"Fire! Fire!"
"There are mimic beasts mixed in! Energy Special Forces, coordinate!"
"Mine tunnel position! Medium-level blade beasts! Cover with level two firepower!"
The night suddenly became extremely noisy. Shouts echoed in the air. Wang Jixuan, dressed in a black suit and carrying a golf bag and battery pack, stood on the roof of the supply station, blending almost completely into the darkness. He was waiting. Waiting to witness the power of technology firsthand.
The noise was deafening! Sparks suddenly appeared on one side of the camp, and countless rapid-fire cannons opened fire at once. The area between the mine tunnel and the camp's defense line erupted with intense explosions! A wave of heat rushed towards him, and the metal building shook continuously.
Under the searchlights, low-level blade beasts scurried out of the mine tunnel, only to be shattered by the concentrated fire. Body parts flew everywhere, and bullets formed straight lines in the air as drone swarms dropped explosive bombs.
Wang Jixuan felt his blood flowing faster. Yet, this was still just the prelude to war. Uncle Tai's voice came through the helmet's earpiece: "These are all inferior blade beasts, used to drain our firepower. Level two firepower coverage is a bit wasteful; this commander is a bit too impatient."
As soon as Uncle Tai finished speaking, a large group of blade beasts suddenly surged out from various mine tunnels. The beasts either jumped or rolled, and half of them crossed the first line of fire. Ground mines were detonated continuously, and bombs rained down from above; the electromagnetic cannons set up in the camp had already started firing, sending shells flying out!
The lights in the camp dimmed significantly! The blade beasts charged forward without any fear, even when they were barely holding on, they still struggled to advance. As they got closer to the defense line, they began to release mental shocks.
The main defense line was made of dark steel plates, and at that moment, a bright blue light appeared on the outside of the steel. Scattered blade beasts rushed towards the defense line! Small openings appeared in the steel plates, and the barrels of hundreds of large-caliber anti-material sniper rifles extended out.
The dull and dense sound of gunfire joined the symphony of cannon fire! Dozens of energy users appeared behind the defense line, constantly watching for any breaches. If the defense line was broken, they would immediately rush out to fill the gaps and turn the tide. Their most important task was to prevent the elusive mimic blade beasts from sabotaging the defense from the inside.
This kind of tacit and skilled tactical cooperation was hard-earned through human blood. Uncle Tai murmured, "The vanguard troops are so fierce? Teacher Wang, where are you? Don’t act impulsively; you’re a technical talent now!"
Wang Jixuan replied, "Don’t worry, I value my life."
Sister Wan scolded from the side, "Stop giving orders recklessly, you’re a technical talent!"
Wang Jixuan pondered for a moment. 'How am I supposed to dig for crystal cores in such an intense battlefield? It’s not just that there are too many people, but I can’t withstand this firepower either.'
Previously, only a few hundred blade beasts had rushed out of the mine, and just having them there was already nerve-wracking. He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if tens of thousands of blade beasts charged together. They should be covering the mimic blade beasts; and those mimic blade beasts… could be harvested!
Wang Jixuan leaped silently into the air, vanishing into the darkness. He sprinted in the opposite direction of the mine tunnel, not using a movement talisman, his speed already surpassing that of the previous movement talisman and spell combined.
On the other side of the camp's defense line, three long, almost transparent mimic blade beasts, blending into the environment, circled around the outer armored vehicles, slowly approaching the camp.
They didn’t notice the human figure moving up and down, nor did they see that this human had landed on a nearby house, carefully watching them. 'These beasts don’t look too bad, similar to a giant mantis.'
The mimic blade beasts indeed resembled oversized mantises, with their knife-like limbs reduced, and the spikes on their backs replaced by two thin, transparent wings. Their terrifying mouthparts were covered with a thin crystalline membrane, and their bodies were wrapped in a faint light membrane.
This light membrane not only made them semi-transparent but also concealed their energy fluctuations. The mimic blade beasts had two forms: one was this original state, and the other was when they folded themselves and burrowed into a human body, then propped the human up in a parasitic form.
At this moment, there were quite a few mimic blade beasts infiltrating the camp, over twenty of them detected by Wang Jixuan’s spiritual sense. The group of energy users had not yet discovered them.
Very good. He opened his right hand, aimed at the quietly moving mimic blade beasts below, and the five ancient bronze bone nails tied to his arm slowly floated up, glowing faintly with a blue light.
According to books, the defense of mimic blade beasts was much lower than that of basic blade beasts. He pushed his palm forward! The five bone nails shot out suddenly!
The three mimic blade beasts reacted simultaneously! They didn’t have time to determine where the attack came from and instinctively jumped to the sides, showing a jumping ability stronger than ordinary blade beasts!
But it was useless. The new bone nails traced arcs in the air and effortlessly embedded themselves into the skulls of two of the beasts. The third beast had a worse fate, with three new bone nails piercing its skull, abdomen, and throat.
Wang Jixuan clenched his fist, and the spiritual power within the bone nails erupted, sending streams of energy piercing through the most active area of their demon souls. 'This should be their nerve center.'
Wang Jixuan jumped forward, his left hand behind his back, landing steadily. He silently landed, pulled out a modified version of a magic-destroying dagger, and swiftly sliced through the outer bones of each blade beast, locking onto the location of the crystal core and fishing it out.
He wiped with tissue, shook it off, and stuck a demon-suppressing talisman on it. In just over twenty seconds, Wang Jixuan completed the crystal core extraction, opened his left hand to recall the bone nails, infused them with spiritual power, and looked down at the mimic blade beasts.
'Better to burn the bodies, even if it wastes some magic power.' He spread his hand and threw out three green talismans, his right hand forming a sword gesture in the air, writing a character for fire in seal script.
A stream of energy was drawn away, and the three talismans simultaneously erupted with pale white flames, which quickly corroded the outer shells of the blade beasts. In just two breaths, a raging fire engulfed the bodies of the mimic blade beasts.
[True Fire Talisman: Secret Talisman for Refining Demons]. This was a high-level talisman made using raw talisman paper combined with the blood of unactivated blade beasts.
Wang Jixuan glanced at the corner, waited for the flames to weaken, then turned to rush to the next battlefield his spiritual sense had locked onto. 'Try to leave no traces.'
With spiritual sense at his side, these mimic blade beasts were much easier to kill than ordinary blade beasts, and they were far less formidable than that mutated blade beast.
Wang Jixuan had previously been a bit unclear about how much his combat power had improved. Breaking through his cultivation, forging new magical tools, and upgrading talisman power—these improvements in combat strength were hard to quantify.
But now, he had a rough idea. 'With this gun, I should be able to face that mutated blade beast directly without needing to use magic skills.' This made Wang Jixuan feel much more at ease.
He moved swiftly through the camp, and in just a few minutes, he had collected over ten crystal cores, leaving behind several piles of ashes in various corners. Mid-level Gathering Spirit was seemingly within his grasp.
Wang Jixuan couldn’t help but smile, his movements becoming even faster. He had always thought that mimic blade beasts would be quite tricky—mainly because Uncle Tai and the others constantly emphasized how terrifying they were.
But in front of his spiritual sense, their disguise was completely useless. His spiritual sense still locked onto over a dozen mimic blade beasts, and this batch invading the camp should total over thirty.
Wang Jixuan thought for a moment. He naturally wanted to happily continue harvesting crystal cores, but these mimic blade beasts had started to approach the resting points of some soldiers, likely looking for "human skins."
There had to be a trade-off here. Wang Jixuan pressed a button on his helmet, adopting an angry tone, and shouted urgently: "Zheng Shiduo! There are a lot of mimic blade beasts near electromagnetic cannon number three! They are closing in on the tents!"
A few seconds later. Bang! Bang! Bang! Several flares shot up at once, and the camp, which had been plunged into darkness due to the electromagnetic cannon using up energy, suddenly regained its brightness. More than ten energy users patrolling and searching in the camp immediately rushed towards the vicinity of turret number three, quickly discovering the mimic blade beasts.
Wang Jixuan thought it was a shame… but the war was more important, and he was also enjoying the protection of the soldiers and cannons.
There were already two waves of mimic blade beasts. The first wave was just a test; the energy users easily wiped them out, probably around a dozen.
Then, the second batch of mimic blade beasts perfectly avoided all the energy users. Wang Jixuan sensed that there would likely be a third wave of mimic blade beasts. From his observations, the target of the mimic blade beasts should be these powerful, high-rate electromagnetic cannons.
Boom! Boom! Gunfire also erupted from the direction of the fortress. They were also facing similar small groups of blade beasts and mimic blade beasts.
'What clever beasts.' Wang Jixuan swiftly darted forward, avoiding the paths of the energy users, looking for two undetected mimic blade beasts.
Just as he arrived, he hadn’t even had time to strike when a whooshing sound came from behind. Zheng Shiduo, wearing steel wings, flew low, shouting loudly, and shot out over ten explosive-tipped arrows from his steel wings.
The two mimic blade beasts and several empty metal houses were instantly engulfed in flames.
Wang Jixuan: … This guy is deliberately trying to mess with him, right?
Wang Jixuan turned to leave, but Zheng Shiduo had already spotted him, shouting, "Big guy, wait for me! I want to protect you!"
Wang Jixuan paused, standing on the metal roof. Zheng Shiduo fired a few more shots down below, floated down towards Wang Jixuan, and gave him two thumbs up, exclaiming, "You’re the best! We didn’t even notice these guys!"
"Is there something?"
"Sort of?" Zheng Shiduo pointed at the explosive collar around his neck, "My mission is to protect you. Let’s move to the fortress! Once this wave of attacks recedes! If anything happens to you, Ling Tong might eat me!"
"Thanks, but no need." Wang Jixuan said, "I didn’t bring the remote control for this thing."
Actually, it was in his pocket.
Zheng Shiduo shrugged, "I know you must have misunderstandings about me, but I’m now a pure military energy user. To be honest, if I wanted to betray you, I would have plenty of opportunities on the front lines. Of course, I would have been taken out already."
Wang Jixuan turned to leave but remembered something and looked back at Zheng Shiduo. He quietly asked, "Can you command the energy users called from the front lines?"
"Uh-huh," Zheng Shiduo said, with a hint of pride on his monkey-like face, "After all, I’m a squad leader."
"There might be more mimic blade beasts coming," Wang Jixuan said, "Assign me a patrol area."
Zheng Shiduo blinked, "Are you really that eager to fight?"
Wang Jixuan casually replied, "I just want to contribute a bit to this war."
"Alright, you’re the boss, you decide."
Zheng Shiduo raised his left arm, and a keyboard and projection screen popped out. He slid his fingers a few times and assigned a patrol area to Wang Jixuan.
"Done," Wang Jixuan tapped his helmet, "Don’t follow me."
Zheng Shiduo wanted to say something else, but Wang Jixuan had already disappeared with a few leaps.
He opened his mouth. Weren’t they supposed to move to the fortress? If something happened to Little Ling Tong’s boyfriend, he wouldn’t just get away unscathed; he might even be trampled by Little Ling Tong in her mech. Just thinking about it…
Zheng Shiduo showed a deeply enchanted expression.
Beep, beep. Zheng Shiduo’s arm made a few light sounds. He grinned, glancing at the already vanished Wang Jixuan, then looked down at the device on his wrist, his eyes nearly popping out.
D-Level energy reaction? And not D-, but a solid D-level energy reaction!
"Wow! He really got stronger, I’m not mistaken… wait, can this guy really level up?"
Wang Jixuan’s spiritual sense caught this moment, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Maybe he should press the remote control.
Wang Jixuan continued to watch Zheng Shiduo’s actions, noticing that this guy, after marveling, quietly flew back towards him.
"Zheng Shiduo didn’t send any information out," Ling Tong’s voice echoed in the helmet.
"Yeah, have Xiao Qi keep an eye on him for me," Wang Jixuan replied simply, "I’ve always lacked trust in energy users."
"Okay, stay safe."
"You too."
Wang Jixuan responded briefly, hiding in the darkness, closing his eyes to focus, and opening his spiritual sense.
'Did I just reach D-level reaction?'
'If so, completing foundation should get me close to B-level? Golden Core would be A-level? Yuan Ying could take on SS alone?'
'Are the energy users in this world really that weak?'
Wang Jixuan pondered.
The classification of energy users mainly depended on the energy levels within their bodies. Their cultivation realm was much more detailed, representing a continuous elevation of life levels.
He quietly waited for quite a while; the sounds of gunfire had stopped for about twenty minutes, and the anticipated third wave of blade beast attacks indeed appeared.
Once again, batches of blade beasts rushed out from the mine tunnel, this time numbering around a thousand, forming a sea of "tires" charging madly towards the camp's defense line.
"Level two firepower coverage!"
Mimic blade beasts appeared again.
Wang Jixuan moved like the wind through the camp, quickly surpassing twenty crystal cores in his pocket.
The spiritual power required for mid-level Gathering Spirit was already sufficient!
However, happy times were always short-lived. Just as Wang Jixuan was about to remind everyone again, and the energy users started firing flares to hunt down the remaining mimic blade beasts trying to sneak into the camp, a sudden shrill scream pierced the air.
Wang Jixuan looked up.
In the night sky, the starlight was suddenly obscured, and powerful waves of spiritual energy exploded in the air. The ground trembled slightly.
The stone walls near the mine tunnels were suddenly shattered, and over a dozen ten-meter-long "drill" blade beasts were the first to charge out, followed by countless black "tires" surging from the broken holes.
Countless, uncountable!
The soldiers behind the defense line tightly pursed their lips, holding their breath, their eyes wide open.
The human commander’s roar echoed through the night sky: "All firepower coverage!"
Cannon fire illuminated the camp inside and out!
At that moment!
Whoosh—
In the sound of rushing air, a shadow zipped past, almost brushing over Wang Jixuan’s head, and an electromagnetic cannon exploded instantly! The shockwave blew away dozens of metal houses around!
"Special Wing Dragon! Air defense! Air defense!"
[Time until fortress attack and defense battle: 0 hours 0 minutes.]
(End of this chapter)