This wasn't the beginning. With a single direct hit, the Qinyuan carved an arc through space and charged toward the pirate fleet.
There were too many warships for the pirates to gather them all together, so they formed several small squadrons instead. Each squadron was led by a gunboat and consisted of around twenty or thirty ships.
There were clear gaps between the squadrons. The Qinyuan darted through them as the gunboats spat out deadly projectiles.
"Boom!"
Three more bursts of flame erupted. The Qinyuan's unexpected flight path threw the pirates into disarray. Some ships even fired blindly, only to hit their own allies.
At that moment, Lin Zhichen and the Qinyuan were as one. Its metal hull moved like a dancer at a ball, somehow opening a dazzling waltz in the middle of space.
Aside from the Pirate Base, the people with the clearest view of the situation were the netizens back on Earth.
Perhaps for some reason, or perhaps due to some kind of "mistake," the Space Spy Eye hadn't been shut down. As the battle began, it had once again "coincidentally" started a live broadcast.
The thrilling battle from five days ago was over, and the Interstellar Era was full of things worth paying attention to. But its aftershocks hadn't yet faded when a second climax arrived: the mysterious frigate had appeared again!
"It hit! It hit again! A pirate gunboat's engine was struck and blown to pieces!
"God, forgive my language, but this is so damn satisfying! To hell with those despicable space pirates!"
The retired general had once again been brought into the livestream room. Watching the battle in the holographic projection, he grew visibly excited, as if he were back in the old days, leading his troops to sweep through the slums.
Alongside the excited general, the screen showed one explosion after another in space.
The Qinyuan launched a sublight assault, carving arc after arc through space. Every time it turned, some pirate ship failed to adjust its course in time, exposing its tender underbelly.
Then came a righteous artillery strike!
One ship after another, bursts of flame died out in space as new ones flared to life. Broken hulls drifted through the void, vanishing into the darkness.
As his psionics unfolded and merged with the Qinyuan, a fierce battle stirred a vague sensation in him. Could it be that his field of vision was growing wider?
His psionic waves shifted with it, gradually aligning with the waves emitted by the ship's gravity sensor. When they seemed to reach a point of perfect resonance, his psionic waves fully synchronized with the sensor's radar waves. In an instant, as the radar waves spread, Lin Zhichen's field of vision expanded to cover a range of two light-seconds.
His psionic energy consumption suddenly increased, but his mind was boundless, his psionic energy inexhaustible. The power from the Psionic Realm provided Lin Zhichen with endless support, constantly restoring his strength.
At that moment, his thoughts sped up a hundredfold. As his field of vision expanded, streams of information poured in, then were sorted and processed.
It had lasted only an instant, yet seemed to span a thousand years. When Lin Zhichen came back to himself, he calmly piloted the Qinyuan through a nimble drift and took aim at a pirate gunboat, still turning, 100,000 kilometers away.
An electromagnetic cannon shell shot out at sublight speed. A few seconds later, it crossed space and struck the gunboat just as it had turned its rear engine to face directly behind it.
The projectile punched through the relatively fragile engine, pierced the ship's hull, and hit the fission reactor in the power room. The entire ship exploded with a roar.
With clear data from the entire battlefield at his disposal, Lin Zhichen had a far more precise grasp of the battle. At each critical moment, he could fire a shell and hit an enemy ship's weak point.
At the same time, the crew members whose thoughts were linked to Lin Zhichen could also see some of the battlefield information. Their brains could process only a small portion of the data. When he realized how overwhelmed they were, Lin Zhichen subtly adjusted his psionics, opening up the necessary information according to each person's role.
Of course, they were on the battlefield, so there were limits to the adjustments he could make. He could only filter out some of the information.
But as the battle continued, the effect of these adjustments became obvious. After a brief period of adaptation, the crew quickly realized the advantages: their teamwork grew closer, their reactions faster, and sharing the psionic energy of Lin Zhichen and the Qinyuan even gave them a faint ability to anticipate what would happen next.
That tiny improvement alone brought about a qualitative change. Previously, Lin Zhichen had to spend time using his psionics to judge where enemy ships were, relying on a "flash of inspiration."
This method relied entirely on psionic talent. Put simply, it was a form of mystical attack. Fortunately, Lin Zhichen had excellent talent, which was why he could maintain such an astonishing hit rate.
Now, though, they could do more than rely on talent. They could use a more scientific method to anticipate the enemy ships' movements.
The most obvious change wasn't an increase in accuracy, but in firing frequency.
Before, they had to wait for Lin Zhichen's talent to kick in, so each assault might offer only one opportunity to attack. Now, the electromagnetic cannons fired as soon as each one finished recharging.
In the Earth Star Net livestream room, the viewers—and General MacArthur—were all stunned. The mysterious frigate had suddenly transformed from a sniper into a machine gun, sending electromagnetic projectiles streaking through space as pirate ships exploded one after another.
Before, they had to wait ten seconds or even a full minute between attacks. Now, the interval had dropped to one or two seconds. In the blink of an eye, their rate of fire had increased more than tenfold!
The Qinyuan carved a graceful arc through space, leaving explosions in its wake. The surviving pirates were driven nearly mad by the sudden threat and fled desperately into deep space.
But where was safe now?
After its transformation, the Qinyuan became an eight-armed Nezha. Its electromagnetic cannons swept through the pirates one after another, and their ships exploded in wave after wave.
Fear spread like poison, quickly gnawing at their hearts. The simple-minded pirate NPCs watched their radar in terror as one friendly ship marker after another vanished, while the Grim Reaper drew ever closer.
At last, one pirate completely broke down. His ship cut its engines and coasted through space, looking ready to die.
Soon, a radio signal spread across the battlefield: "We surrender!"
Lin Zhichen, in the middle of his rampage, came back to himself. He marked the ship for later and turned his attack toward the other pirate ships.
When the other pirates saw that the ship which had surrendered wasn't attacked, they finally recovered from their panic. Like drowning people grabbing the last straw, one after another they shut down their engines and sent surrender signals.
In the blink of an eye, space fell completely quiet. Only the Qinyuan remained, gliding through the battlefield in triumph.
The StarNet livestream room was utterly silent. General MacArthur stared at the scene, dumbfounded and unable to recover.
"General?" The beautiful host cautiously tapped his shoulder.
"Oh? Is the battle over?" The general came to his senses, still dazed.
"General, the pirates surrendered!" the host reminded him.
"That's impossible!" the general declared firmly. "NPCs don't surrender. These emotionless fellows are more like biological machines; they only follow their predetermined programming.
"Very few NPCs can break free of that programming—less than one in a hundred! And each pirate ship has at least five people aboard. Even if one surrendered, the others wouldn't allow it!"
"But what if all five surrendered? I mean, in theory?" the host asked.
"Uh... it's possible, but the odds are very low," the general said reluctantly.
"Look, a miracle just happened~" The netizens answered him with a flood of "666" comments.
"Twenty-three pirate ships! Three of them are pirate gunboats, too. This is a huge haul." After taking a careful look around the battlefield, Lin Zhichen couldn't help smiling.
This was an unexpected windfall. Even if he found nothing at the Pirate Base, he'd still come out ahead.
Twenty raider boats and three gunboats. Their quality was far inferior to that of regular ships of the same class, but they had numbers on their side.
If he waited a while and trained the pirate crews, their skills would improve. Even in pirate ships, they'd be able to put up a decent fight.
The battle ended, and a strange sensation arose. The psionic energy that had been calm throughout his body suddenly boiled, spreading in waves like water brought to a boil.
The strange feeling immediately snapped Lin Zhichen to attention. The rapidly growing psionic energy brought with it a premonition, and he instinctively opened his personal panel.
"Name: Lin Zhichen, Red, transforming Gender: Male Age: 21 Talents: Heaven Rewards Diligence, Purple: Effect 1: Hard work brings rewards; practicing a skill improves it. Effect 2: Members of his faction benefit from this talent; Gate of Time and Space, Blue: Opens once a month, searches for Spacetime Marks, and opens temporary instances; Psionicist, Red: Effect 1: Awakens psionics. Effect 2: Skill Learning Speed +10%; Ship Command, Red: Effect 1: Ship Evasion +25%*10. Effect 2: Sublight Speed +25%*10, transforming Sublight Assault, Red: Effect 1: Sublight Cannon Barrage accuracy +21%*5. Effect 2: Sublight Cannon Barrage damage +24%*5; Profession: Captain, Red, Grandmaster Skills: 1—Psionic Cultivation, Red, Apprentice 95.37%, transforming -Ship Command, Red, Grandmaster: Effect 1: Ship Evasion +25%. Effect 2: Sublight Speed +25%, transforming -Sublight Assault, Red, Master 13.21%: Effect 1: Sublight Cannon Barrage accuracy +21%. Effect 2: Sublight Cannon Barrage damage +23%; -Fatal Strike, Red, Beginner 13.27%: Instant kill +2% Evaluation: Behold my Flying Immortal from Beyond the Heavens!"
"I'm about to advance?!"
The moment he saw that his Ship Command skill was at Grandmaster level, he understood what was happening to him.
There were two kinds of Psionic Cultivation. The first was pure psionic cultivation, which continually increased one's psionic energy limit. Once the limit was reached, one began to break through—specifically, by strengthening one's connection to the Psionic Realm.
Some powerful psionicists could even use their connection to the Psionic Realm to enter that mysterious world, the source of all psionics in the New Universe.
The second kind was to spiritualize a skill, then develop it toward a domain. This was what Lin Zhichen was experiencing now. His Ship Command skill had already reached Grandmaster level and was naturally ascending, advancing him toward becoming a Psionic Warrior.
When a skill broke through Grandmaster level and ascended naturally, the resulting psionic combat skill became even stronger. It also didn't occupy one of the precious skill slots granted at each tier of the psionic profession.
Lin Zhichen had no teacher to guide him and had never formally studied how to elevate his skills. But now, some mysterious intuition let him learn the technique naturally.
Psionic energy surged through his body, coiling around something invisible. As endless psionic energy poured into an intangible concept, it underwent a qualitative change. Soon, an insight welled up in his heart.
It seemed to last an instant, yet also an eternity. The wondrous sensation faded in a flash, leaving behind a lingering aftertaste.
His psionic combat skill had taken shape!
"Name: Lin Zhichen, Elite Red Gender: Male Age: 21 Talents: Heaven Rewards Diligence, Purple: Effect 1: Hard work brings rewards; practicing a skill improves it. Effect 2: Members of his faction benefit from this talent; Gate of Time and Space, Blue: Opens once a month, searches for Spacetime Marks, and opens temporary instances;
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