Chapter 1214 Sparring with the Machinery Country

The two casually chose a combat training room. Han Xiao scanned his permissions, causing the door to open automatically. They entered.

Combat training rooms also came with different configurations, with higher-configuration rooms able to withstand stronger combat aftershocks.

The lower-configuration training rooms were free for ordinary legion members and legion players, only able to withstand the power of Grade B. If they wanted to use the higher-configuration combat training rooms, they had to pay a rental fee, with different discounts based on the member's level within the legion. Players generally used the training rooms to grind skill experience.

The cadre training area in the headquarters core base utilized the highest-configuration combat training rooms, more than sufficient for Heavenly Disaster Grade combat, although barely able to withstand the aftershocks of Super-A Grade combat. However, since the two were merely sparring with a vessel each, as long as they controlled their attack power and restrained their might, there would be no problems for a short period.

The top-tier training room was very spacious, with the floor and walls being pure white, presenting a grid-like appearance. The material was a synthetic form of tough alloy, high-polymer materials, and malleable nanomaterials, possessing self-repairing capabilities. It was covered with a virtual reality coating, allowing for environmental simulation.

At the same time, the walls and floor were movable, changing the shape of the room. Combined with the sensory misdirection of the realistic environment simulation, it could create a battlefield environment far exceeding the actual area of the room—provided that one opened their mind to accept the sensory misdirection; otherwise, it would be difficult to take effect.

Of course, combat training rooms could also be used for things that were not suitable for children. Han Xiao had explicitly forbidden legion members (players) from occupying the training rooms to watch immersive movies in the legion's "Training Room Usage Rules"... Some people were supposed to hit sandbags, but instead, they held onto them and refused to let go, occupying space without doing anything. That would not do.

Han Xiao had Phillip randomly select an environment. The appearance of the floor and walls rapidly changed, turning into a lush, blue-green forest. The distant view was an endless sea of trees and a distant mountain shrouded in mist, with only its waist visible. The training room simulated a realistic breeze, carrying the coolness of the morning after rain, swirling the mist through the sea of trees. The tree canopies swayed, rustling, and one could smell the fresh, damp air and faint earthy smell, as if they were truly there.

"Always being with machines, all I see are heavy colors. Sometimes, I even forget what nature looks like." Menei Sen looked around, muttering to himself with emotion.

Han Xiao opened the secondary dimension, retrieving a mechanical body. It was a streamlined, humanoid body, with a silver, black, and yellow color scheme. This was the "Mammoth" mechanical body, updated to the RX002 generation. Compared to the RX001 generation, its performance was slightly different.

The RX001 generation Mammoth was a standard model, with comprehensive capabilities and a relatively balanced all-around performance. The RX002 generation reduced the volume of the skeleton and nano-tendons, sacrificing some output to increase flexibility, and was equipped with more mechanical weapons, making it more suitable for combat.

The effect of 【Sovereign Descent】 would change according to the base configuration of the "vessel". Different "vessels" would share different abilities and attributes when 【Sovereign Descent】 was used, so it was necessary to create various types of mechanical bodies.

Han Xiao directly activated 【Sovereign Descent】, and blue-golden mechanical force lightning shot out, striking the mechanical body and erupting into a dazzling electric light!

Zzzzz—

His consciousness split into two, one remaining in his main body, and one controlling the mechanical body.

Han Xiao's main body flew high into the air, not participating in the battle. He controlled the vessel to stand hundreds of meters opposite Menei Sen, a distance that was no different from being face-to-face for them.

Han Xiao glanced at the vessel's panel. Due to the "First Generation Black Star Alloy", the vessel shared several tanking talents, possessing high resistance. In terms of attributes, it had 64% of his Strength bonus, about 81% of his Agility bonus, and 73% of his Stamina bonus.

Han Xiao controlled the Mammoth mechanical body to twist its neck, getting used to it. Then, the back armor cracked open, releasing a series of miniature floating discs, forming a hovering defense array. The shoulders, chest, and abdomen revealed psionic ray cannon muzzles. The left arm bent and lifted, forming a shield-holding posture, maintaining a psionic energy shield. A metal hilt popped out of the right wrist, transforming into a high-grade mechanical blade resembling a longsword. The blade was wrapped in energy and held in its hand.

Seeing this, Menei Sen's vessel also entered combat mode, activating a floating array, activating a psionic energy shield, and taking out a cane-like long-handled melee mechanical weapon, leaning it against the ground.

Sparring using Sovereign Descent was equivalent to remote-controlling a clone to fight. No matter how fierce the mechanical bodies fought, both sides would maintain their dignity.

Without much talk, after looking at each other for two seconds, the two figures suddenly blurred and moved violently, colliding fiercely!

Bang!

The huge impact stirred up a burst of air, and the surrounding trees broke and fell under the effect of realistic destruction. Han Xiao in the sky had his hair blown around.

In the next moment, the two mechanical bodies turned into blurry afterimages intertwined, shuttling through the forest at extremely high speeds. The longsword and the cane collided thousands of times in a short period, with sparks, light debris, and electric arcs splashing everywhere.

Clang clang clang!!

The sound of wind, rain, and iron-forging entered the ears.

Mechanical force clashed head-on, and dazzling arcs of electricity exploded between the two, leaving behind huge pits, piercing through trees, igniting mountain fires, and scorching the forest.

Both tacitly used melee combat, restraining their combat power and not using high-power remote weapons. Otherwise, if they used long-range artillery to bombard each other, the training room would definitely be blasted apart.

The two were just sparring and did not use their trump cards, not intending to determine a winner. After all, a Mechanic's true combat power was their mechanical army.

Both held the idea of probing each other, trying to understand their opponent in battle. Whoever gained more information would truly profit.

While fighting fiercely, Menei Sen felt Han Xiao's mechanical force intensity.

At his level, he could roughly know Han Xiao's current strength level with a single feeling. The mechanical force intensity was naturally far inferior to his, but Han Xiao's combat power was quite different from what he had imagined, even surprising Menei Sen somewhat.

He had heard of Han Xiao's feat of capturing Dillon at light speed. According to his guess, Black Star should possess the top-level Mechanic's Intuition talent, just like him.

However, in actual combat, Menei Sen found that Black Star's mechanical force intensity was not as strong as he had predicted, and did not seem to possess top-level Mechanic's Intuition ability.

However, Han Xiao's life level was higher than he had imagined. Menei Sen naturally knew the first boundary of the 52,000 energy level. Simply crossing this boundary was not enough to impress him, however, the reason Menei Sen was surprised was the time it took for Black Star to become a Super-A Grade.

Black Star had only reached Super-A Grade for about a year and a half. In such a short time, he had crossed the first boundary?!

The transformation of a Super-A Grade's life level generally took decades!

This kind of incredible growth rate was the first time Menei Sen had seen it in all his years!

"Such potential and talent..."

Menei Sen pondered secretly. Such an unbelievable growth rate made Black Star's current combat power lose most of its reference value.

However, knowing that Black Star had already broken through the first boundary of the Super-A Grade, Menei Sen felt that the purpose of the probe had been achieved, and he believed that he had definitely profited from this probe. He knew Black Star's exact strength level, while Black Star only knew that he was very strong, but did not know how strong he was.

With this in mind, after another clash, the high-frequency vibration function of the weapons bounced both sides away. Menei Sen put away his weapon and said:

"Let's stop here, or this room will be destroyed."

Han Xiao also stopped, looked at the pitted training room, and also put away his weapon.

His main body landed, cancelling 【Sovereign Descent】, and threw the mechanical body back into the secondary dimension barracks, revealing a smile:

"As expected of the Machinery Country, you are indeed very strong."

"I have to say, your strength is beyond my imagination." Menei Sen nodded.

Han Xiao smiled and did not respond, changing the subject and saying, "Now that you've toured the headquarters, let's go to my office and continue discussing the problem of the Hetero-Gods."

"Alright."

The two left the training area and walked on the road. Han Xiao chatted casually while secretly opening the panel, repeatedly reviewing the combat information from before.

Menei Sen's level was a question mark, the gap was clearly not small, so most of his attributes and skills were also question marks, but some were displayed, even some abilities that the Machinery Country had not used just now.

Mechanics were known for having a lot of skills. Some overlapped with his own and could be ignored, while among the unique abilities that the Machinery Country exposed, Han Xiao saw two Template talents.

The first was 【Perfect Mechanic's Intuition】, which was within Han Xiao's expectations. Menei Sen, as the pinnacle of Mechanics, definitely possessed the top-level talent.

The other was 【Virtual Technology Innovation · Menei Sen】, suffixed with his name, representing that this was an exclusive Template talent created by Menei Sen. The effect was to strengthen virtual technology-related abilities, with a strengthening coefficient of 1.75x.

It seemed not as good as 【Virtual Overlord】's 2.5x strengthening, but the meaning of the two was completely different. Mechanics could obtain this talent as long as they learned the Ultimate Knowledge 【Virtual Creator】, while 【Virtual Technology Innovation · Menei Sen】 was completely an exclusive ability, belonging to an additional bonus, giving Menei Sen a huge advantage in virtual technology, belonging to the scope of Template talents.

Moreover, the introduction of this talent also stated, "After the innovation of virtual technology, it has special effects". It was estimated that this was the core talent of Menei Sen's trump card legion, the "Undying Mechanical Country".

Menei Sen naturally had more than two Template talents, but the panel only showed this much for now.

However, according to the combat information, and compared with Menei Sen's performance in his previous life, Han Xiao had a certain judgment in his mind about Menei Sen's combat power.

"The main class is at least one stage higher than me, and he has at least four mechanical Template talents, plus a mechanical army that is hundreds or thousands of times larger than mine... How terrifying. It's better not to provoke him if I can help it."

Overall, Han Xiao was quite satisfied with this probe. In terms of intelligence gained, he had profited.

The combat information on the panel exposed some of the Machinery Country's unrevealed abilities, while Menei Sen did not have a panel. The abilities he had not displayed, the Machinery Country would naturally have no way of knowing. At most, he only exposed his own life level realm—but this was originally Han Xiao's intention, to show a certain amount of hard power so that the Machinery Country would not underestimate him.

Because of the existence of the character card, the combat power Han Xiao displayed was misleading. 【Perfect Mechanic's Intuition】 was not shown, so the information Menei Sen obtained was biased and he could not see through him.

So, in this wave of information exchange, not only did I not lose, but I made a huge profit.

The Machinery Country chose the wrong opponent to probe.

The corners of Han Xiao's mouth curved up.

...

The two arrived at the office with their own thoughts.

After sitting down, Menei Sen re-brought up the purpose of his visit.

"This time I came to visit you, another purpose is to trade with you."

"Please speak."

"I'm quite interested in your Space-Time Amber. As far as I know, this cosmic treasure can produce by-products. I hope to buy some from you for research purposes."

So he wants to buy Amber Orbs...

Han Xiao pondered for a while and shook his head.

"Sorry, I don't plan to sell them to the outside world."

The Space-Time Amber was one of his trump cards. Giving Austin an Amber Orb was because he owed him a favor. Han Xiao did not plan to use this to profit, nor did he need to use it to curry favor with others. This thing was different in nature from the Evolution Cube. He did not want Amber Orbs to circulate in the universe and be used by others.

He did not even provide them to the Crimson Empire, so naturally he would not sell them to the Machinery Country.

Menei Sen's status was transcendent, and giving him face was one thing, but on such key issues, no matter how much face he had, it was useless.

"That's a pity, but I understand."

Menei Sen shook his head. The mechanical body could not show any expression, nor could one hear any change in tone.

"If you change your mind one day, you can look for me again."

"What about the Hetero-Gods problem..." Han Xiao asked tentatively.

"Hehe, don't worry, I'll listen to the Glorious Federation in this regard."

Menei Sen lightly skipped over the topic, seemingly not minding Han Xiao's refusal, nor did he intend to get up and leave.

At this moment, his tone suddenly changed:

"I have a subordinate in the Shattered Star Ring named Sedum. He once submitted a rather interesting report to me, saying that you once robbed his mechanical army and captured him alive for a period of time."

"... That did happen, the situation forced me to at the time."

Han Xiao's vigilance rose again in his heart.

"Don't worry, since you didn't kill my people, there's no problem between us. I just think it's quite fate that we had an intersection so early..."

Menei Sen did not seem to intend to question him.

However, his next sentence made Han Xiao's scalp tighten instantly!

"Speaking of the earliest intersection, that reminds me of one thing... Hehe, could you please return those two lost little guys to me?"

Menei Sen's synthesized electronic voice had no inflection. Although he was smiling, there was no hint of laughter in it.

The Machinery Country actually knows about Aroshia's matter?!

Han Xiao's scalp exploded. He hurriedly maintained his composure, endured the waves rising in his heart, and said in a slightly deep voice:

"... What do you mean?"

"A long time ago, two lucky AI lives invaded my base. One stole one of my spare spaceships, and the other used my equipment to transform itself into an Undying Mechanical Soldier. They tried to liberate their race. In the end, they were discovered by the base's defense mechanism and were chased by the automated troops. They luckily fell into a wormhole and eventually ended up in your organization..."

Speaking of this, Menei Sen paused.

"You wouldn't think that two AI lives could invade my base on their own, would you?"