Parting

Parting

"David, you have to keep practicing. I'll be waiting for you in Na'an City!" Gallen stood by the gate and encouraged him.

"Uncle Gallen, I'll do my best!" After spending several days together, David had come to feel as close to Gallen as family. He nodded firmly.

"Myron, you need to work hard, too!" Gallen said to Myron.

"Uncle Gallen, David and I will both get into Na'an University!" Myron said confidently.

Though he'd only had a few days, after training day and night, he had just about mastered the thirty-six forms of the Storm Hammer Technique. With a teacher like Gallen guiding him, all he had to do was work hard, and improving his War Hammer Mastery would be easy.

Gallen waved to the two of them. Then a ladder descended from the sky. Since the spaceship hovering motionless above them was invisible, the ladder seemed to emerge from thin air.

David had known since the last time that a spaceship was parked above his house, but he hadn't known what model it was.

After Gallen stepped into the air, the spaceship slowly moved, its engines rumbling. As it did, its invisibility faded.

David saw an all-black aircraft with wings spanning thirty meters. Its streamlined design was as elegant as a black swan.

"My god, it's the Black Ghost!" Myron cried excitedly.

The name Black Ghost meant nothing to David. He was sure he'd never heard of it before.

"The Black Ghost is an ultra-fast atmospheric aircraft with the ability to fly in space. It's as prestigious among aircraft as the Gladstone is among cars," Myron explained.

As he spoke, the elegant Black Ghost suddenly accelerated, turning into a streak of black light as it shot into the sky and disappeared.

Only then did David understand just how fast Myron's "ultra-fast atmospheric flight" meant. He also understood what Myron was getting at: the Black Ghost was the best aircraft of its size.

Then again, every Armored Warrior in Gallen's retinue carried a Level 2 War Hammer. That made sense.

"Haha, we're free! Let's go out and relax today!" Myron laughed as he watched the Black Ghost disappear.

"Myron, I want to practice some more today. In a few days, we can go check out that Shooting Range you mentioned," David said, shaking his head.

Over the past two days, he'd fused the Shield Mastery Light Orb, with 50% proficiency, and the Heavy Axe Mastery Light Orb, with 70% proficiency. He hadn't had time to practice many of the skills they'd given him. Now that Gallen had left, and his War Hammer Mastery had nearly reached true mastery, at 83% proficiency, he could work on the other skills.

He was always short on time. Besides, tomorrow was the day Mr. Steer and Trainer Jeremy were meeting, and he still needed time to plan his next move.

"David, you're turning into a machine!" Myron said with a shake of his head. Then he added, "Forget it. I'll head home first. My mother says several times a day that she misses me. I'll come see you in a couple of days!"

Since David didn't want to go out, Myron gave up on the idea, too. He didn't linger and drove off in his Gladstone Type VI.

David returned to the empty house and let out a long sigh of relief.

He went into the room next door, which had been converted into a server room. A Medium Server stood inside.

As soon as he entered, he felt a chill. The temperature had been set especially for the Medium Server, and even the humidity was kept within a stable range.

The Medium Server didn't use the public power grid. It had its own power system, fueled by five Krypton Crystals.

The Medium Server took up half a wall. In an age when most data processing could be handled by an Identity Bracelet, one could imagine the computing power of a server that large.

David sat down in the operator's chair and put on a head-mounted display. In an instant, he appeared in a virtual world.

Virtual reality technology had existed for a long time, but because of its effects on the brain, minors were forbidden from using it.

The virtual world David had entered was generated independently by the Medium Server. It had nothing to do with the virtual reality connected to Skynet, which was why he dared to break the law.

Of course, his confidence in entering a virtual world as a minor came from his mental value of 3.4. So much soul energy had fused into his soul that he couldn't believe he wouldn't be able to adapt to virtual reality.

He'd spent his free time over the past two days studying the Medium Server. As the main server for Lixin Security Company, it contained a closed virtual world built by the company.

The world had originally been designed to test how the Security System operated. It could simulate a realistic residential community, a street, or even an entire city.

The Security System could be installed and tested in these virtual environments, while the Medium Server simulated attacks from commonly used electronic countermeasures software, along with break-ins and theft attempts.

It could also load a rival company's Security System and find its vulnerabilities, allowing the company to crush its competitor.

Such tests would have been impossible in the real world. But the results produced here were almost identical to those in reality.

David didn't need an environment like that, of course. But he had gained ultimate access to the Medium Server, and his avatar could manipulate the virtual world however he pleased.

Ever since he'd acquired Sniping with 20% proficiency, he'd been thinking about how to improve it. It wasn't as if he could grab a Sniper Rifle and go fight the Zerg. He wasn't a Sniper Armored Warrior, didn't have a specialized Sniper Rifle, and certainly couldn't just go looking for a fight with the Zerg.

Other combat skills could be learned through practice. Even without an advanced technique like the Storm Hammer Technique, basic techniques could still improve one's combat skills through training.

He now had Sniping at 20% proficiency. If he didn't work to improve, he might be ahead for now, but others would soon catch up.

That was why he'd thought of using the virtual world in the Medium Server. Unlike other Sniper Armored Warriors, he was also a highly skilled Electronic Warfare Specialist. He could tailor a training environment specifically for himself.

David had no idea how other Sniper Armored Warriors trained. He doubted any of them had never even touched a regular Sniper Rifle, yet possessed extensive knowledge of the specialized rifles used by Sniper Armored Warriors, along with the relevant experience.

What he needed was constant practice to sharpen his analytical skills and shoot faster. That required a wealth of realistic environments, which David lacked. The virtual world could provide them.

David moved his hand through the air, pulling up one line of data after another and modifying them. Buildings vanished from the virtual world, and the ground became scattered with rocks and dirt.

With his adjustments, the cityscape became a wilderness. He'd recreated these surroundings based on the knowledge he'd acquired, but he didn't know whether they resembled Panshi Planet or War Star.

Then a Spiked Pincer Insect appeared. David had found its virtual model on Skynet and spent a few Credit Points to download it.

The model included the Spiked Pincer Insect's combat habits. Once activated, its movements were almost indistinguishable from those of a real one.

People in the virtual world had all kinds of unusual interests, so as long as you had Credit Points, you could download almost anything from Skynet.

But David soon ran into a problem. He could download a Spiked Pincer Insect, but he couldn't find anything related to the Armored Warriors.

Sniper Armored Warriors' Exoskeleton Armor and specialized Sniper Rifles couldn't even be found by name on Skynet.

David didn't know whether this was true only on Panshi Planet or throughout the Interstellar Federation. But with the network available in Peilan City, he could only search Panshi Planet's Skynet.

In the end, David had no choice but to make the equipment himself. He didn't have the specifications for a Sniper Armored Warrior's Exoskeleton Armor or specialized Sniper Rifle, but he did have a T3 Sniper Auxiliary Device.

He scanned the T3 Sniper Auxiliary Device's appearance and structure with a Micro Scanner and transferred the data to the Medium Server's virtual world. He also imported its control program. Although he couldn't make another T3 Sniper Auxiliary Device in real life, he could create an identical virtual version.

David activated the Spiked Pincer Insect. It was five hundred meters away, and it charged toward him.

He began calculating and analyzing. The virtual environment's random wind direction, temperature, and humidity were all quickly detected by the T3 Sniper Auxiliary Device.

The moment he simulated firing, the Spiked Pincer Insect froze in place. Since he had no data for a real Sniper Rifle, the trajectory he calculated appeared as a green line, while the Medium Server's calculation of the correct trajectory appeared as a red line.

David only had to judge the difference between the green and red lines to know whether his calculation was correct.