Chapter 207: My Life as a Spaceship Owner I
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Rainbow planet, was a residential planet in the Fal galaxy, where there would be an arch of rainbow after every rainfall in the sky. Sometimes the arch was brightly colorful. Sometimes it was a little pale, with a beautiful translucency which people adored as much as its starkness on occasions. The name of the planet was from this arch of course. The HQ of Prometheus was also located there.
Ye Chong was an action-oriented person. He would not want to waste his youth on Windstar. He planned to leave the planet after discovering the syndrome to be null the whole time. The MPA had some issues with Black Coves back then but Ye Chong had never seen the fireworks in the sky with them flying against each other ever since. Ye Chong would not buy the fact that the forces had forgotten his existence nonetheless.
Windstar had been obliterated generally, like the remnants of the planet were only there to denounce its death, as various organizations came to rescue. The number of spaceships grew dramatically ever since. Ye Chong could not find a spaceship which would directly head to Rainbow however.
"Ye! Ye!" Shang on the other hand kept suggesting him to get a spaceship, as the artificial indulgence named the advantages, "Well, it’s cool. Chick digs it." Those so-called advantages did not pique Mu and Ye Chong’s interest. The suggestion itself did get his interest nonetheless.
If I own a spaceship myself, the advantages are there. I no longer have to do spaceship-pooling and I could significantly lower the chances of being discovered by the forces in the galaxy. With the spaceship, I would gain direct mobility and I could perform the necessary action if anything bad happens…
The catch would be the identification procedure whenever they landed a planet. Well that was not an issue to Mu, since he could work on something in the databank of the Virtual World. Getting a legitimate identity for Ye Chong was a piece of cake.
"Very well…" As a consensus was achieved, the next step would be getting a spaceship itself.
The price of a spaceship was utterly of a different level compared to mechs. The manufacturers of spaceships were none other than those major companies, superior groups with vast resources and networking. It was not something those average companies could handle.
Plan A would be to steal the ship from someone else. That was the only plan in Ye Chong’s mind. "No." Both Mu and Shang disagreed, with the reasons being, "The situation of Windstar is currently at a highly alarmed state, any deviance would immediately gain attention from every other individuals," by Mu; "No civilized man would use such a low and crude method just to obtain a ride," by Shang.
If both Mu and Shang disagreed to that, then it must be because they had gotten a better plan. Ye Chong kept his mouth shut. He had better things to do. Time was never a thing Ye Chong believed to be ample of, same goes with tasks. The learning tasks had always been there and those were the things that formulated growth in his capabilities. Strength, capabilities were his everything.
And Ye Chong was in an abandoned underground storage at the moment. Whether how and why Mu found out, that was not his concern. He realized how perfect the place was for his piloting practice. "Let’s see…" Ye Chong began listing the mechs he had. There were Han Jia and the Guardian, both the most trustworthy arsenals in his team. Then there was one mech he got from the Sanctuary after plotting against them. And Overwing from Mu Fei… 4 Dawn mechs… then a few non-combat models he bought from Nine Gates City.
Han Jia and the Guardian were the mechs he grew most familiar with. Overwing was excellent but Ye Chong had never used it before, it also required the pilot to coordinate using some Mentalist attributes… then Ye Chong could never excavate its potential with his limited capacity. The original design was outstanding to Ye Chong however, which broadened his horizon on mech designs. Overwing was more of a research sample than a war machine.
Same goes with the 4 Dawn mechs he plundered before, it was research more than an application purpose, especially when Dawn mechs were way inferior than Overwing. Ye Chong took a few glances before he left them at the corner. His eyes could hardly have them after encountering so many masterpieces on his journey.
The problem was there. He needed something to pilot but none of the mechs could not be put under the sun, be it Han Jia or the Guardian, even Overwing. He would be busted even before the battery hit the 75% mark. Han Jia could not be camouflaged, as its surface was made out of unique materials where any finish would go off by the slightest blow of the wind. That was also the case for the Guardian but the miniature design was more of the eye-catching headache. Overwing… that would be just a bloody shoutout to Sanctuary that he killed Mu Fei right in their face. Ye Chong was not that dumb to do a shoutout to enemies. Dawn mechs could be used as a camouflage, he could pretend as a rookie Sanctuary pilot and fly but the camouflage would only work once or twice.
It was a plight Ye Chong had discovered, that nothing in his armory was useable. It felt like floating on the seawater while being thirsty.
Sigh… I’ll figure this out some other time. Ye Chong discarded the thoughts.
Ye Chong’s understanding towards the martial arts had ascended to a whole new level after learning from Lan Yixing’s microchip.Ye Chong himself felt his skills had improved substantially. It just felt like someone who had been learning things himself was suddenly thrown to a class of systematic tutorials, which deepened his understanding and did not bind him with the theories the class taught.
Applicability-wise, the techniques were very much limited in an unarmed fight, thus the mech combats Ye Chong was practicing at the moment. Inside Han Jia he imagined the possible manner to perform those moves, attempting to pull them off to refine his skills on fighting in a mech.
His moves were more simplified compared to his experience. They were less dazzling and less confusing, where each move was well-flowed with the other and the power had been increased slightly.
Han Jia remained as the best choice for mech combat practices. For the Guardian, it was the practical mech to fully exert the potency of unarmed combats.
"Ye!" Shouted Shang during Ye Chong’s practice.
He held his fist, assuming that Mu and Shang had solved the problem of getting a spaceship, "What is it?"
As expected, "Kekeke, Ye, we got our ship! We bought it," said Shang.
"You… bought it?" The verb was the whole point he captured right away, "What did both of you pay with? If it’s money, how?"
And Ye Chong’s question got an eyeball from Shang, "Money is merely a set of figures to both Mu and I, it was nothing major, we have tons of methods to achieve this."
"I see," responded Ye Chong, who too held zero interest towards money, "So where’s the ship?"
"Keke, we would need you for that. But well, before that, you need to get an identity card," Stated Shang.
Getting an identity card was not something new to Ye Chong. He was so used to it that it did not take him long before the card just popped out of the kiosk machine. The name on the card this time was "Gu Wei", being one insignificant member from the enormous family tree of the aristocratic Gus in Tian Luo galaxy. "Gu family" from Tian Luo reminded Ye Chong of Gu Shaoze, who was from the same family of course, a significant one too… probably, speculated Ye Chong.
"Shang, of all families, why the Gus?" asked Ye Chong
"Well, it is rare for anyone to have a spaceship under private ownership. Only those wealthy aristocrats or administrative group, the executives could normally own it. If you have it under the name of the Gus, it could reduce the amount of hows and whys you get from the people around, plus you won’t be getting that much of attention. The planet we are heading this time, is located at Fal galaxy. That is far, far away from Tian Luo galaxy so we probably won’t be bumping into any real member of the Gus. Well, even if we were so unfortunate to encounter one of them, it would not be surprising if we did not recognize each other, considering how huge an aristocratic family like the Gus is, you could not count the branches extended from each family. The probability of them recognizing each other is too low to be discovered. Anybody would stumble upon the tree and give up checking you out."
"Oh, I see," Ye Chong expressed comprehension.
So, Ye Chong, in accordance with Shang’s instruction, travelled through the access zone and passed countless spaceships parking by the side. He arrived by one blind corner.
A gigantic spaceship parked there quietly. The body was dark, flat and smoothly curved, with an appearance like a whale. There was no lump, the back was streamlined, unlike those squares and pointed spaceships he usually saw.
The first thing Ye Chong noticed was the size, where the spaceships nearby were like its little brothers in comparison, despite being much smaller than Fred the Great’s Sabre which had the length of 10 km. The spaceship before him was not that outrageously long, but it still had a length of about 5km.
"How was it, Ye?" asked Shang, satisfied of Ye Chong’s reaction, "Fascinating isn't it? Sadly it is not Slan graded, that is what defines a cool spaceship."
A young man waited near the ship walked towards him upon his arrival, "Excuse me…" Courteously he asked, "Are you Mr. Gu Wei?"
"Yes I am," flatly Ye Chong replied, nodding his head.
"Oh, greetings, Mr. Gu Wei, I am a staff from Windy Sail Group. This is the Zika graded spaceship you have ordered. In accordance with your requirement, we have not named the ship and have officially transferred the naming rights to you. Do you find the ship satisfactory? If you are, kindly enter the ship to acknowledge us your acceptance and provide your signature after. You are also entitled to our maintenance service across the galaxies, regarding that please refer to the terms and conditions stored in the processor of your spaceship." Briefed the young man politely.
"Mhm." Nodded Ye Chong, as he boarded the spaceship under young man’s lead. At the main processor Ye Chong took out his identity card to activate anti-theft verification system. He inserted the card to the system and then he was prompted by the processor, stating that the scan had been completed.
The young man took a silvery tablet with a size of a palm out of his shirt. Within a few taps he made, the tablet enlarged to a size of a table, floating before Ye Chong. Beep! Red light flashed and words appeared on the screen gradually. It turned out to be a trade contract. The young man then passed Ye Chong a laser stylus. He signed gracefully, the pseudonym of his, Gu Wei and gained the ownership officially.
"Good bye, have a nice trip." The young man then bade him farewell and left.
Ye Chong looked at this giant spaceship. He began weaving around the rooms, it had been quite some time since he got this excited. This was in fact his very own spaceship, his first spaceship! Zika graded spaceships were not that colossal kind but its length of 5km still sufficed to considered as the larger one among the spaceships.
"So Ye, what do you think we should call this spaceship?" Shang was joyful, seeing how thrilled Ye Chong was.
"We need a name for a spaceship?" Ye Chong was bewildered.
"Of course, don’t you remember how Fred that old bum also named his beauty as ‘The Sabre’?" Illustrated a real example, Shang stated.
"Well then, ‘The One’. There, done." Ye found the name to be the most easiest to remember.
Certainly Shang the poet would strongly refuse his suggestion, "Ye, how could you give such a senseless name to this baby? No, no, no, absolutely no. I won’t allow this name."
"Well, take that task for me," he waved his hands. Ye Chong did not care. Naming was a silly thing to him anyway.
The spaceship was too spacious inside, even Mu Shang could fly freely, let alone for Ye Chong to walk.
"Ye, head to the main processor at the Captain’s room. There’s a blueprint for the modification. Mu made it. Mhm, the operating system of this spaceship has been changed by Mu. So, don’t worry about the security issues, hehehe." Said Shang.
Modification? That word struck a glow of fire inside Ye Chong, and it was a plan made by Mu! He ran to the Captain’s room straightaway.
The Captain’s room was expected to accommodate 80 men under normal circumstance. It felt empty with only Ye Chong standing there.
Ye Chong walked to the main processor again. Tick! A blueprint sprang out of the processor. That justified the fact that Mu and Shang had taken full control of the ship. Without both of them, Ye Chong believed it would be hard for him to even turn on the engine. Well normally, to pilot a Zika spaceship, one would require a team of 20 to perform simultaneous coordination of the entire ship.
Ye Chong’s eyes were stuck on the blueprint.
The design was truly amazing, as expected from Mu! Exclaimed Ye Chong.
The first stark difference was the addition of a few new rooms, being a mini metal research laboratory, a mini alchemy room, a mini modification room and a mech training field. And that was only the first.
The super intensive, insane, impeccable shopping festival for Ye Chong commenced! Mu had charged his identity card with a huge amount of money, which Ye Chong had zero concern on its source and the way it got to his card. And that was when Shang announced the name of this ship, "The Coxcomb!" He sounded rather animated when he mentioned it, although both Mu and Ye Chong did not really care. Their attitude was neutral and of total indifference. "Dang…" And Shang was depressed for once.
Okay… so on "The Coxcomb", the space was facilitated with advanced communicative devices which allowed access to the Virtual World. Mu guided Ye Chong to log into the network system and they purchased boxes after boxes of apparatus and materials, along with some daily life necessities.
The figure was ticking fast on Ye Chong’s "own" bank account, even though he did not feel anything in particular. He only saw the piles in his ship increased day by day. The engineering mech he purchased was finally put into good use. He had spent the next few days being a porter with the machines. Of course, Shang could not get away from this tedious task, though both Mu and he had lost an arm on their actual body, which resulted a much lower efficiency compared to Ye Chong.
The "festival" lasted for literally 5 days. And Ye Chong could stop at last after purchasing everything on the list. Luckily the Coxcomb had a storage sufficient to accommodate all these, since the things he bought were already giving him headache in the first place.