Biting her lip, Li Ya Lin quickly inserted her left arm into the bag and pulled it out with the Lightweight Mechanical Arm equipped. With a powerful strike combining her own power with that of the mecha arm, she finally managed to break through Hila’s defenses by blowing her arms away, leaving her chest exposed.
The mecha arm followed through into her flesh!
A direct hit!
Hila’s face flashed red momentarily, and with a low harrumph brought her palms together and rubbed them slowly, and as soon as she did so, the gray aura wrapping her arms began to revolve faster and faster. Next, she threw down both arms – palms facing the ground – and, from where she stood, powerful winds began to arise, assaulting the entire surrounding!
Li Ya Lin hastily retreated backwards, but even so, her mind was still struck by the mental attack, causing her soul to feel like it was being torn apart. The pain was indescribable, and two streams of blood trickled down from Li Ya Lin’s nose as her vision seemed to turn upside-down, causing her to nearly lose her balance and fall over.
As Hila examined the familiar visage of the Lightweight Mecha Arm, she yelled in rage and shock, “How are you related to Zero‽”
‘Zero? Who?’ Li Ya Lin was bewildered.
Right at this moment, Lambert saw his opportunity and fired a shot! Hila’s expression changed at the sound of the sniper rifle, and she immediately lunged sideways to dodge while enveloping her entire body with her gray aura. The large caliber sniper rifle bullet hit her on the shoulder, sending her spinning backwards in the air – as though hit by a train at full speed.
“Zhang Wei, quickly take Li Ya Lin and run!”
Zhang Wei did not take offense at being directly called by name. It was with Han Xiao’s direction that Li Ya Lin and Lambert had managed to injure the scary woman, and he now had some trust in Han Xiao’s judgement. He hurriedly lifted Li Ya Lin in his hands and turned around to leap towards Ma Qing Yang’s vehicle.
As they retreated, the remainder of the Germinal fleet arrived at the foot of the hill, and they began to open fire. Sparks flew as the bullets deflected off Zhang Wei’s armored suit, only leaving dents and marks. Zhang Wei did not even bother to take a look behind him. All that was going through his head was that the armored suit was truly his lucky charm this day. In the past, he had always had grievances over it being too heavy, but now, it was proving to be extremely reliable.
“Get in the car!” yelled an anxious Ma Qing Yang as he hurriedly slowed down for them.
The trio managed to board the vehicle, but it was a close shave. The concentrated fire was nearly enough to penetrate it.
Now that they were in the clear, Zhang Wei finally had time to assess the enemy’s status: their fleet was not fast enough to catch up with them, and that powerful superhuman had not gotten up yet. As long as they made it to the aircraft, everything would be fine.
“We’re safe now!”
Zhang Wei let out a sigh of relief.
Unfortunately, Han Xiao had bad news for him.
“Look out above.”
Above?
Zhang Wei gave a start.
Right, they still have a helicopter!
The Black Harrier finally made its appearance and began to shoot down at their car.
“We have to take that out somehow!” assessed Zhang Wei immediately. “If not, our own aircraft will be in danger. Lambert, it’s up to you and your sniper rifle!”
Lambert shook his head plainly.
“I’m all out of armor-piercing shells. Standard bullets won’t do against the Black Harrier’s thick armor. Even if I had some left, it would take more than 7 shots.”
“Are we really going to die here?”
Despair was written all over Ma Qing Yan’s face. They were only a kilometer away from their escape plan’s extraction point, but it did not seem like they would make it.
Suddenly, Han Xiao spoke, “Did you forget my present?”
Li Ya Lin gave a start and hurriedly took out the four magazines. One of them was filled with rifle bullets.
“What does this do?”
“See for yourself.”
Lambert quickly took the magazine from Li Ya Lin and loaded his sniper rifle.
As he readied to fire the shot, everyone watched on in anticipation.
This single bullet was their final hope.
In this critical moment, time seemed to slow down for all of them.
As soon as Lambert pulled the trigger, a brass shell flew out from the chamber, and the crimson bullet was ignited as it accelerated out of the barrel spinning. Whirling, it landed directly on the helicopter’s bullet-proof glass.
Suddenly, the crimson bullet opened up like a blooming flower to expose its explosive contents to the air.
“Kaboom!”
The entire helicopter was instantly engulfed in a giant ball of flames. On closer inspection, the fire was actually burning off on the very armor itself – as though it had actually been ignited!
The helicopter began to spin out on control mid-air. The pilot – in his panic – decided to abandon ship.
On board the car, everyone was completely stunned by what they had just witnessed. Slowly, their attention turned towards the magazines that were full of the magic ammo.
Even reinforced armor was ignited!
What the hell is this ammo‽
“Who got their hands on such good treasure?” asked a stupefied Ma Qing Yang.
Li Ya Lin’s eyes began to shine. “This stuff is good!”
She immediately loaded up her handgun with one of the magazines and fired a few shots. The pursuing enemy vehicles similarly went up in balls of flames, and even the missed shots were setting the ground ablaze.
As the vehicles’ armor heated up, their interiors soon turned into furnaces, and the heat was even causing the engine and other key parts to overheat, putting a halt to their pursuit.
As the gang’s car charged into the aircraft hangar, the pilot who had been anxiously observing the situation immediately took flight, and they were soon gone with the wind.
Back on the ground, Hila’s face was pale. Where she had been shot at on her shoulder was only a shallow wound. She was using her gray aura to heal it up. As she grudgingly watched the aircraft leave, she made a call to the boss and said through gritted teeth, “We’ve found Zero’s trail!”
Chapter 52 - Gains
Translator: MJ_ Editor: Millman97
[Rescue!] completed. You have earned 8000 experience points.
+100 Reputation (Stardragon SDI)
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
“Bro Xiao, you’re the best!” Li Yao’s eyes glowed with admiration.
“Heh, you only just realized?” replied Han Xiao with a hint of smugness.
Zhang Wei, realizing that he had misjudged Han Xiao, apologized, “Sorry for doubting your ability before. Today, we only made it out alive thanks to your guidance and your equipment. Welcome to the team.”
A late welcome was better than none.
Han Xiao chuckled.
“No need to apologize over such trivial matters – I’m a gracious man.”
Zhang Wei felt a shiver down his spine. Han Xiao’s words sounded odd to him.
“Oh right,” continued Han Xiao, “who made your armored suit?”
“Oh, this is just a prototype of the [Combatant Powered Armor]. It was among the spoils of war during the battle with Theseus a few years back. Presently, it’s the only functional one we have. They tried to reverse engineer it, but as progress was too slow and maintenance proved troublesome as well, it was handed to me.”
The [Combatant Armored Suit]’s crafting prerequisite was the advanced weaponry talent [Large-scale Remodeling], which was also required to craft many other power suits, machine frames, and other larger combat machinery. If Theseus had only just created the prototype, then Stardragon would definitely be much further behind.
Han
Xiao saw his chance.
“You can leave the maintenance to me.”
“Sure!” rejoiced Zhang Wei. He now trusted Han Xiao’s ability.
“Is this special bullet a new invention of yours?” interrupted Li Ya Lin excitedly.
Han Xiao proceeded to fully explain the use of the High-explosive Gunpowder.
Regular incendiary ammunition required a flammable target to work effectively, but the High-explosive Gunpowder contained a special chemical that could activate upon simply coming into contact with the air and ‘light up’ anything that it came into contact with. It’s temperature and power were comparable to a Molotov, but what made it scary was that this power could be harnessed within bullets! Everyone could see how this was a game-changer.
“Are you selling this?” asked Ma Qing Yang animatedly.
“Of course – 50 a bullet.”
Now that they had proved effective, it was a good time to release them.
“I want 200!” replied Ma Qing Yang immediately. “20 handgun bullets, 150 submachine gun bullets, and 30 sniper rifle bullets.”
“Okay,” answered Han Xiao. “You can collect them in a day.”
“You can start to collect orders,” he instructed Li Ya Lin privately. “Like before, I’ll give you a 20% discount.”
Li Ya Lin’s lips curled into a grin.
…
News of how the mission unfolded spread like wildfire in Division 13. Naturally, the incendiary bullets became the talk of the town.
“Han Xiao’s new product?”
“I heard that that’s what saved their lives!”
The Retractable Knife incident had already garnered Han Xiao a lot of attention. Upon Ma Qing Yang’s order of the bullets becoming public knowledge, many agents came forward to inquire about them. As a way of repaying Han Xiao’s team for rescuing them, Ma Qing Yang held a live demonstration in the practice field.
Everyone was stunned by the power of the incendiary bullets, and the first thing they did after the demonstration was look for Li Ya Lin to place orders. Everything was going according to Han Xiao’s plan.
It was a revolutionary invention, and this time, the top brass knew they had to make sure that things would not end up like the previous fiasco.
They even brought the Research Director in for a warning before he even did anything.
The division offered Han Xiao numerous terms to provide both field-ops and special-ops with the new bullets, and he agreed to sell them at a slightly lower price of $20,000 for 500 bullets.
In just the first day alone, Han Xiao’s stockpile of a few thousand bullets was sold out, earning him $200,000. Coupled with the $1,500,000 that he had earned from the underground network, his savings were not small.
After the class advancement, Han Xiao’s production speed was raised considerably, and he focused solely on producing the gunpowder. As a show of support, Division 13 decided to provide him with cartridges and shells, which greatly sped up the process. Each batch yielded around 300 bullets, and Han Xiao was able to produce over 10 such batches a day. Crafting a bullet gave Han Xiao 5 to 10 experience points, so he was able to earn up to 30,000 experience in just a single day.
It was probably the fastest experience growth ever by a Mechanic of his level.
…
“Not selling to me?”
Korat was fuming. Initially, he had thought that a simple apology would resolve the grudge between him and Han Xiao – after all, money was money. However, Li Ya Lin actually shut the door tight on him.
“Han Xiao said that you’re on his blacklist, and he instructed me not to take either your money nor your apology.”
The other agents who had initially thought of reporting the Retractable Knife had Korat to thank for taking the initiative back then. Or else, they would be in the same predicament as him now.
When Korat offered to buy the bullets from his colleagues at a higher price, he found out that none of them were willing to. Even when he set his price at 200 a bullet, no one agreed – not even his closest colleagues.
He was clearly being ostracized, but he could not understand why – until one of his old friends told him, “Selling to you would offend Han Xiao. No one would want to risk being blacklisted by him, seeing as to how he probably will come up with more good stuff. Who would help you at their own expense?”
His words served a wake-up call to Korat. To think that it was the complete opposite back then – for money, he chose to trample over Han Xiao.
Unfortunately, it was too late for regrets now.
…
Meanwhile, in a workroom, Luo Xuan opened up a box before him to reveal 20 incendiary bullets. He had gotten someone to help him acquire them.
Han Xiao had only blacklisted Korat and his team, not Luo Xuan. In Han Xiao’s eyes, Luo Xuan had simply been doing his job as part of the research department in trying to reverse engineer his blueprints. At the very least, he did not seem as vile to Han Xiao as Korat did. Now that the research department was being kept under watch, there was no need for Han Xiao to worry about them.
Moreover, Luo Xuan was also just support staff like him.
However, this inexplicably caused Luo Xuan to become resentful of Han Xiao.
“Damn you, Han Xiao! Do you look down on me so much that you ignore me‽”
What he did not realize was that Han Xiao did not look down on him – instead, Han Xiao had never even seen him before.
To avoid offending Han Xiao, the research director lay down an order preventing anyone from researching Han Xiao’s bullets, but Luo Xuan naturally did not care, and he still thought of himself as superior to Han Xiao, and that he could easily reproduce the bullets – like with the Retractable Knife.
“If I succeed, the higher-ups will definitely value me even more! I cannot afford to fail!” The more Luo Xuan thought about it, the more perfect his plan seemed to himself.
Taking a deep breath to prepare himself, Luo Xuan began to work at opening the bullet up. What he needed to do was examine the properties of the incendiary agent inside.
Clank!
Luo Xuan managed to extract the bullet case.
The next step would be to open it up and extract the contents with a special suction tube to prevent friction.
Carefully, he opened the bullet case.
“Success! Now I will just have to analyze-”
Suddenly, a blazing light filled up his entire vision.
Chapter 53 - Undercurrents
Translator: MJ_ Editor: Millman97
Ring…!
The shrill of the fire alarm rang through the hallways as the fire spread. Thick, black smoke filled up the entire research department as the research staff headed for safety.
The sprinklers quickly put a stop to the spreading fire, but many documents were ruined, and sparks were flying out of some computers and machines. The walls and ceiling were filled with black burn marks.
“What could have caused the fire?” wondered the heartbroken research director aloud as he looked at the ruins.
Security soon arrived to begin inspection.
“The fire started from the workshop!”
Luo Xuan – his entire body soaking wet, and his entire face black – was supported out by the guards. All his hair had been burnt off, including his eyebrows, and he looked just like a soy egg – or rather, a century egg.
Being able to react quickly, in addition to having a fire extinguisher nearby, saved him from further disfigurement.
He had not expected the incendiary agent to be gaseous. It combusted the very second it came into contact with the atmosphere.
Luo Xuan had clearly overestimated himself.
“I’ve lost…” he grudgingly admitted.
“What have you done‽” yelled the research director.
One of the security guards opened his hand to reveal a few bullet cases. Although they were blackened, they were clearly crimson before.
“This is the bullet case of the High-
explosive Gunpowder. Your man was trying to analyze it.”
The research director was instantly livid. Speechless, he could only point a finger at Luo Xuan in his rage.
‘Are my orders something to be taken lightly of‽
‘When the higher-ups investigate, this will all fall onto me again!
‘You bastards!’
Gu Hui also arrived at the scene. His face darkened upon seeing the wreckage.
“Explain yourself.”
The research director yanked Luo Xuan before him and said through gritted teeth, “He did this all by himself!”
Gu Hui looked at Luo Xuan plainly.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Luo Xuan lowered his head. He had thought that he would succeed and earn merit, but instead, he had now ended up disobeying orders on top of causing damages to the headquarters. This was probably the end of his career.
“You will go back to logistics,” stated Gu Hui coldly before turning around to leave.
Luo Xuan shuddered. Before, he had left the logistics department on bad terms. A return did not bode well for him.
True enough, when he arrived at the logistics department, his past colleagues all ignored him when they saw him. Even the logistics director, who had had high hopes for him in the past, was unwilling to see him. He only sent a secretary to inform Luo Xuan of his new position in a small team.
If only he had not been so narrow-minded and full of himself, he would not have lost his path and ended up like this.
Although he deeply regretted his actions now, it was too late.
“I was immature…” lamented a bitter Luo Xuan.
…
Han Xiao was shocked to hear of what Luo Xuan had done from Feng Jun – not even he, the creator himself, would dare to mess around and open up a completed incendiary bullet.
‘That guy’s got some balls.’
However, the matter was inconsequential to him. All along, Luo Xuan had just been a name in the back of his mind.
The Legendary Mechanic c1-1385 Page 29