Chapter 91: The Moment of Fate Approached

Chapter 91: The Moment of Fate Approached

“How is it? Are you quite satisfied with your new gear?”

Ou Qinglan smoothed her silver hair and put on a proud face.

Chen Feng was looking down, flipping through the equipment manual for the Azure Dragon Armor – Modified, and gave a slight nod. “Good.”

“Just ‘good’?”

Chen Feng smiled. “Acceptable.”

“Acceptable? Are you trying to make me mad? Do you know what level the maximum acceleration limit has been raised to with this modified model!”

Ou Qinglan placed her hands on her hips and said angrily.

Chen Feng pointed at the data on it. “It says here, 50 G.”

“And you still say it’s acceptable? I increased the 20 G of the traditional Azure Dragon Armor by one and a half times! And even if you continuously use the maximum acceleration and cause damage to the frame, it can repair itself! For this modified model and its spare parts, I even used up all the iridium isotopes in the Escape Faction’s inventory! At the current technological level, this is almost a non-renewable resource, you know!”

Seeing Ou Qinglan getting more and more excited, Tang Tianxin handed her a box from the side. “Have some snacks, don’t get too worked up. When he says ‘acceptable,’ it means very good. It’s a unique way of expressing things between him and his instructor.”

A slight curve appeared at the corner of Chen Feng’s mouth, and he nodded. “That’s right. But how amazing this thing really is, I’ll know once I get on it.”

Three minutes later, accompanied by a roaring acceleration hum, the Azure Dragon Armor – Modified shot forward with unprecedented and astonishing acceleration.

Ou Qinglan shouted, “Hey! Slow down! If you crash it, it’ll be a real pain to fix!”

“Crash? Do you know who you’re talking to?”

Leaving those words behind, Chen Feng instantly vanished from sight.

Ou Qinglan took an angry bite of the Strawberry Cheesecake in front of her, then shivered all over, complaining to Tang Tianxin, “It’s so sweet it’s almost sickening. What kind of taste is this?”

Tang Tianxin shrugged. “Sweets help me focus.”

Not long after, Chen Feng returned.

He jumped off the Azure Dragon Armor, sweating profusely and panting heavily.

In the past, limited by the equipment level, he hadn’t experienced this kind of exhilarating feeling for a long time.

The feeling of being able to push his own limits to the fullest again was great.

He looked at the acceleration peak from this high-intensity training session and nodded with satisfaction.

The peak record was 31 G, pushing his personal record forward by a large margin once more.

31 G meant that every time he made a maneuver, he had to withstand thirty-one times his own body weight. With the human physique from a thousand years ago, no matter how well-trained, it would have been absolutely impossible to withstand such pressure.

But Chen Feng, with an adaptation level as high as one hundred percent, after using the Coagulation Serum, had his overall bodily functions strengthened, not just his cardiovascular system; the strength of his body’s tissues had also undergone a qualitative change.

This time, it was his combat assistant that reminded him he had to stop; his body had reached its limit. But he was sure that after a good night’s sleep, this limit number could be pushed even higher.

He very satisfiedly gave Ou Qinglan a thumbs-up. “Good, thank you very much.”

“Of course!”

Chen Feng sighed. “Ah, it’s just a shame it can’t be mass-produced.”

“Keep dreaming! Mass production? Nobody else needs equipment of this level anyway.”

“That’s true.”

Over the next few months, Chen Feng gradually pushed the G-force he could withstand higher and higher.

He reached 38 G, but his subsequent training would probably have to continue in space.

According to Military regulations, all new recruits who could pass the annual selection were about to be equipped and deployed into space.

Tang Tianxin, who also served as the training base Commander, had to return to her position on the space Warship.

There was already a batch of nearly seasoned veterans at the base. After completing their half-year training, these veterans had mostly met the boarding standards.

As for Chen Feng’s fellow recruits from the same batch, the qualification rate was as high as thirty percent, making it one of the best performing bases among the many new recruit bases globally.

The qualification rate for the squad led by Ding Hu was even higher, reaching seventy percent.

This was partly due to Chen Feng’s role as a benchmark and his teaching by example, and partly due to Ding Hu’s sacrifice igniting the fighting spirit of the other new recruits in the squad.

Of course, Chen Feng, the top recruit, also frequently took it upon himself to give his comrades extra training, privately teaching them the Azure Dragon Armor training syllabus.

However, it was quite unfortunate that in the entire Great Snow Mountain Base, only Pang De was qualified to board the Tianxin with Chen Feng.

The Tianxin already had a top-tier crew complement. Adding new recruits was something for the lower-ranked Warships. For the Tianxin, one person going up meant one person had to be eliminated from the bottom. The competition was extremely fierce.

Tang Tianxin presided over the base’s new recruit graduation ceremony. After a mobilization speech, everyone went their separate ways.

Inside the Shuttle heading to space, Pang De sat with his hands on his knees, eyes staring at his nose, and his mind focused inward, looking very serious.

Chen Feng, on the other hand, had his hands in his pockets, his gaze scanning the projection in front of him.

“You’re actually interested in history? How boring.”

Ou Qinglan, sitting next to him, leaned her head over and chimed in.

Chen Feng nodded, borrowing a famous saying. “Only by remembering history can we look to the future.”

“I don’t see it that way. The enemy we have to face has nothing to do with history. That’s all our own business. The ancients can’t help us with anything.”

Chen Feng smiled without saying a word.

He thought to himself, as an ancient person, I’m truly sorry about that.

But I have indeed helped you a great deal.

If it weren’t for me, there would be no Xuanwu Institute where you are now, no Azure Dragon Armor, and no large spindle-shaped Spacecraft of today.

By the way, nowadays, aside from small Combat Ships, almost all Motherships and escort ships have a spindle shape.

The main activity area for the ship’s crew is located in the middle of the spindle-shaped Spacecraft.

The Warships usually continuously rotate. The purpose of the rotation is to maintain an almost constant G-value, simulating a ground environment.

This was something the old cone-shaped or bar-shaped Warships couldn’t do; they could only rely on magnetic boots to help people maintain balance. But being in a complete weightless state for long periods would cause human bones to become brittle and physical condition to decline.

The new spindle-shaped Warships solved this drawback.

Furthermore, when moving at high speed, spindle-shaped Warships suffered fewer collisions with micro-dust in the near-vacuum of space, encountering less resistance.

When facing large, unavoidable obstacles, the Warship only needed to concentrate the main Force Field Shield energy at the front of the ship to protect its cone-shaped head.

That spindle-shaped Warships were better than bar-shaped or cone-shaped ones was beyond doubt.

As early as when humans first began designing space Warships, researchers had this idea.

Unfortunately, the materials back then couldn’t meet the needs. The failure and damage rate of components was too high, making constant rotation difficult. It wasn’t until recent decades, with successive breakthroughs in materials science, that the Military quickly completed the Warship fleet’s upgrade.

Including the current Azure Dragon Armor, and even the Azure Dragon Armor – Modified, in a sense, Chen Feng had contributed to them as well.

So how could the ancients be useless?

But he couldn’t be bothered to argue with Ou Qinglan, especially since she had worked so hard for his equipment that her hair turned white in a month.

“Dr. Ou, I have an impertinent request.”

“Speak.”

Chen Feng said tentatively, “Could you lend me your researcher’s smart account? I’m getting tired of studying these history materials. I want to access more knowledge, like studying Materials Science and energy science. But for someone with zero foundation like me to take the Xuanwu Institute’s entrance exam is too unrealistic.”

This was a thought that had popped into his head when he first met Ou Qinglan. He had waited until now, when they would be boarding the ship together. He thought the timing was right; it was time to bring it up.

First of all, this kind of operation was definitely a serious violation of the rules.

But once everyone was on the Tianxin, as long as they kept it a secret between them, he figured it would just be between them and the heavens. Skirting the line a little shouldn’t be a big problem.

But he didn’t expect Ou Qinglan to immediately jump up. “Are you crazy?”

Chen Feng hadn’t anticipated her reaction would be so strong. “Don’t get so excited. It’s not a big deal.”

“No way, I’ve never met a crazy person like you. Your talent lies in combat, so you should fully develop the talent you’re good at. Now you’re telling me you want to switch to scientific research? That’s irresponsible to yourself!”

Chen Feng cleared his throat twice. “It’s fine, I’m responsible for my own affairs. This won’t affect me completing the Azure Dragon Armor training either.”

“That it won’t affect you is just what you think. But regarding the value of diversified development, the Vermilion Branch has mature research and proof. Specializing and being precise is what aligns with the needs of the times. Failing to make the best use of people and resources is a crime, it’s harmful to humanity! I’m not joking with you.”

Chen Feng swallowed, looked left and right, and then whispered, “Everyone here is one of our own. As long as we don’t say anything, it’ll be fine, right?”

Ou Qinglan rolled her eyes. “You’re wrong. There, there… and there! On this entire shuttle, even on the entire Tianxin we’re about to board, except when the Artificial Intelligence automatically switches to privacy mode according to ethical protocols, our every move is under the surveillance of the Central AI. Any criminal act you commit will instantly enter a manual review process. Once you’re judged guilty, it won’t just be you who suffers, but also me, and your Captain, Tang Tianxin.”

Chen Feng was briefly stunned, then shook his head with a bitter smile.

This was the legendary “omnipresent surveillance,” which could fundamentally prevent the possibility of most crimes from arising.

Besides the deep-rooted and exceptionally capable Escape Faction who could find loopholes and cause trouble under this level of surveillance, normal people almost had no chance of evading justice under the watch of the infinitely powerful Artificial Intelligence.

Of course, once the Military got serious, cleaning up the Escape Faction was just a matter of the Mothership firing one shot and then a major roundup.

This was the inevitable social development after the military faction gained absolute dominance.

Humans indeed had some unavoidable inherent flaws, so the utopian country of idealism would never be born.

But the omnipresent surveillance constructed by military power could make the external appearance of the social structure infinitely close to a utopia.

Chen Feng didn’t know if this outcome was good or bad, but it was a path humanity had ultimately chosen through constant self-exploration and evolution in the dark river of history.

“Alright, forget it then.”

He shook his head, feeling listless.

Later, before playing chess, he quietly mentioned it to Tang Tianxin, receiving a largely similar answer.

As a captain, Tang Tianxin actually had ways to bypass the surveillance.

But unfortunately, Tang Tianxin’s convictions were even firmer than Ou Qinglan’s, and she remained completely unmoved.

Upon entering space, Chen Feng, as the commander of the Tianxin’s Azure Dragon Armor Special Combat Unit, had his military rank promoted one more level, becoming a Lieutenant.

His living conditions further improved, and his training environment also shifted from ground to space.

After experiencing the initial fascination with the deep Universe that mortals feel upon first entering space, Chen Feng began to improve and progress rapidly again.

His daily training time was compressed to five hours: three hours of armor training with the Azure Dragon Armor – Modified and two hours of enhanced physical training. Subtracting the mandatory ten hours of sufficient sleep each day, and two hours for chess and pre-chess exercise, he had four or five extra hours of private time daily.

He really wanted to spend this time learning about future science and technology knowledge, even forcing himself, gritting his teeth, to try learning elementary and middle school materials from scratch.

He lasted only a week before giving up.

It was too hard; he simply couldn’t understand it.

Even with remote instructors teaching the lessons, he couldn’t absorb the material.

Even when Ou Qinglan, unable to dissuade him, gave him personal tutoring outside of class, it was still useless.

Chen Feng had to admit the gap in intelligence, but the real problem still wasn’t there.

Compared to researchers with formal backgrounds like Ou Qinglan or Professor Ouyang, the biggest difference with Chen Feng lay in the richness of his personal emotions, in his thinking being more prone to diverge and harder to concentrate.

Humans a thousand years later, after undergoing brain and nervous system evolution, possessed incredibly terrifying self-control. Even when faced with extremely dull knowledge they had no interest in, they could still maintain one hundred percent focus.

They didn’t even need willpower to restrain themselves; it seemed innate.

Not just mature researchers like Ou Qinglan, but also children still in school were the same.

This was something Chen Feng could absolutely never achieve.

Since he couldn’t learn it, and couldn’t look up past materials to memorize ready-made patent technologies by rote, Chen Feng simply spent his extra time listening to songs and copying them down again. Might as well, since he was idle anyway.

Time flew by, and several more months passed in the blink of an eye.

That morning, Chen Feng got up and looked at the wall clock.

October 26, 3020 AD, 8:00 AM.

Only one day remained until the fateful full stop of Human Civilization.

He organized the dozen or so songs firmly memorized in his mind.

He made a small summary for himself.

This time he had come, he had changed some things. Perhaps not enough, but he had done his best.

Under his influence and guidance, the average skill level of all human Azure Dragon Armor operators now was the ability to handle 18.7G.

Besides himself, with an index as high as 47.9G, over a hundred others had successfully broken through the 20G limit.

He also hadn’t hidden away as a useless person waiting to die with eyes closed. Instead, he had personally rushed to the front lines, to get as close as possible to the enemies that were about to appear.

His military rank had also been promoted to Captain. Although he still hadn’t entered the command chain, it was the highest rank achievable for individual combat capability.

Besides that, he had attempted breakthroughs in various other areas. Although none succeeded, it was the era that was at fault, not his lack of effort.

He had almost done the utmost within his capabilities. Regardless of the outcome, he had a clear conscience.

Next, just do one’s best and leave the rest to fate.

He washed up, ate breakfast, and routinely came to the door of Tang Tianxin’s command room.

According to time estimates, today should be the first day of a new round of reproductive work.

He knocked.

“Please enter, Captain Chen Feng.”

Chen Feng pushed the door open and entered.

Tang Tianxin was still fiddling with the chessboard by herself.

Her expression was very focused, showing no joy, no sorrow, and no tension on her face.

Actually, she knew what day tomorrow was, but unlike what Chen Feng had expected—pre-battle nervousness or eagerness—she seemed no different than usual.

It was said that many captains on other warships had needed medication to sleep for one or two weeks already.

When the command room door closed, Tang Tianxin put down the chess piece, pressed the reset button, and the pieces on the glass chessboard returned to their original positions.

She smiled sweetly. “Let me tell you some good news. Starting today, we don’t need to try to combine anymore.”

Chen Feng was stunned, then said with relief, “Really? The decisive battle is tomorrow, right? Have you given up?”

Tang Tianxin shook her head, her smile growing wider. “No, implantation occurred. I successfully conceived.”

Chen Feng rarely saw her smile so radiantly.

Yet, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of sadness welling up inside.

Everyone had fought until the last day.

Never giving up.