Xyrin Empire
Chapter 360 - Chapter 360 Chapter 360 Storm Commander

Chapter 360: Chapter 360 Storm Commander Chapter 360: Chapter 360 Storm Commander The broad underground testing facility was rapidly cleared out, leaving a space with a radius of two hundred meters. Vega, serving as the temporary captain of the research institute’s security team, then had her soldiers set up a simple training ground for new recruits in a matter of minutes. For a standard Xyrin Soldier, organizing a shooting range was obviously a fun affair; the enthusiastic Scorpion Sister even suggested I demolish the boring research institute and simply convert it into a barracks–this illustrates the difference between soldiers and generals; Pandora’s suggestion was to demolish Academy City and build a base instead, but from the perspective of causing headaches, the rigid Scorpion and the war-crazy Loli seemed not much different.

“I… really mastered the ability?”

Zuotian Tsuruya lingered in the resting room for a while, and when she came out, she saw that the original testing ground had completely changed. However, I glossed over such changes with “new technology.” Right now, her main concern was whether she really had mastered superpowers, as from our reactions, it seemed her ability development experiment had made some significant progress.

“Of course,” I said with a mysterious smile on my face, though I also felt a bit odd inside. Although I didn’t think Bubbles would make a mistake on such a simple matter, the idea that a human’s soul structure could be exactly the same as a Xyrin Person’s was simply too fantastical. “Tsuruya, you really don’t feel anything?”

The black-haired girl shook her head, looking puzzled: “No, according to the ability development course, once superpowers are awakened, one should quickly discover this for oneself, but I really don’t feel anything.”

“That’s fine, we’ve already prepared the relevant materials. When the time comes, just follow the instructions.”

As I spoke, I casually patted Tsuruya’s head–it seemed that raising too many Lolis had led to some strange habitual actions…

“Yes, Director…”

Zuotian Tsuruya was momentarily stunned by my pat, then spoke with a slightly flushed face.

“First is the ‘Target Order’ test,” Vega commanded her subordinates to place a large steel plate about twenty meters away, then said to Zuotian Tsuruya, “That metal plate is your target. Concentrate on it and think of it as something you need to destroy, that is, generate hostility towards it.”

Zuotian Tsuruya agreed hesitantly, but her eyes were full of confusion. Obviously, she couldn’t understand why this beautiful sister, originally the captain of the research institute’s security team, would suddenly participate in this experiment. But considering the unreliability of our institute, she felt relieved again.

Never mind, I’ve never understood any of the experiments anyway.

Putting aside her surprise, the black-haired girl followed Vega’s instructions and stared intently at the target in the distance, then started to gather her ‘hatred value’ for the steel plate, which was not easy because generally, unless it hit you on the head, it was hard to harbor much hostility towards a piece of metal…

However, after various ability development experiments, Zuotian Tsuruya was clearly very adept at this kind of self-hypnotization. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but according to our instruments, that steel plate immediately began to generate a large amount of indecipherable information, indicating that it had “noticed” Zuotian Tsuruya.

“You don’t really need to stare… never mind, the effect has already been achieved.”

Vega shook her head, then casually picked up a small metal piece beside her and tossed it at the steel plate.

“Bang!!!”

A loud sound erupted as the thick steel plate, hit by the lightly thrown metal piece, instantly exploded into a large cloud of metallic dust.

“Ah!” Zuotian Tsuruya, busily concentrating, was startled by the loud noise and couldn’t help exclaiming, then stared at Vega beside her with eyes as if looking at a monster. I read this message from it: even if this sister is a security captain, isn’t her strength a bit too much?

“Don’t look at me,” Vega said calmly, “that was because of your power.”

“Me?” Zuotian Tsuruya pointed at her own nose in surprise, her face full of questions.

Since she was not Tsuruya’s superior, Vega didn’t intend to clarify her doubts, but Lin Xue, holding newly printed material, read out, “Targeted by ‘Target Order,’ group defense is reduced by half, individual defense drops to zero. If it’s a structurally simple metal like this, once you’ve locked onto it, its structural integrity becomes zero, enough to maintain itself undamaged under no external force, but any attack will destroy it. We refer to this ability as: Remote Armor Piercing…”

“Is that what I should call you? None of us would use such a ridiculous name for a superpower outright!”

Is this the Storm Commander’s ability? As the records show, it truly is a bug-like existence in group battles, just like this skill known as ‘Target Order.’ The most advanced Storm Commanders can even make the armor of an entire warship crumble with a single glance, but its most powerful aspect isn’t the ability to reduce a single target’s armor to zero, but rather…it can halve the group defense ability of the enemies without any limit.

In war, wouldn’t such a deadly debuff be like having a Golden Finger?

However, Tsuruya shouldn’t possess that level of capability yet. Group armor piercing is only theoretically possible, but even for a true Xyrin Apostle, the number of targets they can lock onto at the same time has a limit. For Tsuruya, an Earthling, making a steel plate soft as tofu is already quite an achievement.

“Next up is the second test, Command Focus.”

Vega continued as the presenter, directing his subordinates to move the second steel plate onto the testing ground. Poor Mr. Steel Plate, you’re really put through the ringer today.

“Uh, this one might be a bit more complicated,” Vega said to the still somewhat confused Tsuruya, “First, you still have to see this steel plate as your target, then mark it as ‘bullseye,’ assigning it a role of ‘receiver of all attacks from our side’; can you do it?”

“I’ll try my best,” Tsuruya hesitated and then nodded, “But why do I feel like this isn’t quite the same as how other power users use their abilities? And what kind of ability should this be categorized as?”

“This thing is called the Talent Tree,” Lin Xue said solemnly, placing her hands on Tsuruya’s shoulders, “You’ll make a qualified Ultraman–even if you don’t have a bunch of small monsters getting beaten up behind you.”

This girl’s ability to bluff is no less than mine!

“Things might get a bit noisy later on, you better brace yourself.”

Seeing a squad of Xyrin Soldiers in security uniforms, carrying heavy machine guns striding forward, I quickly warned Tsuruya, who was trying hard to muster her rage. She turned her head and was instantly shocked: “Those aren’t live ammunition, are they?”

“In theory, yes,” I borrowed Taville’s famous words, “Because sometimes power users’ abilities need special means to be tested, so some research centers are equipped with various military facilities; you know this, right?”

“Uh… this is actually my first time hearing about it…”

Well, these are still just “conventional weapons” brought out specifically for testing; you should see the unknown expressions of two Imperial Fleets we have in storage.

After the Xyrin Soldiers with their machine guns were ready, Tsuruya had already been staring at her target for several seconds, probably trying hard to imagine it as her father’s killer or something. On our instruments, that area had already become an information fountain, with a mass of encrypted data that couldn’t be handled spewing out in all directions, continuously altering the “world’s” definition of that piece of metal.

“Ready!”

As the information eruption on the instrument reached its peak, Vega raised his right hand high and then swung it down sharply.

“Fire!”

“Ratatata…”

The heavy machine guns suddenly roared furiously, bullets poured like a violent storm… in all directions.

Yes, all directions. The dozen or so Xyrin Soldiers weren’t aiming at the steel plate used as the target. They randomly sprayed gunfire all around, but the result was, that unfortunate piece of steel quickly became riddled with crater-like bullet holes.

It was not a guided weapon…

I first ruled out this possibility, those bullets indeed flew straight out, but they all disappeared shortly after leaving the muzzle and then deeply penetrated the steel plate marked by Tsuruya.

“Try throwing a punch into the air.”

Lin Xue, while looking at the data refreshed on the handheld computer, said to me.

I swung my arm randomly without understanding, and then suddenly felt my fist hit something solid in the air, accompanied by a loud “clang,” a deep pit suddenly formed on a metal plate more than twenty meters away from us.

“Being able to guide seventy percent of the attack power when the target is unresistant,” after the calm of the gunfire, Vega nodded and said, “It has already reached the average standard of a general Storm Commander.”

“Does this… already involve the correction of the World Law?”

At this point, I had roughly guessed the attribute of this ability and asked with a puzzled expression.

Lin Xue was still enthusiastically studying the skill description, she answered without lifting her head, “Who knows, the Storm Commander is a very special Xyrin Unit, with abilities between science and mysticism, like this targeted focus command, it’s a surgical strike skill specifically designed to deal with highly mobile enemies, designating the target as the attack recipient, then all attacks emitted from our side will have a hundred percent chance of damaging it, but the attack power will decrease to some extent, and there is an upper limit to the guided attack power, there is a usage record here as an example, that involved a top Storm Commander infiltrating behind enemy lines and marking a city, and then Xyrin People setting off fireworks at their own base… how come this reminds me of Dalaran being destroyed in a similar manner? Ah Jun, do you have someone called Akmonde under you?”

“Cut it out.”

I slapped Lin Xue on the head, but my mind was already filled with confusion.

Tsuruya’s ability was discovered by us, no wonder we always thought she had no abilities, it turned out to be this special method needed to activate them, but…

How could a human master the skills of a Storm Commander?

The Storm Commander, that should be a branch of Xyrin Apostles, exceptionally unique with extremely low combat ability, but with formidable command skills and team support abilities, and they were even jokingly called “movable fire control towers,” their own attack power was even weaker than that of an elite soldier, but on the battlefield, any skill from a Storm Commander could multiply our army’s combat power several times, yet the human, Tsuruya, is also a Storm Commander– I’d believe you if you said she was actually a Namekian disguised as a human! At least Saiyans are still within the category of carbon-based life forms, right?

At this moment, Tsuruya, the person in question, finally realized, and then pointed bewilderingly at her own nose, “Am I… a dual ability user?”

“Uh, probably not…” I quickly said, this time Tsuruya’s awakening of an ability that was supposed to be exclusive to Xyrin People was completely beyond our expectations, we just wanted to lend a hand, but the situation had suddenly become a hundred times more complicated, I still needed to think carefully about how to handle this matter, before that, I couldn’t let Tsuruya have too many suspicions, “Well, your ability should relate to changing the attributes of the target material, we will continue to study this, by the way, regarding your ability, I have a request.”

“Hmm?” Tsuruya looked curious.

“Before our research concludes, try not to fully expose your ability, because… well, because it’s part of the confidential scientific research of our institute, it’s outlined in the original contract, just demonstrate the first mode of using your ability to outsiders, as for the ability description the institute will prepare it for you, this can also save you a lot of trouble…”

I felt my explanation was quite chaotic, even full of contradictions, but the black-haired girl in front of me readily nodded her head and said with a smile, “Understood!”

“The ultimate charm halo, huh?”

Lin Xue teased on the side, and then without waiting for me to react, she immersed herself back into the experiment on Tsuruya’s abilities.

The entire experiment lasted a full three hours.

The result was shocking. Aside from a few skills that only a Xyrin Apostle with a special physical structure could master, Zuotian Tsuruya now had the ability level of a trained Junior Storm Commander!

What’s going on? Am I the one going crazy, this world, or that middle-aged man typing in front of a computer? Didn’t he consider the normality of the world view at all!?

Well, rant over.

To get more data more quickly, we kept a continuous connection with Bubbles throughout the entire experiment. Thanks to the never-crashing super space Empire information link, during the experimentation, Bubbles, along with a dozen other Xyrin Hosts, were processing data at high speed and synchronously conveying the results to us. Regarding the fact that Zuotian Tsuruya had mastered the skills of a Storm Commander, Bubbles sent us several top probabilities in sequence. The top possibility was that, during the exposure to the Nest Crystal Radiation, Zuotian Tsuruya’s spiritual power had mutated prematurely and overflowed uncontrollably, resulting in the hibernation chamber’s preservation device failing to intercept the spread of her spirit. The free spiritual power then resonated with a nearby Xyrin Apostle’s soul and mutated into a “pseudo-Xyrin Soul,”–a scenario that sounds like it’s straight out of a fantasy novel and is the closest to the truth according to Bubbles, with a likelihood of…

Zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one…

Then I simply ignored the other stuff that girl sent over.

“If you are allowed to have a brain that can remotely control the Xyrin Mother Star, then why can’t Zuotian Tsuruya have a soul that can use Xyrin People’s abilities?”

In the end, Lin Xue ended our wild speculation about the “Zuotian Tsuruya Phenomenon” with that remark, and then this scammer who considered himself above worldly concerns dove back into testing Tsuruya’s abilities…

“So, what are you planning to do?”

Watching Tsuruya gleefully testing her “superpower” in the training grounds, Big Sister suddenly asked in a low voice.

“I meant to help others, but ended up creating an artificial Apostle. The kind of power Zuotian Tsuruya has is truly special.”

It really gives me a headache, honestly.

Zuotian Tsuruya awakening any ability would have been fine, even if she had literally become capable of pulling a Thunder Light Battle Axe with a hundred thousand horsepower from her stomach pocket, I wouldn’t have been bothered. But her becoming a Xyrin Apostle–pseudo, that’s tricky.

That’s a power that absolutely doesn’t belong to this world, it even partially involves rewriting the World Law, and the way it’s triggered, the energy fluctuations are completely different from existing magic and superpowers, whether it’s Aresta that upside-down man or Lola that fox woman, they will soon discover this special girl, Zuotian Tsuruya, and then…our original good intentions could be grossly distorted.

But to seal this power…

With my ability, it would be very easy to do so, but looking at Tsuruya who is happily not far away, I just can’t bring myself to do it!

“We’ll take it one step at a time,” I finally sighed, “at worst, we’ll just have to make both the scientific and magical factions acknowledge us by force, given the enormous merit of saving the world, collecting some handling fee shouldn’t be too much.”

“That’s definitely a decision only Ah Jun could make,” Big Sister said with a gentle smile, “This kind of undecisive decision really makes your sister happy.”

Sis, your comment makes me feel very ambiguous!

“Ah Jun, Ah Jun~!” Just then, Qianqian’s voice suddenly rang out from beside, “The guards at the door said Chichun Shili and the others have arrived, should we pause our testing for a while?”

Chichun Shili?

I was startled, then looked at my watch.

“Crap! Is it that time already?!” (To be continued. If you wish to read more about how this story unfolds, please visit www.NovelFire.net, where more chapters are available and support the author, support genuine reading!)