Chương 213: AFS 2: Strange Flame Strangeness - Part 6 - We’re Not Done Yet!

Seriously, I could have gotten out of there myself… eventually. I had used most of my spiritual energy keeping my heat-shield up to protect me from the scorching lava and its weight. Then it cooled and hardened around me as I moved up. I was planning on using my last bit of energy as sword Qi to slice my way out, but my divine sense picked up on Spring running toward me. From the way his energy pulsed, I knew he was about to increase his physical rank.

If I was going to be his teacher in the future, I needed to give him space to grow, and if that meant I had to get stuck in rock for a while longer so he could have his growth period, that was what I would do. The only issue was that now, I was almost drained of spiritual energy. Spring had also overdone it and needed time to recuperate.

"Did you get the strange flame you wanted?" Spring asked. I gave him a look.

"Of course! Who do you think I am?"

"Fairy Lin."

"That's right! Muahahaha!" I pushed myself up and sat in the lotus position.

"Watch my back!" He nodded and struggled to get up. Then he sat with his back pressed up against mine. Yeah, I hadn't meant that literally. He was using me as a damn back rest! Ah, whatever. I'd let it go this once because he looked tired. I breathed in the energy of the heavens and the earth. It was very thick in the area so it was very easy to take it in, cycle it, store it in my dantian next to my golden core, and breathe out the impurities.

Actually, even if the energy around here was thick, it was a little too easy. My speed was faster than it usually was as well. What would have taken me six hours only took me three. The fuck was going on?

"Hey, scoot forward." Spring scooted forward a few feet.

"Oh, am I too heavy? Sorry." I snorted. As if. I then continued. When I cycled my cultivation, it wasn't nearly as fast.

"Goddamn it."

"..." He cleared his throat.

"Is there something wrong?"

"This calls for a test!" I moved over and pressed both of my hands to Spring's back.

"I'm going to cycle my energy through you, and I want you to tell me which way you feel the most amount of resistance from the universe."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"You will." I infused my spiritual energy into him and moved it in the normal direction of the Qi Condensation version of Lin's Kick Ass Cultivation Technique, No Peeking. He stiffened. His jaw clenched. I stopped before gathering Qi strands in his dantian. His natural spiritual energy that had begun to stir, stilled and went back to being diffuse within his body. When it finished settling, I reversed it. He paled. His knuckles turned white, but he didn't look like he was in pain.

I stopped it before I reached his dantian.

"Did you feel it?" He nodded.

"The first one felt terrible and unnatural."

"And the second version?"

"It felt natural, like I was built for it. But it also felt like I was doing something terrible. It was mentally exhausting." I nodded and slapped his back. My hand ached. Damn it, the SSS physique was nothing to sneeze at.

"Alright. I think I know how to build your cultivation technique. We'll just have to prepare more extensively for it because you'll have to reach Golden Core in one go, like me." I stood up.

"I'm done cultivating for now, and if we stay here much longer, we won't be able to meet up with our faked telemetry data." He jumped to his feet, likely realizing that we were close to getting caught. He paused.

"What about the rubber for the mech's feet?" I grimaced.

"Ten minutes and I'll MacGyver a temporary fix." Who knew that one crafter's formation, which added a kind of grippy friction to a surface, would actually come in handy?

I pointed past Spring's head.

"To the left, now!" He twisted his wrist, pulled back on the throttle, and jumped through the trees just in time for Steve to come flying toward us. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. He'd just finished slowing our speed down to normal, when a blue mech burst from the trees. It was Maya Chen's mech! It had her team's small blue flag attached to its back. Ah shit. How did we find the Blue team, already?

It was almost like the damn author was trying to speed things up because she was behind schedule and bit off more than she could chew. The good thing for us was that she was by herself and had her team's flag.

"Quick, shoot it!" Since lethal shots were illegal in this challenge, Spring aimed his rifle toward the mech's feet and fired. Maya dodged while shooting at our shoulders. She practically flew backwards into the massive shrubbery, regaining cover.

"You missed."

"She dodged."

"Your physique is better now, so it still counts as a miss." He scowled.

"I'm still getting used to it." With my divine sense, I noticed something off. Something dangerous. Fuck! This wasn't supposed to happen for another day or two. Unless just by being here I've already changed the timeline from the original story. I grabbed Spring's shoulder.

"What?"

"Six heavy flying star crabs coming in fast on our 2!" [Image Link]"They're star bugs!"

"Argue semantics with me when we're not in the middle of a fight." His jaw clenched.

"I'm really not looking forward to fighting our real enemy in this shitty survival challenge mech."

"If you can take out S-rank rabbits with this thing, you can take out star crabs with it."

"When did I take out rabbits?" Obviously, during our trip with Chad. Two of the heavy flying crabs dived into the trees. After a few seconds, the blue mech burst into the small clearing we were in and pulled at the massive winged crab clutching at its cabin and spat acid on the mech's head. Just as its black shiny claw was about to crack open the cockpit, Spring fired a blast at its limb, severing it. The heavy crab fell off, before flying again.

"Behind us!" Spring turned the mech, jumped back and fired at the three crabs dive bombing us. Several warnings sounded on the screen as their claws scraped along our armor. I opened my light brain, which only managed to survive the lava thanks to the heat shield I was using. I used my access as the mech's engineer to review the warnings. It was a message from HQ telling us that a massive mothership appeared over the planet and to take out any star crabs we find. We couldn't allow them to hide eggs on the planet.

They also specifically mentioned that this wasn't a big enough deal to end the challenge, and that every space crab was worth ten times the points as a beast of equal rank.

"..." Why did I feel like I just experienced my boss telling me to come into work even though a blizzard was outside? Fuck. Well, at least they also mentioned that their livestream would turn off, but the bots would still be physically recording. While they didn't mention why, it was absolutely because they couldn't risk accidentally showing students getting killed by humanity's greatest enemy. While Spring and Maya declared a non-verbal truce to take out the bugs, I focused on holding the mech together.

Really, I could take care of it myself if I just left the space and took out my sword, but that would be too conspicuous with Steve and the blue mech right there. The knees were starting to get too hot, so I increased the coolant to that area. Next, Spring's rifle started to overheat. Goddamn piece of shit standard mech.

"Stop firing and dodge!"

"They'll get closer if I do. Then I won't be able to dodge their acid. We don't have armor to replace that many lost panels."

"Well, you won't have a gun if you keep firing that fast. Your new rank means you're faster. You have to slow down to your original speed or our mech can't keep up." The tips of his ears turned red. The cabin shook as he began dodging more and letting the rifle rest. Soon, Spring and the blue mech both shot down the final crab together. The two stared at each other. I sighed.

"Fuck it, it's just a game. I'd feel bad leaving the blue team without a way to defend themselves. Let's just go meet back up with your sister. Knowing Chad, he probably ran into a human-shaped space crab and needs help." He paused, as if debating it. Then he ran toward their flag. Goddamn it. [Image Link] Spring used the mech's superior mobility from my enchantment, as well as his new SSS reflexes, to get behind Maya and grab the flag from her mech's back. Then he ran with it back toward the volcano.

Of course, the blue mech chased after us, but could it keep up? Hell no. We were practically flying.

"Fuck. We're totally not being low key."

"Are you mad?" I didn't respond to the obvious. He briefly glanced back at me.

"I knew I could grab it, so I did."

"..."

"HQ was going to find out about your adjustments eventually, right? And modifying mechs once the challenge starts isn't forbidden." He veered off and headed toward where Chad and YaoYao were.

"…"

"Come on. If we let the Blue team get their flag back to base first, they would have won. I couldn't let that happen."

"Shut up and pilot." I didn't have the heart to tell him that I wanted to rush to Chad and YaoYao to prevent the aphrodisiac incident from happening since the timeline of this arc seemed to have been moved forward. By stealing the flag and wasting time running away, we might be too late. Well, it might not happen at all. The plot could be wrong. Then again, the detour we just made to run from the Blue team might just hurt two people in the name of forwarding the dumbass romance plotline.