This is not mechanical ascension...

Chapter 460: Unexpected Damenles Stargate Node
After returning to the room, Li Ming called Ulrich again and stated that Anduin would stay here for the next period of time to avoid misunderstandings.

"Sir Anduin?" Ulrich was surprised, then he thought about many things and realized that there was something unusual behind this matter.

But he still nodded, showing great trust in Li Ming and Qinglong. After all, Qinglong had informed them in advance when Ryan blocked the door last time, so there shouldn't be any major danger this time.

After listening to Li Ming's instructions, Ulrich left.

He waited until the spaceship prepared by the Mechanical Court was ready before he went to say goodbye to Anduin.

Anduin was surprised to learn from Li Ming that he was leaving soon. He frowned and asked, "Are you going too?"

This Li Ming has great potential and many secrets. I wanted to take this opportunity to secretly study him.

Or promote communication among students and further deepen the bond with Qinglong.

But Qinglong was willing to let Li Ming take the risk. He had originally guessed that Qinglong had invited him here to protect Li Ming.

"Your teacher is quite confident and bold."

Anduin couldn't help but sigh, and after a brief chat, he found that Li Ming was not reluctant at all, but seemed quite expectant.

If he hadn't still been here and came to say goodbye out of courtesy, he would have left by now.

"Not only is the teacher bold, the student is equally bold." Anduin noticed that Li Ming didn't seem to have any complaints about his teacher often putting him in danger.

It's a pity that I brought Lux specially.

"I thought I could get something for free." Li Ming muttered to himself as he walked out the door.

He boarded the prepared advanced spacecraft and connected to the stargate orbit. Naturally, he took the exclusive passage which was quite secretive.

"It will take at least more than a month to get from here to the Carmendal star gate node." Li Ming looked at the star map, and Zhuque had already estimated the time.

The chaotic star gap is not too far from the Red River Star Stream, and the spacecraft is taken over by Suzaku.

He was looking through the information provided by Reynolds and Mikhail.

It is about the life forms sent by the three major civilizations for this exploration.

The leaders of the teams are basically the core figures of the three major civilizations, Costat of the Empire, Klaue of the Covenant, and Deus of the Federation.

Their strength is average, but they are the direct descendants of their respective civilizations.

Then they are equipped with extremely powerful X-level life forms, each of which embarks on the ultimate path. These people basically come from various subordinate civilizations and are a classic configuration.

There are also a large number of warships accompanying them, so their overall strength should not be underestimated.

Looking through the detailed information of these people, their resumes are very impressive and their achievements can be listed for several pages.

In addition to some people in the open, the leakage of intelligence also attracted many evil-minded life forms.

Not many people know the real inside story. Basically, like Anduin, they only understand the general situation and know that there will be big moves, but the specific information is not clear.

However, there are few wise people like Anduin, and many people want to get involved.

This group of people is more mixed. There are very few X-level life forms, and the vast majority are even S-level life forms. Their purpose is not to eat meat, but just to drink soup.

Even so, Li Ming still looked through it for a long time and memorized several of the more distinctive people.

The situation in the Red River Star Stream is special and it might overturn at any time. In the interstellar space, staying alive is the most important thing.

After throwing the information aside, he continued to develop gene seeds.

Interstellar travel is quite boring, and there has been no news worth paying attention to recently. It would be better to develop gene seeds. Although the speed is extremely slow, he has already adapted to it.

Time passed silently, and more than half a month passed.

Suzaku's voice suddenly rang out in the room, "Master, we have received feedback from our star gate node that our next star gate, the Yunyi node, was attacked by an unknown source and was closed five days ago."

"The route has been recalculated. The estimated time will be three days later. Do you want to switch the route?"

"The Star Gate was attacked?" The energy particles surging on the surface of Li Ming's skin dissipated, and he opened his eyes unexpectedly.

On the virtual screen in front of me, a waterway was flashing red.

"Adjust it..." Li Ming didn't care. There would always be some unexpected situations when going out.

Glancing out the porthole, I saw that this was a stargate node, and there was already a long queue because one of the docked stargates had been attacked.

There were complaints everywhere in the wide area channel, and Li Ming heard some interesting statements, saying that the person who blew up the Yunyi Star Gate node was a mechanic.

He was investigated before the negotiations and was found to have committed multiple serious crimes. He was caught while fleeing, a battle broke out, and ultimately the stargate node was blown up.

Li Ming took a look at the black hole network and found that it was true. He was somewhat speechless.

Zhuque has adjusted the coordinates, connected to the management system, submitted the change application, and it was quickly approved after paying the fee.

Following the guidance of the intelligent system, the space is re-coated.

After more than half a day, they jumped out of another star gate, and in front of their spaceship was a dense queue.

Zhuque reported, "Master, according to the feedback from the Damenles stargate node, our space coating time will be in three days..."

"So slow?" Li Ming was surprised. Suzaku explained, "This stargate node is quite backward. Usually, only a dozen ships pass through it every day. The production capacity is seriously insufficient. Add to that the waiting time, so the waiting time is very long."

Hearing this, Li Ming couldn't help but stand up and walked to the porthole.

As expected, the stargate node below was in a rather dilapidated state, with mottled paint peeling off the metal shell, not to mention the docking starport.

Not to mention a closed anchor point, it’s not even a more backward magnetic lock, but an old-fashioned towing lock.

"Just wait in line..." Li Ming was speechless. He had reserved time in advance, so he was quite calm.

Unexpectedly, Zhuque said, "Master, according to the feedback from the Damenles Stargate Management System, due to technical reasons, it is best not to have anyone on the spacecraft during the space coating and queuing period."

"Can we stay on the spaceship?" Li Ming raised his eyebrows, then reacted, "I finally came across a bunch of fat sheep, I must slaughter them well."

Looking through the porthole, aircraft were being picked up one after another from the queued spaceships.

I turned on the wide area channel, and as expected, I was greeted by a burst of angry curses.
"Is this Stargate node so poor that they don't even allow people to stay on the spacecraft while waiting in line?"

"Fuck..."

Since there are too few starport locations, those who want to enter the stargate node below can only be towed by an aircraft. The price is calculated per person, 5,000 star coins per person.

Most people who can fly a spaceship for long-distance navigation don't lack this amount of star coins. But according to some reports in the wide area channel, this has been modified. A few days ago, their asking price could be as high as 50,000 star coins.

Because there were a large number of travel spaceships or rented spaceships among them, the price caused public outrage and was only lowered out of desperation.

After paying the fee and finding a Class B mechanical body as a bodyguard, Li Ming rode the creaking aircraft into the stargate node below.
A sense of desolation hits you in the face, with garbage piled up on the roadside and a faint stench coming from the air.

Some of them were obviously locals of the node. They gathered in twos and threes, looking at these travelers who didn't fit in.

Li Ming walked around and found quite a few shops of various kinds, but some of them had obviously been closed for a long time. They had only reopened in the past two days because of the surge in customer flow.

They do sell some specialties of the local civilization, but the prices are extremely expensive. As for the shops selling energy blocks, the prices are sky-high, with a premium of four or five times.

The hotel prices were extremely high, and almost every traveler Li Ming met on the road was cursing, and all kinds of interstellar dialects merged into a beautiful melody.

Not to mention the food, which is expensive, tastes bad, and the service attitude is very poor.

Li Ming scanned StarNet and actually found a place with good reviews.

The reputation has only recently turned around. The few reviews before all said that the boss was arrogant, the prices were extremely high and the attitude was bad.

But these past two days, everyone has been talking about the good quality and low price. The special dish, grilled star stream black snake, is extremely delicious. The boss has insisted on his bottom line and will never raise the price.

Following the navigation, Li Ming came to this relatively remote area.

Looking at the door, it is out of place with the other shops nearby. On the black sign, there are a few big red words, which are very clean - Lao Fette Grill

Star Stream Black Snake is a specialty food of the local civilization. There is already a long queue in front of the door, with people of all kinds of life forms and some of them are dressed in luxurious clothes.

Li Ming stood at the end. He did not feel bored. Instead, he felt quite curious and had a sense of familiar strangeness.

"Hey, man..." Someone approached, with blue skin, bulging eyes, and a figure that outlined his body, like some kind of subhuman, quite obscene.

A quick glance at Li Ming showed that all of his clothes were high-end handmade goods.

His eyes sparkled, and he introduced himself in a strange accent: "I'm Seth, a local, and I have some connections. Your time is valuable, are you interested in paying some star coins to buy your time?"

Scalper? Li Ming looked strange and asked casually, "What's the price?"

"One thousand star coins for each position you cross. There are more than two hundred people ahead of you, so I'll give you a discount of two hundred thousand star coins." His voice was very low, but several life forms that were closer still gave him strange looks.

Li Ming couldn't help but shook his head and laughed, "Forget it, I can't afford this price."

"Idiot, he is rich, not stupid." Someone muttered loudly.

Seth did not feel embarrassed and whispered: "How about this, I will give you another discount, 20,000 star coins..."

From two hundred thousand to twenty thousand, this discount is really not low.

Li Ming was about to speak when a bell rang.
The two shop doors were pushed open, and two figures walked out from the front and back, one tall and one short, with a single eye in the middle of their faces.

He was mumbling something, holding two metal needles for teeth.

For some reason, all the living beings on the street felt a chill run down their spines, looking at the two people in front of them in awe.

It's like a row of sheep meeting a well-fed lion.

Li Ming's eyes suddenly condensed. S-level life forms, or two of them?
After being alert for a moment, he relaxed again and had to warp and take a detour. There was really nothing he could do about it.

He himself is an S-level life form, which does not prevent the existence of other S-level life forms.

The yellow bull next to him didn't dare to say anything. He watched the two people leave, then he cleared his throat, lowered his head and took out a pocket watch from his tattered clothes, and slapped his thigh, "Damn, the challenge is about to start so soon."

When he looked up and saw Li Ming, he curled his lips and said, "Boss, it's too late now. Even if you give me 200,000 star coins, I can't take you in."

He turned and walked away, tiptoeing as if he was chasing after the two men.

Challenge?
Li Ming narrowed his eyes slightly, but heard people talking in front and behind him, speaking in interstellar dialect. In silence, he had already switched control of the object--
Advanced Translator - Level A:
Control ability - Language proficiency: You can understand all interstellar languages ​​included in the official Interstellar Alliance, and can quickly learn unknown languages. 】

"The line is so long, do you want to go watch the challenger match?"

"It is said that if you can win, you will be rewarded with 100 million star coins!"

"One hundred million star coins? What's going on?" Someone turned around and looked curious.

"New here, right? A few guys are holding a challenge match here, saying they are selecting potential talents. They are prepared to spend resources to train them, and they are offering a whopping price of 100 million star coins..."

"What level of evolution is the opponent?" asked a fierce-looking half-orc, obviously interested.

The people who were discussing the issue paused and said cautiously, "It's a fight with your own virtual copies, but it's not easy. First you fight one virtual copy, then two. It's said that you have to defeat eight in the end."

Hmm? Li Ming was slightly shocked?

Why does it sound so similar to the Trial of the Holy Castle, except that the difficulty is much lower? Is it a coincidence?

But since it was organized by two S-level life forms, it shouldn't be that simple. With a slight thought, the black-clothed bodyguard standing next to him joined the team, and he turned and left.

.........

The central area of ​​the node was originally a wide square, but now it is occupied by a metal fortress with walls more than ten meters high. There are eight passages in front and back, all guarded by one-eyed life forms with strong vitality.

Inside the castle, the two returning life forms walked all the way to the deepest part and knocked on the door with awe-inspiring looks.

"Come in." A vicissitudes of life voice came from the room. The two pushed the door open and walked in. They didn't dare to look up. They said in a deep voice: "Master Lingshou, the new group of people are in place. We can start."

The man called the Spirit Head had his back to them, had a head full of white hair, and held a crystal ball in his hand.

The spirit leader was silent for a long time after hearing this, and then he let out a long sigh, "The guidance of this Terax sacred crystal is always vague, and I don't know when the target will arrive. If this movement fails to attract the other party's attention."

The shorter one hesitated and said, "Sir, I have never understood. Is the sacred crystal guiding the bloodline of Holy King Terax, or the person who is undergoing the trial to become a king?"

The spirit leader said indifferently: "The trial to become a king is extremely difficult. Only the bloodline of Saint King Terrax can pass it. Two people are one."

The tall life form behind him said, "Don't worry, the guidance of the Holy Crystal must be correct. Since it has led us to find the civilization of this star field, it will definitely find the bloodline of Saint King Terrax."

“It’s hard to say. This star field has been affected by the River of Eternal Silence. The power of the sacred crystal has been greatly weakened…” The spirit leader frowned, and the crystal ball in his hand slowly lit up.

In the midst of the dazzling light, the Damenles stargate node gradually emerged and continued to expand.

However, after reaching a certain level, it suddenly exploded and returned to mist.

The spirit leader sighed helplessly, "All we can confirm is that the target hasn't left yet."

(End of this chapter)