Chapter 55: The Third Preliminary Match (Part 8) (Update 1)
"We will reconsider the cooperation with the Third Corps." In the Third Corps' party hall, the Minister of Resources politely stood up and said goodbye to Zhao Ying.
Because Lieyang's warship needed repairs, the image on the screen was temporarily interrupted, but Zhao Ying and the Minister of Resources were both distracted.
3S-level ship.
Even if one can only achieve such mental strength in a short burst... it is terrifying enough.
Not to mention the ignition properties he exhibits.
The former was simply shocked, while the latter felt not only shocked but also embarrassed and ashamed.
He wanted to show off Ming Yan and Fei Lun's strength, but he ended up watching Lie Yang being bombarded to pieces without any chance of fighting back.
But Mingyan and Feilun couldn't be blamed for this. Zhao Ying knew that facing the colorful golden mental cannons...
Even she was terrified.
What's more, Lieyang was in such an embarrassing situation during the game...it was Mu Baixing who did it on purpose.
Zhao Ying had been in the corps for more than ten years after all. Whether sailing with the corps or participating in joint military exercises, she had seen many battles.
Zhao Ying was absolutely certain that the colorful pilot, after bursting with mental power, could ignite the star map from the very beginning and eliminate Lieyang.
But he didn't want to end the game cleanly.
Instead, it intimidated Mingyan and Feilun little by little, step by step, causing fear to grow and be imprinted into each other's hearts...
...I'm afraid it won't disappear in a short time.
Zhao Ying frowned and called her psychologist.
These two children have always had smooth sailing and are the pride of nature. This match will undoubtedly leave a heavy shadow on their hearts... If it is not cleared in time, their future development prospects will be greatly reduced.
She finished her appointment with the psychiatrist, her frown deepening.
"...Where on earth did this ship called Mu Baixing, which awakened humans, come from?" She returned the battle video on the screen and muttered, "The Central Star Region shouldn't have produced a ship with such high burst potential..."
She looked at the increasingly powerful golden light cannon on the screen with an unpleasant expression.
The other party was obviously dissatisfied with Lieyang.
It's like helping someone get revenge.
Zhao Ying: “…”
……Why?
The Mingyan team undoubtedly represents the Ming family.
In the past decade or so, the Ming family’s biggest rival has been the Mu family, who immigrated from the Northern Star Region.
After entering the Central Star Region, the other party quickly gained a foothold and expanded its sphere of influence. In order to fight for the interests of immigrants in the Northern Star Region, it confronted the Ming family on many star navigation projects.
But even though Mu Boxing's last name is Mu...
Due to her full understanding of her old rival, Zhao Ying did not think that Mu Baixing belonged to the Mu family.
Otherwise, during the military meeting two days ago, the Mu family would not have been forced to give up the resource route due to the lack of manpower in the legion.
Except for the Mu family, in the central star field, although the attitudes of the Design Department and the Star Navigation Department towards them were not warm, there was no conflict between them, and the other party would not be so obvious to Ming Yan's opponent in the Star Navigation Competition.
Going back further...
Ming Zhuofeng's former subordinates of the Third Legion had already died or been maimed in the Battle of Dawn.
After Ming Zhilang completely took over the Third Legion, the small number of people still remaining in the legion quickly retired... It was impossible for anyone to have the same sensitivity in starship driving as Mu Baixing.
Could it be their child?
Zhao Ying's expression paused.
She suddenly thought of Mingyu.
I thought of my good friend...the hateful yet pleading look in his eyes before he died.
She thought of the child who was supposed to sleep forever in the freezer, but was accidentally discovered by her father-in-law, Old Man Ming, who forced Ming Zhilang and herself to raise him to adulthood.
That child who was injected with drugs that hindered his spiritual awakening and should be useless for the rest of his life...
If the child's spiritual power is unexpectedly awakened, he will acquire the nature of devouring...
Zhao Ying's heart started beating violently.
...It can't be Mingyu.
She suppressed the fear in her heart with reason.
She had just checked Mingyu's spiritual realm three weeks ago, and the child had not awakened his spiritual power.
Even if he awakens unexpectedly during these three weeks, I will definitely tell my family as soon as possible... because I am his mother.
Taking a step back, even if Mingyu didn't want to tell them... it was impossible for him to raise his mental power level to A level within three weeks.
Zhao Ying turned off the light screen and felt a little uneasy for a while.
She returned to the office, but couldn't concentrate on reading the documents. An hour later, she pushed the document screen aside, turned on her bracelet, and called Mingyu. A cold, robotic female voice came from the bracelet.
"Sorry, a Signal connection cannot be established with the user you called."
*
The Star Navigation Competition automatically blocked external communication connections, so Mingyu didn't receive Zhao Ying's call at all.
He stood outside the starship's maintenance area, clinging to the railing and peering in. The newly designed energy absorber was mounted on a mechanical arm, manipulated by Purple Hair, and precisely snapped into place at the interface at the front of the starship.
"Alright!" Zimao let out a long sigh and looked towards the front of the craft with awe. The sharp, conical energy collector protruded from the front of the starship, making the front of the starship look like the head of a silver steel unicorn with its head bowed.
"This design is kind of cool..." Red Hair stood on the lifting platform nearby and couldn't help but reach out and touch the outer shell of the energy collector. "Brother LU, how much energy can this thing offset?"
"According to the model, there's no problem offsetting the peak output of the Psychic Alpha Cannon," Ming Yu said conservatively. "But we still have to see how it performs in practice. We're worried about burning out components before the energy is completely slowed down, or that overflowing energy that can't be fully contained could damage the starship's hull."
"What?" A question came from behind Mingyu.
Mu Baixing didn't know when he woke up. He stood up, walked to the side of the maintenance area, and coughed.
His complexion didn't look any better than before, in fact, it looked even worse. The two pills he had just taken weren't useless, but their effects were limited.
Mu Baixing stood beside Mingyu, leaning against the railing, and whispered, "Medicine."
Mingyu: “…”
Mingyu took out two medicine boxes from his pocket and handed them to him. He saw that Mu Baixing poured out a handful of pills without even looking at the instructions printed on the bottom of the medicine box.
"Brother Mu!" Mingyu called out quickly, and then suddenly remembered Mu Baixing's genetic disease.
His recovery ability is low, and ordinary pills can only be effective if he increases the dosage.
Mingyu: “…”
Mingyu pursed his lips.
"It's okay." Mu Baixing said, "It won't kill you."
He handed the half-empty medicine box back to Mingyu with a frown.
Mu Baixing: "I had a dream."
Deep in a black energy field, a huge starship is stranded.
The hull was covered in black cracks, and the towering bridge was broken and collapsed. In his dream, he couldn't even see the starship's true color and shape, but he intuitively knew... the mechanical heart within it was glowing with the same dark golden light as his own mental power.
"Brother Mu?"
Mu Baixing turned to look at Mingyu.
"Rest for a while?" Mingyu asked worriedly, "There are still ten minutes left..."
Mu Baixing shook his head: "It's hard to sleep."
"What was added to the starship?"
Seeing that he really didn't want to sleep, Mingyu pulled up the design drawings: "A device that allows you to fire powerful artillery without using mental power."
Mu Baixing: "There's nothing wrong with my spiritual realm."
His mental endurance was very high, and the aftereffects of forcibly increasing his mental strength level were only temporary pain, just like a muscle that had been overused. Although it hurt, it was not injured, and it was not a problem to endure it for two hours.
Mingyu: “…”
Mingyu glared at him unhappily.
"Don't use it!" He pulled Mu Baixing back to sit on the chair, then pointed at the light screen and explained to him the newly installed structure in the barrel, "Open the regulating valve and drive it manually. Let me tell you about this energy cannon..."
"beep--"
As the two were talking, a warning sound came from the maintenance area.
The final inspection of the starship's repairs was complete, and all damaged parts had been repaired. Purple-haired exhaled, breaking away from his work, and turned to look over here with Orange, Blue, and Green-haired.
"It's done!" Several people lined up one after another and jumped off the maintenance lift, walked out of the maintenance area, and stood in a row behind Mu Baixing.
Mu Baixing then stood up with his arm around Mingyu's shoulder and walked towards the connection between the maintenance room and the starport.
Behind them, the huge starship that had been repaired and modified was transported to the starport by a conveyor belt and was ready to set sail.
"Ah! The colorful team! They are back on the game wheel!!" In the live broadcast room, the rabbit commentator was the first to catch the light screen lighting up again.
Just after Mu Baixing exploded his mental power to destroy Lieyang's starship, he had already locked his attention on the colorful team information. After receiving the notice from LUCE that special materials were used, Rabbit Commentator's attention to this team has reached its peak.
The light screen belonging to the colorful team has been hanging in front of him. Just now, it changed from a black screen display of "under maintenance" to a normal game image.
"What an exciting scene!! This silver starship... I'm extremely curious about their next match! I wonder if Mu Boxing will use his 3S mental power again! Oh wait!"
"The colorful starship's appearance seems to have changed!"
"That new cone-shaped object at the front of the starship?... It seems to be a special device designed and installed by LUCE using special ore! We don't know the specific function of this device yet! Let's wait and see!"
The orange-green wheel spun, and the plush rabbit put aside the team he was just commenting on and paid attention to the colorful draw results.
"The map that Colorful drew this time is a near-earth map with a complex gravity field! - The opponent is the Ya Ya Chong Chong team -" The Rabbit commentator's passionate voice couldn't help but pause for a second when he saw the opponent's very cute team name.
The starships of the Duck Duck Charge Team live up to their name.
This is a yellow duck-shaped starship with a thick and smooth appearance, but the duck's body is longer, and the raised tail forms a tail fin. The front gun barrel is obviously loaded in the mouth, and the eyes are transparent, inside which are the portholes of the left and right cockpits.
A rare two-man warship.
Rabbit explained: "Hmm... Colorful has no intention of firing for now! LUCE releases his mental power!"
"The environment in this near-Earth star map is incredibly dynamic! Energy interference fog, gravity fields, and underground lava eruptions all appear randomly. Gravity changes and lava areas shift randomly every time the map loads, making it impossible for teams to grasp a pattern."
"Apparently, this time when they entered the map, their location was outside the range of the energy interference fog. They were luckier than Ya Ya Chong Chong Yao!"
"Although Ya Ya Chong Chong was in the interference fog, he somehow found the right position! The distance between the two sides is shrinking!"
"Oh, Luce's mental power is reaching out... Luce's control over his mental power seems to have reached a new level during this short period of repair? The range of his mental power seems to have expanded even further than before..."
The changing gravity field makes the starship's flight unstable, but the manually operated starship is not slow.
Mingyu looked around intently and saw a bit of yellow in the distance.
A yellow cartoon duck flying in the air.
Mingyu: “I saw it!”
"They are the front barrels, which are the duck's beaks." Mingyu narrowed his eyes slightly. "For now, I have only seen the conventional weapon configuration."
The colorful-haired people looked at the instrument in front of them.
On the instrument screen in front of them, there was not even a hint of the enemy starship appearing.
Several people looked at each other and came to the same conclusion: Mingyu's mental power field of vision seemed to have expanded.
"There seems to be something up ahead." Inside the Duck Duck Rush Team's cockpit, the observer's virtual form took the form of a duck with yellow feathers and an orange beak. His mental threads entwined around the starship, and as he watched the faint flashes in the distance, he spoke uncertainly, "Perhaps an enemy starship? But I can't confirm their configuration or exact location at the moment..."
Mu Boxing's finger was already on the fire button on the manual operating console.
"Bang——"
"The colorful ones opened fire first!" the rabbit commentator shouted immediately, "However! Their laser cannons appear to be just plain white! Without any spiritual power mixed in?"
"Is this the aftereffect of Mu Boxing's mental outburst just now? To be honest, I'm actually relieved about this. Otherwise, I would have suspected that the colorful driver was actually a top hacker who had hacked into the Star Navigation Competition's simulation system and was cheating..."
"Dodge!" The yellow duck didn't see the starship, but at least saw the rapid and continuous artillery fire.
"...Why isn't it a psychic cannon? Just an ordinary high-speed rapid-fire cannon? Is this team so weak?" The yellow duck immediately reported back, "Should we attack directly or set a trap?"
"Set a trap." The drivers were a pair of twins. Their virtual images looked very young and were still wearing high school uniforms. They spoke cautiously, one on the left and one on the right.
"Don't underestimate the enemy."
"Pretend to be hesitant and lure them into the interference we just passed... That's a great place for us to launch a surprise attack!"
Huang Ya then nodded in agreement: "Then let's fire a few rounds at them symbolically as a token of our appreciation!"
The Duck Starship's mouth then opened, spewing out several streams of orange-red fire.
These bursts of artillery fire were very fast, with the intervals between them being negligibly short, but the width of the fire was very low.
"One second later, on the left," Mingyu said. "Their muzzle width is less than a tenth of a mile, so the deflection angle doesn't need to be large."
The rabbit explained, "Is this the peak power of the Duck Duck Charge Team's gun barrel? This artillery configuration, which prioritizes flexible and continuous fire, looks a bit disadvantaged in this picture! Of course, the functional valve currently used by Colorful also has a similar continuous fire function..." The plush rabbit scratched his head. "Neither side hit the other?! Duck Duck Charge aside, this seems a bit inconsistent with Colorful's strength..."
In the fluctuating gravity field, the starship's flight was unstable. Mingyu dodged most of the already narrow energy cannons, and the remaining few, even without the need for a colorful dodge, lost their accuracy due to the sudden change in the starship's altitude.
The orange-red artillery fire missed one after another, and the duck's beak opened wide, looking a little stupid. After several unsuccessful attacks, it turned around and ran away.
Mingyu: “…”
"That shouldn't be the case." He hesitated. "There's a large lava eruption area ahead. Should we chase after it?"
Mu Baixing: "Chase."
The ducks turned and distanced themselves, presumably to allow the barrels to recharge and cool down. They couldn't just stand by and watch the other side regain its full power and attack again.
Mingyu always felt something was wrong.
"There might be a problem." The bright blue mental power took the lead and chased forward. "Their observer's mental power has only been entangled around their own starship. They didn't even try to enter the airspace around us."
They had just fired using only the normal gun barrel function, originally intending to make their own starship appear ordinary and harmless, drawing the enemy starship closer so they could switch to short-range, powerful fire.
But Ya Ya Chong Chong, not to mention that the starship didn't approach, even the observer's mental power had no intention of getting closer to detect their movements! He only fired a few shots with the front barrel of the long-range continuous fire, turned around and ran away.
Mingyu judged others by himself and always felt that the other party was setting a trap.
Mu Baixing: "Let's go and take a look."
"If they don't change, we'll change first."
He pushed down the accelerator, and the silver starship suddenly moved forward, rushing into the dangerous magma area, turning the functional valve to shorten the distance with the duck starship in front.
"The Colorfuls have replaced the muzzle valve! Their fire has become more concentrated and powerful! But Mu Boxing still isn't using his mental power!" the Rabbit commentator shouted, "They're chasing the Ya Ya Chong Chong team! The distance between them is shortening! Clearly, the Colorfuls are advancing at full speed, and they won't let go of the Ya Ya Chong Chong team, who need to distance themselves to cool down their gun barrels..."
"We still can't figure out the function of the newly installed device on the front of the colorful starship! They don't seem to have any intention of activating it during the pursuit! Oh—the lava erupted!"
Thick red and black magma rose from the ground. Mu Baixing had already pulled the starship aboard at Mingyu's suggestion.
The temperature in the cockpit began to rise. The starship turned and banked, increasing its power to shake off the erupting lava on its side, weaving through the gushing lava column.
"Wow! They're chasing us! They look pretty scary!" Duck rushed into the cockpit, and the yellow duck observer quacked, "Left, left! Oops! Their laser cannon grazed the starship's hull...!"
"Three minutes to the interference fog area! Um, brothers! We don't need to let the enemy get so close to our starship..."
"It's not our will!" the two pilots said in unison. "It's just that their starship engines are too fast! The planned route saves time!"
"Didn't you see? The arc they used to avoid the lava column was very small, and they barely needed to deviate from the angle of their pursuit of us! Their observers can see far..."
"I'm covering your muzzle accumulators! Without me covering them, the enemy would be able to spot the main gun as soon as it charges... Interference fog is coming up ahead! Prepare to fire!"
"There's an energy interference fog ahead..." Ming Yu was fully alert. "Are they really going to run? This is a waste of race time..."
The silver starship rushed into the fog, and the bright blue mental power began to continuously devour the interfering fog.
"What are the ducks doing? The mental power of their observers is almost wrapping the starship into a cocoon..." Mingyu paused, and suddenly raised his voice, "The muzzle of their guns... Brother Mu!"
The orange-red fire lit up again, but not from the duck's mouth.
The shape of the battleship in front underwent an extremely abrupt and unexpected change.
The area below the yellow duck-shaped battleship suddenly dispersed.
The movable shaft hidden in the bottom plate of the starship rotated and stretched out in all directions. The lower half of the duck disappeared, and the yellow shell extended horizontally outward, revealing the flat gun barrel that was originally wrapped inside, stacked layer by layer, and had stored all the energy.
A yellow duck head rests atop the stacked barrels, its bright yellow hull contrasting sharply with the devastating weapon beneath.
The energy fluctuations that originally surrounded the starship became extremely violent after losing the protection of the duck shell.
The adorable starship suddenly revealed its ferocious appearance.
Powerful and dazzling orange artillery fire shot out from the black barrel, pulling up a wide veil and pouring down!
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