Chapter 49: The Third Preliminary Match (Part 2) (Additional Update 2-in-1)
On a soft couch, a dark-haired young designer was sleeping soundly, wrapped in a thin blanket. He was facing outward, the blanket pulled high, revealing only a small portion of his face. Next to the designer, another dark-haired man sat on the couch. His expression was cold, his eyes downcast, his gaze lingering on the young man's sleeping face for a long time. His fingertips pressed against a square, transparent pill box with the words "APA" printed on it.
Behind him, the five brothers, red, orange, green, blue and purple, sat in a circle, playing cards in a quiet yet intense manner.
Rabbit host: “…”
The corner of his mouth twitched, and after a long silence, he spoke, "I can only say, this is a very familiar scene... Starship designer LUCE is sleeping, and Captain Mu Baixing, well, probably in a daze... The medicine box in his hand contains APA's newly developed mental health medication, which can effectively reduce the probability of mental collapse within a certain period of time. It will be provided to all contestants by the competition!"
"It's undeniable that this ten-hour race is incredibly difficult for most drivers and observers. I hope that all competitors can maintain their composure and avoid mental collapse, even if they admit defeat. After all, the damage done by mental collapse is simply too staggering."
"Of course, our competition medical team is fully deployed! Even if there's an emergency, they can respond promptly!"
The final round of the Star Navigation Competition qualifiers is about to begin.
Mingyu had insomnia for the past two days due to nervousness, but when the competition came around, he became more open-minded and lay on the sofa in the lounge to catch up on his sleep.
He slept less these days because he was nervous, but he ended up doing a lot of work.
Designing and modifying a starship, training with Mu Boxing in the Starnet's mental training room, and catching up on homework for a class. Mingyu logged onto the Starnet over seven hours early today, unconcerned with anything else. Entering the lounge, Wucai Toumao was already online, playing cards. The brothers said Mu Boxing was dealing with matters at the exploration base and would be back later, so they invited Mingyu to join them.
But Mingyu didn't like playing these card games, so he just watched from the side.
Mingyu didn't feel any nervousness when he first entered the Star Navigation Competition. To him, being eliminated was normal, and advancing was a pleasant surprise.
But in the last match of the preliminaries, what Mu Baixing said that day inexplicably gave Mingyu a lot of pressure... and expectations.
But after seeing the colorful-haired brothers and their casual attitude, Mingyu gradually relaxed and fell asleep.
When the game start signal sounded and Mu Baixing called him to get up, Mingyu had already slept soundly for seven hours.
He rested well and his nervousness was replaced by the excitement of the start of the game.
Mu Baixing handed the unopened medicine box in his hand to Mingyu and was the first to board the starship.
Mingyu paused, turned over the medicine box and took a look at the instructions.
Mingyu's mental endurance level was only C-, making it impossible for him to handle a twelve-hour match. Furthermore, both his ability to devour and the temporary boost in mental strength from Mu Baixing's mental energy would place an additional burden on his mental domain.
A few days ago, Mingyu and Wucai Toumao had made a plan to take turns to be Mu Baixing's observer within twelve hours.
But obviously, after considering it, Mu Boxing felt that he should take a preventive medicine to be on the safe side.
Mingyu looked at Mu Baixing again.
The man sat in the driver's seat, staring at the screen, quickly completing the final checks before the starship launched. His expression seemed indifferent, but he was more concerned about some details than Mingyu himself.
Mu Baixing completed the startup check and looked up at Mingyu.
Mu Baixing: "Take medicine."
Although his tone was light, his eyes were always on Mingyu, as if he would not look away unless Mingyu moved.
Mingyu: “…”
"Thank you, Brother Mu--" Mingyu smiled, poured out a capsule from the medicine box and ate it, then put the transparent box into his pocket and sat in the observation position diagonally behind Mu Baixing.
On the central screen in the cab, an orange and green dial spun rapidly. The timer on the right side of the dial began counting down from ten seconds.
Rabbit host: "Three random star maps! Ten hours of random draws for the battle! Only four hundred teams out of over two thousand remaining will advance! During the competition, the scores and rankings will not be displayed to the participating teams. Therefore, all they can do is win more, win faster!"
"Then let our teams go all out!"
The countdown on the turntable jumps to zero at this second.
The 16 colored lights on the outside of the turntable suddenly lit up.
At the same time, a bright red number lit up in the orange compartment where the pointer above was stationary: "11".
The buckles under the starship loosened automatically, and the starship broke away from the fixed track and floated upwards out of the starport.
"Stadium No. 11, Random Star Map No. 3."
The moment the game prompt was refreshed, the starship sailed out of the starport.
The bright white light came from all directions, and the starship suddenly fell.
Mingyu suddenly felt a strong sense of weightlessness, as if his whole body was about to float into the air and separate from the seat.
The next second, Mu Boxing had already stabilized the starship and raised its altitude again. However, the starship was rising at an abnormally fast speed, like a rocket rocket being blown into the sky.
Mu Baixing moved his fingers and pushed the engine gear down again. Under his operation, the starship descended rapidly again and finally stabilized at a near-ground altitude.
It was like a startled, unskilled dancer finishing a piece in a thrilling manner.
Mingyu: "The gravity field is wrong."
He opened the star map and explained, "This star map isn't of the cosmic environment, but rather a map of the surface of a desolate planet. There are lava eruptions underground, and the gravity field strength varies in different areas. We're only three miles from the surface right now."
Red Hair: "Brother LU, can you see anything? My instrument is full of noise... and the star map doesn't show the position of the enemy warships."
Now is not the time for the colorful hairy men to take turns on duty as observers, but they are not idle either, helping Mingyu and Mu Baixing observe the surroundings.
Ming Yu: "There is fog." His eyes swept across the white outside the starship window. "It's a disruptive energy fog. There are energy droplets everywhere."
Rabbit host: "Wow, the Colorful Team has bad luck."
Because the rabbit host's perspective was in the colorful lounge before the game started, the camera naturally locked on this new team that could be called a dark horse as soon as the game started.
"Star Map No. 3, the near-Earth map, shows gravity field changes, underground lava areas, and energy interference fog areas. And the enemy team they encountered was Chilling, a team that already possesses interference cannons..."
"Sure enough, the first second after entering the map, Fan Chan had already launched additional jamming bombs! Wucaibanlan had no chance to realize that the energy fog shouldn't be so thick!"
"Fan Chan's A-level psychic observer, Wunian Chan, possesses a special 'interference' quality, filling the entire map with fog! This fog can provide Wunian Chan with information about the situation ahead. They clearly saw the colorful... They're approaching... The colorful is entering Han Chan's range."
"This colorful situation is not good." The plush rabbit sighed.
"Their position has been detected by Fan Chan, but due to the protective effect of the jamming bombs sent by Fan Chan, Wucaibanlan is completely unaware of the enemy starship! Even if Fan Chan opens fire, Wucaibanlan will not be able to distinguish the enemy's attack from the energy fog until they are actually hit by the artillery fire. No matter how many observers and detection instruments they bring, it will be useless!"
The plush rabbit's commentary paused for a second at this moment.
"Speaking of which, I'm quite curious why the Colorful Team's starships are carrying so many detection instruments again this time." Puzzlement crossed his face. "Having detection instruments to assist with information gathering during resource collection and escape from the starry sea is a bit redundant, but it's a precaution. But this is a purely competitive match, and the Colorful Team is using standard warships. What use can detection instruments have?"
"Oh, the colorful observer also released spiritual power! It was LUCE who took action!"
On the surface of a desolate planet covered in white light, bright blue spiritual power extended outward, stained with white energy droplets.
The moment they touched, the energy droplets evaporated out of thin air and were absorbed into Mingyu's own mental power thread.
The mist surrounding the starship quickly dissipated. Blue threads of mental force stretched outward, weaving into a thin web.
"Luce is more skilled in using his mental power than last time."
In the human resources office of Xinghang, Sun Nian was recording on his light screen.
From sparse mental power threads to interwoven webs, although a light film has not yet formed, this match was only a week away from the last one, and LUCE's growth rate is astonishingly fast.
His thorny colleague was still sitting opposite him, arms folded. Seeing Sun Nian's actions, he snorted and muttered softly, "Wait until Wucai Bianlan meets Lieyang, and you'll know what a huge gap there is!"
Although he said so, there was a sense of awkwardness when he mentioned Mingyan that hadn't existed before.
It didn't come from Ming Yan, but from the Ming family.
After the last qualifying match, Ming Zhilang gave a speech commemorating Ming Zhuofeng and expressing grief and regret over the X7 Xinghai accident. However, soon after, a communication recording was dug out from the recording of the Xinghai accident that year, which showed a completely opposite attitude to his speech.
Although Ming Zhilang later issued a statement claiming the call wasn't between him and Ming Zhuofeng, and that the term "brother" wasn't used only between true brothers but could also be used by close colleagues, the resemblance of the voice in the call to his own was purely accidental, likely due to the inherent similarity between the two voices and the algorithm's error in the correction.
Ming family supporters quickly accepted this explanation, but many still expressed doubts.
Someone compared the recording of the accident with Ming Zhilang's vocal frequencies and found them to be very similar. Furthermore, the tone of their conversation in the recording was remarkably familiar and intimate, with the phrase "You're my brother" not something you'd expect from ordinary friends.
The rebellious colleague listened to it several times. Although he was also a supporter of the Ming family, he was not completely irrational.
Ming Zhilang himself does not seem to be as upright as the image he has created in the past.
This realization also made him feel a little uncomfortable when he saw Mingyan.
But Lieyang's strong strength still attracted him to pay attention to the opponent's game situation.
There were two light screens in front of the troublesome colleague.
On the left light screen, the black starship belonging to Lieyang was on fire all over, and the main gun barrel was spewing out a black energy beam, which was blasting the opponent out of the star map cleanly and neatly.
Although Plush Rabbit wasn't commentating on the Lieyang team's matches, popular teams like them had a lot of fans. A separate link was posted for them in the Star Tournament live broadcast room, allowing people to watch their performances at any time.
On the right light screen is the live broadcast room, where the plush rabbit is commentating on the colorful first game.
On the screen, bright blue mental power is expanding outward.
"Luce's mental power is devouring the energy mist!" the plush rabbit exclaimed. "Oh! At this speed, he might be able to see Fan Chan's position soon... Fan Chan obviously didn't want the other party to discover his position before reaching range, so he fired the jammer again."
Mingyu frowned.
In this preliminary round, the organizing committee, as always, did not provide the names and detailed information of the opposing starships. All information about each side's starships came from the information provided by the observers, as well as the performance estimates calculated by the starship's heart based on the information collected by the observers.
but……
Mingyu: "This mist..."
The concentration of the fog suddenly increased again, and it seemed like something fishy was going on.
He had just absorbed the fog with his mental power, but before he could see the scenery ahead clearly, new fog rose up again.
This back and forth does not help their situation at all.
"Brother Mu. Try firing a shot."
The man turned his head towards Mingyu, indicating to Mingyu with his gesture that he had received his suggestion.
The man placed his fingers on the operating console in front of him, and with his slender fingers he gently pushed the gear next to the thruster forward.
There were short, light sounds coming from the muzzles under the short wings on both sides of the starship.
The small gear on the operating table is a new function that Mingyu installed on Mu Baixing's gun barrel.
Inside the starship, larger and more precisely designed mechanical gears follow the rotation and shifting of the gears on the operating console.
Mingyu specially designed the mental force muzzle, which was modified from the Alpha cannon, which has the highest energy threshold among light fire cannons, and a functional valve connected to a gear set with a slender mechanical arm rotates inside.
The golden mental power belonging to Mu Baixing flowed out from the muzzle, forming a layer of light film outside the starship.
The rabbit host's ears drooped in disappointment, his tone somewhat dull. "What Wucai Bianlan is doing now is what we saw in the last qualifier: removing the functional valve and using a psychic cannon muzzle without a focusing device. This special psychic cannon, or psychic shield, can protect the starship the moment it comes into contact with artillery fire... No more surprises..."
"The starships used by each team in this match must be battleships. The starship type required to fight against the Big Wheel is completely different from the Star Ocean Escape mission in the previous match!"
"I doubt how effective this type of 'free muzzle' would be in high-confrontation missions."
He scanned Han Chan's current position on the star map and expected that Fan Chan would open fire soon, so he did not cut the screen and waited for the development of the situation after the exchange of fire.
"But regardless, from what we can see now, it's still effective against disruptive attacks. As long as the pilot's mental power level is high enough, the mental membrane acts as another layer of protection, helping the colorful creatures detect and resist the attacks of the cicadas...
Rabbit cut off his unfinished sentence mid-sentence, his tone suddenly rising: "Using the interference energy mist and the cover of our own jammers, Higurashi finally opened fire!"
"The artillery fire is made up of white energy droplets that look like energy mist! Even though my interface shows a notification that Han Chan has opened fire, I can't see where their artillery fire is coming from!" The plush rabbit stared at the white screen with his small black eyes wide open. "The colorful ones can only detect the enemy's firing position when they are hit by artillery fire. I wonder if Mu Baixing's mental strength can withstand this full-strength attack..."
In his sight, the lower right corner of the golden mental light film on the outer layer of the colorful silver starship suddenly lit up.
Sparks exploded in the golden mental power, like a drop of water splashing into an oil pan, exploding with a loud bang.
The colorful starship shook violently.
Fan Chan will not miss the opportunity.
Their first attack, mixed in with the disruptive energy fog, was full of energy and powerful.
It would be perfect if we could destroy the enemy starship with one shot!
The seat's fasteners buckled securely, holding Mingyu securely in place. The starship trembled violently under the immense force of the collision, and Mingyu almost expected a damage warning to pop up.
Mu Baixing frowned and took the heavy blow without any avoidance.
The first one, and the second one that arrived almost at the same time.
Fan Chan's starship used a dual-barrel design. The barrels located on the top of the starship's wings fired arcs of fire, hitting the two sides of Mu's colorful silver starship from the left and right.
Mu Baixing's fingers gripping the starship joystick exerted a little force because of the pain.
The golden mental power connected with the enemy's gun barrel, burning out a large amount of fireworks, but it did not retreat.
And beneath the dark gold color that was hit, a large area of bright blue suddenly spread out.
The scene in front of Mingyu's eyes shook in the collision. When the opponent's gun barrel energy hit Mu Baixing's mental membrane, he instantly identified the direction of the artillery fire.
"Left rear!" Mingyu shouted, "Above!"
The silver starship turned around neatly and raised its hull.
Blue mental power surged out, taking advantage of the lingering energy fluctuations that had not yet disappeared, absorbing the surrounding interference fog and growing rapidly forward, intending to locate Fan Chan's position.
"Oh! LUCE's mental power is tracking Fan Chan's artillery fire!" The rabbit host said with some surprise: "I guess LUCE must have seen something! Because the colorful ones are also about to open fire, and their gun barrels have finished charging... uh..."
"Uh...——??!!" The rabbit commentator's ears suddenly stood up as he looked at the bright golden line passing through the void.
"Their gun barrel speed... am I dazzled?! This isn't the firing rate a gun barrel with its valve removed can achieve!"
"I mean! Look at that shot piercing the fog... Look at the speed it travels as it flashes across the screen! That's far faster than a standard gun barrel like a Lambda cannon!"
"A colorful gun barrel...with only two seconds of counterattack time, their gun barrel function valve? Did they change it again?!"
*
"This is my latest design! It has five function valves: the most flexible no-force focus mode, semi-free acceleration mode, accelerated force focus, no-acceleration force focus, strong attack, and... instant burst attack."
A day ago, Mingyu pushed the final version of the design draft in front of Mu Baixing. The mental power lines near the barrel on the three-dimensional design draft were so complicated that it made people dizzy. The mental power lines belonging to himself and Mu Baixing were marked in gold and blue.
In the modeling room, Mu Baixing sat next to the designer, frowning slightly as he thought, and gradually understood the circuit drawn by Mingyu.
Ming Yu's spiritual energy could flow outward from the starship's observation port, but it also flowed into the gun port. This design was found on some advanced starships, allowing observers to assist the pilots in attacking.
Mingyu has mastered some offensive methods of his own through the transformation of his mental power in the past few days, so naturally he also added this function when designing the muzzle.
Ming Yu: "To change the function of the gun barrel, you just need to turn the gear on the console. It takes about two seconds for the device inside the starship to react and change."
Two seconds.
This is Mingyu's fastest replacement time, achieved through countless optimizations. From the original design's five-second replacement time, currently the fastest on the market, it has been reduced to just two seconds. To ensure that any two valves switch within two seconds, Mingyu experimented with hundreds of different switching configurations for the functional valves.
He'd been toiling away on this single design for days, his eyes now tinged with a dark blue. Because time was tight, the entire starship design was based on Mingyu's restored blueprints for the latest generation high-speed standard starship, the "Raptor 03." Aside from the special muzzle and wiring suitable for non-awakened humans, no other changes were made.
But Mingyu thinks it's worth it.
A three-second improvement that is so brief that it is barely noticeable in daily life can bring about earth-shaking changes on the battlefield.
It only takes two seconds.
Mu Baixing shifted the gears.
The first second after being attacked, the starship turned to face the enemy's gun muzzle hidden in the thick fog.
Mingyu's blue spiritual energy shot out from the golden protective layer, spreading along the line of fire that was attacking them. Like wildly growing waterweed, or a cloud-piercing arrow, it stood out clearly and strikingly in the white mist, shocking everyone.
The second after being attacked, Fan Chan fired again. The enemy starship's position was also rapidly changing. Ming Yu was not prepared for the attack from the side. His mental power was instantly overwhelmed by the artillery fire, and the blue tentacles melted into the void.
The intense pain from the attack on his mental thread made Mingyu suddenly tense his body.
His voice trembled as he spoke quickly, "The direction of the energy cannon's origin is southwest (33,886), with an error of plus or minus two. The energy beam's impact strength is nearly 800 pressure points, and the energy threshold is close to the highest threshold of the Beta cannon. It should be a modified Beta cannon..."
The silver starship roared like a beast awakening. It swung in a sharp arc, plunging into the light gravity field ahead. The lift engines below suddenly shut down, channeling all their energy to the acceleration engines at the rear.
Ming Yu: "Judging from the distance between the two displacements, the enemy starship's speed is around 300 star miles per hour..."
The muzzle under the rear wing of the silver starship suddenly lit up again, and Mu Baixing opened fire.
His brows were furrowed, and his fingers made a light clicking sound on the operation panel as he typed the command.
The golden beam of mental power shot out at a speed that was difficult for ordinary people to catch, and seemed to be wrapped in a burst of anger, roaring and surging.
The silver starship shifted positions, and the artillery fire fired at brief intervals formed a large bright net, rapidly rushing forward.
"They're locking onto our area with their psychic cannons!" Observer Five-Year Cicada said quickly from within Han Chan's brown starship. "Third brother! Speed up and change positions... Damn it...! They almost got hit!"
The golden psychic cannon had been miles away a second before, and in the blink of an eye, it was already close. The brown starship plummeted in mid-air, glancing past the end of a streak of golden cannon fire.
Mu Baixing said coldly: "The direction is right."
Five-Year Cicada: "How can their gun barrels be so fast! Our position is about to be exposed! Secondary charge is complete! Quickly fire, brother!——"
The muzzle, shrouded in the energy-interference mist, once again aimed at the silver starship. The mental barrel gathered strength once more, and white fire swirled towards the multicolored starship, narrowly avoiding the golden grid with the help of the Five-Year Cicada's mental feedback.
Mingyu and Mu Baixing still couldn't accurately grasp the source of the attack.
But this artillery fire was not like the first one before, which hit the mental membrane outside the starship with absolute certainty, but just brushed past the belly below the starship.
The silver starship's hull jolted under the impact of the artillery fire. Under Mu Boxing's guidance, the starship tilted sideways, tilting upward at a sharp angle, just enough to avoid most of the artillery fire. This change of posture in the final half-second of the attack seemed the result of a coincidence and luck: their starship was entering a lower gravity field, and this momentary upward drift seemed to be a deviation from its course caused by the sudden change in gravity.
However, the next second, the muzzle under the rear wing of the silver starship suddenly lit up again, and the high-speed firing barrel fired again.
The golden netting lines are woven more densely, and the fishermen cast their nets with determination to catch the fish.
"Too fast..." cried the Five-Year Cicada. "The previous blast hasn't even died down and the next one is already here... What kind of high-frequency, high-speed cannon is this! I've never seen a barrel like this before! A new psychic weapon?!"
"Their initial mental membrane clearly wasn't designed for this type of muzzle. Did they change the function valve of the barrel? But just now, almost at the same time we hit the colorful thing, they had already switched to a high-speed cannon..."
"How could it be so fast!!" In the official livestream, the white rabbit also exclaimed in surprise, "What powerful barrel acceleration! What did LUCE do to their barrel again? Is it a specially designed acceleration valve? It must be! LUCE must have modified the acceleration valve with a new function! And even made a switch between having and not having the valve..."
The commentator had no way of knowing the number of different valves installed by Mingyu, and subconsciously used the most common transformation number measurement.
"Their psychic cannons are too fast! Observers with psychic powers below A-level can't even detect them!"
"It's not just the speed of the psychic cannon! The speed at which the valves in their barrels change is also astonishingly fast!"
The white rabbit straightened up and, with his professional knowledge, pointed out a more easily overlooked aspect of the scene: "You know, the reason today's warships only have single-function valves and no speed changers is because switching valves and speed changes takes too long, making functional changes unable to keep up with battlefield conditions and rendering them useless. But the valve switching speeds we're seeing now are at least double what I'm aware of!"
"I want to say, LUCE is worthy of it! LUCE is worthy of it... I wonder if the military and the Star Navigation Department will work harder to find him after this match, and what kind of price they will offer to entice LUCE to contact them..."
These are not things Mingyu needs to consider now.
His eyes were fixed on the front of the starship, his blue mental power intertwined in the golden net, and under the cover of Mu Baixing, he also moved forward.
He absorbed the interfering energy droplets around him, and inferred the firing direction of the opponent's energy cannon through the energy intensity in the droplets. Then, combined with the feedback from Mu Baixing's mental artillery fire, he inferred the possible location of the opponent's starship.
A light blue color then spread in the cockpit, and Mingyu quickly deduced the battle situation between the two sides in his mind.
And on the star map, two starships are rapidly approaching each other.
"Approaching an active lava zone." Ming Yu shouted, "Brother Mu, be careful. The mountain pass below will erupt lava..."
Mu Baixing responded.
In the shifting gravity field, their postures were unsteady, like two seemingly unskilled dancers. As they passed each other, their golden mental power shone once more, piercing through the white mist and accurately intercepting the enemy's fire, sending sparks flying.
"Not bad!" cried Sannian Chan, Fan Chan's pilot. "The enemy pilot's mental strength should be about the same as mine! Their gun barrels should emphasize the switching of two function valves! In addition to the previous free mode, the current gun barrels use a concentrated acceleration function without a strength amplifier. We have the advantage in a direct bombardment!"
Five-Year Cicada: "First, destroy that observer's mental thread! The other party's observer is too sharp! After being caught once, he has mastered our general flight area! He can always see the location of the artillery fire! My interference ability is becoming less and less effective against them... Descend to a low altitude...!"
Fan Chan's starship shook violently and rolled sideways, avoiding a stream of golden cannon fire. The starship flew frighteningly low, its underbelly scraping the ground, sending out a string of sparks.
"This is too low!" cried the Five-Year Cicada.
"It's the gravity field changing!" Three Years Cicada shouted, "I was dodging their mental cannon and didn't notice for a moment...!"
Five-Year Cicada: "Turn left! Be careful of the mountain pass below! It might be erupting lava..."
At the same time, Mingyu also warned: "Brother Mu! Right front fifty degrees! Pay attention to the mountain pass below!"
Mu Baixing glanced forward and asked: "How long before the eruption?"
He looked at the still white fog ahead.
This kind of back and forth is too slow, and Mingyu's mental power will be accidentally hit by the artillery fire.
Not to the point of injury, but it always hurts.
Although space travel itself is full of dangers and it is impossible to be painless forever, at least for now, designers should not have to endure this hardship all the time.
Mu Boxing spoke calmly.
"Tell me the time interval of the lava eruption."
"I'll push Fan Chan over."
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