Gundam: From Piece to Player

The training machine is a two-seat Jingbaofan.

When it was her turn to get into the front seat of the cockpit for hands-on practice, Erin was sitting behind her.

She couldn't resist the urge to spend some rare time alone with him.

"I never expected that Mr. Erin, who is only a little older than me, would become my teacher."

"Avery, please focus on your driving lesson."

Are you pretending not to recognize me?

After being reprimanded, Evelyn was determined to show Erin her superior driving skills.

At the halfway point of the training session, she gently pushed the accelerator while turning off the MS's control system.

During high-speed flight, the Kamponga drifted and decelerated, then used the vectoring of the attitude nozzles to quickly change the nose direction, achieving a near-instantaneous 180-degree turn, and then the aircraft glided in a reverse-jet posture.

“Avery, as a student of a test subject, you should not take actions that could damage the teaching equipment.”

Evelyn never expected that this skill, which had once impressed the practical course teacher, would be seen by the other party as merely disrupting classroom order.

Is the other party quite inflexible?

"Teacher Erin, can you actually do that too?"

"Release the control stick." Erin commanded in a teacher's tone. The instant Evely released the control stick, the machine's nozzles sprayed clockwise, pushing the machine's attitude to rotate 180 degrees.

In a very short time, it went from a high-speed reverse drift to a high-speed forward acceleration.

"Amazing!"

Evely had only ever seen such smooth technique on one other person.

Speaking of Erin, she likes to wear a mask, and she's equally focused. She likes to show off her skills unintentionally, which is quite similar to her father.

"The real master of MS is not about how fancy the moves or actions are, but about treating MS as if it were your own hands and feet."

Erin spoke in a teacher's tone.

"Hands and feet? Can't we just use cyproheptadine?" Evely retorted.

"Symmu consumes mental energy, and once both sides' mental energy (blue bars) is exhausted, the outcome will be determined by basic driving skills."

Erin noticed that Evelyn had turned her head and was staring intently at him:

"what's wrong?"

“Mr. Erin, you have quite a deep understanding of combat between Newtypes.”

"This is also a theory I learned from books."

Erin secretly reminded himself not to relax too much.

During his teenage years in Shangri-La, he underwent a great deal of practical and skills training at the Ability Development Academy.

Evelyn's driving skills are quite good, but she probably hasn't received systematic and structured training as a new human.

The panel is mostly supported by the intuition and excellent reflexes of the new human.

"Speaking of which, the Weaponry Research Bureau is recruiting candidates for next-generation mobile suits from the Alliance University. Professor Erin might want to give it a try. The compensation is quite generous... but the selection process is quite difficult."

Evely's eyes darted around; it was the urge to play a prank—Erin had felt that way about others.

"Oh, really?" Erin countered, "Why didn't you take such a good opportunity?"

“I failed the test and was eliminated, so my dad told me to keep trying and listen to Professor Kalmar’s lectures more often. Mr. Erin, you can give it a try if you’re interested.”

Chapter 363 A Terrifying First Test

When Erin returned to his single room from school, he saw that the door was already open and Begenzon was leaning against the door with his arms crossed.

"How's school life going? How's your relationship with the young lady?"

"what's up?"

Erin wasn't interested in chatting with this guy; they were just colleagues, and aside from their mission, they weren't exactly friends.

"Just some pleasantries. Come in, I've brought some takeout (external information)."

Erin entered Begenzon's room. His companion sat down directly in front of the computer without offering him a chair. Erin was already used to this personality of his, so he pulled out a chair and sat down to the side.

"The destroyer Dark Falcon used its brainwave imaging equipment to photograph an artificial celestial body 1 kilometers away from Ceres at a 90-degree, 60-degree positive angle. It had an optical camouflage system on it. If it weren't for a brief solar malfunction, it probably would have been impossible to detect. It seems that the progress that the legend mentioned in the course was false. The research progress on antimatter is much faster than we imagined."

Despite it being bad news, Begenzong seemed quite excited.

"Celestial bodies?"

Erin quickly leaned over to look, and the monitor displayed a spiraling "space city" that was shaped like a gradually converging hourglass. The outer "titanium alloy" was a deep dark gold color, and the central area emitted a faint blue low-temperature halo.

"This object is about 5 kilometers in diameter, and it is probably related to antimatter."

Is it possible to sabotage from a distance?

"The ship's navigator sensed a number of threatening things in the vicinity of that celestial body; an I-position is probably standard."

Erin nodded in agreement. "I also received some intelligence today."

He mentioned the suitable candidates that Evelyn had mentioned.

"Based on the intelligence, it is very likely that it involves an MS equipped with an antimatter engine. You must report to the BOSS remotely and ask for instructions on the next course of action."

"No problem, but instructions are indeed needed now."

The founder of the New Federation, Anna El, once developed a device that enabled long-distance brainwave communication, allowing real-time communication between the Earth and the Moon. Twenty years later, researchers invented a quantum brainwave relay signal machine—the Dark Falcon—which had a dedicated room.

At this moment, Erin, who was lurking in the Space Alliance, only needed to activate a passive brainwave device the size of a suitcase to establish communication.

It was 10 p.m. in Shangri-La. After hesitating for a moment, Ailin opened his suitcase and activated the communication request.

Meanwhile, in Shangri-La, a retro red telephone rang on a desk. On the desk were three other telephones—yellow, green, and blue—and next to them was a framed family photo.

Harman, who happened to be working overtime, reached out and picked up the quantum brainwave remote phone.

"Eirin?"

"Boss, I have urgent information to report to you—"

In just two minutes, Erin reported on everything he had learned, including the artificial celestial bodies he had identified and the information regarding the selection of suitable candidates.

"Does Evelyn have green eyes?"

"Yes." Although she didn't know why the minister was concerned about this matter, Erin answered truthfully.

"You should stay away from her as much as possible... This girl is dangerous for you."

"Boss?"

"Even if the information about the selection of the chosen ones is true, you wouldn't normally be in such a hurry to tell me unconfirmed information. This shows that your perception has been influenced by her, and you've become impatient. As a powerful Newtype, Char's wife, Lara Shin, spontaneously emits a kind of affinity-filled brainwave that makes people unconsciously believe her words."

"Okay, I'll verify the selection immediately." Erin then asked, "If it's true?"

"Participate, at least to obtain more intelligence... Be careful not to reveal your Newtype identity."

"That ring-shaped space city?"

“The Dark Falcon can’t handle it, so don’t worry about that thing. Tell Begenzon that he can go and contact Kalma Zabi.”

“I understand,” Erin said, “but I’m also a little worried about his performance.”

"What do you mean?"

"He showed an excessive enthusiasm for the science of the Space Alliance."

Do you think he might betray us?

"No, I'm just worried that his judgment might be wrong and he won't be able to carry out the mission well."

“You don’t need to worry about that. Just focus on yourself,” Harman said in a relaxed tone.

"Yes." Erin ended the telepathic communication, somewhat puzzled by Minister Harman's trust in Begenzon.

"So, what did the minister say?"

Begenzon was naturally unaware of the content of the remote brainwave conversation between Erin and Harman, nor did he know that Erin had tattled on him.

Erin told him, "The minister said you can now formally contact Kalma Zabi and continue gathering intelligence, but you can ignore the suspected antimatter generator for now."

Begenzong nodded. "Do you want to participate in that selection?"

"join."

At first, Erin thought that the Weapons Research Bureau was a classified project and would be difficult to find, but he didn't expect to find it by just searching on the school's official website.

Is the Space Alliance really that lacking in secrecy?

As per the requirements on the official website, there were no requirements regarding whether one was a Newtype. Erin filled out the online application form and received a notification approximately three days later.

Following the directions, he arrived at Laboratory 287 within the Union University.

A petite woman with white hair and wearing a white coat walked in.

Erin could sense a similar aura from Minister Hamman in her... She couldn't be that young; she was old enough to call her "auntie."

"Hello, Teacher Ailin. Welcome to the assessment. You can call me Du."

"Hello, Ms. Du."

Are you a new human?

Erin quickly shook his head.

"Take two of these pills." The white-haired woman took out a small jar containing two red pills. "They can 'transform' into a new human within an hour, and we can use this to conduct tests."

It must be a pill containing the Swithrom factor. As a new human, this was the first time Erin had ever taken this kind of drug that was exclusively supplied to enhanced humans during the Warring States period, but for the sake of better disguise, he swallowed it without hesitation.

About three minutes later, Erin's senses became sharper, and information flooded into his brain like a tidal wave. Fortunately, the room was specially treated; otherwise, the massive amount of information from the brainwave detection would have overloaded his brain instantly.

Ms. Du walked to a glass sphere facility with a diameter of 3 meters, typed a few keys on the keyboard, and an operating platform rose from the ground: "What you have to do is very simple, just repeat what I did. If you can completely reproduce it within an hour, you will pass the test."

She placed her hand on the control panel, and a transparent sphere with a diameter of 1 meter was generated inside the glass dome, with a luminous particle suspended inside the transparent sphere.

The Mental Image Manifestation System—a similar device that Erin had seen in the New Commonwealth.

Ms. Du used this Psycommu device to construct this "model" with her mental power.

However, he couldn't have imagined what would happen next.