Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 910: Chapter 16: The Star Thief Appears

”Lord Chong, we found what you were looking for!”

At this moment, on a dwarf planet, player Little J excitedly ran over to Emville to showcase his discovery. It was a seemingly ordinary black stone, resembling a common mineral, but the patterns on it emitted a mysterious sheen that captured the mind.

Lord Chong, also known as Emville, made a slight movement with his appendage, and the next moment, the stone floated in front of him. As his insect eyes emitted a red gleam, the stone shattered, replaced by a complex pattern of radiance.

Emville’s mouthparts began to emit complex sound wave frequencies, and the pattern started to transform into different shapes along with the changes in these special sound waves.

As an archaeologist, mastering knowledge in various domains is a standard requirement; otherwise, why pursue archaeology? These ’sound waves’ aren’t genuine sound waves but rather a transformation in interstellar mysticism—not real sound; otherwise, they couldn’t travel in a vacuum.

The pattern ultimately, under the manipulation of the large insect, turned into a directional marker. Emville nodded with satisfaction and said, ”Gather your partners and proceed to explore the ruins.”

Little J felt invigorated and thought finally he had found something worthwhile, otherwise the initial exploration would have been a complete waste.

To be precise, this dwarf planet named 4-5-1 is not on the navigation course but merely close to it. It can’t be considered a hindrance, so the exploration here is entirely Emville’s personal undertaking, for which he brought the fleet’s only exploration ship.

At that moment, Little J’s eyes went vacant, and next instant, his consciousness seemed to traverse space and time, connecting to this dwarf planet, reaching into the minds of all the players.

Instantly, various noises arose, all were the inner voices of the players.

’Damn, outer space is going to freeze me to death; I want to go back to the spaceship.’

’Been grinding for 20 hours, need to log off and eat.’

’So boring, everyday it’s either picking up stones or digging stones. I should have never left the planet.’

’Little J is an idiot.’

Little J’s face turned dark upon hearing this, although he didn’t know which player expressed this thought.

As a superpower player, Little J’s ’Spiritual Passage’ wasn’t initially this strong. Originally, it was merely a team channel for task communication among friends.

Later, as his superpower developed, especially after embedding several ’biological plugins’ to enhance his abilities, this E-level superpower took off directly.

Initially ’grew’ a camera, evolving from team channel into video calls, upgrading to D-level.

Then the ’video call’ got further strengthened, enabling not only communication but also spying on the Virtual Realm, effectively like a virtual camera, able to ’see’ the files within virtual firewalls.

With this, he became sought after by hacker players.

After earning loads of experience and money through various hacker missions, he then upgraded his superpower to B-level through multiple implantation surgeries.

Now it’s formidable; he can not only open the brains of others, ignoring distance for direct contact, but also delve deep into one’s thoughts, modifying their subconscious.

Moreover, he can simultaneously connect with hundreds of people, spiritually controlling them, famously dubbed as the knockoff version of Professor X.

Even though Little J didn’t know who this Charles character was.

This capability quickly gained the favor of the large insect Emville, and Little J successfully became its assistant. According to the grand promises made by Emville, he held in his possession means to further enhance Little J’s abilities.

The overall area of the dwarf planet isn’t larger than a satellite; this 4-5-1 dwarf planet is only a third of the size of a Cybertron Satellite, and its surface area roughly equals two Asiatic regions.

As players generally ascended to Tier 2, their strength improved remarkably; basically, each person has a supersonic flight device set.

Yet, even so, these hundreds of players scattered across the surface of this dwarf planet are akin to fishing in the sea.

Fortunately, through Emville’s professional archaeological techniques, a series of operations that bewildered the players greatly reduced the search area.

Soon, more and more players appeared near the coordinates, and through the Spiritual Passage, Little J ’saw’ the ruins’ appearance.

Frankly speaking, he was a bit disappointed; he thought this alien ruin would be more advanced, but it turned out rather primitive, resembling Stonehenge. Various large stones that were unearthed were carved into strange human forms, depicting diverse manners of death: hanging, seppuku, dismemberment by horses, and some even represent various races or civilizations’ death methods. For instance, Little J saw a suspected mechanical life form forcibly shut down, with all energy pipelines cut.

’It’s them!’

Emville seemed to realize something, his expression changed slightly. His appendage landed, swiftly crawling toward that direction. Despite his bulky physique, his crawling speed wasn’t slower than vehicles, and Little J had to exert considerable effort to catch up.

”Lord Chong, what exactly is this ruin?”

”A very special cosmic race; I need to examine it on site to understand clearly.”

While Emville spoke these words, suddenly his mouthparts quivered a few times, and his head jerked upwards. From his view, surrounding the exploration ship turned into small dark spots, suddenly appeared three or four dozen small dark spots.

”Huh, what’s that?” Little J dumbfoundedly raised his head, looking at these little dark spots, momentarily lost in thought.

”Star Thief Group!!!” Emville gritted his teeth.

...

On the asteroid belt of Zone 4, a modified exploration ship suddenly blared with alarms inside.

The ship’s onboard AI, Big A4, had long revealed its true form and looked worriedly at the ship’s radar. On the radar screen, dozens of small spacecraft were rapidly approaching.

As for the players, they were already in a frenzy.

”What the hell is that!?”

”Wild monsters, cosmic wild monsters!” one player declared confidently.

”Let me out, I want to hunt the monsters!!!” a brawny player lifted his modified armor, itching for action.

”What are you even thinking? The nearest ship is 90km away, can you even fly there?”

”Wow, the AI sister has such a large chest. I really like her,” the old sp player said, as usual, indifferent to the situation.

Fortunately, the various operation modules of the Cybertron starship were operated by Spark Mechanical Bodies. If it were these stubborn guys, they’d probably already have rushed out to fight the Star Thieves.

”Have you notified the main ship?” Big A4 asked.

”The outer signal is cut off, unable to communicate.”

Big A4’s heart sank. Strictly speaking, she had only been ”born” for less than three days. Although, as a beehive-style intelligence, she naturally shared all memories of the original Big A, the problem was that the original A Lady had never encountered such a situation either.

The voice of the Spark Life echoed once more.

”Should we activate counterattack mode? There is a 54.5% probability of destroying one-third of the enemy ships, and a 23.1% probability of destroying more than 50% of their fleet.”

’If we flee the battlefield, how much chance do we have?’

Big A4 quickly calculated, considering not only herself but all the crew members’ lives too.

Though the players might not even care about that.

However, soon as the ’zzz’ sound rang out, a blurry virtual channel suddenly opened. On the other side of the channel was a chaotic data stream that, as soon as it opened, instantly affected the entire ship’s operating system, generating various garbled characters.

And surprisingly, the ship’s firewall showed no sign of opening at all.

From Zone 1 to Zone 4, separated by at least several thousand kilometers, only high-level Information Life can communicate in a situation where the signal is completely cut off.

And such a level of Information Life, let alone ordinary interstellar influences, not even some civilizations might possess.

Big A4 immediately respectfully said, ”Miss Yuanyuan.”

The memories copied from the main body made it clear to her that, in the Du Gao Group, apart from Ms. Du who was in charge of everything, Miss Gao Yuanyuan held the highest status, not only because of her relationship as Mr. G’s adopted sister but also because she was responsible for one of the group’s top-level projects, the ’Virtual Realm.’

Amidst the chaotic and volatile data stream, the phantom of Ms. Gao Yuanyuan flickered in and out, and very quickly, Big A4 understood the other’s intentions. Her heavy chest heaved a few times with her breathing, then she said, ”I understand.”

After the communication ended, the surface of the exploration ship lit up with several energy spark storage units. These spark storage units functioned akin to reactors, and the explosive level of spark energy was ten times that of ordinary reactors.

Attacking starships is a deliberate act for the Star Thieves. The first step is to cut off communication because the distances in cosmic navigation are often measured in light years, and space travel times can often span centuries.

So once communication is cut off, it essentially eliminates the possibility of any outside support.

Another critical point is knocking the spaceship out of light-speed mode because if a ship is in light-speed mode, it not only has the option to escape but also can easily disappear without a trace. The cosmos is full of perils, which Star Thieves, frequently operating at the river’s edge, understand all too well.

When the exploration ship deviated from its course, the approaching Star Thieves displayed expressions of wild joy.

Because veering off course means it must switch out of light-speed mode. Traveling at light speed off-course often results in shipwreck and crew loss, especially in this asteroid belt—it’s a 100% shipwreck scenario.

This likely seemed like a panicked and foolish decision by the ship’s captain.

Even more foolish, the ship wasn’t heading anywhere else, but directly towards a nearby dwarf planet.

Some ships, when encountered by Star Thieves, can enter some planets to utilize their defensive circles for protection.

But these planets would at least need to be technological worlds modified to a certain degree. What use is it running to an undeveloped dwarf planet?

However, considering the complex and hard-to-navigate exterior environment of the asteroid belt, this escape method is understandable because, in terms of short-distance navigation speed alone, the exploration ship can’t match their modified interstellar pirate ships.

Thus, one chasing, one evading, both parties came closer to the 4-5-1 dwarf planet.