The Almighty Ring

The construction of a Valsalrian spaceship was different from that of the Namekians. With a quick look, any human would recognize a Namekian spaceship from science fiction games and stories.

Its structure was heavily based on metal frames and there was steel plating on its hull. Even its overall structure would not be too alien from Earthly designs.

On the other hand, Valsalrian ships are like huge living creatures. With just a quick examination, Jiang Fei could feel traces of living organisms mixed in with the metal that made up the ship.

Even though the structure was almost similar to a regular spaceship, the entire ship looked very much… alive.

Jiang Fei was currently onboard one of the many scout ships Alexis used to explore planets and interplanetary bodies. It looked very much like a crab, except that it was huge and currently flying through space.

Alexis explained that such a metal was simply called Bio-Metal. It is used to make up the external platings of a ship as it has self-repairing mechanisms. It sounded amazing but Jiang Fei could not help but feel like something was strange.

The Valsalrian used Energy-based technology extensively, but they had never before applied it to their ship. As such, their ship’s barrier tech was perhaps even weaker than Braveheart.

However, Bio-Metal provides certain benefits that regular metal lacks. With its self-mending ability, a ship with Bio-Metal would last longer than one made from regular metal. Energy shields and barriers are dependent on Energy and when the ship runs out of power, so would their shields.

Besides having the self-mending ability, Bio-Metal also has other special characteristics. Unfortunately, Alexis did not think it was important enough to explain it to Jiang Fei. Jiang Fei held back his curiosity, feeling like it would be too much for a new member to suddenly ask so many questions.

After docking with the main cruiser, Alexis brought Jiang Fei onto the bridge with him and ordered a “jump”. Jiang Fei thought that it would be some kind of large scale teleportation system, but when the ship started to move, Jiang Fei could not be more surprised. A hexagonal rift was generated by a Wayfinder that was hovering in front of the cruiser.

“Commander, course set for Redstone. Ready for jump at your command,” reported the pilot.

“All hands, we are returning to base. Strap yourselves in,” said Alexis, speaking into a device that broadcasted his command to the entire ship.

Before Jiang Fei could prepare himself, the ship made a sudden thrust forward and entered a phase space through the rift.

“Jiang Fei, we are going to the base of the Valsalrian army. It’s going to be a lot harsher there. There are a lot of rules there so… watch yourself. You can still get away with a lot, but under no circumstances should you ever cross the young master. Not even I would be able to step in and save you if you did,” said Alexis.

Alexis had his sights set on Jiang Fei becoming his right hand man and planned to train him until he reached that standard of strength. Until then, he doesn’t want Jiang Fei to do something that would anger the young master. That would be such a waste of his life.

“I understand. Rules are there for a reason. Without them, we are all animals,” said Jiang Fei. He knew that he was still too weak, and being a new member, it was best not to offend anyone.

Three hours later, the cruiser as well as other ships jumped out of the rift and arrived to a planet 120,000,000,000 light years away from the Milky Way Galaxy.

The last encounter between the Valsalrian with Ragnatos and Therazane was a pure coincidence. They were stranded in zero gravity when a fleet of Valsalrian bandits had just happened to sail past. Otherwise, it was extremely unlikely for any of the Valsalrian fleet to sail into the Milky Way galaxy or even into the Solar System at all.

About 10 minutes later, the cruiser docked on one of the planet’s ports. The planet they had just landed on was twice the size of Earth, orbiting around a small Red Dwarf star.

From Jiang Fei’s point of view, there was not much he could learn. Astrophysics was never his forte. All he knew was that the star was red and the planet was large.

Once the docking sequence was complete, Alexis and Jiang Fei boarded a shuttlecraft. The two then left the hangar bay and headed towards the surface of the planet.

Everything was going smoothly until the door of the shuttlecraft opened. Jiang Fei felt a powerful, overbearing wave of gravity and it almost knocked him to the ground.

Both the cruiser and the shuttlecraft ran on their own artificial gravity systems. Even though the gravity on the ship was set to a level that was only slightly higher than that of Earth, he did not feel any difference since he’s a Level 5 Metahuman.

However, when the shuttlecraft landed and the artificial system was shut off, the planet’s own gravity kicked in, measuring at a level of almost five times that of Earth!

“Urgh!” grunted Jiang Fei. He tried his best to prevent the pull of gravity from crushing his body.

“How are you feeling?” asked Alexis.

“It was a bit of a shock, but I can still move,” said Jiang Fei as he struggled to force himself to stand straight. He could literally feel his spinal discs crashing into each other as he speaks.

“I’m going to report in now. Take this time to get used to it. Go out and explore the place. We’ll head to Central once you can move about freely,” said Alexis.

Though the failure to retrieve the Core of Time was disappointing, it was never Jiang Fei’s fault. As Alexis deduced, the Core might have never been in the Solar System at all.

However, recruiting Jiang Fei as part of his crew was a good consolation prize, despite it being an achievement that Alexis would not want to report.

“I’ll do my best,” said Jiang Fei, as he tried to exert a little energy into his body to walk.

Once he was alone, Jiang Fei started to lower the amount of energy he poured into his body. Even though 5G could not do much to a Level 5 Metahuman like him, he was still slightly weakened.

He had never experienced a g-force greater than that of Earth, having lived there since birth. With time, he would get used to things here.

If he was being honest with himself, Jiang Fei was actually thrilled. Being in such a harsh environment would only be beneficial to his growth. No wonder the Valsalrians were so strong — they had been living and fighting on a planet with such a high g-force!

After about 5 minutes, Jiang Fei was able to walk around slowly. It had been a while since just walking had made him need to catch his breath, and that was before he had picked up the almighty ring!

By dropping Alexis’ name everywhere he goes, the entire base was practically his to explore. But Jiang Fei understood that while he might be in the Valsalrian base of operations, he was still a distance away from Central.

Alexis was on his way there, to meet with someone called the young master, leaving Jiang Fei alone in a strange, alien place.

A voice rang out from his communicator. “Who are you?”

Jiang Fei turned around, searching for the source of the voice, and realized that there was a humanoid feline looking at him with her straight, cat-like eyes.

“Huh? Me?” replied Jiang Fei.

He was genuinely surprised to hear such a comment coming from an alien species. The catgirl was speaking in fluent Mandarin!

“Where are you from? What tongue do you speak?” asked the catgirl, cocking her head like a curious cat.

“You can understand me?” asked Jiang Fei.

“Are you daft? You’re wearing a translator device and you’re still baffled about how I can understand you?!” said the catgirl, pouting.

“Translator…?” said Jiang Fei, reaching up to his ear.

He had been wearing the same communicator device created by 0541 for a long time, and never realized that it had a translation system.

“You’re still not answering my question. Who are you?” said the catgirl, strutting towards Jiang Fei with her tail swinging side to side.

“Uhm… I’m new here. I’ve just joined the band. Who might you be?” said Jiang Fei, stuttering all the way.

“My name is Sarila. Where did you say you were from again?” said Sarila as she sniffed Jiang Fei’s surroundings.

“I’m from Earth and I’m speaking one of the thousands of languages we have there,” said Jiang Fei.

“Earth… What a stupid name for a planet. Might as well call it dirt. Anyway, Commander Alexis sent me here to pick up someone called Jiang Fei. My guess is, that’s you,” said Sarila as she stopped sniffing around. She had probably picked up his scent from Commander Alexis.

“Indeed, I am.”

If Alexis had sent her over to tend to Jiang Fei, he must also have a plan for his future in Redstone.

“Come. I’ll have you report to the Recruit Training Ground,” said Sarila, spinning around and walking off.

The catgirl was only curious about Jiang Fei’s musical-sing-songy language and nothing more. Still struggling to keep up with her speed, Jiang Fei was coming across as a weak being.

If he couldn’t even adapt to Redstone’s gravity, he would not be able to go much further.