“Where’s Old Man Black?”
“Sir, the cyborg elder left a message saying he went to a meeting.”
“Alright, never mind him,” Wang Ji Xuan said. “I was hoping to have him join us to increase our chances of taking down Mo Feng, but it’s fine… Let’s have the meeting first.”
Ling Tong asked, “Should we mobilize other cyborg mechs?”
“Not for now. I only trust you few here for the time being.”
Wang Ji Xuan thought for a moment:
“Later, Red Serpent can also join our special team.”
“Okay.”
Ling Tong responded simply, bringing up a dialog box on her left mechanical arm and coordinating with the command system to temporarily detach herself from the cyborg mech formation, reporting the team’s movements to her direct commanding officer.
The group sat down briefly, and just as they were about to start the meeting, Ling Tong received an order from the frontline command.
She looked up at Wang Ji Xuan: “The frontline commander says you should avoid participating in combat as much as possible.”
Taoist Wang curled his lip: “Can I disobey his orders?”
“Theoretically, in the current command system, your direct superior is Dongfang Zhenghong. As long as he doesn’t issue an order…”
Buzz!
Ling Tong’s mechanical arm vibrated slightly, displaying a new order.
“Um… the Commander-in-Chief personally ordered that you can act as you see fit.”
Ling Tong’s expression was slightly puzzled.
Taoist Wang chuckled: “This Commander-in-Chief I’ve never met either trusts me too much or doesn’t care about me at all.”
“It must be the former!”
Zheng Shiduo grinned:
“The Commander-in-Chief must have discovered your greatness!”
“Don’t flatter me so much.”
Wang Ji Xuan cleared his throat and looked at Treant Beta to the side.
Treant Beta immediately stood up straight, looking nervous.
“Come sit down, don’t be nervous.”
Wang Ji Xuan revealed a kind smile:
“Don’t worry, we’re all good people. We just want to borrow your abilities and establish some initial mutual trust between us.”
Treant Beta swallowed, sitting down across from Wang Ji Xuan somewhat stiffly.
For some reason, the Treant felt that this guy in front of him had some… indescribable intentions towards him…
His intuition was usually pretty accurate.
Wang Ji Xuan coughed and said quickly:
“Time is tight. We need to make all preparations before Mo Feng’s team launches a second attack.
“We can’t trust any promises from the enemy. She’s very likely to use a feint, so we need to find a way to take the initiative.
“Peony, create a holographic sand table of the surrounding terrain, three hundred kilometers in diameter.”
“Yes, sir.”
Peony, with a stern face, brought over several disc-shaped instruments, made some adjustments, and depicted the terrain of the surrounding hundreds of kilometers.
Fortress 82 was embedded in the strata at the edge of the desert, with large areas of minefields marked nearby;
Underground, there were some winding passages, most of which had been artificially destroyed, proving that Blade Beasts had once been active in this area.
“During the first attack, I could roughly sense that the spirit energy appeared from this direction.”
Wang Ji Xuan took a laser pointer and circled an area in the desert.
“Fifty to eighty kilometers from the fortress, this spirit energy is scattered, probably strengthened with instruments.
“According to the information Mo Feng voluntarily revealed—or perhaps it’s false information she deliberately threw out to mislead us—the spirit energy user who can incite this low-level Gu needs her to amplify it.
“After the last attack, they quickly left this area.
“This is all the information we currently have.
“Everyone, share your thoughts.”
Zheng Shiduo stroked his chin and muttered: “The military has already sent out dozens of teams to investigate and deploy detectors in this circular area. Moreover, we can’t mobilize too many cyborg mechs right now; other areas also need cyborg mechs stationed to guard against Blade Beast sneak attacks.”
Ling Tong said simply: “I can equip the Blade-Slaying Type-3 armor later to fight the spirit energy user.”
Peony reminded: “This Mo Feng has the ability to fly in the air. When they attack again, it’s likely to be from an altitude of several thousand to ten thousand meters. Besides, we know nothing about her teammates.”
“Ahem, that…”
Treant Beta said weakly:
“Her team usually has six people. According to the Annihilation Corps’ standards, they’re at least B+ level, and there should be two to three A-levels, all with the most aggressive ability types, completely different from our investigation team.
“If you want to deal with her, you have to guard against her team as well.”
Wang Ji Xuan nodded: “Thanks for the reminder. That doesn’t matter. As long as we can find them and lure them into an area, her teammates won’t be a concern.”
Ling Tong asked: “Should we use high-intensity bombing? They’ll definitely be on guard.”
“No.”
Wang Ji Xuan said simply:
“My current idea is to set bait to lure her in, have the other cyborg mechs stay as far away from that area as possible to give them a sense of security.
“Mo Feng is a bit arrogant. We can exploit that.”
Beta asked softly: “Didn’t you say we’re waiting for our captain to give us information?”
“That’s actually not important.
“Even if she locks onto Mo Feng, Mo Feng won’t necessarily land on the ground. The area for aerial combat is too large, and we can’t take advantage of it.”
Wang Ji Xuan said with a smile:
“My elders taught me a little trick.
“When I find a rare treasure at a stall that the stall owner hasn’t noticed, I try to act natural, buy other things from his stall, and casually bring the treasure back as a bonus.
“In reality, that’s what I’m looking for.”
Wang Ji Xuan even raised his eyebrows as he spoke.
Treant Beta’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down: “That, well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll go first…”
“Relax, I won’t detain you.”
Wang Ji Xuan turned his head and said:
“Ling Tong, is there peach wood in Fortress 82? The older the better. If not, collect it from all over as quickly as possible and secretly send it here.”
“Peach wood? Peach trees?”
Ling Tong pulled up several pictures from the database and showed them to Wang Ji Xuan.
“That’s it.”
“I’ll have them find it right away.”
Wang Ji Xuan looked at Peony: “Prepare three simple processing platforms; we’ll need to process this peach wood later.”
“Yes, sir.”
Zheng Shiduo asked: “Bro, what should I do?”
“Prepare some nutritional meals for Beta; he might have to work hard later.”
Treant Beta twitched his nose, almost crying.
Although he was an A-level, he didn’t feel safe at all in front of these guys!
Wang Ji Xuan really wasn’t good at commanding operations. He wanted to say a few words to encourage the team, but all that came out was:
“Then let’s start with that.
“In short, our next strategy is to set bait and traps to lure Mo Feng into the trap. To increase the probability of the fish biting and to reduce the risk of exposure, we’ll try to complete this battle with just the few of us.
“I’ll be responsible for the trap.”
Ling Tong said with some worry: “Isn’t that too risky?”
“It’s not really risky,” Wang Ji Xuan whispered. “I’ll explain the specifics to you privately later; I can’t say it directly now.”
She nodded lightly, her fair swan neck and the faint collarbones under her collar creating a beautiful scene that was hard to look away from.
“Let’s discuss the first item: creating bait.”
… …
The temporary supply station quickly became lively, but Instructor Black was nowhere to be found.
Wang Ji Xuan vaguely felt that this second-generation cyborg mech was intentionally avoiding them, to avoid being with a group of juniors and lowering his own sense of authority.
Old Man Black really paid attention to these things.
Because Treant Beta was here, Wang Ji Xuan didn’t formulate specific tactics in front of him, let alone reveal any information related to formations.
The only thing Beta had to do was take root in the desert, stimulate his abilities, transform into a ‘human tree,’ and have branches sprout from his arms, back, and head, and then graft peach wood onto these branches to mass-produce spirit wood!
Ling Tong found a fifty-year-old peach tree in Fortress 82 and cut off the peach branches;
Zheng Shiduo brought a bunch of nutrient solutions (legitimate ones) to provide nutrition for Treant Beta;
Wang Ji Xuan secretly placed a Spirit Release Formation in a corner box to increase the spirit energy concentration around Treant Beta and observe the ‘passive interaction’ between the spirit energy user and spirit energy.
They couldn’t actively absorb it, but spirit energy could slowly replenish spirit energy, which was quite good.
In other words, as long as spirit energy users lived long enough, they might find a way to absorb spirit energy themselves?
‘That has to be guarded against. Although Old Man Black said spirit energy users haven’t done it yet, the Spirit Energy Capital might already have techniques in this area.’
Soon, Wang Ji Xuan personally witnessed the growth of high-quality peach wood, comparable to hundred-year-old entry-level spirit roots, on Beta’s body at a speed visible to the naked eye.
This?!
Taoist Wang felt emotional about the words ‘spirit energy’ for the first time.
So many magic weapon materials!
He could take the opportunity to get a peach wood sword specifically for releasing thunder magic!
Although thunder magic would waste a lot of mana because he had too little mana in his body right now, making it impractical at this stage;
But magic weapons and treasures were definitely better to have more of!
Good treasure, cough, good kid!
The Taoist looked at Treant Beta with shining eyes, already harboring the thought of forcibly keeping him, but…
‘Aunt Dragonfly is someone worth befriending, and there’s no need to offend her to death. This cooperation has started, and we can continue to cooperate in the future.’
Wang Jixuan crossed his arms, watching those peach wood branches grow to the thickness of an infant's arm, reaching the limit that Tree Ent Beta could stimulate, and began to harvest them.
Good materials for the array base, here they are!
"The quantity is still far from enough, step on it! Can you still do it, Beta?"
"Of course," Tree Ent Beta smiled smugly, "I can stimulate it twenty times, continuously!"
He really liked this long-lost 'sense of being needed'.
Wang Jixuan said sternly: "You still need to pay attention to rest. It's fine if you do it twenty times in six hours, but don't overexploit."
"Commander, rest assured! Beta guarantees to complete the mission!"
'Truly a kind tree.'
Wang Jixuan sighed with emotion, then turned to the supply vehicle to get some symptomatic talisman water for this guy to relieve the pain of his bark hyperplasia.
The scene changes.
Six hours later.
Tree Ent Beta, exhausted and unconscious, put on his earphones, lay on the back seat of the off-road vehicle, snoring loudly, with a confident smile on his lips.
This guy was indeed exhausted.
Four 'sewing machine' style workbenches were set up in the supply station, and the four people sat down in turn.
Wang Jixuan took out a few simple blueprints and had Ling Tong, Zheng Shiduo, and Mudan each take charge of a part of the 'assembly line' to start processing bundles of high-quality peach wood.
Wang Jixuan left the dozen or so best-quality peach woods for making magic tools later.
In the past six hours, Wang Jixuan had not been idle either. He improved the array base, conceived a simplified array diagram of the Thunder Array, and took out a trapping array to cooperate with the Killing Array—the Misty Yellow Sand Array.
Mo Feng could fly into the sky and escape into the ground. If they missed her with one strike, she could escape directly.
Then simply create a trapping array to increase their fault tolerance!
The layout of the Misty Yellow Sand Array only requires five basic array bases and six 'extension' array bases, which can exert 120% of its effect in a desert environment.
The Thunder Lord Demon Subduing Array requires at least thirty-six basic array bases, and the more 'extension' array bases, the better, up to the number of three hundred and sixty cycles, without being restricted by any weather.
In addition, Wang Jixuan took advantage of these six hours to replenish his talisman reserves and prepare dozens of pure crystal cores for Ling Tong.
"Let's begin," Wang Jixuan said in a deep voice.
Zheng Shiduo, with a stern face, picked up a peach wood and cut it into twenty-centimeter-long pieces with a cutting machine, quickly peeled off the bark with a small knife, and handed it to Ling Tong next to him.
Ling Tong's mechanical arm was equipped with a carving knife, and according to the predetermined program, the wooden block was cut into a semi-circular and semi-square shape, making a mortise and tenon structure, and transferred to Mudan.
Mudan held a special demon-breaking dagger inlaid with crystal cores, and quickly carved complex 'patterns' on these wooden blocks. She was a mechanical body, with no hand shaking and extremely high precision, and the carved patterns were not bad at all.
Wang Jixuan carried out the final step—building blocks.
Soon, a cylindrical, hollow-structured array base appeared in Wang Jixuan's hand, only forty centimeters high.
Wang Jixuan took a deep breath and sprayed a mouthful of essence into the array base, and the various restrictions on the array base were quickly lit up.
He took out two crystal cores and carefully inlaid them on the array plate inside. The array base bloomed with a shallow wave, and then returned to calm, like an ordinary wooden stake.
Success!
Wang Jixuan looked up at his three teammates next to him: "Continue, we need to make at least seventy-two more."
Zheng Shiduo asked curiously: "Is this thing a spiritual energy bomb?"
"No, you'll know soon enough."
Wang Jixuan glanced at the three hundred crystal cores in the box next to him, and a sharp glint flashed in his eyes.
Killing Mo Feng is unlikely to have any substantial gains.
But not killing Mo Feng, his Dao heart is really uneasy!
Since the military is still unable to make up its mind to go to war with the spiritual energy users, then give them another push!
'I still need to prepare two array eyes, these general-level Blade Beast crystal cores will come in handy.'
Not far from the temporary supply station.
On a sand dune, Black Instructor sat in an aircraft, looking at Wang Jixuan and the others on the screen, and couldn't help tilting his head.
"Did this guy get the inheritance of an entire civilization?"
Black Instructor scratched his head, still a little tangled.
The point of his entanglement was that the battle plan submitted by Ling Tong was too risky, and Wang Zheng, their most precious 'resource person', was going to be used as bait.
However, Black Instructor was already prepared. He turned his head to look at the second alloy box marked with an X symbol and sighed softly.
"I can only break the principle a little."
Black Instructor pulled his fingers, and a projection screen that only he could see appeared in front of him. He simply modified the battle plan submitted by Ling Tong and clicked Agree.
'Comrade Zheng Shiduo has made outstanding achievements, has gone through several tests without wavering his position, adheres to the principles of a soldier, and has made great contributions to the cause of mankind's fight against the Blade Beasts. X-Armor is hereby approved for temporary fitting to Zheng Shiduo in order to complete this combat plan.'
About two hours later.
In the stratosphere, in the cabin of a stealth aircraft, Mo Feng, who was applying a facial mask, was suddenly startled by the cheers of her teammates.
"Captain! They agreed to the conditions! They will hand over Feng Bangjie and the special task force members first!"
