Chapter 106: Chapter 106: Tracking the Jinx

Yang Bo watched the warplane fly away. Taking a quick turn, he found an entrance to the Underworld and slipped inside.

"Good thing it left." Once inside the Underworld entrance, Yang Bo immediately commanded the mecha to sprint deeper into the subterranean realm. He had to destroy this mecha; he couldn’t let anyone find it.

"General, that mecha has entered the Underworld." Hidden among the wild grass, Black Blade General was stunned to hear his subordinate’s report.

"Could it be someone from another tribe?" Black Blade General suddenly realized a possibility. While this person was definitely from the Alliance, many of their own kind were also affiliated with the Alliance.

"Chase him!" Realizing that Yang Bo might be carrying crucial information, Black Blade General immediately issued the command.

"General, the mecha has gone down to the second level. It’s heading straight for the third!"

"He must have some major intel. After him!" Pumped with adrenaline, Black Blade General felt even more certain of his guess.

***

While Yang Bo was racing madly through the Underworld, the warplane carrying the female commander soared into the sky, shooting straight into space.

Space was littered with warship debris of all sizes. Many pieces were caught by the planet’s gravity, burning up in the atmosphere as brilliant bursts of light, while some larger chunks crashed directly onto the planet’s surface.

A slightly smaller warship rested quietly in the void, surrounded by seven or eight other warships of varying sizes. The warplane landed on one of them.

Looking at the downsized warship, the female commander knew in her heart that their losses this time exceeded fifty percent. After their warship’s individual modules had scattered to ram the two pirate battleships, only half of the modules remained intact enough to recombine into a new vessel.

This modular design was the result of humanity’s many years of space exploration. If a warship were built as a single, unibody structure, it would have numerous drawbacks—one being its vulnerability to impacts from unknown objects in space. In the early days, spaceships were built with interconnected cabins, but during emergencies, if the middle sections were breached or severed, the remaining cabins would lose contact. As a result, shipbuilders later adopted a system where individual modules could be freely combined. This way, in the event of an accident or battle, only the affected modules would be destroyed, allowing the rest of the vessel to maintain its combat effectiveness.

Upon boarding the warship, the female commander quickly checked the data and breathed a sigh of relief. Ninety percent of the ejected personnel had been recovered. This was all thanks to the unmanned warplanes deployed by the reinforcing warship fleet, which had aggressively attacked the pirates’ escape pods while simultaneously retrieving their own.

"Captain Wang, it’s a pleasure to see you again. We’ve secured the mission objective and will be returning immediately. I have already notified the Alliance, and they will dispatch warships to support you at top speed. Please take care!" The captain of the opposing warship appeared on the comms video. Seeing the female commander, he looked relieved as he spoke.

"Captain Liu, thank you for your concern. We’ve troubled you this time," the female commander, Captain Wang, nodded in gratitude.

"Our warship also ran into some trouble," Captain Liu continued. "The Red Earl’s people actually infiltrated our vessel. We have over 150 missing personnel here. Twenty-three of them are warship soldiers, while the other 120 or so are March Star citizens we rescued from a pirate raid along the way. I must trouble you to conduct a search and rescue operation for them, Captain Wang."

"I am leaving you twenty thousand unmanned warplanes. Please accept the transfer!" Captain Liu then sent over a data link.

"Thank you. Take care on your way back!" the female commander nodded.

Soon after, she watched a swarm of warplanes fly out from the other warship. This indicated that the control permissions had already been transferred to her side. As long as these unmanned warplanes landed on her warship to recharge, they would be hers to command. However, given the current situation, it was unlikely that any more pirates would show up.

"Thank you, I’ll see you at the end of the year!" Captain Liu replied. He knew that with an incident of this magnitude, Captain Wang would definitely face an inquiry from the Council, and he would surely be questioned as well.

The female commander watched the opposing warship fleet depart. Their main warship appeared mostly intact, save for a few empty gaps where damaged modules had been jettisoned as they were no longer of any use.

Opening the personnel list provided by Captain Liu, the female commander frowned slightly. Yang Bo’s ID number was not on it.

"Strange," she thought, her sense of bewilderment growing. She knew that Yang Bo had unleashed an energy radiance using military-grade battle armor. Energy armor could only be operated by someone with an identical, or at least highly compatible, energy source—even for trained soldiers.

"Advisor Yang, is it possible for a Mecha Maintenance Master to gain authorization access to a mecha?" the female commander asked casually.

"Commander, that’s impossible. Every mecha has a corresponding key. They utilize an optical-wave neural network. Without the key, there is absolutely no way to gain authorization, and the optical-wave neural network key for every mecha is entirely unique!"

"Furthermore, mecha manufacturing companies embed quantum coordinates in every unit to prevent competitors from buying and dismantling them. Though, I believe models prior to the eighth generation lack this quantum coordinate tracking." Advisor Yang, who was also a woman, had been momentarily taken aback by the question before giving her answer.

The female commander nodded. An optical-wave neural network essentially meant that the system relied on optical signal communication, but these optical signals spanned a vast array of frequencies.

The key functioned like a cipher book. When an optical signal was transmitted, it would contain hundreds or even thousands of frequencies. Of those, ninety-nine percent were useless noise, leaving only one percent as the actual, functional signal. Without the key, there was no way to determine which one percent held the valid data.

It could be a signal on a single frequency, or one filtered from dozens of different frequencies. Such advanced super-technology as the optical-wave neural network was fundamentally uncrackable.

There were exceptions, of course. Some individuals possessing specific superpowers could completely bypass the optical-wave neural network key and gain authorization directly.

The female commander had heard of such people before. They were currently housed in the Alliance’s Supreme Research Institute, acting as both researchers and test subjects. Regardless of their role, they could forget about ever stepping foot outside again.

No matter what kind of Superpower User you were, you were still human first. And as long as you were human, you would leave a trace. It was only a matter of time before the Alliance found you.

The female commander reviewed the rest of the personnel files and forwarded their information to the warship’s database, instructing the search warplanes to prioritize finding them.

However, she wasn’t optimistic about the chances of the hundred or so citizens. Even if some of them possessed superpowers, they had almost zero chance of winning against mutants. Even trained warship soldiers would find themselves at a disadvantage. These mutants frequently engaged in brutal wars against mutated beasts and even other tribes, making their combat capabilities terrifyingly strong.

"Just who is that person?" The thought flashed through her mind, but she quickly set it aside to focus on the busy task of clearing the battlefield.

Forging +2!

Forging +2!

***

"What the hell is Forging?"

Deep in the Underworld, Yang Bo had just emerged from a tunnel when he ran straight into a group of seven or eight mutants. He instantly fired his laser cannon, catching them completely off guard.

But the superpower that dropped this time left Yang Bo entirely baffled. What exactly was going on?

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