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Chapter 47: Golden Cicada

The shape-shifter and woman each owned a spatial ring. Xia Fei was not courteous and retrieved both. They were already dead, so what use would it be to just leave such things behind? Besides, warriors obtaining spoils of war was only natural. The rules and regulations for the assessment did not mention that candidates were not allowed to take other candidates’ things. If people were allowed to kill, looting items should be a given.

After collecting what he could from the three corpses, Xia Fei and Xiao Yu returned to their hiding place in the vegetation.

Xia Fei retrieved a bottle of mineral water and handed it to Xiao Yu as he took out a Hongtashan cigarette for himself and lit it up. Taking a deep puff of the stick, he let the smoke fill his lungs for approximately 30 seconds before exhaling it all out.

Xia Fei poured out all the things inside the two spatial rings, as a mess of items instantly appeared upon the sandy soil.

Xiao Yu blinked with a surprised look on her face as she exclaimed, “Big brother Xia Fei, did you do your magic again?”

Xia Fei patted Xiao Yu’s head, “Come, help big brother search through these items and find that token for the second round.”

“Okay!” Xiao Yu diligently began to rummage through all the items as Xia Fei’s eyes shone. He had unexpectedly discovered a golden egg among these things, and it looked similar to that egg that contained the Killer Machine from before.

Xia Fei quickly picked it up from the ground and began examining it.

The exterior of this golden-colored egg was flawless, a smooth and gleaming surface that felt cold to touch, like he was holding onto an ice cube.

This egg’s size was much smaller than the Killer Machine, only about the size of a goose egg, but it felt very heavy. Xia Fei weighed it in his hand and figured it should be around 30kg.

“Phantom? What’s this thing?” Xia Fei asked.

Phantom squinted, admiringly staring at the golden egg for a few moments, “This thing is called the Golden Cicada, a model of murder-bot left behind by the ancient civilization, but its grade is higher than the Killing Machine from before.”

The Killer Machine’s combat performance had terrified Xia Fei, especially the cruelty it demonstrated. If not for the shape-shifter’s above-average defense, Xia Fei was certain that the Killer Machine would have minced his entire body into meat paste and not have simply left him at a chopped up head. Moreover, this thing would actually be more powerful than the Killer Machine!

“Inside is an AI robot bug that can fly. It looks like a cicada, which is why people called it the Golden Cicada. The Golden Cicada isn’t just strong, but it is also amazingly fast, allowing it to achieve a speed of approximately 1000m/s. Any opponent with less than this speed would essentially have a tough time escaping its attack,” Phantom continued.

The Killer Machine had a serious flaw, and that was its speed. Just from those few steps it had taken before, Xia Fei could tell that its top speed was around 50m/s, which meant that any Special Ability User who could achieve speeds beyond 50m/s would be able to escape from the Killer Machine’s pursuit.

But the Golden Cicada’s speed was 1000m/s. Such a speed meant it would be able to pursue plenty of Special Ability Users, which gave it an upper hand compared to the Killer Machine.

Xia Fei pondered over this, “A mechanical bee’s speed is also very fast. Isn’t the Golden Cicada about the same as it?”

Phantom broke out into uproarious laughter, “A mechanical bee is a children’s toy, how can it compare to the Golden Cicada? You must know that the biggest difference between robots and machines lies in the artificial intelligence they possess. All robots would have an AI system. The higher class of the robot, the more advanced their AI system was. I’ve heard of high-class robots that were even able to think like humans. Sadly, the number of high-class robots that still exist are simply too low that I’ve only heard rumors about them and have never seen one personally.”

Xia Fei looked at the Killer Machine, realizing that its body had already become pliable, easily bendable and that he was actually able to tear off one of its arms with his bare hands.

It was really strange, as just dozens of minutes ago, the lancets on the Killer Machine’s two arms were strong enough to break the tough scales of the shape-shifter, yet it was now in such a vulnerable state. This stark difference between now and before left Xia Fei perplexed.

“The Golden Cicada and the Killer Machine are both made with a special metal alloy that is both sturdy and sharp, but the moment it is exposed to the air, it would quickly become pliable. This is why these small robots are kept in the egg device, isolating it from being eroded by the air. This is also why there is a large number of egg-shaped robots that were preserved after the ancient civilization had been annihilated. In contrast, those high-class robots are extremely rare.”

“There is also another hypothesis that not all the robots rebelled against the ancient civilization. Instead, only those robots with AIs that surpassed human intellect did, and these highly intelligent robots disappeared into the sea of stars after ruining the ancient human civilization, leaving behind all these other robots whose AIs were of lower intellect than humans.”

Phantom had related plenty of knowledge about what happened to the ancient civilization. Xia Fei could not help but develop an urge toward uncovering the ancient civilization’s secrets when he suddenly thought about the legend of Atlantis.

The legend mentioned that the Atlantean civilization had once used a large number of robots; could the Atlanteans have been hiding to avoid the hunt of the rebel robot army? Could Atlantis be the legacy of the ancient civilization?

Xia Fei shook his head and did his best to clear all these random speculations from his mind. Right now, the most important matter at hand was to get through this assessment. Everything else could be discussed later.

“Phantom, how should this item be used?” Xia Fei pointed to the Golden Cicada in his hand and asked.

“The egg can be turned on from the top. If you closely examine it, you will discover an almost imperceptible string there.”

Xia Fei inspected it, and sure enough, there was a thin thread coming out from the top of the eggshell. If he were not carefully looking for it, there was no way he would have discovered it.

“This is a safety device to protect the egg from being set off from a random touch. If you wish to activate the Golden Cicada, you will first have to release the safety.”

This was the safety switch for the weapon. To prevent the egg from starting at random, Xia Fei followed Phantom’s instructions and pushed open this safety clockwise, revealing a circular groove.

This was the second safety switch, a button that required a finger to press and trigger it. Only then would it start up the Golden Cicada. It looked like the ancients were very wary of the Golden Cicada’s power, so they had made its egg so complex. After all, the release of this little thing would result in the loss of lives.

After Xia Fei learned how to activate the egg, he kept the Golden Cicada in his spatial ring, just as Xiao Yu finished sorting out the spoils from the battle.

She had separated all the different items into different piles, and right in the middle was a metal plate that had words carved on it.

This metal plate was circular in shape, completely red and dull. The word ‘adjudicator’ was carved on it, so there was no doubt that this was the token that the candidates needed to qualify for the second round.

The other remaining items were a dozen or so bottles of water, two bags of Snake Eye Berries, and other sustenance that could replenish physical strength and hydration, which Xia Fei needed right now.

Everything else that was leftover was just medication, survival tools and some clothing, none of which were hardly worth anything.

“Those three were actually rather poor. There’s nothing good on them aside from the Golden Cicada,” Phantom shook his head and said.

Xia Fei chuckled. He had also retrieved two spatial rings, one of which had a storage space of one cubic meter, while the other had roughly 0.5 cubic meter. Adding both together would amount to around 100 million star coins, and including the Golden Cicada, it was already quite the profit for Xia Fei.

Xia Fei kept these things properly before giving Xiao Yu a Snake Eye Berry, as he ate one himself.

Xiao Yu was curious and mimicked how Xia Fei ate his berry, stuffing the Snake Eye Berry into her mouth. The moment she took a bite, Xiao Yu’s face revealed a bitter look, “Big brother Xia Fei. This fruit isn’t tasty at all.”

Xia Fei could not help but laugh, reaching out to Xiao Yu pouting face and lightly pinched her cheek, “Although this isn’t very tasty, it is very beneficial to your body. Eating it will make Xiao Yu grow big and strong.”

Xiao Yu obediently nodded, forcing herself to finish the Snake Eye Berry as she tilted her head and asked, “Does this fruit come in chocolate flavor?”

...

Beyond Earth’s orbit, a whole fleet of warships was stationed to safeguard this Crisis grade assessment. These were the ships that belonged to the Endaro Star Region Adjudicator Union Branch’s 5th Fleet.

When the Adjudicator Union decided to dispatch the mighty 5th Fleet to Earth, even the Union’s internal department had quite a bit of an argument over it. Many did not understand the need for a strict security presence for this assessment.

The 5th Fleet consisted of four Raven-Class battleships and 24 Thorax-Class cruisers. There were also other smaller ships in this fleet, and they numbered in the hundreds. The cost to send a fleet of such a size through space was unimaginable for ordinary citizens, and that alone accounted for more than 80% of the assessment budget.

However, President Robert completely disregarded all suggestions that sought to reduce this cost in favor of opting to dispatch the mightiest fleet against the consensus of the board and his resolute attitude on this baffled everyone.

The 5th Fleet layered themselves with Earth at its heart of the formation like layers of a metallic wall.

But what the 5th Fleet commander did not realize was the presence of a Helio-Class covert ops stealth ship cruising in the darkness of space somewhere 1 light year away from Earth.

This stealth ship had been retrofitted from a frigate, losing a majority of its weapon systems for the sake of several advanced electronic systems.

Not only could it conduct a covert investigation on specific targets, but it was also even capable of intercepting signals and communication of the other party. Furthermore, it could also stealth against the backdrop of the vast space, making it impossible for anyone to discover its presence.

This Helios-Class stealth ship had no serial number or a name, lacking any identification that a spaceship ought to possess. In fact, there was no information on this ship even if someone were to search the Alliance database for it.

Countless electronic devices were busy working in the monitoring room. Every bit of information that was being broadcast to the Adjudicator Union from Earth was being intercepted by this ship.

In this universe, intercepting information was not a particularly difficult task, and what mattered was how to decrypt it.

Every organization and planet had its own unique encryption system with hundreds of millions of digits, so it was definitely not easy to crack. Even the most powerful computer required more than 10,000 years to finish decrypting it.

People would rarely attempt to crack an encrypted system because the other party would have already swapped for a new system before someone could even be done with the initial encryption program.

Yet the monitors inside this monitoring room were all displaying the information that the Adjudicator Union was transferring, from the candidates’ information to the orders from the higher-ups; nothing was missed.

Furthermore, the Adjudicator Union had only just started using this 12.8 billion bit encryption system from the start of this year!

The largest screen was simultaneously showing the video of over a dozen candidates, with one of them being an approximately 12 years old short-haired girl who was very cute with a delicate little nose and a pair of doe eyes.

The video showed the girl munching on a Snake Eye Berry as she asked Xia Fei, “Does this fruit come in chocolate flavor?”