This is not mechanical ascension...

Chapter 558: Fragments of the Star of Eternal Silence?
Li Ming was quite surprised as he looked at the bright blue light ball floating in front of him.

Ever since Zorro stepped into the palace, he had a strange feeling. He could vaguely feel something in the other person's body.

At first, he was not sure, but as the other party got closer, the feeling became stronger.

So he tried to pull it, but he didn't expect that he could pull it back with just a slight attempt.

Through the bright blue light, he could vaguely see the irregular broken crystal blocks, and every protrusion on the broken surface was emitting tiny blue pulses.

With the slightest movement, the air around the fragments solidified into an amber-like substance, through which the light formed a strange double-helix refraction path.

His eyes moved slightly, and a silver alloy structure rolled out from the back of his neck, covering his head like a metal waterfall, forming an advanced microscope eyepiece made up of seven telescopic tubes.

The eyepiece array was calibrating itself, making a constant clicking sound. The sixteen hexagonal lenses slid and reorganized like a beetle's compound eyes, and a cold blue light flowed between the lenses.

Magnified almost ten thousand times, the tiny crystal fragments turned into a huge "planet". He could clearly see that the fragments themselves were constantly vibrating.

Each high-frequency vibration will create new fractal cracks on the surface. Special silver-white symbols are surging inside these cracks. Whenever they are about to overflow, they will converge in time, and the cycle will continue.

At the same time, on the surface of the fragments, there is a peeled-off space-time film suspended, and this layer of translucent material is printed with constantly changing graphics.

Li Ming observed carefully, but Zorro was stunned.

Of course he knew that the special changes in his body were caused by this thing.

You can even see future scenes, many timelines, and things that will happen in the future.

This is an extremely terrifying ability. Of course, he was excited at the beginning, thinking that his good luck had finally come.

But it didn't take long for him to realize that he was not qualified to own this thing.

The fact that he was able to escape from the empire three times was because the other party did not pay too much attention to him.

Even if he could escape, he couldn't do more by himself. The most he could do was to send a message for help, so he revealed this matter to Robin, with the idea of ​​using it to attract the big guys to come and rescue him.

He himself was too weak, for example, on the way back, he was personally guarded by several S-class mechanical bodies.

This thing in the body has been in a dormant state and did not help him predict the escape route.

He guessed that for him, escaping from the S-class machine would be impossible no matter what.

Although he knew that he probably couldn't keep this thing, and even traded it, Zorro still felt a little proud.

After all, it was this thing that chose him. Even if he himself didn't know why it chose him, it was also a kind of recognition.

Unexpectedly, Li Ming just stretched out his hand slightly, and the thing in his body abandoned him and ran over happily.

It was as if he had gone through so much torture just to get this thing to the other person.

Wait...Zorro couldn't help but smile bitterly, but suddenly reacted and his expression kept changing.

If this thing can predict the future, then the reason it chose me is probably because it predicted that I could contact Robin.

Robin then contacted Li Ming, and finally delivered it to Li Ming.

Fuck! You're treating me like a human transport plane.

Realizing this, Zoro's expression became even uglier.

Robin looked at the thing curiously. Seeing Li Ming so focused on it, it should not be a simple thing.

After a brief observation, Li Ming's heart couldn't help but be excited and he breathed a sigh of relief.

He narrowed his eyes to see if it was what I guessed, and then he suddenly grasped it.

The palm of the hand completely encompassed the broken crystal that was hanging a few centimeters above.

[Star of Eternal Silence - Sub-Ultimate (Fragment): A Titan relic forged with all the strength of the Titan race, it possesses the terrifying power to manipulate time.

Control conditions: 5 billion metal energies
Control ability - Future foresight: Can predict the possible timeline of the target life form. The accuracy decreases as the time intensity increases, and can be improved by collecting other fragments.

(Note: Due to special factors, this ability is useless to the host. The more the life form is affected by the host, the stronger the interference.)
Control ability - Regional time adjustment: The speed of time flow within a certain range can be adjusted. The adjustment range depends on the time intensity within the range. Taking the host as an example, the acceleration and attenuation are both 2:1. 】

Li Ming's breathing stagnated slightly. When he saw the first four words, his heart relaxed. It was indeed what he had guessed - the Star of Eternal Silence.

When he pulled this thing out of Zorro's body, he was almost certain that this thing was the Star of Eternal Silence.

The reason why he was able to pull this thing out was probably because of his so-called "Submergent King" identity.

The value of the King Trial is still increasing.

However, when he looked back, his brows furrowed slightly.

"Shards?"

It was the first time he had seen such a description. The most serious damage he had seen before was a "damaged" sign.

This is the first time I've seen something that can be used even after being broken into pieces.

The Oath-Keeping Stone does not count. After consulting the information about the Glorious Dynasty, he speculated that the three stones should be independent individuals that can only be combined together.

It really is worthy of being a sacred object of the Titans, Li Ming muttered in his heart, but he was not actually too surprised.

In the deep dimensional world, there are more people competing for the "Star of Eternal Silence".

The empire is involved in it, and the related remaining traces, as well as the previous time and space storm, must not be false.

There can't be two eternally silent stars, so breaking into pieces is the only explanation.

Because it is in fragmented state, the amount required to control it is greatly reduced, only 5 billion is needed, which is lower than the complete Infinite Hammer.

There are two abilities, and no other data added.

【Future Precognition】, the explanation is easy to understand, it is to conduct time deduction.

But this last annotation really left him speechless. “Special factors” refers to the control system.

Because of the existence of the control system, he cannot predict any of his own timelines, and any timeline prediction involving him will also be seriously disturbed.

What this means is that even if you use the people around you to predict time and want to see some information about his future from the side, you cannot do it.

This made him speechless, but the timeline was more like a possibility screening and was not that powerful in nature.

Otherwise, Zorro would not have been captured three times in a row.

But the good thing is that the second ability - [Regional Time Regulation], does not have such annotation and can be used on him, which means that genetic seeds can be developed in this way.

Although the time ratio is only two to one, it is equivalent to directly cutting the time in half.

When used against enemies, it may be difficult to affect X-level life forms, but it is a powerful weapon for developing genetic progress.

Li Ming scanned it again to make sure he had not missed any instructions.

In this fragment, time intensity and completeness are important indicators.

As the time power of the affected object increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to adjust its time.

As the integrity of the fragments increases, various capabilities will increase.

"I just don't know how many pieces this thing is broken into." Li Ming pondered, "And whether it has any other abilities." He guessed that there should be some. Regional time regulation and the reversal and acceleration for a single individual are not the same ability.

He can develop with the help of time differentials in regional time regulation, but individual acceleration only affects physical conditions.

Under normal circumstances, if he wants to upgrade the object he controls from level X to the ultimate, he needs to consume 10 billion metal energies and upgrade materials.

According to this speculation, the Star of Eternal Silence could only be broken into two pieces at most.

But the ultimate level is too deep, and 10 billion controlled objects may not be the upper limit.

Just like the Infinite Hammer, the amount needed for complete control is eight billion, not the conventional X-class billion.

Various thoughts were intertwined in his mind, but no matter what, Li Ming was in a good mood because he got the fragments of the Star of Eternal Silence so easily.

But Zorro and Robin were a little nervous.

From their perspective, they could only see that Li Ming's face kept changing after he grasped that thing.

His emotions changed constantly in a short period of time, from excitement, frowning, sighing, relief to smiling.

Looking at Li Ming's final smile, Robin breathed a sigh of relief.

I guess there shouldn't be any problem.

I caught a glimpse of it and was startled.

Zorro's face was pale, his pupils were bloodshot, his head was stretched forward, cold sweat kept dripping from both sides of his temples, his whole body was shaking, and his breath was weak, like a candle in the wind.

"What's wrong with you?" Robin was confused, because he was fine when he just came in.

“No...it’s okay..." Zoro didn’t know what was wrong with him. He seemed to have aged a lot.

An irrepressible weakness arose in the body. This weakness was not like the weakness I felt in the past when I relied on the cavernous implant to fight in bed until dawn, but a fundamental inability to do anything.

As soon as he finished speaking, he felt the world spinning before his eyes and he fell to the ground.

Robin's face twitched, and he squatted down to take a closer look.

Li Ming came back to his senses and walked closer.

"He was fine just now, how come..." Robin was puzzled.

"Time disguise..." Li Ming suddenly said a term that Robin didn't understand.

"How many times have you predicted it?" Li Ming asked in confusion.

Robin looked even more confused, but Zoro on the ground swallowed his saliva, "I can't count, every time I escaped, it seems that I predicted it many times?"

“Ha…” Li Ming couldn’t help but grin, “You are really brave. Even if most of the backlash is borne by that thing, the remaining small part is not something you can withstand.”

"Before, that thing should have been hiding you."

"Fuck..." Zoro gritted his teeth, "Sure enough, it's impossible for me to encounter such a thing as pie falling from the sky."

Robin figured out that Zorro's current state was probably caused by the bright blue object.

That kind of object would bring an extremely powerful ability, but the backlash would also be very strong and Zoro couldn't handle it.

Li Ming waved his hand and a mechanical body came out from the shadows, unfolding eight sets of detection arms. Two of them fixed Zorro's head, four stripped off the damaged clothes, and the remaining two continued to spray disinfectant mist.

A sampling probe was shot out from the chest cabin and accurately penetrated into Zorro's body. A pale yellow display screen lit up on the back of the mechanical body, refreshing the physiological parameters in real time.

Li Ming waited patiently. He also wanted to see what kind of damage would be caused by using the Star of Eternal Silence at will.

Soon, a concise test report was presented to Li Ming. The most intuitive sentence was: "The target's cell activity has been severely damaged, and its life span has been greatly reduced. The estimated value is about 80%..."

"My life span has been reduced by 80%?" Zorro widened his eyes, making a "ho ho" sound from his mouth, feeling hopeless.

"It's okay, it can be replenished." Li Ming looked at it carefully and responded casually, pondering in his heart, at the cost of cell activity?

Perhaps it was because Zorro was completely unable to support the operation of the Star of Eternal Silence, so he had to pay the price of cell activity.

If it were me... Li Ming pondered, it might be okay for short-term use, but it might not last long-term use.

The development of genetic progress is a long and protracted process.

He couldn't quite accept that, and thought physical exertion was more appropriate.

Although he didn't know how the control system abstracted physical strength into a blue bar, he could increasingly appreciate its benefits.

"Boss, can it really be restored?" Zorro's hope was rekindled.

Li Ming put away the test report and glanced at him: "It is difficult to increase cell activity out of thin air, but it is not difficult to make up for the lack."

At least it is not difficult for him now.

"Let Robin take you to Ulrich. He will make arrangements for you."

Zoro expressed his gratitude repeatedly and was helped away by Robin.

Li Ming turned around and went straight to the development room, ready to study the fragment carefully.

As soon as he entered the development room, Suzaku received a summary of the intelligence on his mechanical bodies.

They seized the Imperial fleet, gathered information, and interrogated some people.

What Li Ming was most concerned about was why the Empire wanted to capture people like Zorro.

Clicking on the virtual screen, he carefully looked at the relevant reports.

“…Just conducting a routine inspection…” Li Ming was surprised after reading it.

The reason why the Empire captured people like Zorro was that they did not notice that the Star of Eternal Silence had turned into fragments.

To be more precise, this wandering army has no connection with those who are looking for the Star of Eternal Silence.

It’s just that the people from the Imperial Academy of Sciences discovered some recent changes that had occurred in the shallow dimensional world, so they were asked to find samples and conduct investigations.

It can be simply summed up as pure bad luck.

“…So pure…” Li Ming couldn’t help but shake his head, thinking that there was something wrong.

Although it was certain that the fleet did not know about the Star of Eternal Silence, Li Ming was not prepared to let them go for the time being.

Once they go back, they will definitely report the matter. Even if it has nothing to do with the Star of Eternal Silence, it will attract a lot of attention and they might be able to find out the connection.

"Let's talk about it after this matter is over..." Li Ming put the matter behind him and looked carefully at the fragments in his hand.

He tried to inject energy, and the fragments immediately emitted strong vibrations, and the pulses surging in the cracks on the surface became more violent.

But there was no reaction for the time being. Li Ming frowned slightly, and a surge of energy gushed out, trying to inject more energy.

Finally, he could clearly feel an invisible force field gradually opening up very slowly, finally covering about three meters around him and then stagnating.

It's not that the expansion has reached its limit, but the energy efficiency it can provide can only go so far.

(End of this chapter)