219 Tests.
Shi Lang rebooted the suit system and images began to project again. Hayley asked, “What was inside this compartment?”
The young man replied, “Nothing much, a concealed engraved jade, it seemed to be some sort of matrix for this puppet. When I tried to take it out, it turned to dust.”
This was enough to convince the people and Shi Lang walked around the puppet. Then he said, “I have no time to waste, I will move ahead.”
Then he picked up the chinked sword and walked toward the passage that had opened near behind the spot where the beast puppet was resting earlier. His pace was calm because he could tell, that now he will not be facing traps but tests.
Hayley asked in his earpiece, “General, are you sure that chinked sword will last?”
Shi Lang said, “It all depends on fate. We will cross that bridge when we get there.”
That said he walked forward.
…
Hayley’s communicator rang as soon as she finished talking to Shi Lang. Jenkins on the side asked, “Who is it?”
“Deputy General Sikar.”, replied Hayley.
Jenkins nodded and the girl picked up the communication request. She asked, “Adjutant Hayley reporting, Sir.”
“Where is General Lang? I cannot contact him, have you all come back to the Frontier?”, while is was speaking his breathing was fast. Hayley could tell that something was up. Her guess was the guests from the frontier.
Hayley replied, “General is a hibernation pod. The ship had some malfunctions, and the general wanted to rest for a bit longer. We will arrive at the frontier in eight hundred hours. Is it something urgent, Sir?”
Sikar on the other side replied, “No, I was only checking on you two. Have a safe trip,”
That said, the man disconnected the communication. Hayley turned to face Jenkins and said, “Check, who went in to meet the Deputy General at this hour.”
Jenkins nodded and contacted his close people. They all asked him for some time, and after ten minutes they received a piece of news that it was one of the guests from the galactic council that had gone to meet the general in the officer’s lounge, and then the two moved out one after the other. They also confirmed that there was no visible contact between the two people.
Jenkins said, “What do you think about this?”
Hayley did not think much and connected the communicator to Shi Lang. She narrated the whole thing and the results of their investigation. Shi Lang sighed and said, “Issue and isolation order, but every woman on the base on guard duty. If any of those white-cloaked foxes dares to protest, you will all escort them out of the base, and bring them straight to their ship. Also, Hayley has someone conduct a psychological test on Deputy General Sikar. If he shows any abnormality, submit a report to the president.
Tell him to make our representative in the Galatic Council use that report as a piece of evidence as a weapon and raise a storm. Submit the surveillance and everything else in one go. These guests have the ability to charm people. That is what they did just now.”
Hayley was shocked, although this was a bit extreme, this sort of interference was the ground of rebellion and that was what Shi Lang wanted to show the Galactic Council, that they will not sit back and watch as the council gobbled up their home.
She replied, “Understood, Sir.”
…
Shi Lang was busy fighting with humanoid puppets, he replied in a hurry and got back to fighting with all that he had. It has been a long time since he experienced pure combat, there was no gun, no running, just hard brawling with a sword in his hand. The more he fought the more focused he became.
At a point in the battle, Shi Lang had even snatched the spear from one of the puppets and began to fight with them all. There were fifty puppets set to defeat him and kill him. But Shi Lang was fighting them with complete ease. At least, that was what it looked like in the footage from the drone.
…
The technician, who was responsible for recording the footage suddenly asked, “I just noticed, when did the General start using a spear and a sword at the same time?”
Her question captured the attention of the whole monitoring station. Shi Lang was doing something incredibly difficult at this movement. He was fighting with a sword and a spear at the same time. It was not that the size of the two weapons was different, but to use them both efficiently they both needed to be used according to a suitable set of movements. Shi Lang was able to execute these movements together.
There was almost no lag in the movements, it was a complete shock for the people. Someone reminded the already recorded footage and found when Shi Lang had started using the two weapons together. He watched the footage and said, “The movements are not very smooth initially. However, the more he is fighting, the stronger he is becoming. What is this skill?”
Jenkins had a solemn expression and he said, “This is not a skill. This is a talent. General Shi Lang is able to learn things quickly, and under the nourishment of spiritual energy, he is able to grasp the key factors needed to do two different tasks at the same time.”
The people were shocked and the awe in their hearts grew to another level. Jenkins said, “What are you putting this guy on a pedestal for? Try and leave him in dust and only then will you grow stronger. If you patronized him, you will never be able to come out of his shadow. Understand?”
The people nodded and said, “Thank you for the wake-up call, Colonel.”
…
Shi Lang had put down ten puppets after the initial ten minutes of battle, he had familiarized himself enough with the dual-wielding skill, and now he wanted to finish this charade. His attacks became critical, all aimed at the power sources inlaid in the chest of the puppets. It did not even take him five minutes to deal with the mob after he was done.
The puppets fell down and Shi lang checked them again, for hidden chambers. However, he did not find anything useful, So he stood up and moved to the next passage. He tied the spear to his back using a nanobot bind and carried the sword in his hand. The close-fitted black and white combat suit, with hardened joints for more support. At this moment, Shi Lang had taken off his helmet and he looked very dashing.
He walked inside the third passage and found a puppet standing with a huge pile of spirit stones lying behind him. While the people in the monitoring room were dazzled and shocked by this, Shi Lang sighed.
The puppet opened his eyes and asked, “What do you choose? The pile of wealth behind me, or skills that defy the heavens?”
This conversation was being held inside his mind and thus Shi Lang was able to understand it. The spiritual energy did not need words to convey thoughts. What Shi Lang needed at this moment were skills.
He said, “I would like to take the skills.”
The puppet turned to his side and gestured for Shi Lang to pass. The young man walked forward calmly. He could tell in his mind, that he was going to face something very dangerous in the final test. He was walking on a path with piles of spirit stones laid on the sides.
The puppet gazed at the camera, and the aura radiated from it made the people in the monitoring room very shocked. However, upon judging that the drone had no sentience, sit did not attack the device and let it follow Shi Lang.
The young man said in the earpiece, “You people, I might die in this one.”
Jenkins asked, “What are you talking about?”
Shi Lang replied, “I just realized my blood cultivation is banned, I seemed to have walked into a formation. I will not be able to use the Terran cultivation, this formation must suppress everything that is classified as external aid in cultivation. Blood enhancement cannot be done without an external substance. So, it might have been banned.”
Jenkins asked, “What are you going to do now?”
“What else? I will fight, do you think that sentinel puppet back there will let me go?”, said Shi Lang.
Jenkins asked, “You said this formation will ban any external source, then why can we still communicate?”
Shi Lang sighed and said, “This is a test for you. I will not spoon-feed the answer to you all the time.”
Hayley replied, “Tech and spirit are parallel to each other, they cannot intersect.”
Shi Lang nodded and said, “Correct, also, you are still missing a few points such as the adaptation of technology with spiritual methods…”
Suddenly, he stopped moving and talking at the same time. Hayley asked, “What happened?”
Shi Lang said, “I just saw death.”