This is not mechanical ascension...

Chapter 171: Asmara's Shadow Collector Feels at Home in the Land of Stars
Kai seemed to be really frightened. He took two steps back, took a few deep breaths, calmed himself down, crossed his hands, and said respectfully in a special way: "Thank you both for saving me."

Yaluo nodded with satisfaction: "That's pretty good."

Unexpectedly, Kai put down his hand and said, "But I really have to go back."

"What are you going back to find?" Li Ming asked directly.

Kai was startled and looked at Li Ming as if he had seen a ghost. "How did you know?"

"Idiot." Yaluo was speechless. "You are in such a hurry to go back. It's probably not because you want to linger on while being tortured. It's probably because something on your body was taken away by the looters."

"Exiled nobles like you have a lot of good things on you."

Kai hesitated and finally said helplessly: "Yes, something was indeed taken away by the looters. It is very important to me, so..."

"It's impossible to go back." Yaluo shook his head. "We are extremely lucky to have escaped. With so many fleets and two B-level life forms, if we go back, we really won't be able to get out."

Hearing what he said, Kai felt as if he had been hit hard. He staggered back, his eyes reddened, and he actually shed tears: "Father, father..."

Could that thing be just some kind of symbolic family heirloom? Li Ming frowned, but couldn't ask.

Seeing this, Ya Luo was also curious and asked, "What did you lose?"

Li Ming raised his eyebrows.

"Nothing..." Kai shook his head without further explanation. He was silent for a moment and then asked, "Can you turn on the gene inhibitor in my body?"

Ya Luo was about to take action, but Li Ming shook his head and said, "No, we know nothing about your origin, personality, and purpose. If we turn on the gene inhibitor, what if you do something that is not good for us?"

Yaluo hesitated when he heard this. Kai certainly didn't look mentally stable.

Kai wanted to say something but stopped himself. In the end, he did not force it. His life was not in danger for the time being, so it didn't matter whether the door was opened or not.

After jumping for a distance, the spaceship stopped and waited for about half an hour. With the help of the key card, Li Ming obtained the highest authority of the spaceship.

After the spacecraft restarted, he quickly cut off all remote contacts and positioning data.

While browsing the spacecraft log, he opened his smart terminal at the same time. When he was on that planet, he never took it out to avoid the signal being detected.

When he opened it, he frowned. A large amount of information was refreshed on the Star Network background, and many people sent him messages.

At the top of the list is Ford, with more than ninety-nine unread messages, most of which are communication links and text-interspersed questions.

"What happened?" Li Ming took a quick look, found a small room, and called back.

The call was quickly connected, and Ford spoke in rapid succession, "What the hell are you doing..."

Li Ming ended the call expressionlessly. A moment later, Ford called back, but Li Ming did not answer.

After another time, he finally answered and said calmly, "If you keep speaking sweet nothings, stop talking."

Ford was obviously very upset. After a long silence, he said, "Asmara has gone berserk!"

Even through the screen, Li Ming could feel Ford's gnashing teeth in his voice.

"What's going on?" Li Ming frowned slightly. Old Wu was still following Asmara.

"I just found out not long ago that the reason Asmara was in such a hurry to leave was because one of her laboratories was attacked. The attacker was also a Torch, and it seems that very critical experimental data was stolen." Ford explained quickly.

"It's really this." Li Ming's heart skipped a beat. He observed a moment of silence for Old Wu and at the same time put Asmara on the kill list.

"Her subordinate Bazak rebelled and has not been found yet..."

"Who?" Li Ming was slightly stunned.

"Bazak, a capable general under Asmara." Ford asked suspiciously: "You seem surprised?"

Not Old Wu? Li Ming wondered.

Seeing that Li Ming did not respond, Ford continued, "Asmara suspected that the attack on his laboratory was related to Isius's death, so she is taking over this matter now and requires all the people present to go to the Itlan civilization."

"If you don't go, you'll be making an enemy of her."

This is too simple and crude, Li Ming couldn't help but sigh.

"Come back quickly," Ford urged, "She specifically mentioned your name."

"Huh?" Li Ming was surprised. Ford explained, "Why did you leave? Anyone with a discerning eye can see that it's not just her, but the higher-ups are also somewhat dissatisfied with you. Are you afraid of being dragged into the vortex, so you ran away?"

"I can't go back." Li Ming shook his head decisively and sent a message. Ford was silent for a while, then said angrily: "Do you think Asma is a fool? Kidnapping letter?"

Li Ming said casually: "Just give this to her and tell her that I've been kidnapped. If she's willing to spend 1 billion to redeem me, I'll go back."

Ford said tiredly, "It's useless. I know you want to go to the Land of Stars, but that place is not safe either. The top leaders have organized a joint fleet, and more than 20 civilizations have responded."

"The Torch Organization is huge in scale. It is very likely that its headquarters is in the Land of the Stars. They will not let go of their blood feud easily this time. Why are you doing this?"

"We can't really go into interstellar exile, right? Should we continue to evolve?"

Combined Fleet? Li Ming was not too surprised and nodded, "Thank you for the reminder. If you have any more information, remember to tell me in advance."

"I'm not sending you any information..." Ford said loudly. Li Ming had ended the communication.

The Yitlan Torch has been burning for a long time. Whether it is taking advantage of the situation or is really angry, it must want to get rid of this cancer again. Even if it flares up again, it can always calm down for a while.

He just didn't expect that Asmara still missed him, which made him flattered.

After thinking for a while, he walked out of the room and found Yaluo touching him everywhere like a pervert, feeling very excited: "Tsk tsk, you are worthy of being a member of the royal family, you really know how to enjoy yourself."

"A turbulent massage swimming pool, a fully enclosed high-end bed, all kinds of entertainment facilities, and even the fucking bathtub is surrounded by holographic equipment that can directly connect to the starry sky outside. It's so fucking high-end!"

Li Mingze asked: "How far is this place from the Land of Stars?"

"This place is relatively close. Enter from the seventh channel, which is the territory of the 'Collector'. It will take at most half a month." Yaluo pondered.

"Half a month..." Li Ming nodded and decided to develop peacefully in the Land of Stars for a while.

Once it develops into a B-level life form, various control objects will advance in parallel, and even the concept of a mechanical army will have taken shape. There will be no need to be afraid of Asmara or even Itlan.

The Land of All Stars should not be short of the theory of evolution, but his C-level gene seed is the wind and thunder elements, and he must contain gene seeds of these two elements before he can use them.

Moreover, he can consume the liberation records and liberate the genetic form without risk, which is a very powerful ability.

However, you can only release one form at a time. If you master too many, it will be useless.

The Lord of Fierce Wind is definitely not as good as the Emperor of Thunder, but it feels a bit of a waste to just leave him like this.

The universe is so vast, can't the liberation forms be superimposed? His thoughts were divergent, and it was a whimsical idea. Ya Luo reminded: "Before entering, it is best to slightly change the appearance of this spacecraft, otherwise it will be easily recognized."

"Are you familiar with any place?"

"The Guches Shipyard is located in the collector's territory and is very tight-lipped," said Yaluo.

"Let's go there." Li Ming nodded. After assigning the rooms, he took out the nutrient solution from Duke Bai Ye's frozen storage box.

The packaging is extremely delicate, with green branches and leaves of plastic gold wrapping the entire metal tube.

This is a B-grade nutrient solution. It is too rich in nutrients and has been diluted into ten parts.

After saying hello, Li Ming went to develop the genetic progress.

"Developing gene seeds again, how perverted." Yaluo sighed, thinking back to the various dangerous events on the planet, and his heart couldn't help but feel a little excited.

But three minutes later, he was lying in a holographic bathtub, surrounded by the flowing starry sky, and he exhaled freely.

"What a rubbish life we ​​lived before."

Ten days passed in a flash. At first, Yaluo was very curious, but after getting used to it, it was just like that.

Kai had little presence on the ship. He could not speak for three days. He did not remove the gene inhibitor and was not given a smart terminal. Apart from being more free to move around, he was no different from a prisoner.

One day, in Yaluo's room, he was watching an interstellar program out of boredom when his smart terminal suddenly vibrated violently. Yaluo glanced at the code and his expression suddenly became serious.

This is his superior, and they have always had a single line of communication. Only the other party can contact him, and he cannot contact the other party.

However, as soon as the call was connected, the other party asked in a hurried tone that he had never heard before: "Yaro, where are you?"

Ya Luo was stunned and asked in confusion: "What's wrong?"

The other party said in a low voice: "Two days ago, we received news that Duke Bai Ye of the Sera civilization and Atom, a B-level cadre of the Star Hunters, both died on an unknown planet."

"What!?" Ya Luo jumped up from the bed in shock and asked in horror, "They are both dead!?"

"Yes, do you know something? They both came to that planet to track down that batch of goods. According to the information we know, there are two people on that planet." The other party couldn't stop asking:
"One of them is a B-level life form with strong strength. He should be the one who killed Bai Ye and Atom. The other one has vague information."

Yaluo's heart was filled with shock. Until just now, he thought that Li Ming had escaped from Bai Ye and Atom by luck.

There were several times when he was thankful for his good luck, but he didn't expect that Li Ming would kill both of them. No wonder he had Duke Bai Ye's keycard.

For a moment, he was very confused.

"Yaro, who are those two people? Is one of them you?" the other party continued to ask.

"I..." Yaluo hesitated, then shook his head: "I don't know."

"You don't know?" The other party asked suspiciously, "Yaro, knowing the truth and not reporting it is a serious crime."

"Fuck! I risked my life to complete that emergency mission, and you still threaten me?" Yaluo said dissatisfiedly.

The other party's tone softened. "It's not a threat. Don't worry. Many people are tracking this person. Kai may have been taken away by this person. If you have any news about him, remember to report it."

After ending the communication, Yaluo frowned and felt an inexplicable toothache.

He originally wanted to report the discovery of Kai, but now he couldn't. A C-class life form killing two B-class life forms sounded scary.

"They were all killed. This is horrible." Yaluo pondered, but was secretly shocked at last. The sudden knowledge of the truth made it impossible for him to concentrate on thinking, and he couldn't calm down for a long time.

Another five or six days passed, and outside the porthole, a red ribbon that almost penetrated the universe and had no end in sight was getting closer and closer.

This is the Red River Stream, a cosmic wonder of unknown origin that runs through a large number of star clusters.

They carefully crossed a meteorite belt, followed the traces and turned left and right, and came to a machinery factory built on several meteorites.

The workers here don't ask any unnecessary questions. They just assess the difficulty of the renovation, give a quote, and you just pay.

This transformation requires a full 356 million star coins, and only transactions on the Black Hole Network are accepted. No one cares about their identities and backgrounds, and they just pay money to get the job done.

As Yaluo said, this group of people are indeed experts. They made a huge transformation of the spacecraft in just two or three days.

Many conspicuous features were removed, and a lot of accessories were added, and the color was changed to a combination of black and red.

The Land of Stars was within sight, and the place they were heading to was called the Collector's Cabinet, commonly known as the Trading Island.

It is a small land plate that has been transformed, loaded with a large amount of equipment, and even formed a regionalized atmospheric environment.

There are many such interstellar islands, large and small, scattered throughout this area, with no end in sight, and together they form the Land of Stars.

The architectural style of the Trading Island is rough, forming a city. Looking down from the air, it is staggered and wild.

There was no sun or moon in the sky, only colorful neon lights illuminating the place. Countless hideous-looking modified spaceships were docked at the pier, and there was no platform for warships to dock.

After completing the docking procedures, we found out that there are very few safe areas here, and the pier is one of them. It is protected by A-level life forms, collectors, so the docking fee is ridiculously high.

If the payment is not renewed upon expiration, the property will not be evicted but will be confiscated directly.

When they stepped onto the island, Li Ming's development progress had reached 10%. In addition to the three of them, there were two figures, one big and one small, wearing black robes.

Life forms of all races can be seen everywhere on the streets, but humans are not very common.

The air was filled with murderous intent and the smell of blood, making one's hair stand on end.

"The Collector is an A-level life form. He is not a predator, so this area is mainly a trading area with all kinds of goods."

“Collectors love to collect all kinds of strange and bizarre things. Compared to other places, this place is relatively safe and you can stay for a while.”

Yaluo introduced to him that the land of stars was a mixed crowd of good and bad people, and they wanted to occupy a floating island and have their own territory.

At least he has to be a senior B-level life form, and the development progress has to be above 90%. He has to have someone to support him and a big tree to lean on, so that he can get through it.

If you really want to have prestige and set rules, you have to become an A-level life form.

A-level life forms have a very high status in any civilization. Most of the A-level life forms here did not end up here, but chose to do so.

Here, as long as you don't break the rules, or in other words, have the power to go against the rules.

They can vent violence to their heart's content, robbing, killing and being killed are no big deal.

Yaluo introduced them in a low voice. There were many malicious eyes looking at them. Li Ming suddenly pulled the corner of his mouth and said, "Why do I feel like I'm at home?"

(End of this chapter)