First-Rank Psionic Shield of the Star Sea Alien Race

First-Rank Psionic Shield of the Star Sea Alien Race

With control over the Myriad Heavens Market, all he needed to do was develop steadily. Taking risks had never truly been part of his plans.

But on second thought, while energy fluctuations of this scale far exceeded Zero Rank, they were nowhere near the First Rank level. Moreover, this deployment was a welfare exploration, so there should not be any threats nearby that posed too great a danger to the Cangqiong.

After thinking it over, he glanced at the seven Fire Sunflower Soldiers standing rigidly beside him. Once he was certain he had a solid chance of escaping unscathed no matter what happened, Song Chi made his decision.

He turned the shuttle around and headed toward the area where the disturbance had occurred.

An hour later, behind a large fragment, the Cangqiong had long since shut down its engines and was silently docked against the fragment.

The fragment measured over twenty meters in both length and width, perfectly concealing the Cangqiong's hull.

On the other side of the fragment lay a vacuum region enclosed within the debris belt. Unlike the Star Sea Void Belt, this vacuum region was extremely small, less than ten thousand meters across. At its very center was a flat fragment nearly a thousand meters in diameter.

Song Chi guessed that the anomaly previously detected by the Sky-Patrol Radar had most likely originated from that fragment. A massive burst of energy had erupted from it, shoving every other fragment several thousand meters away.

But the truth no longer mattered. What mattered was that Song Chi could tell there was definitely something extraordinary on that large floating continent ahead. In the ten-odd minutes he had spent observing, he had already seen no fewer than three waves of alien races with strange wings swarm onto the fragment.

More importantly, after landing on the fragment, those alien races immediately began slaughtering one another as though by mutual agreement. Thus, Song Chi deduced that whatever—or whatever batch of resources—was on that large fragment had to be rare enough to drive these aliens mad. Otherwise, creatures that were clearly of the same species would never have turned on one another so viciously.

As for Song Chi himself, it would have been impossible for him not to be curious, but he did not act rashly.

There were several hundred winged alien creatures on the large fragment ahead, which was over a thousand meters in diameter. More than a dozen of them were First Rank beings.

He was waiting for the analysis results from the Cangqiong's semi-automatic shipboard AI. Every Kindling captain conducting Alien Starfield Exploration would download the publicly available basic information on all currently discovered Star Sea civilizations compiled by Kindling Human Civilization.

However, the database contained an overwhelming amount of information. Even at the shipboard AI's processing speed, verification required quite some time.

Of course, this was probably related to the fact that the AIs installed on all Kindling Starships were merely the lowest-grade semi-automatic AIs. Still, there was nothing to be done about that. Kindling Civilization had explicit regulations stating that all Kindling Starships could only be equipped with semi-automatic shipboard AIs.

It was not as though Kindling Human Civilization had imposed such restrictions without reason. Too many Star Sea civilizations had been seized by the AIs under their command and transformed into mechanical civilizations. They had no choice but to guard against it.

Several minutes later, the shipboard AI finally produced a match.

Race Name: White-Wing Clan

Introduction: An extremely common species of void creature in the Shattered Star Sea. They do not need floating continents to survive and can move freely through the Star Sea void.

Racial Advantages: Agile and incredibly fast.

Racial Weaknesses: Extremely weak attack power. Against targets of the same rank, they find it difficult to break through the energy shields of Kindling Starships.

"The White-Wing Clan..."

Staring at the virtual light screen projected by the shipboard AI, Song Chi compared the information for a while and confirmed that they were indeed the void creatures known as the White-Wing Clan. A thoughtful look appeared in his eyes.

If the data provided by Kindling Civilization was accurate, a bold idea had begun to form in his mind.

There were still 110 strands of Zero-Rank Floating Continent Essence and nearly two hundred Zero-Rank Life Cores in his Kindle Ancestral Aperture. Upgrading the Psionic Shield from lv7 to lv8 required 15 strands of Floating Continent Essence and 12 Life Cores; lv8 to lv9 required 17 strands of Floating Continent Essence and 13 Life Cores; while advancing from lv9 to lv10 required 50 strands of Floating Continent Essence and 40 Life Cores.

By that calculation, raising the Psionic Shield to First Rank would require a total of 82 strands of Floating Continent Essence and 65 Life Cores. The emergency resources he had kept on hand were entirely sufficient. As for Dark Energy Points, they could be replenished within minutes, so they were not important.

And once the Psionic Shield was strengthened to First Rank, even the combined attacks of over a hundred White-Wing Clan members would not be able to deplete its shield value in a short time. That was because the First-Rank Psionic Shield component would see its shield value soar directly to one thousand points.

Coupled with the full protection of the equally First-Rank Fire Sunflower Soldiers, this was entirely feasible.

After hesitating for a moment, Song Chi stopped wavering. The resources he had saved were meant for emergencies. If he did not use them now, then when would he?

With several consecutive taps, the Psionic Shield component was upgraded all the way from lv7 to lv10. The cost was a steep reduction in the Cangqiong's resource reserves. Only 28 strands of Zero-Rank Floating Continent Essence remained, while the Life Cores numbered just over a hundred. Fortunately, the lv10 Psionic Shield's attributes were quite decent.

Psionic Shield lv10

Quality: Colorless

Consumption: 20/s (Dark Energy Points)

Defense: 99

Shield Value: 990/990

Charge Time: 20s; Cooldown after overload: 40 minutes

Upgrade Requirements: 100 strands of Floating Continent Essence (Zero Rank), 1600 Dark Energy Points, 50 Life Cores (Zero Rank)

As a standard colorless-quality component, even after reaching First Rank, the Psionic Shield component still required only Zero-Rank Floating Continent Essence and Zero-Rank Life Cores for subsequent upgrades. This made it far more convenient than the continued upgrades of white-quality and higher wonder components. However, the Cangqiong's resources had now been nearly exhausted, so further upgrades were impossible.

After strengthening the Psionic Shield, Song Chi still made no move. Merely upgrading the Psionic Shield component was not enough to put him at ease. He first deactivated the Psionic Shield, and once the Psionic Pool's Dark Energy Points had fully replenished, he controlled the Cangqiong and began returning along its original route.

He was not going to foolishly attack right away. Judging by the situation, the slaughter among the White-Wing Clan would not end anytime soon.

Since that was the case, he might as well return first to retrieve the Fierce Tiger Mining Vehicle. He could also collect several worthwhile resource deposits he had previously marked down. Then, when the twenty-four-hour exploration period was nearly over, he could return and look for an opportunity to strike. That way, even if things proved impossible, escaping would be much easier.

Of course, if the battle had already ended by the time he returned and the item on the fragment had been taken away, that would only mean the unknown item was not fated for him. Song Chi would not force the matter.

More than ten hours later, Song Chi returned to the location of the small void pocket. At this point, only the final half hour remained before the twenty-four-hour limit of the initial Alien Starfield deployment expired.

Looking again at the situation on the large fragment ahead, more than two hundred White-Wing Clan members still remained. Several more groups had most likely arrived after he left.

The only thing that displeased Song Chi was that, after more than ten hours, the number of First-Rank White-Wing Clan members had not decreased. Instead, several more had appeared. There were now nearly twenty First-Rank White-Wing Clan members on that fragment.