The Almighty Ring

“I have located the Main Engine room. I have highlighted the location on the hologram.”

“Ahh! Finally!”

The globe spun around to position itself to have China face Jiang Fei. The red dot that represented the Main Engine room was highlighted brighter than the rest.

“In China?!” Jiang Fei gasped. It was hard to believe that the Main Engine room was located in China and of all places, in the capital city!

“Sh*t! Did the military get it before us?” Jiang Fei asked. There was no proper explanation to how the Main Engine room ended up in China’s capital city.

“There is no human activity detected around the Main Engine room. I have concluded that it has yet to be discovered.”

“Good! Phew!”

Even though the Main Engine room was yet to be discovered by the military, Jiang Fei’s appearance in the capital would alert them. Excavating such a prominent object could trigger them to take action against him as the position of the crucial part of Braveheart was extremely close to one of the military bases. The gap between them was so close that it was safe to say that it was literally next door. If they had expanded their base just a little more, they would have struck gold.

“What about the Core of Life?” Jiang Fei asked. The next most important thing was the Core of Life as it was the most important piece in order to save Isabella.

“…”

0542 was quiet this time. It was odd for it to do that since 0542’s usual response was always straight to the point.

“The Core of Life could not be properly traced as its signal was being interfered. Not even the super radar system could detect its exact location. However, I am sure that it is still within China,” said 0542.

“China? Did the martial artists do this?” Jiang Fei asked a rhetorical question. When Jiang Fei first encountered the Core Storage facility that was supposed to contain the Core of Life, he had only managed to find traces of blood instead of the core itself. Someone had broken into the facility and it was likely to be Metahumans’ doing. Robots, Androids, or even Machine Lifeforms would never leave a pool of blood.

“That’s not right either… Chinese martial artists almost never get out of China. How could they be venturing into Africa to retrieve the Core of Life?” Jiang Fei asked himself. It was certain that the intruder was a Level 5 Metahuman. And if it was the Chinese, no Level 5 fighter would leave China and go all the way to Africa, all the way into the desert, and find the Core Storage facility. It seemed more likely that someone had purposely tried to search for it instead of accidentally stumbled across it.

“Argh! Why is it so complicated?!” Jiang Fei roared as he scratched his head. He had just acquire extremely accurate information, but it raised more questions than answers.

“What about the Unknowns? Did you find them? Do they have a base or something?” Jiang Fei asked, recalling the mysterious force that was proving to be a competitor in collecting parts of Braveheart.

“I have detected multiple readings. They appear to be active in many places around the world.”

0542 then turned the globe around, removing red dots that were not related to them and highlighting several more points which covered the entire globe. Almost all high radiation natural deposits of radioactive materials had their positions marked.

Could they be farming radioactive materials? Jiang Fei had a monologue. They could be like Jiang Fei, using planet Namek’s technology, and without the power supply from the Main Engine room, they had to resort to using nuclear energy.

“This point has the energy reading. It is likely that there are many of them concentrated in that position,” said 0542, interrupting Jiang Fei messy train of thought.

“In China?!”

Jiang Fei felt nauseated. The more information he received, the more convoluted the entire situation became. There were just too many pieces of information that Jiang Fei could not piece together.

“F*ck it! I’ll just roll with it!”

There were supposedly hidden secrets waiting to be unraveled, but Jiang Fei was just too lazy to put in more effort into thinking about it. First things first, he should get the Main Engine room.

“Ariel, have Bella ready to depart. We’ve got work to do!” said Jiang Fei upon entering Ariel’s room.

“Alright,” Ariel replied and flashed herself into Isabella’s room to relay the message.

Isabella had recovered and was in a better condition than before. Unfortunately, she still required constant feeding of Valium into her body. Thanks to the Core of Will, she did not need to worry about being corrupted by the Power of Berserk.

“Darling, where are we going?” Bella asked.

“To the capital of China.”

Ariel nodded and flashed both Jiang Fei and Isabella there. She had not been to the capital itself, only the massive secret underground base. So that was where she teleported them, to a place not far from from the capital.

As soon as they appeared, 0542 blared a warning.

“Detected XS Scanning Wave!”

“We need to leave!” Jiang Fei cried, carrying the two girls in his arms before sprinting at full speed.

XS Scanning Wave was Namek’s radar radio signal technology. It had powerful detection rate but an extremely limited range. Within its effective range, not even 0542 could mask their presence. The technology was available to the military because of Jiang Fei’s contribution.

Jiang Fei reacted quickly but he was not worried. XS wave was powerful and accurate but its range was extremely small. All he had to do was move out of radar range. He was not surprised about the military having the technology or why they were using it in the first place. Ariel’s presence then might have been the trigger for its activation. It was, after all, a secret underground base.

When they were safe from being detected, a short burst of energy was emitted from the ring.

“What are you doing?” Isabella asked when she noticed the oddity.

“I am scanning the surroundings,” 0542 replied.

“I didn’t ask you to,” said Jiang Fei, raising an eyebrow.

“Retrieving the Main Engine room is crucial for your future development. I am doing everything I can to make sure you would successfully acquire the Main Engine room.”

“Oh? Since when were you able to think that way? Did you evolve?” Jiang Fei asked. If that were true, Jiang Fei would not be surprised. It did happen to 0541 and it might have happened to 0542. However, 0542 had only recently been born into the world. To evolve in such a short time was… unprecedented.

“Analysing Deep Layer Protocol… No faulty coding detected.”

0542 quickly did a self-diagnosis when Jiang Fei suddenly asked the question.

“Heh. No need to go through that trouble. I for one would know if you have evolved,” said Jiang Fei. For 0542 to resort to self-diagnosis, it explained that it had yet to achieve maturity as how 0541 did. Compared to 0541, 0542 like a few-month-old baby.

5 minutes later, out of the military radar range, Jiang Fei moved accordingly toward the Main Engine room was located.