The Ultimate Evolution

“That’s your benefit,” General Mungo told Sheyan flatly.

Sheyan first carefully inspected the spacecraft, then turned back to face General Mungo.

“Is this thing guaranteed to reach Uplos in one piece?”

General Mungo shook his head. “No. However, I know that you contestants have some amazing abilities, such as the ability to transfer objects that you come into contact with into an exclusive space called your personal storage. Am I right?”

Sheyan nodded in reply.

The General continued. “If I remember correctly, not every object can be stored in your personal storage. The things that can be stored are all things that have been assimilated to the same dimension as yours. Those that do not belong to the same dimension, like the Wasp spacecraft, devices, machineries and cyborgs you just received, cannot be stored due to the dimensional rules.”

“You mean….” Sheyan started getting excited when the heard this.

“The surface coating of this Wasp spacecraft has a trace amount of Pi element added to it, so it can deceive the dimensional rules and can be kept in your personal storage space — provided that it can fit inside, of course.”

Sheyan was already beaming from ear to ear. “Of course it can! My personal storage is so big that I can fit the whole of Uplos inside it! This gift is pretty good! ”

Describing the gift as “pretty good” was the understatement of the year! Sheyan knew that in this mission, he would have to trek through dangerous unexplored areas engulfed in magnetic storms and study the geology along the way. If he did not have this present, even if he did finish the mission, he would have to trek several hundred kilometers back to his Wasp spacecraft unless he could somehow carry the spacecraft with him all the way. That meant double the risk.

With this portable Wasp, he could take off and return to the Kitty Hawk as soon as he completed his mission! The difference between the two was obvious!

Sheyan approached the Wasp. When he got closer, he saw that the surface of this Wasp had a brown pattern akin to tree rings. The pattern was glittering like water and seemed to contain an ancient mysterious feel. It made the spacecraft look more compact as a whole.

“This Wasp was in fact an emergency escape spacecraft assigned to officers of General-rank in war zones. It cannot be tracked by radars or locked-on by missiles,” General Mungo suddenly added.

It was only then that Sheyan noticed the abbreviation FJ (Fiji) on the wing. He immediately burst into laughter. He laughed so hard that he had to bend down and hold his stomach.

“Well then, good luck and may you come back alive,” said General Mungo, “I’m beginning to understand how you climbed to the position of a Lieutenant Colonel, you bastard.”

***

Sheyan did not mention anything about the little Second Lieutenant to General Mungo. Not that he had forgotten, but at the moment, if he did so, he would bring nothing but trouble to the Second Lieutenant.

When Sheyan returned to the hangar, he was surprised to find a group of people gathering together to observe something. To the side were several Wasps that had been dismantled and were now scattered all over the ground like dismembered body parts.

Aldaris greeted Sheyan when he saw Sheyan from a distance away. He threw away his cigarette butt and asked, “How was it?”

“Meh,” Sheyan grinned. “What’s going on over there?”

Aldaris sat a little gloomily on the wing of one of the Wasps and told Sheyan, “That guy called Paul, who inherited the power of Magneto, isn’t just able to control metals! With this ability, he became a first-class mechanic. He can modify the Wasps to become more powerful and more durable, and even prevent them from being discovered by the technological barriers put in place by the Predators.”

Sheyan’s eyes lit up. “Really? That’s great! Then why are you still here?”

“I can’t afford his asking price,” Aldaris answered flatly.

“The price for a light remodelling is 300,000. He can increase the Wasp’s carrying capacity by 100% and increase the Wasp’s defence by 50%.”

“The price for a medium remodelling is 400,000. He can increase the Wasp’s carrying capacity by 200%, increase the Wasp’s defence by 100%, and enable the Wasp to have attacking capability.”

“The price for the ultimate remodelling is 800,000. He can increase the Wasp’s carrying capacity by 200%, increase the Wasp’s defence by 100%, enable the Wasp to have attacking capability, and enable the spacecraft to transform into a walking robot that can follow its owner around and provide support firepower.”

Sheyan was understandably shocked to hear the details of this service, not only because of the high price the guy was asking for, but also due to those fantastic additional functions! Among them, the most incredible one was no doubt the ability to transform into a robot!

The Empire’s current technology had definitely reached a level that could create transforming war vehicles, but they still could not do so with small, agile spacecrafts focusing on mobility like the Wasp. When the thickness of a mobile phone has reached six millimetres, every millimetre thinner would come at a great cost. This was also the case for transforming spacecrafts.

Unfortunately, Paul’s approach was an unconventional modification technique. He used his mind to twist and weld metals. He even had to embed magic cores into the spacecrafts to maintain power output. Magic cores were unbelievably rare even for the Empire.

Sheyan looked towards Aldaris, patted him on the shoulder, and smiled.

“Don’t mind it. We can always borrow one when the time comes. Or, maybe we can form a deep relationship with Mr. Paul in the course of the mission and ask him to perform the service for us at a discount price.”

Aldaris snapped his fingers, producing an electric spark.

“You’re goddamn right.”

***

The sky was still the same dark universe covered in stars as before, but looking at it, Sheyan no longer found it as dull.

That’s because he was about to drive the Wasp through that dark universe. His survival and destiny fully depended on the controller in his hands, and the windshield in front of him, which felt really thin.

“Acceleration limited to 3km/s2. Maximum sustainable force of the front windshield is 3887 kg/cm2, and the maximum torque is… ”

Sheyan muttered these key data points to himself, then slowly pushed the controller forward in tandem with the brain wave receiver on his head. Two tails of red flames were immediately ejected from the exhaust of the Wasp, up to 15 meters long. The spacecraft flew towards the destination along the predetermined route at a high speed.

The shape of the Wasp spacecraft was not actually that similar to a real wasp, but it did possess two distinct features of the wasp, namely a thin waist and an aerodynamic tail. As far as its overall structure was concerned, it looked more like two batteries that were welded together on opposite terminals.

The slim waist ensured that the front and rear segments could be separated quickly when needed, so that the rear segment could be abandoned for the sake of the front segment’s safety, like a lizard. The bi-segment design also made the spacecraft more nimble.

The physics principles behind the motion of a vehicle in space was quite different from that in air and water. In empty space, the principle of its motion was more like that of a giant truck gliding on smooth ice.

The X-shaped wings of the Wasp spacecraft was the most classic part of its design. Each of the four tips of the wings were equipped with an ion thrust auxiliary engine. The four long wings played the roles of “levers”, so that the engine output at the wing tips could generate greater torque.

Sheyan did not notice anyone else as far as his eyes could see, nor did he detect anyone else on the radar. Because it was not a good idea to enter the asteroid belt that the Predators had performed “witchcraft” on in groups, they had departed one by one every fifteen minutes.

Since he had yet to enter the strong magnetic field interference area, the camera probe on the Wasp was still operational, and the Kitty Hawk carrier could still observe the situations of all the contestants. Sheyan could hear exclamatory remarks coming from those observing on the carrier from time to time.

“Oh my God! That barbarian has actually raised the instantaneous speed to 10 km/s! Isn’t the limit of our ace pilot 3 km/s? Any higher than that and he loses consciousness! How high is the titanium content in that barbarian’s body?”

“That modified Wasp actually broke through the asteroid belt! It only had to avoid 40% of the asteroids; the rest were either destroyed or sent flying by the spacecraft! The guy who made the modification is a genius!”

“…..”

After hearing these remarks and confirming with his own eyes that the Wasps were indeed nimbly maneuvering through the asteroid belt as if they were alive, General Mungo’s mood finally improved.

Although all the contestants were arrogant and unruly, they indeed possessed terrifying strength, comparable to some of the alien natives that he had seen before. Seeing their performance, Mungo finally had a little more confidence that he could successfully accomplish this mission.

It was worth mentioning that flying a spacecraft in this era was actually not that difficult. The spacecraft could be controlled with brain waves, in addition to some manual assistance with the hands. So long as one could imagine it and the spacecraft could bear it, one could perform a variety of daring manoeuvres. The greatest limiting factor in piloting a spacecraft had become the physique of the pilot.

Otherwise, with merely a few days of lessons, it would already be quite fortunate if the contestants could learn not to kill themselves during takeoff if they had to pilot the spacecrafts in the old way.

***

“Here I come, Planet Uplos!” Sheyan tried his best to stabilise the control stick to combat against the high heat and violent turbulence as the spacecraft passed through the atmosphere of the planet. From the ground, Sheyan’s spacecraft looked like a flaming meteorite that was cutting diagonally across the sky towards the land below.

The lack of experience had caused Sheyan to make various mistakes when he entered the atmosphere, but his Strength had played a crucial role at that instant. He was able to pull the out-of-control Wasp up at a critical moment, then landed with difficulty amidst the violent shaking of the spacecraft.