Sky-cracking Rider
Chapter 886 - 886: Section 879 - Eighteen Falls

Bang!~

The earth quaked, and metal fragments flew all over the sky.

In the control tower of the 310 airport, everyone's eyes were bulging out.

Chen Fei yawned boringly. It wasn't him who crashed, and he didn't need to use his brain. Just a dozen heavy evolution processes, and he was about to rot from boredom.

From 8 AM to 5 PM, that damned Crystal Jet crashed eighteen times. The lawn by the main runaway, which had been maintained for nearly a hundred years, was completely destroyed, pockmarked everywhere, and even the innocent little animal corpses were visible. Truly inhumane!

Before the last piece of debris hit the ground, basketball-sized mechanical spiders swarmed out like a tidal wave, digging and collecting all the debris three feet deep.

The battle-ready airport with a long history inevitably had many fragments and parts of warplanes left behind near the main runaway, especially fastening parts of various specifications. The cleaning mechanical spiders gathered them all cleanly, accumulating more than ten tons over a hundred years.

Compared to the slight loss when the Crystal Jet crashed, the final metal materials had a slight surplus. Only related functional modules were damaged. Previously, a batch was stocked, just to be used again, even if it crashed a hundred times or a thousand times. There's always enough.

"This time, what went wrong again!"

"Is it a structural problem again?"

"No, it's the conflict on the aerodynamic control surface, there was turbulence, a fluid design flaw, and the overload caused by that maneuver just now exceeded the threshold."

"Nonsense, it should be the vector coordination's insufficiency!"

"..."

The young engineers, who gathered together because of their interest in the Crystal Jet, were all in a state of high excitement, even forgetting to eat lunch. They stared at the display screen, checking flight data and tracking data, trying to further optimize the design plan, their faces flushed red, almost rolling up their sleeves and fighting on the spot.

Birds of a feather flock together, both sides were extremely bold. One side was willing to crash, the other side was willing to devote all their skills and knowledge. Crashing many times, even if they were still continuously improving, they became more meticulous on the small details.

A completely perfect Crystal Jet did not exist. The design path lay in trade-offs, emphasizing strengths and avoiding weaknesses, or cleverly using weaknesses, turning decay into magic. It not only required a delicate design mindset but also needed actual flight testing verification.

Despite supercomputer simulations and large wind tunnels for verification, nothing could compare to actual flight. Various extreme maneuvers performed, and massive data collected simultaneously. It not only aimed to release the practical performance of the design plan as much as possible but also prepared for compiling aerial combat skills.

The power of Sky Knights was not entirely due to the Crystal Jet but lay in tactical suppression. How well aerial combat skills could be performed was the key to determining the battle's victory.

Understanding depth from books was ultimately shallow, to truly know this, one must practice oneself.

To mature a design plan, you could only rely on crashes, either in test flights or actual combat.

After crashing eighteen times in one day, the Crystal Jet plan perfected by Nangong Ruiyang and others was already reborn.

"Alright, that's it for today, stop!"

Chen Fei glanced at the time and stopped the continued test flights.

The Crystal Jet, still passing low above the ground, performed a nimble small-radius turn, took the opportunity to decelerate, and slowly vertically landed next to the Giant Battleship. This time, it finally landed safely.

The Magic Array was a characteristic of the Crystal Jet. The vertical takeoff and landing feature, adaptable to most takeoff and landing environments, was not new, usually a standard design.

"Not continuing? It's still early! Oh? The sun is setting, hey hey, try a night flight!"

Nangong Ruiyang frowned, just about to protest when he finally noticed the setting sun slowly descending on the horizon.

Unknowingly, an entire day had passed. Indeed, time flew.

"It's getting late, let's talk about it tomorrow, let's eat first!"

Chen Fei signaled to his battleship, the hatch opened wide, and only then did Nangong Ruiyang and Shen Fei notice that the ship was brightly lit, with even people moving inside.

"Did you really build this battleship yourself?"

Shen Fei, holding the Little Bird, still couldn't believe that this massive thing was created by Chen Fei's special ability.

If he entered the battleship manufacturing industry, global manufacturers would be utterly crushed. Not to mention, just the manufacturing cost alone would make all peers vomit blood in buckets, their lives hanging by a thread.

"Of course, it was put together piece by piece, but the larger it is, the less technical content it has."

Chen Fei led the way in front, looking back at the Crystal Jet, which had completed its landing.

The Crystal Jet, smaller in size compared to the battleship, required higher technical content and design requirements.

The battleship wasn't that technically difficult because it didn't need complex maneuvers. Its shape only needed to meet basic aerodynamic requirements. The rest were the Magic Array, energy core, and propulsion coordination. The internal flight control system wasn't even much more complex than the Big Mouth Monster turboprop aircraft.

During the day, lunches were provided by the airport. Chen Fei took over dinner, no longer bothering the 310 airport's canteen. After all, their meal supply was finite, suddenly adding so many people would inevitably cause some scrambling.

The Giant Battleship, with hundreds of extra passengers, had all sorts of facilities, and the canteen's scale far surpassed the 310 airport's, temporarily adding dozens of pairs of chopsticks was hardly a problem.

Looking around, this place hardly resembled a private battleship. Before Nangong Ruiyang could marvel, the aroma of food permeating the canteen's air finally made him realize his last meal was ten hours ago. Hunger had long set in, and the reaction from low blood sugar hit him like a wave.

The canteen staff loudly called out to the newcomers, "Grab your trays here, take as much as you want, but no waste."

The engineers from the Northern Weapons Industry Group immediately rushed to line up for their trays, satisfying their growling stomachs.

With a tray and a portion of dinner, Shen Fei followed and sat opposite Chen Fei, picked up her chopsticks, and said, "There are so many people here?"

The others also sat not far away, even Nangong Ruiyang didn't come over, giving Shen Fei and Chen Fei some space to be alone.

"This is actually a refuge battleship, a modern version of 'Noah's Ark.' These people were specially selected."

Chen Fei didn't start eating immediately but took out a large basin from his "spatial branding," threw in several large pieces of raw meat, and placed it by the table.

"Howl!~"

Hidden in the shadows, the Shadow Wolf immediately sprang out, burying its head in the basin and feasting.

Though a wolf and a magical beast, in Chen Fei's eyes, it was merely a watchdog repaying its debt.

"Refuge? Ark? What do you mean?"

Even though the battleship's total length was 600 meters, Shen Fei still didn't understand.

For a private battleship, this was way too big.

"One of the preparations for the 'end of the world,' it can hold about a thousand people, now it's only half-filled, all are prime reproductive humans, potentially becoming the 'fire seeds' for human continuation. Things may not develop that far, but it's better to be prepared."

Chen Fei accepted the so-called "Ark" program, constantly on guard. Perhaps he could take his family along. They had a battleship too.

1341 people weren't the Giant Battleship's limit. With his special ability, the ship's size could further expand as long as time and resources were sufficient. It would eventually become a true interstellar ark, self-sufficient for a long time even if no terraformable planets were found.

This batch of "Noahs" weren't all dignitaries and their descendants. The so-called important figures and their relatives were prioritized but still had to meet the criteria.

If it just carried a group of potbellied, arrogant old men, it wouldn't gain support. Chen Fei, controlling the entire battleship, wouldn't accept it.

"End of the world? Hasn't the future changed?"

Shen Fei held her chopsticks and was slightly stunned. She and Chen Fei were among the first to learn of the "prophecy" from Louis Landon, President of Louis Industrial Company. But now significant event nodes had changed.

The Dimensional Gate on Cangqiong Star hadn't fallen, Longinus hadn't fallen into the parasitic species' hands, the future had changed, and Blue Star Civilization's end might not come as "prophesied."

Secretary Shen didn't know that Blue Star Civilization had even greedily reached into the parasitic species' Life Planet, launching a stunning counterattack, bringing the war to the enemy's turf.

Chen Fei sighed and said, "We're far from being able to completely relax. The future trend has changed, but the ultimate outcome may not truly reverse. The parasitic species still exist as a whole, and as long as they're not completely wiped out, the threat remains."

This time returning home, besides cooperating with Nangong Ruiyang's interest group in test flying the Crystal Jet, he also wanted to see his girlfriend and make some preparations.

The "preparations" came from the Blue Star Global United Defense Committee's "Ark" plan.

"When there's danger, don't charge in blindly, keep your guard up."

Shen Fei grabbed Chen Fei's hand. She saw firsthand what he could do when heated during his first day at work.

As her thoughtful boyfriend, it was hard to feel at ease with him flying outside.

Chen Fei naturally patted his girlfriend's hand and said, "Don't worry! I now sit behind the lines with plenty of cannon fodder available, it's not my turn to lead the charge anymore."

"Tweet!"

Pure Light Sparrow Xiao Jiu hopped around their trays, sneaking bites.

It pecked at its leg ring, a fully loaded bottle of red wine rolled out, hitting both Chen Fei and Shen Fei's hands.

Sigh...

Light up candles, raise glasses.

A toast to Sparrow Sparrow.

A second toast to my girlfriend.

A third toast to myself.

Ceremony complete!