Space Odyssey from Abandoned Mining Space Station

Old Wu suddenly leaned back on the sofa and shook his head. ”No way. It’s only convenient for me to work from here. Old Wu’s intel network and his colonies were all set up nearby. I can’t just go somewhere else.”

”Old Lü might be able to lay low somewhere else, but I definitely can’t.”

Seeing this, Chen Ming didn’t push him, he only asked, ”Are you carrying the terminal I gave you before?”

Old Wu reached into his clothes pocket, took out the terminal Chen Ming had given him, and waved it in front of Chen Ming.

”Good, then take this as well.”

Chen Ming reached out in front of Old Wu. Some metallic liquid appeared out of thin air and gradually formed what looked like a very ordinary men’s necklace and a wrist guard.

Old Wu casually took the two items and asked, ”What’s this?”

”The necklace can monitor your heartbeat and carotid pulse.”

”The wrist guard can monitor your pulse, and it comes with a built‑in alarm device.”

Besides what Chen Ming said out loud, this wrist guard actually also carried a device he’d learned from the President, one that detects surrounding Spiritual Energy Fluctuation.

Any offensive Spiritual Energy Fluctuation, once detected, would make the wrist guard automatically pop out a protective membrane made of Spiritual Metal to shield the wearer.

”Let’s hope you never need it. I’ll go bring a set to the factory director in a bit.”

”Oh right, you have to keep the terminal on you too.”

All of these would be the foundation for Chen Ming to provide support if Old Wu ran into danger in the future.

Old Wu very straightforwardly put on the two protective items Chen Ming had given him right then and there, and asked in passing, ”Got anything else?”

”Nope, just these three things.”

”Alright.”

Old Wu adjusted himself a bit, hiding the necklace and wrist guard.

Chen Ming nodded in satisfaction and asked, ”By the way, has the Boss come back?”

”Nope. The hardware store’s still closed. No idea when he’ll be back.”

”Then we’ll leave it at that.”

This time Chen Ming was a bit pressed for time anyway; after all, He Gu was still waiting for him.

So Chen Ming didn’t chat more with Old Wu and got up to leave the bar.

After making another trip to the factory director, chatting briefly, and giving the director the same set of items,

Chen Ming returned to the port.

Standing in front of his ship, he took out his terminal and called the Boss.

The call was connected very quickly.

The Boss’s voice came through. ”Xiao Ming? How come you had time to call me?”

”I happened to be free recently, and I’m about to head to the Fourteenth Legion headquarters again. It might take a while. I was going to look for you at the Space Station, but you weren’t there, so I figured I’d give you a call.”

”Oh, I’m still over at Red Ink. Got some things to deal with here.”

Chen Ming asked, ”Still about Cai Mo?”

”The matter with Cai Mo is already over, and what I needed to do is done too. The President has something for me, I’ll probably be back in a couple of days.”

”Things are pretty good on your side. Being able to go to headquarters means the Fourteenth Legion has started seeing you as one of their own.”

”Yeah, it’s mainly He Gu from the Spiritual Ability Research Institute who invited me over.”

”Spiritual Ability Research Institute?” The Boss sounded a bit surprised when he heard that name. ”Does that mean your Spiritual Energy development is almost done?”

”Not really, He Gu just invited me to go over once. It’s still mainly about the upcoming war. My Spiritual Energy can still be developed; I haven’t hit the ceiling yet.”

”Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

The Boss let out a sigh of amazement. ”Your Spiritual Energy is outrageous enough as it is. You can affect both machines and organisms. I have no idea how you pull that off.”

Chen Ming said very modestly, ”Honestly, I feel like my Spiritual Energy is still the same as at the beginning, still based on controlling ships. I just figured Biological Spaceships are still ships...”

”Stop. Don’t say it. I wouldn’t believe you even if you explained. I just want to see what new tricks your Spiritual Energy will come up with later.”

”...”

”I’m actually thinking about how to keep developing my Spiritual Energy right now, but I don’t really have a clear direction.”

Between the lines, Chen Ming was hinting that he wanted some guidance from the Boss.

But the Boss didn’t give Chen Ming what he wanted. ”That’s something I can’t really advise you on.”

”The extent of your Spiritual Energy development has already gone beyond what I originally envisioned. At the start I could teach you some basics and all that, but for the direction afterwards, I can’t give you any more experience.”

”You have to understand that a given Spiritual Energy is always understood best by the Psychic who has it. Only the Psychic themselves can best develop their own Spiritual Energy.”

”So what comes next depends on your own growth.”

”Unless you go down the official route.”

”That’d still be too early.”

Chen Ming had only just learned some new things from the Crimson Dimension and was waiting to use them to further develop his Spiritual Energy. How could he willingly give up the upper limit of his Spiritual Energy development now?

”I think I can keep developing it. Once I’m almost there, then I’ll go learn in a systematic way. Looks like I’ll have to figure it out myself for now.”

”Mm, good luck. I really look forward to seeing the day you fully develop your Spiritual Energy.”

After they chatted idly for a few more minutes, just before hanging up,

The Boss suddenly said to Chen Ming, ”Oh right, you said you’re going to headquarters because of the war with the Mechanical Race, right?”

”Yeah.”

The Boss paused for a moment on the other end and said, ”Mm... forget it, it’s nothing. That’s it then, I’m hanging up.”

”Huh?”

Chen Ming froze for a second when he heard what the Boss said, but the terminal only had the busy tone of a call being hung up.

Chen Ming was full of question marks at this point.

Earlier, when they’d gotten to talking about going to headquarters, He Gu had also given him a baffling smile.

And now the Boss was also ending things with a strange question when talking about headquarters.