<h4>Chapter 443: Backdoor</h4>
<strong>Trantor: </strong>As Studios <strong>Editor: </strong>As Studios
In the Tarm Star Cluster, a spaceship hovered outside the atmosphere of the small numbered 51687. This was a deserted marked as a resource in the database.
“Low oxygen density in the atmosphere, an average temperature of sixty degrees, not suitable for human habitation. Arge amount of heat-preferring nts covering arge area of the surface. The soil contains rich nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, suitable for nt growth...”
Han Xiao looked through the information, pointed at a tall forest on the map, and said, “There’s a secret stronghold of a small group of scavengers here—they’re our target of this trip. They have something that I need.”
His target of this trip was an item that could trigger a high rating mission, and that item was in the hands of this scavenger group.
“You’re nning to break in? How strong are they?” Herlous asked.
“Not strong, just one Grade B. The main issue is that their defensive measures are quite tight, but they have a secret pathway that leads to the underground spaceship garage, which is located here.” Han Xiao drew a circle on the map.
“How did you even know this?” Herlous was surprised.
Without speaking, Han Xiao answered by pointing to his eyes. “The n is simple. I’ll kick the door open and crush the enemies—you’ll go to the garage and wait for them. Don’t let anyone go. Everyone else, standby on the ship.”
After quickly finalizing the n, the spaceship ejected two egg-shaped airdrop cabins. They prated the atmosphere like two meteors, falling down to the forest.
...
The descent was full of turbulence.
Boom!
The airdrop cabins crashed through a few trees and buried themselves deep in the ground. Soil and wood sttered all over the ce and created a mess.
The cabin door opened. Han Xiao walked out, identified their location, and said, “Thending location is about four hundred meters from the enemy’s base. There are many automatic machine gun traps ahead. Hmm... there’s not much oxygen, so breathing is a little difficult.”
The bone-white Void Dragon shrouded his body and filtered the air. Han Xiao inhaled a full mouth of oxygen, and mechanical energy flew into thepressed orbs as they fell onto the floor. With the sound of mechanical parts moving, thepressed orbs expanded into thirty mechanical ck Panther mechanical beasts and surrounded him.
“Go.”
With a snap of his fingers, the mechanical beasts charged forward into the alert area of the enemy’s base. Gaps quickly opened up one after another on the ground, exposing ten or so automatic machine guns that started to fire immediately. zing red bulletsnded on the mechanical beasts’ armor, causing fire sparkles and continuous nks.
This extent of damage was nothing worth mentioning to the enhanced mechanical ck Panther beasts. Thirty mechanical beasts culled the enemies one after another, cutting through muzzles quickly and swiftly with their sharp de tails. The sound of gunshots disappeared very soon—all the automatic machine guns became scrap metal.
The other benefit of the Hounds Style was that the mechanical beasts could be used to scout ahead.
After Han Xiao learned the advanced artificial intelligence knowledge, he swapped the mechanical beasts’ smart chip. Previously, the mechanical beasts could only carry outbat tactics in groups of four, but it had be sixteen, making them much more flexible and swift.
Crossing through the machine guns, Han Xiao activated the metal detection device in his helmet. The full structure of the base showed on the analyzing screen. He found the door on the ground and pulled it open. Inside was a pitch-ck path toward inside of the base. A faint buzzing sound came from within—the rm.
“Looks like they already know I’m here.”
His fingers moved. The shoulder armor te opened, and three mini mechanical flying insects flew out into the path. These flying insects were equipped with all kinds of detection devices that could be used to find traps, among many other things.
“One Laser Corridor with more automatic machine guns... Mobile Crushing Walls and Vacuum Seals... quite many defensive measures I see. One-meter thick gate made by high strength alloy, cannot be opened by hand.”
The analyzing screen was showing the view of the detection flying insects. They were very small, and they were covered in coatings that could block all sorts of detection methods, so they safely passed through the infrared detection of the corridor and came to the gate. Beside the gate was a password device.
Han Xiao sent a new order. The two flying insects suddenly stuck onto the edge of the device. Mini rotary saws popped out from a flying insect’s mouth and pried open the exterior of the password device. A chip plug popped up from the other flying insect’s tail and connected to the password device. The pair of flying insects were tiny cuties made from another advanced knowledge, [Mini Machinery Modification], which he had bought some point in the prior nine months. They had very rich functions, capable of scouting, detecting, and remote hacking.
The data stream of the base appeared on the analyzing screen. Han Xiao started to hack it while keeping an eye out for enemies to suddenly strike. However, as he hacked through the gate’s program, no one appeared.
This time, Herlous’munication came with a sigh. “I’ve arrived at the garage; there’s no spaceship here. Don’t bother wasting your time; there’s no one here.”
Han Xiao’s eyes twitched. The yer in his previous life had needed to break into this scavenger base to get the mission item, but luckily for him, none of the enemies were even home.
No wonder no one had appeared despite him having already arrived at their gate.
“We really came at a good time...”
Han Xiao was speechless. It turned out that he was fighting with the air all along. He quickly stood up and walked into the base casually. He had already shut down all the defensive measures. After he entered the stronghold, there was indeed no one inside.
Although the base was not huge, it had everything it needed. Han Xiao spent some time andpletely hacked the system firewall, took over control of the base, and went straight to the warehouse.
The warehouse was stacked with things collected by the scavengers, most of which was useless. Han Xiao was mainly looking for the item that could trigger the mission, and after searching for a while, he found it without any twists and turns.
It was a beautiful and detailed mini statue that looked like it was made by some kind of brown wood, yet it was as strong as high strength alloys. It was the statue of a very strange creature. If it had to be described, it kind of looked like a distorted mantis. As Han Xiao picked it up, a low and unclear voice suddenly appeared in his mind.
_____________________
You have received [Mysterious Statue].
Item Introduction: This is a statue that you have never seen before. You don’t know what it represents or what meaning it has, but when you touch it, you hear a soft, faint voice speaking to you in your mind. Yet, when you focus on that voice, it disappears.
Remarks: This item seems to possess certain secret knowledge. Some people might be interested in it.
_____________________
“This is it.” Han Xiao’s eyes sparkled. This was a mission triggering item, and he knew the origins of it. This statue was one item included in an item set that came from the Arcane Church and arrived at the central wormhole of the Shattered Star Ring from a distant Star Field. Then, it wandered and ended up there. The yers could receive the rted mission through two methods. One was, of course, to get this item first then meet the person that would trigger the missionter, and the other was to first get clues from that person then find the item that would trigger the mission. In conclusion, no matter which method was used, it required a certain amount of luck. However, Han Xiao did not need to go through such trouble—he could head straight for the key item.
This phenomenon of giving someone an illusion of hearing voices in their head was a characteristic of the Psychic Current. The Psychic Current was very unique and could ur through various means, such as the thoughts of many creatures being enchanted onto on target. After a certain amount of time, this item would produce Psychic Current once it had gathered enough thoughts, like a container of gathered thoughts. The most well-known example would be sacrifices and prayers, and this statue was made from exactly that.
“I’ve got the item,” Han Xiao said.
“That’s quick, shall we leave now?” Herlous asked.
Han Xiao was just about to reply, but suddenly, his movement paused. He looked around, and a daring idea appeared in his mind. “Don’t be in such a hurry. There’s no one here, and we have plenty of time.”
Since they had arrived while the enemy was out, they definitely had to take more things with them.
No, that was too petty.
They should take the entire ce!
Without hesitation, Han Xiao called Herlous and came to help those scavengers ‘move house’.
Base System Chip? Take it!
Defensive devices? Take it!
Alloy wall? Take it!
After quite some time of tearing things down, whatever could be taken from the base was removed and put into more than a dozen supply boxes. For a Mechanic at Han Xiao’s level, the speed of tearing things down was extremely fast.
He roughly estimated that those items could be recycled and turned into more than 2,000 Enas worth of machinery parts.
Han Xiao looked back. The scavenger base had already be an empty shell with opened gates... no, the gates were already gone. Even the floor had been pried open, exposing the wires below the ground. The centralputer and energy core had all been dismantled. The rather huge base was only left with walls.
Han Xiao smiled with satisfaction. He ordered the spaceship tond and loaded the full supply boxes into the spaceship.
...
A few dayster, the scavenger spaceships finally returned to the. They had made quite a good profit from picking up trash near the wormhole clusters, so they were rather joyful.
However, when the base with missing gates and an empty interior entered their visions, everyone froze in ce.
<i>What the hell? Where’s our base?</i>
The scavenger captain rubbed his eyes and made sure that he was not seeing an illusion. His face turned furious, and he howled, “Who tore down our base?”
This waspletely unpopted, and it was in a very rural area. They had spent quite a lot of resources to build a secret base there and never exposed its position. How could anyone know where their base was ?
In the Tarm Star Cluster, they were just a small group of scavengers. Who would bother to go against them? It had to be a petty thief that got lucky!
“Search! Search for the petty thief who did this!” the captain yelled furiously and regretfully. If he had been in the base, he could have prevented it from happening.
They barely gathered the intel fee and contacted the information seller. After searching, they found out that there was only one spaceship that visited this during that period. After uncovering the identity of the passengers of that spaceship, the rage of those scavengers immediately disappeared. In fact, they were dumbfounded.
“—ck Star?” The scavenger captain was stuttering. “What were gctic mercenaries of that level doing here?”
They exchanged looks and were immediately discouraged. Now, they suddenly felt d they had not been in the base when it happened.
If they had faced ck Star, they certainly would have died.
Suddenly, the scavengers felt that losing a base was not so uneptable.
...
As the scavengers were feeling d, Han Xiao and the others passed through the Star Cluster teleportation stargate and came to the Rain Star System of the Colton Star Cluster. The person that could trigger the mission was there... temporarily.
The ruling civilization of Rain Star System, the New Phylen Alliance, had invited a gctic celebrity that was very popr in Shattered Star Ring to tour the ce. The entertainment industry in the gxy was very developed as well. There were singers, actors, and many other industries that brought entertainment to various civilizations.
The different entertainment shows could be watched from the paid channel in the Gctic Communicator. Although Han Xiao did not watch it much, many gctic residents spent their days watching television. After all, with how developed some civilizations were, most people did not have to work, unless they wanted higher positions or better quality of life.
The person to trigger this mission was rather special—it was indeed the gctic celebrity that had been invited.