Drill

In the Safe House, Achilles lay on the bed designing her own body. After signing that contract, she would return to reality and receive a custom-made body, while her clone would remain in the virtual world as the protagonist, drawing everyone's attention and becoming an obstacle for the powerhouses eager to claim rewards.

Lin Li had already announced the new mission in the virtual world. Every year, the Sky-Piercing Tower would have a strongest contender, who would receive a 5% share of the profits. Achilles's clone would take her place here and compete with those people for that reward.

Furthermore, new strongest contenders would also appear in the new virtual world, with one share of profit equity awarded each year. After the five-year experiment involving fifteen million people ended, Manohar Corporation would have to distribute 75% of its profits every year.

As Li Heng had put it to Lin Li, Manohar had tried to kill the Seagull under his control, so it was only reasonable for him to take 75% of the money and reward the protagonists fighting in the virtual world.

A scaled claw ruffled the white hair on her head into a complete mess. Achilles stared at the complicated parameters and data with a troubled expression. With her limited knowledge, she had never imagined that customizing a body in reality would be so difficult. This was not a virtual world where the laws of physics could be bent at will. With current technology, it was impossible to create a body with thousands of times a human's strength, no energy consumption, and no fatigue.

In truth, Lin Li's Symbiote had been custom-made by Li Heng based on his genes. Other people's Symbiotes could not possibly achieve such powerful results. Combined with his naturally biological-computer-like brain, that was why he had grown so strong so quickly. Even so, after his maximum strength exceeded 900 times that of an ordinary human, its growth had gradually slowed.

Other than the cells directly controlled by Li Heng, his biotechnology could currently only give a human-sized organism 1,763 times a human's strength at most. However, the organism's muscle tissue could not withstand such enormous power and would instead be continuously torn apart during movement, forcing it to expend additional energy repairing the damaged tissue.

That was only possible because of Li Heng's micrometer-level control, precisely customizing every one of the tens of trillions of cells. For mass-produced organisms, such as those Symbiotes, being able to possess around a hundred times an ordinary human's strength after fusion was already exceptionally gifted.

"Ahhh, I don't get it! Why does covering the whole body in scales make it slower and overheat? This is so annoying, ahhh!"

Achilles had designed a tall Dragon-Armored Human standing two and a half meters tall. It had a single horn covered in spiral patterns on its forehead, a huge and flexible chainsaw-like tail behind it, and pitch-black scales covering its entire body. It was an organism weighing more than 800 kilograms.

She had been very satisfied with her design, but the moment she saw the ability parameters, her face fell. This body could certainly be made, but its burst speed had dropped from a maximum of 327 meters per second to less than 200 m/s. Its strength had increased, but it could only lift a little over three hundred tons—enough to throw a few tanks, nothing more.

More seriously, its tall body and the scales covering its surface prevented heat from dissipating from inside. It could only exert itself at full power for a few dozen seconds, or its internal temperature would rise too high and damage its body tissue.

After agonizing over it for a long time, Achilles gave up on making it herself and simply provided several criteria for the system to generate it intelligently. Her knowledge was not enough to support personally creating a powerful body.

In the end, she had only one requirement: it had to be fast. She wanted to be the fastest one.

What finally floated before her was a tiny humanoid creature, even shorter than her own malnourished height of less than one and a half meters. It looked like a primary school student about 1.4 meters tall. A sharp horn protruded from the middle of its white hair, embedded with dark green gemstones. A pair of wings extended from its shoulder blades, while a raised black object connected to the center of its spine and the bones of its back.

Small Combat Angel:

Weight: 65 kg. Standard flight speed: 250–300 m/s. Maximum strength: 60 tons.

Supersonic flight: Mach 2.5–4.5. Energy consumption increases. Use with caution.

Achilles began revising this unfinished product again, changing the angel's body into an asexual organism. Looking at the finished result, she felt somewhat helpless. She had wanted an imposing body, yet it had ended up even smaller than her original one.

After she chose to submit it, the system displayed a message: Please wait patiently for a few days. The supplier is shipping your order.

A thousand miles away, Li Heng received the Small Combat Angel blueprint. In truth, the so-called automatic design was entirely operated by him behind the scenes. Even the system prompt had been sent by him.

After all, this was the first protagonist to gather emotional information from five million people for him. Combined with information from the internet, the amount of information in Li Heng's mind had expanded tenfold again during this period. Creating a specially customized body was only natural.

If every tenfold increase in information was counted as one level, then when Li Heng had first awakened his ability and possessed his own twenty years of memories, he had been roughly Level 1.3. Half a year ago, at Level 6, he had been able to completely control cells at the micrometer level. Now, he had reached Level 7. The information supplied by all existing humans in the world could no longer keep up with his rate of absorption and conversion.

His total energy had now exceeded 5e+15 joules, equivalent to the energy released by a one-megaton nuclear bomb. Combined with the hundreds of millions of joules of energy flowing continuously from the virtual world every second, his 100% energy efficiency allowed him to alter the material world far beyond what humanity could achieve.

An hour later, as Li Heng calculated the Small Combat Angel's data, his signal connection with the outside world became difficult. Massive electromagnetic interference distorted the information carried by those shortwaves beyond recognition.

Information had to be transmitted through energy. The electromagnetic waves carrying information had become increasingly conspicuous in order to transmit more of it. As the information he absorbed and converted increased, the concealed satellites and falsified reports finally drew the Hong Alliance Military's attention. By then, they had cut off all communication channels from this base. Even Ai Liyuan, who possessed Level 1 clearance, had been isolated from the network. His actions had been discovered.

Li Heng's actions had already caught the military's attention. Given his Special-Grade Incident threat level, the Hong Alliance Military would directly deploy nuclear weapons against this military base if necessary. Even if it meant sacrificing the hundreds of soldiers here and that academician, they could not allow him to leave.

That was what a Special-Grade Incident meant: an event involving the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Within the Hong Alliance, Li Heng's threat level was on par with a world war or a massive meteor falling from the sky.

The strands of hair extending throughout the base twisted back into their original form. Li Heng rose from the laboratory's metal floor. At that moment, he looked like a child with an androgynous appearance, as divine as a god's son, with a golden vertical eye on his forehead.

At the base airfield, when Li Heng emerged, hundreds of soldiers had already returned from the distorted illusion to the real world. They immediately tried to contact the outside, but every signal was rejected. The military believed these soldiers had likely already had their thoughts twisted and lost their original will.

Unlike those uncertain soldiers, who looked as though they had awakened to find their whole world changed, Ai Liyuan stood calmly some distance from Li Heng, holding a baby.

The Little Boy in Ai Liyuan's arms possessed genes almost identical to his own and the thought patterns of the son from his memories. He was already six months old. Born with memories, he could even communicate with others and could be called a child prodigy.

Li Heng walked up to Ai Liyuan. The academician, who was over seventy years old, now looked only around forty. Li Heng had repaired and restarted the aging cells inside his body, completely killing the small number of cancer cells. This academician's body was now more vigorous than that of many middle-aged people.

Looking at Li Heng's adorable face, which seemed to embody humanity's beautiful fantasies, Ai Liyuan said, "Even after working with you for half a year, I still find it difficult to get used to your ever-changing appearance. Especially when you so often wear the skin of a child while doing the work of a devil."

Li Heng did not mind the sarcasm in his words. Instead, he pinched his tender cheek and said,

"A pleasing appearance can always reduce others' hostility. For example, cute little girls often receive many invisible advantages in life. Look at those bewildered soldiers. Not one of them sees me as an enemy, even though this third eye of mine clearly looks unusual."

A beautiful appearance was also an innate gift. If Li Heng currently looked like an ugly, twisted monster, those soldiers would probably have attacked him without hesitation, even if it would have accomplished nothing.

Looking at the hesitant soldiers around them, Ai Liyuan shook his head. What normal person would regard a child as an enemy?

Reason told them that they should restrain Li Heng, this child who had appeared out of nowhere. But all communication with their superiors had been rejected, and the academician with the highest clearance had given no orders. Naturally, they would not launch an attack on their own initiative.

A faint current of air brushed across his face. Four enormous transparent wings appeared behind Li Heng. They were two pairs of wings with spans approaching twenty meters, covered in dense black-red lines resembling veins. The soldiers, who had still been relatively restrained, nervously tightened their grips on their weapons.

"Goodbye, Academician Ai Liyuan. It was a pleasure working with you. I hope we have a chance to meet again."

The wings beat, and the surging airwaves swept dust from the ground as Li Heng shot into the sky.

Holding the infant, Ai Liyuan watched the creature fly away into the sky. He gently stroked the baby boy's soft hair and whispered, "Good luck."

At an altitude of a thousand meters, the distant setting sun dyed Li Heng's face red. He looked at the detection electromagnetic waves covering dozens of kilometers around him. In such a short time, the Hong Alliance had already prepared for war. Within this sea region spanning only a few hundred kilometers, nearly 10% of the entire navy's forces had gathered.

There were three carrier battle groups. Each group included one 120,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, two 70,000-ton conventionally powered aircraft carriers, ten missile destroyers, and even larger numbers of submarines and frigates. This was only the outermost defensive ring in the South China Sea, hundreds of kilometers away.

Around this small base, more than a hundred missile destroyers and hundreds of submarines had been patrolling constantly. This portion of the armed forces alone was enough to sweep through an entire country.

Beyond that, land airfields farther away had also made their preparations. Hundreds of supersonic fighter jets and tens of thousands of drones had taken off one after another. Those land-based missile silos were ready to launch as well. If the battle went badly, ten one-megaton Hydrogen Bombs would completely exterminate all life within dozens of kilometers of the base.

Li Heng looked up toward higher altitudes. Countless electromagnetic waves came from orbits two hundred kilometers above the ground. Those very-low-orbit satellites were continuously transmitting his location to the fleet commanders of the Southern Navy.

Even though he had become a million times stronger than he had been a year ago, such formidable military power was still astonishing. Even with his current strength, he might not necessarily win in a direct one-on-one confrontation.

His best choice now was actually to flee into the sea. With his camouflage and concealment abilities, the Hong Alliance Navy could not possibly find him underwater, and those missiles would not be able to catch him there. He could slowly rely on the Jelly organism's power to completely destroy this powerful navy.

But Li Heng needed a direct clash with the military, a direct clash with nuclear weapons. Only by shattering all of the Hong Alliance's hopes of killing him could he raise his standing to one equal with the Hong Alliance, that colossal entity.

Only equal strength could earn him the right to negotiate, and this battle was a drill—a drill to display the power of himself and the Jelly organism.