I don't learn, my life will be like this. I don't want that."

"Then let's go to the company."

As soon as Old Wu finished speaking, he realized that he had said the wrong thing, and quickly added: "Just pretend I didn't say that."

Chen Ming came from the company. The professional skills above that are not accessible to ordinary employees.

Moreover, the attitude of the company is still unclear, and he is just talking about things that are not related to the topic.

Old Wu touched his head with a hint of embarrassment, thought for a moment and said directly: "Actually, there are other technical books as well. When I was studying technology before, I kept a lot of professional books."

Chen Ming waved his hand casually and said, "You and I are from the same place. I have everything you have."

Seeing Chen Ming's reaction, Old Wu smiled and said, "Who said that? I used to work for Suzi."

"Although some technical books with a high confidentiality level are not available, some technical books with a lower level are still available."

Chen Ming suddenly became alert, as if he was being given a pillow when he was sleepy.

But he also had some questions, so he asked, "Your terminal has not been checked?"

"This happened many years ago, and I was just an apprentice at the time. I changed jobs and handed in the company's terminal. They were released after a personal inspection. I can only say that they did not check it very carefully."

"You didn't sell it, then?"

"Do you dare to sell it?"

"I dare not, but I think you will sell it."

Old Wu stared at Chen Ming with his eyes wide open, but he was well aware of his usual behavior as a profiteer, so he really had no way of discrediting Chen Ming.

"Tsk, forget it."

Old Wu smacked his lips, took out his terminal and sent a packaged document to Chen Ming point-to-point, saying, "It's okay to show you these things in private, just don't spread them around."

After receiving the file, Chen Ming took a quick look at it and was able to confirm that the contents were genuine.

Although the basics are similar to the way Xinda Company educates new employees, Tachyon Technology will provide specialized technical teaching later on.

It is very helpful for his current situation.

Chen Ming turned off the terminal and looked Old Wu up and down. Old Wu couldn't help but ask, "What are you doing?"

Chen Ming now suddenly felt that there was some truth in the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover".

However, knowing that Old Wu would take risks, Chen Ming still said, "It's okay. I'll just look at you and we'll keep going."

The things have been bought, but Chen Ming still has many places he wants to visit in the black market.

Although I can't afford it, it doesn't cost anything to look at it.

Chen Ming was particularly interested in those spaceships in the black market center.

In particular, when Chen Ming passed by just now, he also saw a military Hammerhead-class destroyer.

This type of spacecraft was the product selected by Sinda Company when the military held an external bidding. The quality can be said to be very good to be selected by the military.

Moreover, Chen Ming likes Sinda Company's spacecraft as a whole, mainly because they are easy to use and modify.

However, the price of this Hammerhead-class ship is 130 million.

I can only say that the price of military-grade products is actually about the same.

Chen Ming can't even afford a fraction of the money now.

There was another ship that also interested him greatly.

I heard from Gamma A before that there was a Storm-class frigate made with Tachyon Technology that was captured by Yuhui.

An unmanned fighter aircraft equipped with a Terminator core, which has a battle situation control ability almost similar to that of the Afterglow AI.

However, the price of this frigate is even more expensive than that of a Hammerhead-class destroyer.

One hundred and seventy million.

When Chen Ming took a look at the number of people watching outside the isolation zone around the spacecraft and the over 20 million yuan he had on hand, he knew that this ship was probably nothing to do with him.

Unless Chen Ming stays busy at the space station for a while, he might not be able to earn enough money to buy these two spacecraft.

But now, we can only watch.

Chen Ming had no desire to buy anything at this moment, so he walked in the black market with the idea of ​​seeing more good things.

And this thought suddenly reminded him of something.

Chen Ming turned to Old Wu who was playing on the terminal and said, "Old Wu, do you know if there is an auction or something like that here?"

Old Wu raised his head, glanced at Chen Ming and said, "Why did you think of such a thing as an auction?"

"That's what I thought of."

Old Wu lowered his head again and said, "It was true many years ago, during those years when the empire's development progress slowed down."

"Explorers at that time often took the initiative to explore the star systems outside the empire and brought back many rare items. Auctions were very popular at that time."

"But recently, I haven't heard of anything worth auctioning."

"And to be honest, there really isn't anything particularly rare or non-controlled that we can photograph in this fringe galaxy..."

Old Wu suddenly stopped talking halfway. He quickly clicked on the terminal and said, "Wait a minute, there really is one."

"The main item is an armor-piercing destroyer? I've never heard of that."

"Take a look."

Old Wu handed over his terminal, which displayed information about an auction website.

Tomorrow the government will hold an auction in a colonial development history exhibition hall next to the black market, borrowing a large conference hall and venue there.

Although the main item was not introduced in detail, Chen Ming could tell at a glance that the design of this armor-piercing spacecraft was definitely related to the Sinda Company.

Old Wu has worked in the maintenance shop for so many years, so he can obviously see the design features of the spacecraft.

He pointed at the armor-piercing class on the terminal and asked, "This should be a new model of spaceship designed by the company, right? Why is it being sold at the auction?"

"Who knows, but I think this spaceship is interesting."

"If you're interested, go check it out. It opens tomorrow, so we should have time to go check it out. With the money you have now, you should be eligible to enter."

Chen Ming certainly had no objection to this, but he was thinking about more things: "Of course it's okay for me to go, but wouldn't it be boring for you to just follow me, Old Wu?"

"I am very interested in these spacecraft weapons, but Old Wu, you usually seem..."

Old Wu looked at Chen Ming with a strange expression and said, "I am also interested in spaceships. Who said I am not interested? Which man would not be interested in spaceships?"

"I usually like to drink and have fun, but I don't just like to drink and have fun. Don't look down on me."

"Speaking of this."

Old Wu suddenly showed a lewd smile on his face: "Do you want to go have some fun with me tonight?"

Chen Ming decisively refused: "No, I'm not interested, but if you want to go, Old Wu, I'll reimburse you."

"so good?"

“That’s good.”

(End of this chapter)