Mystical Journey

"It's a deceptive effect caused by Willpower, because the difference in Willpower is too great, so there seems to be a time difference." Van Doe smiled. "My Willpower is too much higher than yours, overwhelming yours, and creating a deceptive effect, such that your reaction speed and awareness of time are made several dozen times slower than reality. In other words, you became slow, and I became fast."

"There's an effect like that!?" Garen's heart felt slightly cold, the difference in Willpower could somehow restrict his sense of the passing of time. That way, no matter how powerful his reflexes were, when they were slowed down to such an extent, he would still be several times slower than he should be!

"This is the effect of more than a complete level's worth of difference in Willpower. Of course, the difference in the quality of that Willpower influences it as well, so at a high level, the difference in Willpower can allow peak-level pilots to take on a hundred people at once. This is the principle behind that. To normal people without Willpower, they might even be slowed down several hundred times. But of course, this suppression cannot last long, it's a universal skill from among the explosive resonance skills. You can only use it after you reach Inherited Level, and it's very impressive if you can maintain it for half a minute," explained Van Doe.

"Half a minute... It doesn't have to be that long, just a second of that suppression can make up for almost all other disadvantages... No wonder..." Garen ran through all the heroic legends about peak-level pilots in his heart. Most of them could turn the tables on others who were stronger. At the most critical moment, in the middle of raging battlefields, they won by taking off the enemy general's head. With such an explosive resonance technique, even a pig can become a super pig...

"I hear that you plan to go into the radiation belt with some others to look for Mech materials?" Van Doe asked again. The old man did have impressive intelligence channels.

Garen secretly thought that he never mentioned that to anyone, but the old man still found out anyway.

"Yes. Lamda Alloy."

"Lamda Alloy is not very good. At your current level, it would be better for you to use Lunar Alloy. It's slightly pricier, but it can grow, so it would be decent for the main body of the Mech before you reach Inherited Level. If you use Lamda Alloy, you'll need to upgrade again by Half-Moon Level, so it would be more troublesome," said Van Doe thoughtfully. "I have some Lunar Alloy here, but it's not enough. I'll give you more later. It's good for you to go to the radiation belt too, we won't openly declare your identity for now, so you can still wander around freely. Once you go public, you might not encounter some smaller problems, but once you do meet a problem, that would be a life-or-death one."

"I understand, the stronger I become, the stronger my enemies will be as well," Garen nodded.

"As long as you understand. Other than Lamda Alloy, the place that you're going has one more thing, you can go get it as well." Van Doe flipped a small piece of dark red metal out of his pocket.

"Blood Silver. At your level, it's perfect for the heat-insulating shell outside the engine. With this, you can use a lot of engine skills later.

"But you must remember that this thing expires very quickly, and there's no real way to preserve it for a long time. If you don't bring it back within two months and work with it to fix its shape, you'll just have to go get it again."

"Around where should I get it?" Garen carefully observed the Blood Silver's external characteristics.

"There's a base there, report my name once you get there. One of our Black Flood Party's pilots stationed there will immediately pass it to you. This thing is really precious, remember not to show it to anyone. That bit is also one of the few precious things I have left..." Van Doe instructed him carefully. "Powerful engine techniques and the potential to grow in the future are all related to the materials making up the Mech, Blood Silver is a treasure that you won't stop benefiting from, so you must remember to use it before its expiry date once you get it. Otherwise, it'll be a huge waste!"

"Understood."

Garen nodded solemnly.

*******************

The public radiation zone, between the Polar Region and the Blackboard Region.

It was twilight, the sun slowly setting in the red sky. Most of it was obscured by thick black clouds, and only a small portion of the light landed on the ground beneath.

The huge black mountains rose from the earth, rising and falling, forming many sharp peaks that were sparsely decorated with greenery.

The mountain peaks stood on the black earth, like so many black trees growing on the ground. Some even had branches, with pale yellow lights twinkling on them.

Several windows of different sizes had somehow opened up on these mountain 'branches', dim yellow lamplight shining out from within.

The taller peaks were several hundred meters tall, with the occasional red or yellow lights. Others were only several dozen meters tall, with defense cannons stationed at the top.

On the ground between the mountains, there were many scattered black or grey buildings, looking like wooden blocks that were just simply tossed there. They were of different sizes, and had no order to them at all. Around the buildings, there were patches of green farmland, with thick lush greenery growing within. The breeze constantly blew ripples into the emerald plants.

On a cliff not too far away from this housing area, four tall black humanoid Mechs were slowly landing, standing lightly on the thick and moist black soil on the cliff.

One of the Mech moved its large foot casually, and squashed a black two-tailed scorpion.

The four Mechs were all completely inconspicuous, their bodies painted to look old and damaged. There were even some broken parts here and there, revealing the old grey circuits inside.

Complete Mechs were very rare in the radiation era, and here were four of them. Although they were all extremely damaged, it was still more than most factions could afford. In a normal village of a hundred or so residents, just one of these would be treated as something of a guardian god.

Brr...

In the sky, three giant mutated black Flying Batoids flew past slowly, casting their humongous shadows. These gigantic creatures looked like electric eels but with two thick fan-shaped wings of flesh that flapped up and down as they flew ahead, dragging their long tails behind them.

Three of the Mechs underneath raised their heads and looked at them, their red eyes twinkling with scanner light.

"Mutated Giant Batoids, they look like kites from a distance. The scenery is pretty good here," said a low man's voice from one of the Mechs.

"It's a kite that can move by itself. That thing is more than ten meters long, and it was born with an anti-gravity organ. When it gets violent, it's practically inhuman!" another Mech joked.

"It never was human to begin with..." another Mech continued. Inside, Garen took out a water bottle and chugged from it hard.

"It's so cold... Anda, where do we go now? According to the map, this should be Flying Batoid City. We still need to pass three more locations before we can reach our destination," a woman's deep voice asked from the last Mech.

This group of people was Anda and Garen's team, who had come out to get the Lamda Alloy. Other than material collection, this quest team also wanted to buy facial Lamda Alloy for themselves, the price difference inside and outside the Region was ridiculously large.

Anda invited two people along, one man and one woman. Together with Garen, they were four in total, forming a temporary team for the quest. After finishing the procedure to leave, they flew non-stop to their destination, but because the distance was too great, and the energy winds were too strong, the burden on the Mechs and the energy furnace was too much. So according to plan, the four of them landed at the first supply point, with the intention of replenishing their energy resources here.

"Aves, please scan the area to see if there are any surveillance points around here. Be aware of our surroundings," said Anda, as he began to delegate jobs.

"No problem."

"Linda, I'll leave underground surveilance to you."

"Leave it to me."

"Garen, you and I are the strongest, so we'll stay in the middle and watch the sky, while also supporting Aves. That's okay, right?"

"Sure."

Since they went out on the excursion, they all used pseudonyms, and Garen went back to the name he was used to using for the past few worlds.

"They're perfectly fine Blackboard Standard Mechs, but we camouflaged them to look this beat up. The disguise itself took me five thousand units! If we don't earn back from this, I'll have lost big!" Aves complained as he began to fly, advancing slowly in one direction.

Linda stayed in place, taking a long and thin black metal needle from behind her waist. She pulled with both hands, and it instantly extended to a full five meters, which she stuck hard into the ground.

Psst! The thin needle was embedded into the ground, and instantly, a wave of small vibrations spread from it. They scattered from the cliff, following the surface of the earth. Wherever there was soil or rocks, many tiny poisonous bugs were forced out of the ground, scampering everywhere like a particularly nauseating swarm.

Garen crossed his arms over his chest, leaning on a stalagmite as he quietly watched the others prepare to set up camp.

The other two people who had come out with Anda this time were Linda and Aves. One was a young woman with long brown hair, ordinary features, and a normal figure. There was nothing exceptional about her, be it in the way she did things or her appearance. Everything was by the books, and very steady. Her emitted Willpower force field was at Level Four, give or take, but he did not know if she had any resonance degrees.

And the other one, Aves, seemed like a bit of a rash man. He looked to be about twenty-four or five, and always liked dressing up and showing off. He used cologne, and seemed to make a big deal of his appearance. At first glance, he looked like a rich young master who could not handle hard work, but along the way, surprisingly, he did not act spoiled at all, and was instead very experienced in the way he handled things. He was particularly good at surveillance.

Along the way, the four of them had prepared a large amount of food and water. Within six days, they arrived at the first supply point, Flying Batoid City.

"This is the largest radiation city in the public radiation zone near Blackboard?" Garen looked at the rather small town beneath him. It did not have a wall, and even had farmlands instead. The tree-shaped mountains around it were all armed with defensive cannons to some extent, so it looked like it had good security, at least.

"To the radiation people living in the radiation belt, that's how it is," replied Anda nonchalantly, as he fiddled with an unknown piece of equipment.

"Flying Batoid City is most famous for having a guardian-like radiation mutated creature act as their soldiers. It's those Flying Batoids in the sky, as long as you don't attack them, they won't attack humans themselves. This place has clean Level One water, Level One food and meat, and good living conditions, with stable security. Only the elite radiation people in the radiation belt have the right to live here."

"The last time I came here with another team, the food here was very cheap. Just a bit of clean water without radiation is considered Level One Water here, one liter is enough to buy a pretty girl. Although she was a radiation person, but that body and that face... tsk tsk... I got a great feel of that, alright." Aves had flown back without them noticing.

"What's the point of touching through a hazmat suit?" said Anda exasperatedly, glancing at him.

"Actually, I nearly wanted to bring her back. I mean, that girl only had one tiny radiation mark the size of a fingernail on her butt, everything else was just like a normal person!" argued Aves. "I bet that even the prettiest leader of the luxury district in the city would only be at that level!"

"You can only enjoy the life of a peak-level noble here in the radiation belt," said Anda calmly.

"Everyone's like that the first time they come out here, right?" Aves clicked his tongue.

Garen listened to them bicker, but his gaze had already floated into the unknown distance.

An extremely weak signal was barely touching his Willpower. That was the communication signal from Red Moon, but because of the great distance, it was unnaturally weak.

Garen calmed his heart down, and carefully decoded the message in the signal. It was a very common Rice Code, a message coded through a simple combination of rhythms.

He began to translate and read it carefully.