Chapter 268: Gravity Bind

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The villagers were identified as the elites for a reason. They were selected obviously for their high efficiency and disciplined obedience. Thought Ye Chong as he glimpsed at the tiny pile of Lavagold ores before him. "Here," said Ye Chong to Sang Pu. "Mark the place down, the Lavagold content here is rich." Sang Pu nodded in comprehension.

Ye Chong immediately sank himself into the world of researches after they had returned to the village. He remembered it clearly, every bit of characteristic of Lavagold, but never once he had been exposed to the actual ore itself, it felt like his expertise going back to square one.

Well, he was fortunate to possess a formidable foundation of his knowledge, for he even was considerably informed of the metallurgical approaches by the ancient, which was something alien to the modernity since nobody really learned exactly how the extraction of metals worked after the invention of Magnetron-based separator. But Ye Chong knew it, and he believed he could extract Lavagold from its ore without the aid of the avant-garde. This was certainly one reward he got from the constant interaction with Aurora back then.

He started reminiscing the theoretical knowledge regarding this, as he tried reorganizing all the available options before him.

Okay, so the only thing Ye Chong needed to do would be to find something that could burn and emit a great amount of heat. His eyes, of course, went upon the mildstone sitting at the corner. The mildstone was clearly the solution because of its immense amount of energy contained, the tricky part was, how would Ye Chong bring out the energy? How would he initiate the reaction?

If I were to find a way to trigger the stone, then…

Ye Chong who held a complete systematic knowledge of the basics recognized the core of every reaction, every equation, laid within Energy itself. The breakthrough would only happen if the solution for the issue of energy activation had been discovered.

Okay, I know where the problem is. Then I should be finding ways to solve it.

And that was when Sang Fan observed his first Frankenstein in the village. Ye Chong spent all day and night in his own research room and had never left the doorstep ever since. The chief sometimes would pay him a visit to check out his progress but he always was treated with ignorance without fail, as the science maniac was too indulged in his experiment. Sang Fan held tremendous respect towards this very young yet talented teacher despite the treatment. Even though the teacher kept muttering denial towards his position as a teacher, he inevitably had already become a teacher in the Sang Fan’s mind.

Sang Fan was highly impressed by the vast knowledge and that tenacious curiosity in experimentation of his.

Sang Fan had been checking out those microchips circulated among the villagers for so long, yet he had comprehended so little. His understanding gained over the years was nothing compared to those few words coming from this young teacher.

Ye Chong had removed the processor from the engineering model and lifted it all the way to his room to perform his research. The processor was an impeccable aid to his research as Ye Chong noticed he was making significant progress. The slight disappointment was, despite all that, he had yet to discover the key factor to activate the energy stored within mildstone.

Sighhhh…

Ye Chong took a gaze at the last few samples sitting at the corner. Impatience was heating his breath, knowing the likelihood of the fate of these remaining samples. Only these samples had yet interacted with Lavagold. Assuming they also showed a null reaction as an outcome, the research could be in a stern dead-end. His tired eyes glanced upon Sang Fan who was looking at the processor and silently he left the room. Meanwhile, Sang Fan was exerting strong interests towards the processor ever since the first eye-contact he made with it. Ye Chong had spent two hours to guide him on the application of the processor. Ye Chong had even inserted a few entries of the elementary to provide a walkthrough for Sang Fan.

The chilly air kissed upon the heated cheeks of Ye Chong. It felt refreshing to be at the outside. Ye Chong, feeling relaxed, was stretching his stiffened muscles.

He could feel his bones fossilized after the days and nights he rooted himself by his desk. The research did not pay off sadly. That was annoying.

Ye Chong had a sudden urge of working out for some reason, and so he began swinging his hands, pulling punches.

The irritation clouding his head seemed to have faded away. His punches got faster and he was literally kicking alive. During the process, he began recalling the moment when he saw the few techniques performed by the villagers. It was a shocker he must admit, as it left deep impression in his mind.

Simple. Straightforward. Sedate.

Ye Chong’s body was moving in all sorts of position, there was no pattern to his punches and kicks.

Gradually, his techniques seemed to have changed. It was not obvious but he could feel the changes. It was getting… simplified? And getting more fatal, with more twisting, unpredictable angles. The reflexivity of his body being utilized with the muscle manipulation technique exclusive to the Lan family of September, allowed him to perform some really inhuman performances. The angles of his punches were getting odder.

"Great!" One compliment shot through his ears.

The young man flinched as he withdrew all his moves and stood still. His control over his movements was justified through this, for he was able to pull off and pull out the techniques by his will with immediate effect.

"Shame on me," complimented Sang Pu, with his face filled with amazement. "Never would I have expected sir to have such skills. I actually thought outsiders like sir were those with numb limbs and eyes. But wow, the outside world… much stronger than I thought."

Towards the comment, Ye Chong gave a straight, frozen face. Certainly he would be disgruntled over a senseless, stereotypical comment like this, he was too lazy to have a meaningless debate nevertheless.

Sang Pu was smiling, seemingly had guessed what Ye Chong was feeling, he said, "I guess I must be saying something really senseless to sir’s perception. But I got to say, that sir must be a powerful figure in the outside world… yes, with those skills."

Ye Chong had no comment.

A moment of awkward silence lapsed, the Sang man mustered his pride, "Our tribe was already one of the 4 great aristocrats in He Yue galaxy way before our ancestors left the place. I absolutely would love to know what the situation in He Yue is looking like currently. But from what I have known, pilots had already appeared back then, so were the practitioners. The martial arts practitioners were still holding dominant forces in the galaxy in spite of the innovative approaches by the pilots. And yeah, Sang style martial arts were something from the high superior. Hmph, the Archipelago was a hideous place and countless men of our tribes lost their lives when we first came. Imagine all it took just to let us stay…" He pounded his chest in vex.

"Over the past 500 years, our tribe had been fighting with the most fearsome beasts as the routine. If you were the weakling, you would never survive. As you can see, everyone of us spend our days either by hunting or by all sorts of training, just to further enhance ourselves. And that includes women and children. We know we could never get an actual help from the surrounding, so we need to build our body, hone our skills. With the help of the gravity field, our generation has become much more competent than our ancestors."

Well, Ye Chong had to admit that Sang Pu was making sense in his words. Human beings were the kind whose most potential would be excavated under such environment. The tedious surrounding had provided the Sang villagers the best practical to train themselves. As far as Ye Chong agreed, the practical, the experience of actual combats would forever be the most effective method to improve vitality and skills. A group of collective ideology accumulating their strength and techniques over the centuries, a generation overcoming the other generation, the gradual dethroning of martial arts over the 5 major galaxies, these men in Archipelago now would no doubt be the prime of fighters.

Nevertheless, it was nothing surprising. Ye Chong knew well in his heart, this was a decade of the pilots, for the pilots, by the pilots. The pilots would be the spotlight, the center of concern. Practitioners were potent in fact, but only in a small scope. Look how fragile they would be when they fought an actual mech, as they would get overthrown, rolling down the staircase to their previous throne.

But the last term was very new to his conception. Gravity field? What exactly was that?

"What is gravity field?" asked Ye Chong.

Sang Pu was stunned for a moment, "Hah!" he chuckled. "It’s my mistake sir. I had yet introduced this place formally."

And Ye Chong was all ears. It would be his priority to first understand the surrounding well enough, the basics, at the very least. If it was not the research that haunted him days and nights, he probably would have not forgotten the obvious primary procedure of his space exploration.

"Sir, this piece of land is known as the ‘Archipelago’. Back when our ancestors laid their steps here, this very place of our village precisely, they had fully depleted their energy storage, so they could not conduct a proper scouting over the area. But never once we stopped stepping out, as over the time we explored the area, and to our horror, the land was nothing but danger. Not only it was filled with terrifying beasts, but also the fact that under certain condition, at some places, something much more terrifying than the beasts would occur. Gravity field, or strong gravity region some may call it, was one of them, where every region contains different degrees of gravitational forces, they were scattered all over the land like an unforeseeable trap. When you step into one super strong gravity region, you would feel like falling into quicksand, except there would be no way out. And unlike quicksand, a strong gravity region holds no sign, no boundary, no marking with the normal space we live."

And Ye Chong was stupefied towards the introductory chapter of Archipelago, which had utterly flipped over his entire understanding towards the world, the knowledge he had learned. How would that be possible? It was already a miracle to see an actual planet within the asteroid belt, which, contrary to most planets he had seen, was not even a globe technically. He could recognize the difference in planetary shape but would there… at one corner of the galaxy, that a planet this odd exist? Would it be possible to have drastically different degrees of gravitational force over the planet?

Ye Chong’s dropping jaws were priceless to Sang Pu, since it was ultra rare to see the indifferent teacher of his to suddenly get so expressive and it was because of his description on his home, "And after much exploration, we realized there could be signs to help us distinguish a strong gravity region and non-strong gravity region. For example, the plants inhabited within the gravity field have noticeable difference than the plants in normal field. Everyone in the Sang village could actually determine if the next step they are lifting would be an invisible quicksand. And we are also able to estimate the strength of the gravity before us," said Sang Pu as he smiled proudly.

"200 years ago, one senior of mine found a way to utilize the gravitational force, which is to perform training there. The stronger the gravity, the more burdened the body would be. Given that he no longer gained significant progress on his training in normal field, he would venture into the gravity field. Well of course, we only allow adults to perform their trainings there. Children whose bodies remain mutable are forbidden to enter the area. They would be allowed to head in only when they achieve adulthood."

Well, if what Sang Pu said was true, the place would be wonderful for training. But Ye Chong had a better idea, it would be great if one were to carry out pilot training there as well!

Like… he could try performing a Thomas’s Spin with Mach 5 speed under 500% gravity pull, converting the figures, he would get a fancy quick consecutive trio of Thomas’s Spin with a speed of Mach 10 instead! The biggest issue of traveling in mech for a pilot would be the burden to their body overtime, while this would be the core to complete all strategic movements and techniques.

Absolutely, Ye Chong was more than excited to check out this very place mentioned by Sang Pu, the gravity bind that strengthened your physique, the double-edged sword namely the strong gravity region…