"Don't move!" Poison Scorpion's pulse rifle was already glowing blue.
After Uncle Gao finished his last word, Bai Ying had even taken a step forward.
"If we were discussing this over dinner two days from now, perhaps you'd be in a much better mood." Uncle Gao poured himself a cup of tea. "I didn't drug the tea. Dragon Bud is a tea that needs to be savored, and for people trying it for the first time, 'tea drunkenness' is perfectly normal."
"Where's the merchandise?" Bai Ying clenched her fists, her red eyes fixed on the unruffled Uncle Gao.
"Rare treasures go to the highest bidder." Uncle Gao set down his teacup, his smile fading. "No one survived the first-generation mechs except Xingtian. Almost all the second-generation mechs were lost in the Boundless Sea. The Alliance nations regard third-generation mechs as their strongest combat assets. They're scarce and practically impossible to buy, no matter the price."
"Liar!" Bai Ying spat out the word through gritted teeth.
"When General Chen placed the order, I did intend to sell them to you. Unfortunately, another buyer—one I can't afford to offend—set their sights on this shipment." Uncle Gao showed no hint of remorse, as if he hadn't been the one to make the decision. "To be honest, the price was only a secondary consideration. Even if you could offer more, I wouldn't dare sell the merchandise to you."
"Who's the buyer?"
As far as Bai Ying was concerned, no one in the world would dare steal from the Watchman Alliance's army!
"I can't tell you. I advise you to give up." Uncle Gao seemed to have expected Bai Ying to ask. "Ultimately, I'm responsible for this, so I've prepared a second-generation standardized Striker mech in near-new condition. I'll sell it to you at cost and refund the difference. How does that sound?"
Strictly in terms of cost, this deal would be at least half as expensive as the original one.
As for whether it was worth the price, that was for Xuanse Cangqiong to decide.
But no matter what, Xuanse Cangqiong could only choose between accepting and refusing Uncle Gao's offer. There was no other option.
Bai Ying didn't see it that way.
"Who's the buyer?!"
Bai Ying had come here to get the best upgrades for Xingtian, not to choose from defective goods offered after the other party had broken their agreement.
"I'd planned to let you stay here in comfort for a couple of days, then have you contact General Chen yourself to discuss my offer." Uncle Gao shook his head slightly. "But now there's no need. I'll discuss it with General Chen myself."
After saying this, Uncle Gao walked over to the ornate desk and used his communicator to call General Chen.
He would make Bai Ying listen to General Chen's answer in person and show her that this wasn't something a little girl who hadn't grown up could decide!
"Xingtian!" Bai Ying shouted, as if calling for her mech.
"Pfft... Kid, have you been watching too much anime?" Poison Scorpion couldn't help laughing. "Shouting at the air won't make some hero jump out and save you. And you're calling that ancient mech of yours. If I remember right, Xingtian doesn't even have an AI system installed. Can it even understand you?"
"What, was Bai Ying speaking in Morse code or something? I can't understand her?" Yu Xiao muttered to himself on the other end of the communicator. "Who do they think they're looking down on?"
A few minutes earlier, Yu Xiao had already learned through the communicator that Bai Ying was fighting someone over there. He had heard every word of their conversation, too!
All that talk boiled down to one thing—they'd stolen his equipment.
How was he supposed to put up with that?
I walked Xingtian for six hours to get here. My feet nearly got soaked through in the sea, and now you're telling me the merchandise is gone? You think you can bully my old, weak Xingtian?
Yu Xiao wasn't going to let this slide!
In the empty hangar, Xingtian, which had already entered hibernation, suddenly powered up again. Its red cyclopean eye lit up in the darkness, and the two gleaming Slayer wrist blades slid out.
Yu Xiao had to find a way out first.
Dark red light spread through the air, gradually covering the entire hangar. Yu Xiao was scanning the materials of the hangar's walls and doors.
The results left him stunned.
"What are you trying to keep out of here?!"
The entire hangar was made of costly synthetic Gigaforce Alloy, an experimental, cutting-edge metal developed by the Omega Research Complex. Its unique microstructure and specialized synthesis process gave it unparalleled toughness. It could withstand most physical attacks, and even fusion-level energy strikes could only slowly melt it.
But, like most of Omega's cutting-edge technology, the metal was frighteningly expensive. Estimates put the cost of every twenty cubic meters of Gigaforce Alloy at the price of a brand-new second-generation mech!
However, the alloy used in this hangar wasn't the original version. It seemed to be an inferior grade of Gigaforce Alloy: less tough, but also considerably cheaper.
Even so, the hangar had cost enough to build at least ten brand-new Xingtian mechs!
After a second of intense deliberation, Yu Xiao decisively gave up on forcing his way through the door and retracted his Slayer wrist blades.
He'd have to find a more elegant solution.
[Scanning network ports... 647 targets found for infiltration]
"Huh?"
Ever since Yu Xiao had installed his new power core, he'd gained two combat skills. One was [Hardening], which temporarily increased the mech's durability. It was also the skill the AI had used to withstand the Crimson Hurricane's thermal sword when it took over Xingtian.
The other was [Network Intrusion], which seemed to be usable only against human factions. Yu Xiao had thought he'd never have a use for it, but it hadn't taken long for reality to prove him wrong.
Both combat skills could be upgraded with evolution points, but upgrading them cost so much that Yu Xiao could have bought another core component instead.
Each Aggregate Beast he'd killed earlier had only rewarded him with 200 points. After all, they were juvenile, downgraded versions of level-three monsters. They counted as strong opponents for Xingtian, but the Crimson Hurricane could have taken one out with a single punch.
If he could afford the black technology in the shop, he wouldn't have had to fight the people of the Silent Graveyard over secondhand equipment!
As the saying went, even a hero could be defeated by a lack of money. Even after transmigrating, he still had to worry about it!
But now an even trickier problem had emerged.
The Silent Graveyard's network architecture was the kind of thing only an insane person could come up with!
Xuanse Cangqiong's system consisted of a main control system and countless submodules linked to it. So if Xingtian infiltrated any submodule, it could quickly spread an infection back through the network and take control of the entire system.
But the Silent Graveyard's network architecture consisted of a main control system and hundreds of independent, randomly encrypted subsystems!
Rather than managing those subsystems, the main control system was more like a "central post office" responsible for receiving and sending information. It didn't even have permission to control the subsystems.
This kind of network architecture made data processing several orders of magnitude more difficult. Without expensive, top-tier hardware to support its bandwidth and capacity, the system couldn't function properly at all!
But the upside was security—unbelievable security!
Yu Xiao's dream of infiltrating the entire system was shattered on the spot!
Before you continue