Book 10: Chapter 8: Exercise

“Qin Lun, are they coming?” Balin’s voice sounded from within Qin Lun’s Apostle Soul Mark.

In this Gospel World, the Apostles’ Team Channel was sealed by Star Void. But soon, everyone realized they didn’t need the Team Channel.

First, this world had some connection to Star Void, so they didn’t need the Team Channel to hide their conversations. Second, they would all pilot Bingren Mecha in the upcoming fights. They could rely on technology or Telepathy to communicate with each other.

The Gith Angel clones broke the physical laws of ordinary creatures and had amazing Telepathy abilities. Through the bio-energy spread of the Bingren Mecha, they could use Telepathy within a set distance. In contrast, the communication between Apostles and the Gith-piloted Bingren Mecha required technological means.

“Hard to say,” Qin Lun said with a careless laugh. “Robin is very cautious. She might use the same strategy as us: wait and see. It depends on which side gets impatient first. Balin, don’t care so much about winning. We’re just here to test the mechas, we don’t have to win!”

Qin Lun scanned his surroundings. Besides Balin and himself, Frank and Sawa were hidden behind a large asteroid, seeming very patient. Only the youngest, Bobby, appeared restless, slowly moving from the back of the group to the front.

The Silver Team called Patrol that entered the Gospel World had six Second-Order Apostles, three First-Rank Apostles, and one Apostle who hadn’t undergone Class Change. Qin Lun, Robin, Balin, Huobiao, Bowei, and Loben from the twin brothers were all Second-Order Apostles. The young Wind Element tribe member Bobby, the only female Apostle Sawa, and Dean from the twin brothers were First-Rank Apostles. Frank hadn’t undergone Class Change.

Of course, Frank, the only one without Class Change, actually had strength at the level of someone who had.

Although the Apostles in Qin Lun’s group had relatively lower strength, in this world, the gap between Second-Order and First-Rank Apostles was smaller. The main difference between Second-Order and First-Rank Apostles lay in the Heart of the Strong and the completeness of their Apostle Skill system.

But in the Gospel World, the boost from Heart of the Strong to an Apostle’s combat power was ignored. The substitute skills they had could affect the fight’s outcome, but they weren’t the main deciding factor either.

Qin Lun sometimes wondered if the Lost Team had planned all along to enter the Gospel World. Because this world was most advantageous for their current situation. After all, the Apostle teams chasing them also had their strength gaps reduced, so the decisive power of Third-Order Apostles couldn’t be shown.

After all Descendant Apostles tested their compatibility with the Bingren Mecha, Marx, the captain of the Faith, intentionally slowed the ship’s speed. He used the little free time before combat for the Apostles to get used to the new fighting style in space.

The ten Apostles were split into two groups. Leader Robin led one group, and deputy leader Qin Lun led the other. Although it was just a practice fight, the competitive Apostles excitedly turned the test into a semi-live exercise. It was called semi-live because they used harmless beam weapons instead of particle beam weapons.

Qin Lun came up with the battle strategy. Based on the star map of this space region, he set up an ambush in a small asteroid belt 5,000 sha long. (Sha: a Gith unit of length in space. One sha equals about one light-second, nearly 300,000 kilometers.)

Even though the Faith spaceship was as big as a city, vehicles like the Bingren that could escape a star system’s gravity and move freely in space mostly exceeded the third cosmic velocity. They could cross over ten kilometers in one second, with top speeds reaching over a hundred kilometers. Fighting tests couldn’t be done inside the ship.

When Qin Lun proposed this plan, he was surprised to find no one in his group objected. He couldn’t help but think these people had incredibly strong nerves.

The asteroid belt in space was made of countless asteroids of all sizes. Some were as small as basketballs, others were like small planets with circumferences over hundreds of kilometers. These asteroids were spaced from several kilometers to thousands of kilometers apart. Even though the unit was kilometers, for mechas moving faster than the third cosmic velocity, the danger was no less than a devil’s sea full of reefs.

Qin Lun truly didn’t care about winning this fight. This test was just to let everyone get used to fighting in space. Using beam weapons couldn’t show their real fighting strength. The whole process was like playing house.

But he had his own reason for proposing this plan. As he said, Robin was cautious by nature and might use the same strategy, staying put to ambush them. The fight’s outcome would depend on which side got impatient first.

After a few days together, Qin Lun had a general understanding of the team members’ personalities. The youngest, Bobby, and the hot-tempered Huobiao had the least patience.

Qin Lun’s idea was simple. Testing the mechas was only part of the plan. The other purpose was to test the other team members. This waiting game was meant to see if someone in the team would make a mistake.

Whether it was Huobiao, Bobby, or any other member, if anyone acted impulsively and dragged the team down, the others could learn from it. Their team was temporary. Even though the members were elites and very strong, the upcoming fights required unity. The sooner they became alert, the fewer risks they’d face later.

Qin Lun guessed he wasn’t the only one with this idea. Maybe Robin thought the same. Both the leader and deputy leader were probably holding their breath, hoping more people would mess up.

“They’re here, they’re here!” Just as Qin Lun was thinking, Bobby’s excited shout sounded in his ear.

“Bobby, come back! There’s only one light spot, it’s bait, don’t go!” Seeing the fire-red painted Bingren appear from its hiding spot, Balin called out in annoyance.

“It’s fine, you guys stay hidden. Bait? I’ll go play with him, haha!” Bobby yelled excitedly. The fire-red mecha was covered in a red glow, leaving a long fiery trail in the dark space as it shot toward the light-blue Bingren at the edge of the asteroid belt.

Watching the fiery energy flames bursting from Bobby’s mecha, Qin Lun’s eyes flickered, and he slightly frowned.

Over 70% of the Bingren Mecha used by Descendant Apostles was made of biological tissue. The remaining 30% or so was metal composite materials, including various communication devices, the Optical Computer core, and search/fire-control radar.

Out of the 70% biological tissue, about 3-5% was Gith Angel clone tissue. This part was the core control for the body components. The brain of the Bingren Mecha was the Descendant Apostle themselves, while the clone tissue controlling the body parts was like a neural network.

This biological tissue had already crystallized and was hidden deep inside each biological component. When Qin Lun entered the cockpit inside the Bingren Mecha, the cold snake-like things he felt were actually Jannamer tissue connecting the crystal controls to the Descendant Apostle’s sensing nerves.

Star Void’s law protection for the Apostle Soul Mark served two purposes. One was to seal combat laws that didn’t fit this world. The other was to protect the Apostle Soul Mark from physiological and mental pollution by the Jannamer tissue.

Even though this layer of law film outside the Apostle Soul Mark was as thin as smoke, with its protection, aside from mental skills from other Apostles or Reincarnators, no creature in the Gospel World could affect an Apostle’s will.

The Descendant Apostle was the Bingren’s brain, the biological tissue was its body, and the external attachments were armor and weapons. But as a giant combat weapon, besides these two things, the Bingren had another important core part: the “heart” that powered the mecha.

The Bingren’s power heart was a Particle Furnace made of clone tissue. It was about the size of a human fist, buried deep inside the Bingren’s body.

The Particle Furnace used pulse element—a super-heavy element that created gravity depressions and pulse waves—as its energy source. Through the furnace structure, it converted pulse energy into bio-energy to power the Bingren Mecha. But limited by the body materials, this energy conversion wasn’t very efficient. Most energy would be recycled by the pulse element.

The pulse element inside the Particle Furnace weighed about 100 grams. It was so small it couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. Yet the energy it provided was enough for the Bingren to operate for thousands of years, essentially eternal power in a narrow sense. This power furnace was also the iconic technology that allowed Gith civilization to advance to the third cosmic era.

Actually, for normal Bingren activities, converting less than 5% of the Particle Furnace’s energy was enough. Non-Apostle Gith pilots, no matter how skilled or intense their movements, couldn’t convert over 30% of the furnace energy. That’s because the composite materials of the Bingren Mecha couldn’t withstand the small amounts of element pulse waves leaked during the conversion process.

But Descendant Apostles could often rely on the high coverage of biological tissue to raise the energy conversion to between 50% and 70%. Of course, going higher than that was unrealistic. Energy conversion over 70% was in the danger zone. Even the Bingren’s biological tissue couldn’t withstand the pulses. Once conversion exceeded 70%, the Bingren Mecha would gradually disintegrate.

After energy conversion exceeded 50%, element pulse waves would leak from the Bingren Mecha’s surface, becoming various eye-catching light flames. The light flames themselves contained all chemical colors, but after being filtered by the body, they would become a single color.

Which color it became depended on that particular body’s and the Descendant Apostle’s physical characteristics.

Now, the unique fiery light flames bursting from Bobby’s mecha were a sign he had boosted the mecha’s power over 50%. Such a conspicuous charge basically made Qin Lun and the others’ ambush meaningless.

“FUCK!” Qin Lun heard Balin’s soft curse. Clearly, he was also very unhappy about Bobby acting on his own like this. In a real fight, this could make teammates suffer unnecessary losses.

“Deputy Leader Qin Lun,” Sawa’s calm reminder came into Qin Lun’s mind. “With Bobby doing this, there’s no point in us hiding anymore. Should we all charge out and take out the enemy’s bait first!”

“Alright,” Qin Lun said, his eyes shifting as an idea came to him. He chuckled and commanded, “You three form a triangle formation to cover Bobby! I’ll stay hidden. Maybe I can give them a surprise!”