The small screen in the lower right corner of the main control panel was still lit, the blurry image stuck on the figure in the crack of the door, like a stain that hadn't been wiped clean. Ye Mo stared at it for three seconds, then swiped his finger, freezing the image, and immediately brought up the raw data stream transmitted back by Groot's roots. Numbers cascaded across the screen, and he squinted, suppressing his breathing—this wasn't the time to watch the show, it was time to scrutinize the details.
"Have you finished analyzing the Rocket and armor fragments?" he asked without looking up.
"It's long gone!" A metallic clanging sound came from the weapons bay, followed by the slamming of Rocket claw on a table. "It's a hodgepodge of scrap metal, the power core is secondhand, and the wiring is like it was chewed up by a dog. It's a miracle this thing even flew."
Ye Mo nodded and casually overlaid the two sets of data for comparison: the residual energy of the enemy ship's jump trajectory and the stress distribution diagram inside the debris. The results came out—the jump intervals were getting shorter and shorter, and the last one was even less than half of the standard safe distance. What did this mean? It wasn't that the technology was superior, but that they panicked, afraid of being caught up, and didn't even care about engine overload.
"They're running faster than rabbits," Star-Lord's voice drifted from the Milano's cockpit, a little hoarse from just waking up. "But I still think we should give chase. You know, before they've even pulled their underwear back on, just kick the door down."
Gamora stood at the training room door, twirling a tactical dagger in her hand. "What if this is a trap? Deliberately exposing weaknesses to lure us into uncharted airspace? Their equipment level simply can't support a large-scale ambush, but setting up a small ambush is more than enough."
"So we won't chase them." Ye Mo finally looked up, his glasses reflecting a cold light. "Chasing them now would be like banging our noses against a wall. They're short on resources and loosely organized; they won't be able to recover anytime soon. Instead of wasting time chasing a bunch of stray dogs, we should look back and see what we're lacking and fix it."
Rocket scoffed, "Easy for you to say. You're talking without any real experience. My cannon barrels are practically rusting, and I'm just relying on a few old-fashioned EMPs to keep things going?"
"Then let's change it." Ye Mo stood up, walked to the central tactics board, and swiped his finger to bring up the base equipment list. "What we lack most right now isn't firepower, it's rhythm. The last resonance attack was brilliant, but if we do it again, will the enemy fall for it? Not necessarily. So we need to practice new ones."
"A rotational training system," he said. "One person is the main trainer, while the others take turns on guard duty, providing support, or assisting. I'll go first. Seventy-two hours of closed training to integrate the recently acquired skill fragments."
Star-Lord raised an eyebrow. "What are you going to do? Lock yourself in a dark room and meditate?"
"Almost." Ye Mo tugged at his hoodie collar. "The system notification says that the 20th floor of the Gene Spiral Tower is a bit loose, probably due to the resonance effect accumulated during the last Wall Phasing, triggering a chain reaction. I want to try combining ' Shadowcat Wall Phasing ' and ' Wade's Self-Healing ' to create an upgraded version of ' Regenerative Phasing '."
"Sounds like a kitchen recipe," Rocket muttered.
"Then you'll be in charge of developing new dishes." Ye Mo looked at him. "The captured armor materials are yours. See if you can extract a stable energy-conducting layer to add a 'penetrating shield' function to the EMP rounds."
Rocket's eyes lit up. "Interesting... we could use a high-pressure oscillation coating to make electromagnetic pulses drill in like a drill."
" Gamora," Ye Mo turned to her, "You decide on the melee combat plan, max it out. Groot, clear the space below 30 meters underground in the ecological zone, build a simulated battlefield, randomly generated terrain, and at least five moving targets."
Groot gently shook the branch and uttered a deep "I am Groot."
"Understood." Ye Mo nodded. "You'll be responsible for sensing feedback and adjusting the difficulty in real time."
The meeting ended quickly. No one mentioned the pursuit again. The logic was clear: the enemy's escape didn't mean they had disappeared; and their victory once didn't guarantee they could rely on luck next time.
Ye Mo returned to the living area, took off his glasses, and placed them on the table. The crack was still there, but he didn't replace them. After wearing them for a long time, fingerprints had worn onto the frames, like some kind of proof—proof that he had indeed gone from being an ordinary college student on Earth to where he is now.
He opened the drawer, took out a black chip with fine lines on its surface, a remnant he had taken from Ronan's spaceship last time. He ran his fingertips along the edge, then suddenly paused.
[ X-Gene Resonance System ] silently activated, a mechanical voice sounding in the brain: [A weak energy fluctuation was detected, resonating with an inactive gene fragment in the host's body, frequency matching degree 47.3%]
"Oh?" Ye Mo raised an eyebrow. "There's an Easter egg too?"
He didn't make a sound, stuffed the chip into the inner pocket of his training suit, and turned to walk towards the deep training chamber.
A red light illuminated as the hatch opened, and the air instantly cooled. Inside, there were no seats, no displays, only a circular track embedded in the wall, and the floor was covered with energy-absorbing material. This was the only enclosed space in the base that could isolate it from external interference; even Groot's roots couldn't get in.
He stood still, closed his eyes, and let his consciousness sink into the " Gene Spiral Tower ".
The 20th layer floats deep within the mind, like a tower made of helical DNA chains, each layer corresponding to a different ability module. At this moment, the pale blue light representing " Wall Phasing " and the dark red light representing " Self-Healing " are slowly approaching, separated by a gray mist barrier.
"Again," he murmured.
Consciousness propelled the two energies to collide.
boom!
A sharp pain exploded in the virtual space, as if steel nails had pierced and pulled out of his ribs. He had failed. The combination was misaligned, triggering a backlash. He took a breath, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and readjusted his angle.
On the second attempt, the blue and red colors barely merged into a purple light, but it disintegrated in less than two seconds.
"System, how long is the cooldown?" he asked in his mind.
[There is no fixed cooling cycle; it depends on the host's neural load tolerance.]
"Alright, I'll time myself." He grinned. "I'm just killing time anyway."
The third time, the fourth time... until the seventh time, the purple light finally stabilized for more than half a second, faintly revealing a silver edge.
"It's done!" He opened his eyes, a smile playing on his lips. "It's not complete yet, but the direction is right."
When he stepped out of the training pod, six hours had passed. His steps were a little unsteady, but his eyes shone with an alarming intensity. As he passed the weapons bay, he heard Rocket cursing as he dismantled the Negasonic Teenage Warhead.
"Are you crazy?! This modification will cause the barrel to explode!"
"Explode it first!" With a flick of the Rocket claw, he declared, "I'm going to make this thing bounce three times in the gaps in the shield before it explodes!"
Ye Mo leaned against the doorframe and watched for a while, then didn't go in to disturb them. He knew that although this group of people seemed noisy on the surface, they were actually fighting desperately.
That evening, the five of them gathered in the courtyard. There was no wine, no celebration, they simply gazed quietly at the starry sky. The Milky Way stretched across the heavens like a river stained with shards of glass.
"The enemy will return," Gamora suddenly said, her voice soft, "And it won't be this makeshift fleet."
"I know," Ye Mo said, hands in his pockets. "That's why I need to be faster. If the system's evolution can't keep up with the increasing threat, we have to rely on trial and error to accumulate experience."
Star-Lord looked up at a bright star. "I used to think that as long as the guns were fast enough and the ships were powerful enough, that was enough. Now I realize that being powerful alone is useless. Look at Ye Mo, he's made the most of his abilities without making a sound."
"That's because he's shameless," Rocket scoffed. "Every time he fails, he says, 'The system told me to do this,' who believes that?"
"Didn't you always say 'this design is absolutely foolproof,' and then you blew up three workbenches?" Ye Mo retorted.
"That's necessary wear and tear for testing!" Rocket retorted angrily.
The laughter lingered in the night breeze for a while before falling silent again.
Groot extended a slender twig and gently touched the ground, causing a faint green light to spread out—the prototype of the rudimentary simulated battlefield he had created.
"Starting tomorrow," Ye Mo said, putting on his silver half-rimmed glasses, the lenses reflecting starlight. "I'll continue my seclusion. You all proceed according to plan. Don't try to achieve everything at once; let's take it one step at a time."
After saying that, he turned and walked towards the training pod.
The red light came on again, and the door slowly closed.
Inside the cabin, he sat cross-legged, took a deep breath, and reconnected to the Gene Spiral Tower.
The blue and red orbs of light drew closer once more. This time, he added a trace amount of high-temperature manipulation factor—energy remnants accidentally absorbed during the previous battle.
The fusion begins.
The pain surged like a tidal wave, but he gritted his teeth and endured it.
The outside world was quiet, with only the clanging of weapons bays in the distance and the slight trembling of the soil in the ecological zone.
Everyone is moving.
They are all getting stronger.