A Chemist's Interstellar Saga

Chapter 189: Competing With Drexel
Chapter 189: Competing With Drexel

After guiding the students into the room, Jonna pulled out a long table from her Space Button, setting up dozens of bottles filled with colorful juices.

”Ma’am, what’s all this?” one student asked curiously.

Arix glanced at the bottles, recognizing the contents by their colors and smells. ’All mentors had their tricks!’ Arix thought to herself.

With a kind smile, Jonna explained, ”I used to be a top nutritionist. These juices are great for your health. Students who don’t pass the course can drink a cup to help them recover.”

”She is so nice! I suddenly don’t miss Marlone anymore,” one student exclaimed, feeling touched.

”She is awesome, giving us juice.”

”The colors are so pretty, they must taste great too.”

Jonna smiled but didn’t respond to the compliments.

Then, she blew a whistle hanging around her neck, and once the students quieted down, she took on a more serious tone, ”Now, everyone, get in your mecha. You have to navigate five obstacles. If you can’t finish in 20 minutes, you’ll fail. If you take more than 40 minutes, you’ll be demoted to Class A. Now, get ready!”

”Yes, ma’am!” the students shouted back, each retrieving their mecha or renting one from the school.

Most students at HMA came from Planet Waste and couldn’t afford their own mecha. Fortunately, those without could rent one from the school for about 100 astrocredits per use. Even though higher-level mecha cost more, it was still much cheaper than buying one.

Arix chose not to use her Supergiant-Class mecha, preferring to save her Star Dust for more critical situations than mecha training.

But Arix didn’t go for a rental mecha. Instead, she pulled out a prize she’d won during the entrance exam competition—a Comet Class mecha that had been sitting unused in her Space Button. As soon as she climbed into the cockpit, Arix noticed a clear difference between this one and her usual Star Dust mecha. The Comet Class was more complex to operate and not nearly as agile. Still, it would do for training.

Once everyone was ready, Jonna raised her hand and then dropped it sharply, shouting, ”Start!”

With that, all the students charged ahead. Arix piloted her Comet Class mecha towards the first obstacle—a thousand-meter-long sand field. She noticed whirlpools in the sand, capable of trapping any mecha that stepped into them.

Most students, realizing the danger, opted to fly rather than walk.

Arix took a moment to assess the situation, seeing no easy way around the whirlpools.

She followed suit, activating her mecha’s flight mode. However, just ten meters in the air, flashes of light suddenly appeared.

Giant light blades sliced through the air toward the flying students, including several targeting Arix’s mecha.

Arix’s face tightened with concentration. She quickly tapped on the virtual keyboard, maneuvering the mecha through a series of tricky moves to dodge the blades.

Not all the mechas were as fortunate; some were struck, while others, piloted by panicked students, fell into the sand. Then they were swallowed up and reappear at the starting point.

Having dodged the first wave of attacks, Arix felt a pang of sympathy for her classmates caught in the sand traps but kept moving forward.

Thanks to the training she’d had from Elio and her recent battles with insectoids, Arix’s mecha piloting skills had significantly improved.

This level-one difficulty course wasn’t too daunting for her, and she soon cleared the first obstacle, reaching the second: a two-kilometer obstacle course.

The course looked deceptively calm, making Arix more cautious.

With a name like ”obstacle course,” it had to be hiding something tricky.

She swallowed hard and took a few tentative steps forward.

Everything seemed fine, so she began to relax—only to be hit by a massive force in the lower back, sending her and her mecha flying through the air.

’What the heck! A sneak attack? So unfair! No honor at all!’ Arix thought, cursing internally as she was hurled through the air.

Arix was on high alert, ready for the next trap.

She barely managed to twist her body and evade it just in time.

Before she could even catch her breath, the floor vanished beneath her feet. In a flash of panic, she made her mecha soar upward.

No time for relief, though—two massive wooden logs came swinging down from above. Arix reacted instantly, kicking them away with both feet and using the momentum to leap to safety.

The challenges kept coming: falling rocks, hidden snares, sharp blades, and more. But Arix pushed through and finally reached the end of the second level in one piece.

It was only in the safety zone that she allowed herself to relax a bit. She glanced around and noticed only a handful of her classmates had made it this far.

The biggest shock, though, was seeing Drexel already at the end of the third level. What seemed like brutal obstacles to everyone else looked like a walk in the park for him. He dodged every trap with such ease.

Arix felt a surge of determination and decided to skip resting. She quickly flew to the third level, an underwater tunnel.

Before diving in, she took a defensive stance, then passed through the light screen and cautiously entered the tunnel.

Within seconds, a sudden pressure dragged her to the seabed. Dizzy and disoriented, she opened her eyes only to find herself back at the starting point.

Arix: ”Darn it!”

With a 12-minute countdown ticking on her wrist, Arix bit back her frustration. She raced through the earlier obstacles again and reached the third level once more.

This time, she switched tactics and activated her mecha’s shark mode.

In shark mode, her mecha neutralized the pressure, moving through the tunnel like a deep-sea creature.

Invisible ice spikes tried to catch her off guard, but she dodged them with ease, thanks to her prep work. She soon passed through the light screen and emerged from the underwater tunnel, arriving at the fourth level: the gravity track.

Arix expected Drexel to have finished the fourth level by now, but he was only halfway through.

This gave Arix a boost of confidence, especially since the fourth level focused on psychic power—an area where she rarely lost.

Without hesitation, Arix enveloped her mecha in a psychic power shield and stepped into the fourth level.

Immediately, a crushing gravity bore down on her. She increased her psychic power output, keeping the pressure manageable, and calmly walked to the finish line.

Arix completed the level with a confident smile. Psychic power tests were a breeze for her!

In the fourth level, Arix breezed past her fellow students, leaving them both amazed and a bit envious. It was like sipping an ice-cold soda on a winter day—refreshing yet a bit painful.

While Arix could sense their envy, she kept her eyes on the prize: catching up to Drexel.

As she passed Deanna, Arix slowed down just long enough to give her an encouraging thumbs-up.

”Keep going, Deanna!” she cheered.

Deanna nodded and controlled her mecha to return the thumbs-up.

With a quick wave, Arix continued her race.

Arix overtook a few more students and finally caught up to Drexel.

She playfully wagged her finger at him, catching him off guard, before striding past him with her chin held high.

Drexel wasn’t annoyed by her teasing; instead, he found her antics amusing.

But Drexel wasn’t going to make it easy for her. He narrowed his eyes and suddenly dropped the psychic power shield around his mecha. Relying on his physical strength, he surged ahead.

Arix was stunned for a moment but quickly regained her composure.

She wasn’t about to be outdone. She strengthened her psychic power shield and picked up speed.

Drexel noticed her sudden burst of energy and smiled, pushing himself even harder.

The siblings raced side by side, nearing the exit together.

But then, Arix made her mecha fly, leveraging her strong psychic power to zip through the finish line light screen, winning by a narrow margin.

Drexel was left just behind her, his impressive physical strength unable to match Arix’s psychic power, which allowed her to defy gravity and fly—a rare skill indeed.

”Nice job, Arix!” Drexel called out, giving her a thumbs-up even though he had lost.

”Just okay,” Arix replied with a cheeky grin. She then turned her gaze toward the fifth level.

The next challenge was a lava track.

Arix and Drexel exchanged a knowing glance before both took off, racing toward the entrance of the fifth level together!