Chapter 558: Fragments of the Eternal Star?
Li Ming was quite surprised as he looked at the bright blue light ball floating in front of him.
Ever since Zorro stepped into the palace, he had a strange feeling. He could vaguely feel something in the other person's body.
At first, he was not sure, but as the other party got closer, the feeling became stronger.
That's why he tried to pull it, but he didn't expect that he could pull it back with just a slight attempt.
Through the bright blue light, he could vaguely see the irregular broken crystal blocks in it, and every protrusion on the broken surface was emitting tiny blue pulses.
With the slightest movement, the air around the fragments solidified into an amber-like substance, in which light formed a strange double-helix refraction path.
His eyes moved slightly, and a silver alloy structure rolled out from the back of his neck, covering his head like a metal waterfall, forming an advanced microscope eyepiece made up of seven telescopic tubes.
The eyepiece array was calibrating itself, making a constant clicking sound. The sixteen hexagonal lenses slid and reorganized like a beetle's compound eyes, and a cold blue light flowed between the lenses.
Magnified almost ten thousand times, the tiny crystal fragments turned into a huge "planet". He could clearly see that the fragments themselves were constantly vibrating.
Each high-frequency vibration will create new fractal cracks on the surface. Special silver-white symbols surge inside these cracks. Whenever they are about to overflow, they will converge in time, and the cycle will continue.
At the same time, the surface of the fragments is suspended with the peeled space-time film, and this translucent material is printed with constantly changing patterns.
Li Ming observed carefully, but Zorro was stunned.
Of course he knew that the special changes in his body were caused by this thing.
You can even see future scenes, many timelines, and things that will happen in the future.
This is an extremely terrifying ability. Of course, he was excited at the beginning, thinking that his good luck had finally come.
But it didn't take long for him to realize that he was not qualified to own this thing.
The fact that he was able to escape from the empire three times was because the other party did not pay much attention to him.
Even if he could escape, he couldn't do more by himself. The most he could do was send a distress message, so he revealed this to Robin, and also wanted to use it to attract the big guys to come and rescue him.
He himself was too weak, for example, on the way back, he was personally guarded by several S-class mechanical bodies.
This thing in his body had been dormant and had not helped him predict the escape route.
He guessed that for him, escaping from the S-class mechanical body would be impossible no matter what.
Although he knew that he probably couldn't keep this thing, and even traded it, Zorro still felt a little proud.
After all, it was this thing that chose him. Even if he himself didn't know why it chose him, it was still a kind of recognition.
But unexpectedly, Li Ming just stretched out his hand slightly, and the thing in his body abandoned him and ran over happily.
It was as if he had gone through so much torture just to get this thing to the other person.
Wait...Zorro couldn't help but smile bitterly, but suddenly realized something and his expression kept changing.
If this thing can predict the future, then the reason it chose me is probably because it predicted that I could contact Robin.
Robin then contacted Li Ming, and finally delivered it to Li Ming.
Fuck! You're treating me like a human transport plane.
Realizing this, Zoro's expression became even uglier.
Robin looked at the thing curiously. Seeing Li Ming so focused on it, it should not be a simple thing.
After a brief observation, Li Ming's heart was inevitably excited and he breathed a sigh of relief.
He narrowed his eyes to see if it was what I guessed, and then he suddenly grasped it.
The palm of the hand completely enveloped the broken crystal that was hanging a few centimeters above.
[Star of Eternal Silence - Sub-Ultimate (Fragment): A Titan relic forged with all the strength of the Titan race, possessing the terrifying power to manipulate time.
Control conditions: 5 billion metal energies
Control ability - Future foresight: Can predict the possible timeline of the target life form. The accuracy decreases as the time intensity increases, and can be improved by collecting other fragments.
(Note: Due to special factors, this ability is useless to the host. The more the life form is affected by the host, the stronger the interference.)
Control Ability - Regional Time Adjustment: Can adjust the speed of time flow within a certain range. The adjustment range depends on the time intensity within the range. Taking the host as an example, the acceleration and attenuation are both 2:1.
Li Ming's breathing stagnated slightly. When he saw the first four words, his heart relaxed. It was indeed what he had guessed - the Star of Eternal Silence.
When he pulled this thing out of Zorro's body, he was almost certain that this thing was the Star of Eternal Silence.
The reason why he was able to pull this thing out was probably because of his so-called "Submerged King" identity.
The value of the King Trial is still increasing.
However, when he looked back, his brows furrowed slightly.
"Fragments?"
This was the first time he had seen such a description. The most serious damage he had seen before was a "damaged" sign.
This is the first time I've seen something that can be used even after being broken into pieces.
The Oath-Keeping Stone does not count. After consulting the information about the Glorious Dynasty, he speculated that the three stones should be independent entities that can only be combined together.
It really is worthy of being a sacred object of Titan, Li Ming muttered in his heart, but he was not too surprised actually.
In the deep dimensional world, there are more people competing for the "Star of Eternal Silence".
The empire is involved, and the related remaining traces and the previous space-time storm must be true.
There can't be two eternally silent stars, so shattering is the only explanation.
Because it is in a fragmented state, the amount required to control it is greatly reduced, only 5 billion is needed, which is lower than the complete Infinite Hammer.
There are two abilities, but no other data added.
【Future Precognition】, the explanation is easy to understand, it is to conduct time deduction.
But this last annotation really left him speechless. "Special factors" refers to the control system.
Because of the existence of the control system, he cannot predict any of his own timelines, and any prediction of his timelines will be severely disturbed.
What this means is that if you use the people around you to predict time and want to see some of his future from the side, you can't do it.
This left him speechless, but the timeline was more of a possibility screening and not that powerful in nature.
Otherwise, Zorro would not have been captured three times in a row.
Fortunately, the second ability - [Regional Time Regulation], does not have this annotation and can be used on him, which means that genetic seeds can be developed in this way.
Although the time ratio is only two to one, it is equivalent to directly cutting the time in half.
When used against enemies, it may be difficult to affect X-level life forms, but it is a powerful weapon for developing genetic progress.
Li Ming scanned it again to make sure he had not missed any instructions.
In this fragment, time intensity and completeness are important indicators.
As the time strength of the affected object increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to adjust its time.
As the completeness of the fragments increases, various abilities will increase.
"I just don't know how many pieces this thing is broken into." Li Ming pondered, "I don't know if it has any other abilities."
He guessed that there should be, but regional time regulation and reversal and acceleration for a single individual were not abilities.
He can develop with the help of time differences in regional time regulation, but individual acceleration only affects physical conditions.
Under normal circumstances, if he wants to upgrade the object he controls from level X to ultimate, he needs to consume 10 billion metal energies and upgrade materials.
According to this speculation, the Star of Eternal Silence will be broken into two pieces at most.
But the ultimate level is too deep, and 10 billion controlled objects may not be the upper limit.
Like an infinite hammer, the amount needed for complete control is eight billion, not the conventional X-class billion.
Various thoughts were intertwined in his mind, but no matter what, Li Ming was in a good mood because he got the fragments of the Star of Eternal Silence so easily.
But Zorro and Robin were a little nervous.
From their perspective, they could only see Li Ming's face changing after he grasped the thing.
His emotions changed constantly in a short period of time, from excitement, frowning, sighing, relief to smiling.
Looking at Li Ming's final smile, Robin breathed a sigh of relief.
I guess there shouldn't be any problem.
I caught a glimpse of it and was startled.
Zorro's face was pale, his pupils were bloodshot, his head was tilted forward, cold sweat was dripping from both sides of his temples, his whole body was shaking, and his breath was weak, like a candle in the wind.
"What's wrong with you?" Robin was confused. He was fine when he just came in.
"No...it's okay..." Zoro didn't know what was wrong with him. He seemed to have aged a lot.
An irrepressible weakness arose in the body. This weakness was not like the weakness he felt in the past when he relied on the cavernous implant to fight in bed until dawn, but a fundamental inability to do anything.
As soon as he finished speaking, he felt dizzy and fell to the ground.
Robin's face twitched, and he squatted down to take a closer look.
Li Ming came back to his senses and walked over.
"He was fine just now, how come..." Robin was puzzled.
"Time disguise..." Li Ming suddenly said a term that Robin did not understand.
"How many times have you predicted it?" Li Ming asked in confusion.
Robin looked even more bewildered, but Zoro on the ground swallowed his saliva, "I can't count it. Every time I escape, it seems like I've predicted it many times?"
"Ha..." Li Ming couldn't help but grin, "You're really brave. Even if most of the backlash is borne by that thing, the remaining small part is not something you can withstand."
"Before, that thing must have been hiding you."
"Fuck..." Zoro gritted his teeth, "As expected, it's impossible for me to encounter such a thing as a pie in the sky."
Robin figured out that Zorro's current state was probably caused by the bright blue object.
That kind of object would bring an extremely powerful ability, but the backlash was also very strong, and Zorro couldn't withstand it.
Li Ming waved his hand casually, and a mechanical body came out from the shadows and deployed eight sets of detection arms. Two of them fixed Zorro's head, four sets stripped off the damaged clothes, and the remaining two sets continued to spray disinfectant mist.
A sampling probe was shot out from the chest cabin and accurately penetrated into Zorroso's body. A pale yellow display screen lit up on the back of the mechanical body, refreshing the physiological parameters in real time.
Li Ming waited patiently. He also wanted to see what kind of damage would be caused by using the Star of Eternal Silence at will.
Soon, a concise test report was presented to Li Ming. The most intuitive sentence was: "The target's cell activity has been severely damaged, and its lifespan has been greatly reduced. The estimated value is around 80%..."
"My life span has been reduced by 80%?" Zorro opened his eyes wide, making a "ho ho" sound from his mouth, feeling hopeless.
"It's okay, it can be replenished." Li Ming looked at it carefully and responded casually, pondering in his heart, at the cost of cell activity?
Perhaps it was because Zorro was completely unable to support the operation of the Star of Eternal Silence, so he had to use cell activity as a price.
If it were me... Li Ming pondered, it might be okay to use it for a short time, but it might not last for a long time.
The development of genetic progress is a long and protracted process.
He couldn't quite accept that, and thought physical exertion was more appropriate.
Although he didn't know how the control system abstracted physical strength into a blue bar, he could increasingly appreciate the benefits of it.
"Boss, can it really be restored?" Zorro rekindled his hope.
Li Ming put away the test report and glanced at him: "It is difficult to increase cell activity out of thin air, but it is not difficult to make up for the lack."
At least it's not difficult for him now.
"Let Robin take you to Ulrich. He will make arrangements for you."
Zoro expressed his gratitude repeatedly and was helped away by Robin.
Li Ming turned around and went straight to the development room, ready to study the fragment carefully.
As soon as he entered the development room, Suzaku received a summary of the intelligence on his mechanical bodies.
They seized the Imperial fleet, gathered information, and interrogated some individuals.
What Li Ming was most concerned about was why the Empire wanted to capture people like Zorro.
Clicking on the virtual screen, he carefully looked at the relevant reports.
“…Just a routine inspection…” Li Ming was surprised after reading it.
The reason why the Empire captured people like Zorro was that they did not notice that the Star of Eternal Silence had turned into fragments.
To be more precise, this wandering legion has no connection with those who are looking for the Star of Eternal Silence.
It’s just that the people from the Imperial Academy of Sciences discovered some recent changes that occurred in the shallow dimensional world, so they asked them to find samples and conduct investigations.
It can be simply summed up as pure bad luck.
“…So pure…” Li Ming couldn’t help but shake his head, thinking that there was something wrong.
Although he was sure that the fleet did not know about the Star of Eternal Silence, Li Ming was not ready to let them go for the time being.
Once they go back, they will definitely report this matter. Even if it has nothing to do with the Star of Eternal Silence, it will attract a lot of attention and they might be able to find out the connection.
"Let's talk about it after this matter is over..." Li Ming put the matter behind him and looked carefully at the fragments in his hand.
He tried to inject energy, and the fragments immediately emitted strong vibrations, and the pulses surging in the cracks on the surface became more intense.
But there was no response for the time being. Li Ming frowned slightly, and a surge of energy gushed out, trying to inject more energy.
Finally, he could clearly feel an invisible force field gradually expanding, extremely slowly, finally covering about three meters around him, and then stagnated.
It's not that the expansion has reached its limit, but the energy efficiency it can provide can only go so far.
(End of this chapter)
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