Lu Bixing, “…”
You little bastards, the principal already knew!
The security encryption lock in the mech storage room came under attack straight away. Lu Bixing looked through his newly grown eyes and found the attack method on the encryption lock very familiar - it was from the extended extracurricular reading list he had just posted last week!
White raised his tail to brag, “I stayed up three whole nights to figure it out. The principal should give me a scholarship.”
…But the principal just wanted to give him a big slap across the face.
On the one hand, Principal Lu felt somewhat relieved, because while he had worn off the skin on his lips, he did manage to cram something useful into some of these blockheads. On the other hand, he was exasperated, because hardly had these brats shown any willingness to learn, they used it against the principal!
Modern means of transportation could be roughly divided into two categories: interstellar and non-interstellar.
Non-interstellar vehicles ran in the atmosphere and included many different types, such as the ground-based ordinary civilian cars and military mechmobiles, low-altitude high-speed locomotives and high-speed railcars, high-altitude planes and special aircrafts, etc.
Interstellar transportation generally included only two types - starships and mechs.
Starships could be used for military as well as civilian purposes. It was a generic term that covered a fairly broad scope.
But mechs were different.
According to the laws of the IU, mechs could only be used as military equipment. It could be a simple one-person mech small enough to fit into a laboratory building, or an intergalactic heavy mech large enough to cover the sky and blot out the sun. All mechs were equipped with two systems, a regular flight control system and a military system, which included interfaces for various weapons of mass destruction and defense mechanisms. Private possession of mechs was strictly prohibited - except in the passed over zone of the Eighth Galaxy.
No matter how shabby a mech was, it was still a killing machine, absolutely not a toy for minors with little knowledge.
Lu Bixing might not have been all that reliable, but he was at any rate still a teacher. He dared not just let the students mess around. He hurriedly terminated the experiment, wasting no time on removing the chip in his body, and flatly yanked the testing instruments off his person, breaking three wires and a sensor. The equipment protested with a chorus of alarms. A vague smell of something being burnt rose.
Lu Bixing felt so pained that he wished he could have taken its place, but the little bastard White had obviously put in real work. He had not only thoroughly digested the extended reading material, but even made his own improvements. Seeing that the encryption lock in the storage room was about to fall at any minute, Lu Bixing could not worry about the hot mess in the laboratory. He threw on his clothes and proceeded to head out.
The access control of the laboratory consisted of an ancient fingerprint and iris system. In order to save money, Principal Lu did not put in a genetic lock. He was not yet accustomed to the sudden strange power coursing through his body; in a state of heightened anxiety, he directly poked a hole through the fingerprint collector with his mighty diamond finger.
Having suffered this misfortune, the access control thought there was a foreign intrusion. It skipped scanning his iris, skipped unlocking the door, and screamed on the spot, at the same time automatically cut off all networks and signals in the laboratory and shut the emergency security door - the door that was more than three meters thick, made of special materials, and could withstand three shots from medium-sized particle cannons.
There must have been some mysterious force in the universe that was in charge of “bad luck” and it dumped some invisible dog shit on Lu Bixing’s head.
Principal Lu was locked in his own laboratory, staring dumbfoundedly at the emergency security door, turning into a smoking chimney from rage.
There were two boys and two girls in the mech storage room. Eight eyes gazed at the encrypted lock that was rapidly falling apart at the present moment -
White was the leader. White felt that his knowledge in mechs was limited, so he recruited two helpers, Mint and her roommate Huang Jingshu. The two girls were initially reluctant to join him, so White hired them with money.
Another boy also came along. He was the one who took other people’s seats and started a mob fight at the opening ceremony. His name was Vitas. This young man was such an utter complete jock that everyone in the entire Starry Sea Academy, except the principal, wanted to beat him up. He had to fight on average eight times a day with classmates familiar and strange, so he had a nickname, “Gamecock”. Bro Gamecock’s family might not have been in proper business. He claimed to have once touched a real mech, and originally came here to major in “mech operation”.
These four had a clear division of labor. White was responsible for picking the lock. Mint and Huang Jingshu were equipment maintenance. They would be responsible for the flight control system and the defense system respectively. Gamecock was in charge of driving the mech.
With an audible “click”, the encryption lock broke down completely. The storage room doors opened slowly to the sides. White jumped up with joy and raised one hand high above his head. Unfortunately, his three partners were not quite sociable and looked at him with the same blank face. White had no choice but to clap his own hands and did half a verse of gymnastics on the spot.
Huang Jingshu let out a sigh, “Sure you gonna drive this? You guys got sick of living, right?”
Despite being a single-person mech produced by a remote cult organization, it still stood about ten meters tall. Since it was co-opted for teaching purposes, the weaponry slots encircling it were empty. Even so, it looked plenty frightening.
Gamecock claimed that he had touched a real mech, but that was actually bluffing. He had only played with a true scale model once when he was a kid. That was like a bumper car compared to the real thing. Gamecock swallowed secretly, suspecting that he had bluffed too hard.
Trapped in the laboratory, Principal Lu, with his all-seeing x-ray eyes, watched helplessly as they entered the mech storage room, unable to do a thing - the biochip in his body was rudimentary, with limited capabilities. There were only two functions, one was “disguise” and the other “invisibility”, almost solely dedicated to child trafficking; there were no other customizable options!
Lu Bixing could not make any calls, could not connect to any network, and no one could hear him banging on the door. He broke out in a cold sweat.
Then, he lifted his head and saw a sonic amplifier in the laboratory.
Four reckless teens stood beneath the giant mech, all scared. However, compared to the mech, Mint, who was desperately poor, was apparently more afraid that White would not pay the final payment, so she took the lead and mustered up the courage, “Keep moving, you guys. “
Gamecock glimpsed at her. The hot-blooded young man was not going to give in in front of the opposite sex.
Up to this point, apart from teaching the basic knowledge of mechs, Lu Bixing had only taken the students to see it once and demonstrated how to open the hatch. Gamecock collected his wits, walked forward with ostensible calm. Recalling the steps he read from books, he opened the hatch.
The mental network in the mech activated with a buzz as they filed into the mech. The neural net lit up like a boiling sea of wretched green, really rather creepy. Gamecock suspected that the parts below his knees were no longer his. He couldn’t remember the linking command for the life of him.
Just as he was staring at a loss at the mental network, Principal Lu boosted his voice with the sonic amplifier, sent it along the water pipes of the laboratory building to the mech storage room, and shouted in a distorted voice, “Who let you touch the mech?! Get off!”
Gamecock was so shocked by Principal Lu’s yell that he remembered the linking command and put it in subconsciously. The hatch closed with a bang before the other three had a chance to react. Tens of thousands of mental network strands rushed towards Gamecock. The pitch of the noise in the mech suddenly rose.
White cradled his head with both hands, “Is it … is it about to explode?!”
Huang Jingshu, “Disconnect right now! You guys are in deep fucking shit!”
Gamecock could not say a thing - those without training could not just casually board a mech. The impact of the first mental link was powerful enough to give someone a concussion. Gamecock had already conked out.
Mint pushed her companions aside, “There are manual controls. Get out of the way. I will stop the process.”
She had the demeanor of a general and was calm and composed. She smashed the emergency safety valve port with a single punch… Then, faced with mostly unfamiliar buttons inside the safety valve, she was dumbstruck.
But nooblet Mint was so immensely bold that she was dumbstruck for only a second before she decided to treat a dead horse as if it were alive and tried her hand with (un)educated guesses.
Lu Bixing almost had a heart attack right then and there, “Don’t touch!”
But it was too late.
The buzz inside the mech subsided. Before the teens had time to breathe a sigh of relief, the mech moved.
The floor of the storage room divided into two with a loud noise, revealing a deep track. The mech, its wings slowly retracting, slid down the track… and slid towards the launchpad without hesitation.
The students stared at each other for a few seconds. Then, the precocious, the aloof and classy, and the ones who courted chaos, collectively reduced to the children that they were, opened their mouths together and screamed.
Screaming could not stop the mech. It fell mercilessly into the center of the launchpad, and tremendous waves of energy exploded outward…
It soared into the sky.
Lu Bixing couldn’t believe it. These four brats lit themselves up like a sky piercing monkey (a firework rocket - translator) right in front of his face. He was beyond furious, “You bastards, I’m going to have to throw you out!”
He kicked the emergency security door, leaving a concave footprint. Lu Bixing noted the depth of the footprint and figured that he would have to keep kicking this same spot for three days before he could escape. He might as well hope for Zhanlu to let him out.
Losing his temper was not the answer. Lu Bixing quickly calmed down and started pacing around the sealed laboratory. Suddenly, Principal Lu who had a free roaming imagination landed on an idea - he activated the “disguise” function of the biochip.
The next moment, in the awareness of all security devices in the laboratory, the originally furious man became a toothy little boy.
The little boy sat alone in the laboratory, brewed for half a minute, then bursted out howling.
According to the IU’s Minors Protection Law, if a child under the age of ten was alone for more than five minutes with obvious signs of distress, the nearest monitoring or security system should notify the police.
Zhanlu installed the security system of the laboratory. Lu Bixing hoped that the AI from the IU would abide by the law.
Zhanlu did not disappoint. The rejuvenated Principal Lu howled for five minutes without regard to his image. The almost ornamental local police station received a call. Police officers within a radius of twenty miles set out together in bewilderment. Half an hour later, they dug out a disheveled Principal Lu from Starry Sea Academy.
At this time, the mech carrying the four troublemakers had quietly left Planet Beijing-β like a tiny boat, following the route that the mech had previously been programmed with, flying into the vast universe.
Meanwhile, Lin Jingheng left Planet Beijing with Zhanlu, who had failed to report to the laboratory on time, and was politely invited to a small base drifting at the edge of the Eighth Galaxy.
The mech touched down. The hatch opened slowly with a heavy sigh. Lin Jingheng stepped out with his hands behind his back and saw the people welcoming him at the door.
The group of people, whether men or women, all wore long robes and covered their persons with various bits and pieces of ornaments. If you looked closely, you could see that the ornaments were all living creatures - the ones hanging from the ears as earrings were live spiders, the bracelets were live scorpions, and the necklaces might have been small snakes biting their own tails.
This was the notorious cult Poisonous Nest of the Eighth Galaxy.
The leader was a middle-aged man who was about two hundred years old. The left side of his face was covered in tattoos of poisonous insects, rendering the facial features almost indiscernible. He took half a step forward and reached out to Lin Jingheng, “I’ve long heard of Lin Sige of Panet Beijing but never had a chance to visit. Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Alai, a servant of the Great Voodoo God. Welcome, my friend. May the light of the Great Voodoo God always shine upon you.”
Upon hearing this bizarre blessing, Lin Jingheng lifted the corners of his mouth at him in an imitation of a smile, feeling itchy already. He shook hands with the other party perfunctorily without taking off his gloves, “Pardon me for having hurt your man by accident. “
Alai flashed a bright smile, “My man broke into your territory by mistake. We were in the wrong first. It’s no big deal. No discord, no concord.”
With that, he was done talking about the “Spider” incident and simply extended his hand to Lin Jingheng, “Please.”
This base was refitted from an abandoned space station, about the size of a small city. It drifted at the edge of the Eighth Galaxy and was taken over by the Poisonous Nest.
Since the Poisonous Nest worshiped big bugs, their aesthetics were different from ordinary people. Their members came in all sorts of weird shapes. The ones carrying or tattooing poisonous bugs on their bodies were relatively normal. The more extreme ones would have some organs of the bugs cultured, mutated and transplanted into their body. It was bedlam all over.
Lin Jingheng looked straight ahead and turned a blind eye to the monsters and demons around. He followed Alai for about ten minutes and arrived at a huge starship. The cold and smooth shell of the starship glimmered in the artificial light, rather incongruent with the dilapidated facilities and bizarre inhabitants on the asteroid, like an alien from the sky.
Lin Jingheng took a quick glance and eyeballed that the technological sophistication of the starship was at least 150 years ahead of the Poison Nest base. This must be from the mysterious sponsor of the Poison Nest, the group that produced the chips and demanded children.
The starship’s hatch opened. Several people in protective suits walked out. The leader took off his hood, revealing a rather ordinary man’s face, “Lin Sige from Planet Beijing, right? Nice to meet you. You can call me ‘Double O One’. I’m the one who invited you here. According to your saying, I would be a space pirate.”
“Nice to meet you,” Lin Jingheng arched an eyebrow, “According to your saying, I would be a big hoodlum.”