Once

Time passed quickly.

The Forward Base's observation this time was still accurate.

The window period arrived right on schedule.

No command was needed. The moment the window appeared, both Wang Dong's Mine Overlord Type 2 and Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I fired up their engines.

Guiding their ships with practiced flying maneuvers, they resolutely crossed the turbulent layer and entered the mining zone.

Inside the cockpit of the Mine Overlord Type 2, magnetic restraint straps firmly secured Wang Dong to the seat before the console.

Before entering the mining zone, Wang Dong shut down the ship's artificial gravity system, reallocating the saved power to the eight lateral directional adjustment thrusters lining the Mine Overlord Type 2's hull.

Gripping the eight-directional yoke before him, he pushed the engine power to one-third.

Wang Dong felt genuine delight.

The feeling of piloting with his own hands was always so fulfilling.

The only regret was that beneath him sat not a warship from his past life, but merely a Mine Overlord Type 2 near-space mining spaceship.

A near-space mining spaceship was only a slight step up from a space shuttle.

Compared to deep-space mining spaceships, which boasted formal-grade armor and could even hold their own against ordinary armed vessels, a near-space mining spaceship was nothing but a little brother among little brothers.

Compared to the Tomahawk Destroyer Wang Dong had piloted in his past life, the Mine Overlord Type 2 was utterly unremarkable in terms of propulsion, acceleration, and maneuverability like variable flight attitude control.

But it had its strengths.

The Mine Overlord Type 2, which didn't need to account for combat factors like warship defense, was fitted with eight directional adjustment thrusters across its hull—double the four found on standard warships.

Even among near-space mining spaceships, which emphasized flight attitude adjustment, this advantage of the Mine Overlord Type 2 stood out prominently.

For instance, the Near-Space Overlord Generation I that Old Shi piloted only had six directional adjustment thrusters.

And as Wang Dong's time piloting the Mine Overlord Type 2 grew, he quickly retrieved from memory all sorts of recollections about this model of mining ship.

Effortlessly, the Mine Overlord Type 2 visibly pulled ahead of Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I, taking the lead in their contest.

Wang Dong fully exploited the advantage brought by the eight directional adjustment thrusters.

In the asteroid belt with its complex spatial conditions, Wang Dong's Mine Overlord Type 2, relying on its eight directional adjustment thrusters, deftly maneuvered through tight spaces, making all sorts of subtle turns.

Without reducing the Main Engine's thrust and maintaining a higher speed, it roamed freely through the asteroid belt mining zone.

Old Shi gritted his teeth and clung to Wang Dong's tail.

When it came to piloting skill, Old Shi, with nearly twenty years of experience, was considered quite good among the miner community.

In the past, when he competed with Wang Dong, though he usually lost, the gap was always marginal.

There was no qualitative difference.

But this time was different.

Ahead of him, Wang Dong's Mine Overlord Type 2 seemed more agile than usual.

Certain subtle controls, inconspicuous at first glance, were just a touch smoother.

But when ten or a hundred such details stacked up, the gap emerged.

Normally, at the edge of the mining zone, Old Shi's skill level was enough to keep him locked tight with Wang Dong.

Yet in reality, less than ten minutes after entering the mining zone, Wang Dong's Mine Overlord Type 2 had secured an overwhelming lead, leaving Old Shi struggling to catch up from behind.

And this was far from Wang Dong's limit.

He even had spare time to organize the memories in his mind.

"How did I handle it last time? Seemed like I got so annoyed I just went all out and pulled the rug out from under them."

Wang Dong frowned, thinking for a moment, and recalled the specific slick move he'd made before his rebirth.

The Near-Space Overlord Generation I that Old Shi had chosen today had its No. 3 directional adjustment thruster on the lower side of the hull not properly maintained.

The Auxiliary System's scanning function, always present in Wang Dong's field of view, had already spotted this.

On the scan interface, this component showed up as yellow, not the green of full performance.

It indicated a subpar condition.

Then, entering the mining zone, Wang Dong took the lead up front, firmly controlling the pace, and made multiple sudden changes in flight path.

Throughout the process, he deliberately provoked the hidden flaw in that directional adjustment thruster on Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I.

After just half an hour, the overloaded operation caused the already subpar directional adjustment thruster to overheat and fail.

Under normal circumstances, the failure of just one directional adjustment thruster wouldn't lead to overly serious Consequences.

The remaining five directional adjustment thrusters could compensate for it.

At worst, flight attitude adjustments would become a bit sluggish.

But where were they?

The asteroid belt mining zone!

And, under Wang Dong's navigation, they had already penetrated to a considerable depth!

Extremely complex and volatile spatial conditions demand full concentration and caution even when the craft is fully functional—there was simply no room for a sudden failure like this.

Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I, the moment its attitude adjustment engine suffered overload paralysis and lost flight control, collided sideways with an asteroid that should have passed it by.

The impact wasn't severe—just a glancing scrape that damaged a few armor plates.

But the chain reaction that followed was far less forgiving.

The first collision was merely a trigger, sending the Near-Space Overlord Generation I into a complete loss of stable flight attitude.

In normal space, one could slowly readjust the flight attitude.

But in an asteroid belt mining zone, this was a fatal mistake.

After losing flight attitude, Old Shi's Near-Space Overlord Generation I was swept into a turbulent current in no time.

Under the complex gravitational environment, it kept colliding with small celestial bodies around it, ultimately crashing directly into an asteroid over a kilometer in diameter.

Old Shi himself, seasoned and experienced, immediately activated the escape pod separation sequence after the impact, luckily escaping the fate of his Near-Space Overlord Generation I.

Wang Dong had a chance to lend a hand.

And he did reach out.

Annoying as Old Shi was, it wasn't to the point of letting him die.

An accident like this was already enough to give Old Shi a good thrashing, and it let Wang Dong vent a fair bit of his pent-up anger.

Unfortunately, Old Shi's escape pod didn't carry its luck to the end.

More than one space rock, flung out of the turbulent current at high speed by the chaos caused by the Near-Space Overlord Generation I, struck Old Shi's escape pod directly.

The pod was destroyed on the spot, with no survivors.

Wang Dong could only let the wreckage of Old Shi's escape pod drift away into the asteroid belt.

That was a star miner's funeral.

Originally, it was a pretty perfect setup for solving a nuisance.

It wasn't Wang Dong who caused Old Shi's death.

Both the Black Box on Wang Dong's ship and the one on Old Shi's ship could prove that.