Abnormal crossing

Chapter 149 Gained Some Fame

"Governor???"

Looking at the image of Joe Cowen that appeared in front of me.

Speaker Gray froze, as if struck by lightning.

His lips trembled, opening and closing several times but unable to utter a sound. His left hand unconsciously gripped the edge of the metal plate, and his originally blue knuckles even appeared somewhat faded due to excessive force.

A good while passed.

His Adam's apple bobbed a few times before he finally found his voice: "You...you're still alive?"

In fact, it wasn't just Gray who was alone.

Faced with Qiao Kewen's sudden appearance, the other core members also left their seats in agitation, gathering around Qiao Kewen with slightly unsteady gait. Some even lost their shoes without noticing.

“Well, this is a bit complicated, we’ll talk about it later,” Joe Cowen nodded to Speaker Gray, then turned his gaze to Milo: “Captain Milo, thank you so much for your help this time.”

“Old Joe, you’re too kind. It’s no trouble at all,” Milo said to his colleague, reverting to his rugged, experienced driver’s manner. “It’s just a few miles. Besides, you paid me. Being entrusted with a task and fulfilling it faithfully is a basic requirement in our line of work.”

He then turned to look at the scene and, seeing the hesitant expressions on Gray's and the others' faces, wisely said, "Why don't you chat with Speaker Gray and the others for a while, and I'll go rest for a bit?"

Qiao Kewen smiled and, without any formality, replied to Milo, "Okay."

Milo nodded, then turned and gestured with his chin toward the bench where he had broken the armrest earlier: "Alright, I'll take them there to sit for a while. Just call me if they need anything."

Done.

He then led Gu Wei and the others back to their original seats, where they sat down one by one.

As they left, Gray and the others gathered around Joe Cowen to find out what had happened.

"call"

Touching the edge of the handrail he had just broken, Milo squinted and said leisurely, "The person was delivered successfully, and after handing over the items, we'll have one less thing to do. I wish we could do more of this kind of work."

"Come on," Jin glanced at the guy sideways and mercilessly exposed him: "Who's been grumbling about how fuel-consuming this spaceship is all day long? And now you're starting to install it?"

Milo scratched his head and chuckled twice.

To know.

In addition to the creation parameters, the "legacy" that Jokowen entrusted to Milo also included the Tongliao Khan ship that needed to be returned to Molde.

Although the Tongliao Khan could be reduced in size and accommodated by the Weaver's Necklace, its mass still had to be transferred to the spaceship.

Therefore, the Pulingpuling has been sailing at full capacity for most of this period of time, consuming a huge amount of fuel every day.

According to Milo, the sheep simply became a goat.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have been in such a hurry to send Joe Cowen back with his boat—it turns out that no one likes a gas guzzler anywhere.

Of course.

Milo's complaints about fuel were more of a professional, instinctive chatter; in reality, everyone knew just how lucrative this job was.
"Sigh," after joking around, Milo glanced at the group of Moldans gathered in the distance and shook his head slightly. "We've made a killing this time, but Old Joe and the others are in for a rough ride."

Gu Wei, who was standing to the side, followed Milo's gaze and nodded slightly as well.

indeed.

The mission of the Fluttering Fluttering was accomplished, but the plight of the Molde people had only just begun.

Although Milo brought back most of what Jokowen left behind, for such a young civilization, the leader of the tribe was the most valuable asset.

Not to mention that eight crew members were also swallowed up along with Jokov, and these were all promising juniors that Jokov had selected from Mold.

It can be said like this.

With the incident involving Jokowen, the Morde civilization has experienced a huge talent gap. It would be considered a sign of a civilization's resilience if it could recover within a few decades.

Even more subtle is...
Think of this.

Milo then turned to Jin: "Jin, how are things on your end?"

"It's alright," Jin said, touching her earlobe as a series of data invisible to outsiders flashed before her eyes:

"The energy weapons in the top area have been deactivated, the data stream infiltration targeting the ship has stopped, and the power of the entire planet Mold has been reduced by 32%, essentially eliminating hostility."

Milo nodded slightly: "Could you analyze it?"

“Yes,” Jin said fluently, her voice confined to a small area by some kind of technology: “When we first met, Meimei had already intercepted one of their cyberattacks, and with the letter we sent to Morde Star later, our attitude has actually been made very clear.”

"But those Molds led us to the Federation Hall, with a bunch of energy weapons on our heads, and the alert was only lifted when Jokowen appeared—there are only two possibilities in this situation, either the Molds are stupid greens who only know Waaaagh, or..."

Speaking of it.

Jin shrugged and uttered the last part: "They initially identified us as another group of enemies—and their strength was considered to be superior to theirs in terms of technology, but with the opportunity to sabotage us."

Milo did not speak.

True.

The fleet's sole mission on Mold was to deliver goods. Over the past few weeks, Milo and Jokowen had found common ground in discussing various ways to sneak through doors and locks to evade inspection.

However, his experience from his long journey through the starry seas allowed him to take a precaution upon arriving in Mold—he had Meimei scan the general situation of Mold.

Upon scanning, some problems were indeed discovered:
The Molde side showed great vigilance when the spaceship appeared, especially after the spaceship landed, and all kinds of covert detection methods were frantically firing at the ship.

Meanwhile, Gray led Milo and his group to the very center of the Federation Hall. This was indeed Mold's core decision-making area, but it was also the most powerful weapons depot on the entire planet. According to the information scanned by Meimei, there should be some kind of extremely powerful energy-gathering device on the ceiling, which required authorization from the Federation Council to unlock and activate.

Yes, that's right—somewhere behind us right now, there are about a hundred councilors with their hands on touchscreens or something, ready to press a button at any moment.
But on the other hand.

Gray and the others didn't seem very confident, otherwise they wouldn't have arranged for Sheena to be their guide and chat with them.

Therefore, overall...

The behavior of these Molds seemed more like a misjudgment of Milo and his group's technological level. They assumed their underhanded tactics wouldn't be detected and were looking for an opportunity to launch a ruthless sneak attack.
The result was unexpected.

Before the sneak attack could even begin, Milo released Jokowen—and only then did Gu Wei realize that the scene of Milo releasing Jokowen did indeed resemble the Myriad Soul Banner from a fantasy novel.
all in all.

Now that the misunderstanding has been cleared up, Milo and the others are even safer than before, but Joe Cowen's situation is probably in serious trouble. Gu Wei then blinked and quickly filled in the blanks in his mind.

I wonder what happened on Morde Star?
Could it be a rebellion?
Rebel themes are quite common these days, especially on planets like Mord that rely on Jokowen's influence for development; the death of a leader almost always triggers widespread unrest.

If Joe still had a wife and kids, the situation would be even more hilarious.
There are many examples on Earth.

For example, when Emperor Wu of Jin, Sima Yan, died, he passed the throne to his mentally challenged son, Sima Zhong. Empress Jia's misrule triggered the War of the Eight Princes, followed by the Five Barbarian Invasions, which ultimately led to the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty.

Another example is the Inca Empire in the West.

In 1527, the Inca emperor Huayna Capac died of smallpox, and the civil war between his two sons weakened the country, so much so that Pizarro captured his successor with only 168 men.

The entire Inca Empire completely disintegrated less than six years after Waina Capac's death.

In addition, the dynastic collapses following the deaths of Qin Shi Huang, Darius III, and Suleiman the Magnificent are also typical examples.

"Drip drip"

Just as Gu Wei was having a wild idea, a slight vibration suddenly came from his crew wristband.

Gu Wei quickly moved a few steps to the side and activated the bracelet.

Swah——

A beam of light quickly shot out in front of Gu Wei:
【鸢歌】：【11111, are you there?】

Kite Song?

What does she want from me?

Seeing this, Gu Wei blinked and immediately replied, "Yes, what's up?"

After a while.

【'Yuange' has sent you a voice request. Accept/Reject】

voice?

Gu Wei was taken aback again, but still chose to answer the call.

At the same time, he also pressed a command on a wristband.

This command is somewhat similar to his "voice transmission fascination" before his time travel or a privacy screen protector for mobile phones. It compresses the voice content into an ultra-high frequency signal that is inaudible to the human ear and transmits it in a directional manner, so that people around cannot hear the content of the conversation.

Of course, this is just a very basic auxiliary function, and it's not quite a true means of security—if you want encrypted signals or to block lip reading, that's at a different price, and at least for now, Gu Wei doesn't need it.
After a while.

The voice call was connected.

"Hello, hello, can you hear me?" After the call connected, Gu Wei said twice, "What's up?"

Yuange's voice was as clear and crisp as ever: "There's a team competition in a month, and we're almost ready to finalize the roster. Will you be able to come?"

"A month later?" Gu Wei quickly calculated in his mind: "It should be fine."

According to Milo's previous plan.

After this voyage to Mord, the fleet's next destination is the Sora Empire, the homeland of Payaxinia, the designer of Fishing Wrath.

This kind of journey is different from missions outside known domains. It is basically risk-free, and the majority of the time spent is actually on traveling—and the communication technology in Mechmasters just happens to support networking in various environments.

Even if Jin or Milo need Gu Wei's help with any research, they only need to communicate to postpone or bring forward the time.

Gu Wei paused for a moment, then continued, "Speaking of which, Yuange, who will be our opponent next?"

“It’s not certain yet,” Yuange quickly explained. “Although team battles are not a regular game mode, the matchmaking is still in the hands of Mech Overlord. We’ll only know the specific opponents after we’re matched, but they won’t be weak.”

Gu Wei thought about it and agreed.

Although the team mode is mainly targeted at major clubs and military academy command students, and the player base is much smaller than that of the regular mode, the population of StarCraft is still considerable.

Generally speaking.

In order to enhance their civilization's influence, most civilizations of the fifth tier and above, except for a very few poor ones, will support one or more clubs to participate in the mech competitions in the Star Sea. The number here is in the hundreds of millions or even more.

In addition, there are students from the command departments of various military academies. Although the command departments have high requirements for the hard power of their affiliated colleges, they enroll several hundred students every year after they are established. Including the graduation period, a military academy can have several thousand or even tens of thousands of command department students who are on campus for a long time.

If we calculate based on each person establishing one team, the total number here is not much less than that of club teams.

Therefore, even with team points to dilute the distribution ratio, it is impossible to predict your next opponent in advance—unless it's one of the top teams.

Having figured all this out, Gu Wei quickly shifted his focus: "Yuan Ge, will the next team match be a 20 vs. 20 format, like the internal matches?"

“It’s a bit more than a civil war,” perhaps knowing that Gu Wei was a complete newbie, Yuan Ge patiently explained as always: “Team mode points are calculated independently, and there are a total of eighteen levels. Currently, our [Unfinished] team is at the third level. Each time, the maximum number of players is thirty, and there are also ten reserve spots.”

"A substitute?" Gu Wei was taken aback. "What's that?"

“It means exactly what it says,” Yuan Ge replied quickly, as if she had anticipated Gu Wei’s question. “After all, the list is compiled a month in advance. Plans can’t keep up with changes. If someone’s wife is in labor or has been damaged by the spaceship and can’t attend, then someone has to fill in, right? That’s how the reserve slots are used.”

Gu Wei finally understood. At first, he thought it was a list of players who could be substituted halfway through the match: "Yuan Ge, am I a substitute player this time?"

If Gu Wei remembers correctly.

The Unfinished Team currently has 44 members. Although the team mode scores are independent, the internal rankings are still based on the normal mode. Gu Wei's score ranks sixth from the bottom in the team.

Meanwhile, apart from the bottom-ranked "Catch Up Hehehe," who had a record of 9 wins and 103 losses and was killed by the rebellious AI in 0.01 seconds during the civil war, the remaining players were not far behind Gu Wei in terms of score and had much more combat experience than Gu Wei.

Therefore, in Gu Wei's view...

It's normal and reasonable for him to be included in the registration as a substitute player—Gu Wei joined the team with a learning mindset, and he's already very content to be a substitute.

However, to his surprise...

After a moment of silence, Yuange on the other end of the voice call gave a completely different answer: "No, this time I'm giving you the starting lineup—didn't you know, you made a name for yourself a few days ago."

Gu Wei: "??????"

Note:
I've been revising the text these past few days, so updates will be irregular. To avoid any misunderstandings, I'm letting you know in advance. There are also some revisions to the old book, about tens of thousands of words, which I'll try to finish in three days.

If some groups think this trivial matter can defeat me, they're overthinking it. When I was writing my last book, I revised it every day and still managed to get through it, didn't I? I remember back then, I had to revise over 120 chapters out of 140. A piece of cake for me!
(End of this chapter)