Chapter 1 After Passing Through

After passing through the planet's atmosphere, the Huarongdao landed on a vast "Jie Territory."

As the name suggests, this land is mainly composed of a substance called "Jie Ore." It is a very cheap mineral, found on many planets in this star system. Although Jie Ore is widely used, it is still not considered a scarce mineral. To compare it to materials on Earth... its value is only slightly higher than ordinary soil.

Chee...ooo...

Accompanied by the characteristic valve and mechanical rhythm sounds of "old-fashioned" spaceships, the hatch of the Huarongdao opened.

Green Meteor, Feng Bujue, Banana Fiend, and Cierra J. successively walked off the spaceship.

Before long, the long-unseen Flea Man finally appeared...

Brother Jue had thought that this fellow named "Flea," with a very high-pitched voice, would be a very small hero, perhaps even only as big as a flea.

However... in reality, Flea Man's size was alright, about the size of a human teenager, and... his skin looked soft, without a hard shell, completely unlike an invertebrate or arthropod.

Simply put... everything about him, including the clothes he chose, showed no insect-related characteristics.

Of course, Flea Man's appearance was still very different from that of an Earthling and didn't resemble any known species on Earth. Overall, he was a slender humanoid creature with amber skin and narrow, slightly curved limbs.

Although Flea Man didn't have obvious facial features (nor did he wear a mask), his five senses were clearly not a problem... and could even be said to be very developed.

"Wait a few seconds, guys." After Flea Man got off the spaceship, he waved to the other four heroes and then lowered his head to manipulate a remote control device in his hand.

Di-di-di...

Each of Flea Man's hands had six nimble, hook-like fingers. After a series of quick operations, he used the remote control to put the spaceship into "invisible" mode.

After the huge spaceship "disappeared" in a burst of light and shadow, Flea Man said, "The coordinates of the spaceship are star latitude 189, star longitude 9712..." He looked up at his teammates. "My memory isn't good, help me remember it. If I lose the remote control and forget the coordinates, or if I die... you know what to do."

From this sentence, it's not difficult to see that Flea Man is a pessimist and a very pragmatic person. He doesn't like to beat around the bush when he speaks, and he is efficient in his work.

Feng Bujue greatly appreciated these points.

"Heh... don't worry." Banana Fiend replied immediately, "I've already remembered it."

"Very good." Hearing it face-to-face, Flea Man's voice was even more high-pitched than it was on the broadcast. "Here, I'd like to confirm again..." As he spoke, he swept his serious gaze (although others couldn't see where his eyes were at all, nor could they see any change in expression) across everyone's faces. "Regarding the matter of me being the person in charge of this operation, do any of you have any objections?" He paused for half a second, focusing his gaze on Brother Jue's face (although Brother Jue had no idea where his gaze was directed). "If you do, I hope you can say it now. Don't hide it, or convey it to me with your own unauthorized actions in the mission later."

"I have no objection," Green Meteor replied immediately.

"Neither do I," Cierra J. added.

"I have no objections either," Banana Fiend also said.

"I'll listen to you completely." Feng Bujue smiled at Flea Man and said, "...Captain." He deliberately emphasized these two words.

After hearing their answers, Flea Man nodded with satisfaction and continued, "Then... let's talk about the next things as we go."

He really didn't waste any time. Before his voice faded, he started running.

The others didn't say much, just quickly followed.

"Banana Fiend, please briefly explain the current situation." After a few seconds, Flea Man said without turning his head.

"Okay." Banana Fiend stuck out his tongue (yes, he used his tongue) to press (lick) the side of his mechanical helmet, and then, after a moment of silence, he replied, "Well... the direction we're heading in, you've already confirmed it when you stopped the ship, right?"

"Yes, this is about forty hueer (a unit of distance in this universe, 1 hueer is approximately equal to 1024 meters) away from the edge of the 'Shady Highlands'," Flea Man replied.

"Well... the ranging instrument on the spaceship might have a bit of deviation, with an error within one hueer." As Banana Fiend spoke, he raised his finger and pointed straight ahead. "However... the direction is correct. If we walk forty-odd hueer straight ahead, we'll reach the main battlefield of this incident." He paused, then said, "At this very moment, the standoff between the Bratty Star People and the Square Dance Star People is still continuing, with the latter having a slight advantage, while people from other planets are watching from the sidelines, intending to reap the benefits."

"Um..." At this moment, Feng Bujue interrupted the other party with a suspicious look. "Banana Fiend, how do you know the current battlefield situation?"

"Eh? Don't you know?" Banana Fiend replied. "There are satellites of our Universal Super Federation in orbit around this planet." As he spoke, he rolled his eyes upward. "This helmet of mine can receive the images returned from the satellites."

"I see..." Brother Jue has a good habit. In this kind of situation where there is no conflict of interest, he has always been "unashamed to ask questions." He doesn't mind being laughed at, because he knows that missing the opportunity to collect information by pretending to understand is truly foolish. "Um... I have one more thing to ask... Why did we get off the ship so far away?"

"Because there are Begging Star People present," Flea Man answered him this time. "The Begging Star People's reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance abilities are among the best in the universe. Even though this operation uses an older model spaceship with a signal that's difficult to identify, coming to this distance is the limit... Getting any closer, and we might be discovered."

"Oh..." Feng Bujue responded, then asked again, "Then how about parachuting from the air forty hueer above the ground? That would be fast and effortless. As for the spaceship... we could just have it hover."

Before he could finish his idea, the others laughed.

"Haha... Poker Man, you're overthinking it, right?" Green Meteor laughed. "Even I know that the hovering systems on old-fashioned spaceships consume a lot of energy. If the Huarongdao hovers... I'm afraid it will automatically make a forced landing in less than half a day due to insufficient power."

"Also... a height of forty hueer is already in the mesosphere of this planet. If we jump out without any protective gear, we'll be frozen into ice cubes instantly," Cierra J. added. "Even a semi-mechanized body like mine... might not be able to survive, let alone you flesh-and-blood beings."

"Besides..." Then, Banana Fiend also added, "For the five of us, a mere forty hueer isn't just a blink of an eye away?"

"Heh... hehe..." Feng Bujue gave a few dry laughs and replied, "That's right."

Actually, what Brother Jue was thinking in his heart was: "Even if we run at a speed of one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour... it would take twenty minutes, what do you mean by a blink of an eye? Just how strong are you guys?"

Indeed, in terms of instantaneous speed, Feng Bujue was definitely not inferior to any of the four people around him, but... continuous, long-term high-speed running would be difficult.

After all, Brother Jue is a "player," and players... inevitably have to face the problem of a stamina limit.

"Poker Man." Two seconds later, Flea Man spoke again. He turned his head to Brother Jue and said, "Although you're a Galaxy-level hero, a newbie is still a newbie... Allow me to sell my seniority and give you some advice..."

"Please enlighten me." Feng Bujue was very happy to hear this information.

"In the future... after you accept a mission in the system, you can immediately go to the Universal Super Federation's database to retrieve some knowledge related to the mission and download it to your hero ID card," Flea Man continued. "For example... the history of the planet where the crisis occurred, the relevant races, cultural background, etc. With your permissions... you can basically retrieve all of these." He paused slightly, then said, "For example, in this mission, if you had downloaded the information beforehand, you could have quickly read through it on the way here and learned a lot of things from it. You would have known those common-sense questions just now... without us having to say them."

"Oh... I see." Feng Bujue replied with a serious expression.

Brother Jue really needed this explanation, because the functions of the Universal Super Federation's hero self-service terminal were very complicated, and the uses of the hero ID card were also many (and there was no instruction manual). Although Feng Bujue also knew that he could look up information, he didn't know that he could download this information to his card. When accepting the mission before, because the "assembly time" was very tight, Brother Jue didn't stay in the dormitory to check the information and ran out directly. If he had known that he could download it at that time, he would definitely have brought a large amount of setting information and read it all on the spaceship.

"Alright, let's just forget about this mission, I'll be in command anyway." After a while, Flea Man said again, "In short... everyone, follow my rhythm first, arrive at the scene, and take a look at the actual situation before we talk."

"Hey! I've been waiting for you to say that." Green Meteor was already eager to try, "Walking slowly like this isn't even enough for a warm-up."

"Yeah, look at me using only two legs, it's just awkward." Cierra J. added.

"What the..." Feng Bujue was shocked when he heard these two people's words. He complained in his heart, "Hey, hey... we're already running at a speed of about twenty-five kilometers per hour (about seven meters per second), what are you guys trying to do? There's still a gorilla wearing heavy armor in the team! Speaking of which... that gorilla has been 'running' on its arms all along! To be able to move at such a high speed with such a twisted action without even panting..."

"Hehe..." And in the next second, Banana Fiend also said a line that made Brother Jue's balls ache, "...Then... I'll turn on flight mode too."

"You damned gorilla..." Feng Bujue immediately exclaimed in his heart, "You actually have this trick up your sleeve... That's too despicable! Are you a cell phone or something?"

"Poker Man, are you okay?" Flea Man asked as a precaution when he saw that Brother Jue didn't respond.

"Hahaha... what are you kidding me for." Green Meteor laughed loudly at this time. "Would a Galaxy-level hero be dropped by us? Ha! Then how would he chase criminals?"

"Haha..." Even Cierra J., who didn't like to laugh, added with a smile, "Yeah, even if he can't catch up with us by running, he can use flight or teleportation." As he spoke, he turned his head to look at Brother Jue and said, "Right, Poker Man?"

"Ah..." Feng Bujue replied with dead fish eyes, "I... I'll just run."

Now that things have been said to this point, he can only answer like this...

"Um." So, Flea Man nodded, his eyes (yes, he has eyes) sharpened, "Then let's..."

Just as these four words left his mouth, he saw... a dark blue liquid being secreted from Flea Man's body at high speed. This liquid solidified almost as soon as it seeped out of his skin, and in an instant, it had gathered into a blue "shell."

"...Run!" When Flea Man said this second half of the sentence, his whole body was like a cannonball blasting into the sky..."Boom!" He bounced up, and in the blink of an eye, he flew far, far ahead...

"Hmph... a piece of cake." Green Meteor snorted coldly when he saw this, and then began to increase the range of his body's movements.

Squeak squeak squeak...

In a burst of gradually accelerating joint friction sounds, this guy, who was twice the size of an average Earthling, transformed into a green phantom and instantly chased forward.

After him, Cierra J. and Banana Fiend also showed their abilities... one transformed into a "horse form," with four hooves on the ground, galloping forward; the other simply flew up, using the jet device on his back to dart out at "Mach speed."

"This is a bunch of beasts!" Feng Bujue watched the three figures disappear in a cloud of dust, not even leaving himself a chance to bluff, and was really helpless.

Since things had come to this point, he had to think of a way on his own...

Although \[Treading the Void] has the effect of "increasing the maximum running speed by two times," "average speed" and "saving stamina" are the most important things for this kind of long-distance endurance run. In this regard, \[Treading the Void] is actually not as good as Brother Jue's first piece of footgear, \[Jazz Dance], the latter's effect of "increasing the maximum running speed and greatly reducing the stamina consumption of long-distance walking or running" is simply perfect for use here.

Unfortunately... this assumption is not valid...

"What to do?" Brother Jue wondered as he sped up to catch up, "Am I going to shave my head and chase after them?"

Indeed, if he used \[Chuck Norris's Razor], he would definitely be able to catch up easily and run the "forty hueer" distance before everyone else, without even panting. However... using this trump card at the bottom of the box here is undoubtedly inappropriate.

Feng Bujue looked at the figures getting farther and farther ahead, and quickly estimated his running speed and the rate of stamina consumption... After considering it for ten seconds, he made a decision - activate \[Demon Descent]!