"A rat?"
There was no telling whether Iron Commander Zhou Hengdao was angry, in a trance, in disbelief, or in relief. He took a few steps back and fell back into the buffer rune array. He mumbled, "A super warship dozens of kilometers long and weighing hundreds of millions of tons has been crafted with all the resources of the Flying Star Sector and the best refiners of the time and effort!"
"Hundreds of thousands of the most elite soldiers and the strongest Cultivators have been loaded on the warship. The 'Heavenly Might Cannon', the main gun of the warship, can blow up a town or leave a giant crater thousands of meters in diameter on the surface of a planet!
"Such a super warship has been destroyed by a tiny rat.
"It was definitely not a common rat!"
Luoxingzi defended himself in embarrassment. "Fellow Cultivator Zhou, you should be well aware that the environment of the Heaven's Origin Sector and the Flying Star Sector are vastly different. In the Flying Star Sector, we are a starship civilization that lives in the vacuum of the universe with our crystal warships!
"Of course, there are rats on our starships, too. But the environment in the universe is relatively simple, and there are not so many variants of rats!
"The internal defense system of the tubes, wires, and crystal processors inside Burning Prairie are all designed to deal with the 'carious creatures in the universe'!
"We haven't seen many demon beasts in the Flying Star Sector. How do we know how to take precautions against them?
"The Tian Yuan Realm is different. This place was a world of demons five hundred years ago. Right now, it borders the Blood Demon Sector. The Grand Desolate Plateau is a paradise for demon beasts, too!
"Ever since we docked in the Tian Yuan Realm, our greatest enemy has not been demons but the demonized cockroaches, fleas, and rats that have popped up out of nowhere! It's true that the Heavenly Might Cannon can blow up a town of demons in one shot, but how can it kill all the demonized rats and cockroaches on the starship?
"All in all, the rat must be a demonized rat from the Tian Yuan Realm. God knows what kind of evil arts and techniques it has!"
Luoxingzi felt wronged, too. He talked for a long time, but his main thought was that it was truly an accident.
Supposedly, the mainframe crystal processor of the engine compartment boasted an automatic wire cut detection system. It would send out a mystic ray every minute and scan the surroundings automatically. If one of the crystal wires was cut off, it would send out an alarm.
But as it happened, right after the last scan was over, the early-warning crystal wire was bitten apart by the rats. Almost at the same time, the careless boy scout set the parameters by mistake to 300%.
Because the crystal wires had been bitten off, the data displayed on the control light beam was very normal. He did not notice that the power of a certain unit was soaring crazily.
This one minute was the most critical moment when the No.2 core unit of the space jump array was activated to the maximum.
If that was all there was to it, it would not cause too serious of an accident.
After all, it was a super warship. Any magical equipment unit had a lot of redundancy in design. Even if a problem was discovered one minute later, it could be remedied as soon as possible.
But at that moment, perhaps the rats that had crawled into the crystal processor bit off two crystal wires and connected them by mistake. As a result, the mainframe crystal processor of the engine compartment determined that a serious explosion had taken place in the engine compartment. Therefore, it sent out an alarm and activated the 'automatic anti-fire foam rune arrays', spurting out tremendous foam!
A lot of bubbles filled the entire engine compartment and separated the few experienced masters from the careless boy scout.
Everybody thought that an explosion had taken place in the engine compartment. In their panic, they had no time to bother about the boy scout's operation.
As it happened, the boy scout discovered the mistake that he had made just now.
Under the interference of the explosion alarm, he did not ask for the help of the masters in his panic. Instead, he decided to solve the problem on his own. But the more he solved the problem, the more chaotic he became. In almost half a minute, he had made all the mistakes that he could have made, which eventually led to the paralysis of the space jump array!
"This is a tragedy caused by a series of coincidences. It's the price that we have to pay to raise the newcomers. We are all seasoned sea wolves who have spent our entire lives on crystal warships, and we have never run into such a weird thing before. We can only say that … we are unlucky!"
On the light beam, the manager of the engine compartment scratched his nose and said with foam all over his head.
Iron Commander Zhou Hengdao did not even have the strength to burst into fury. He simply waved his hands helplessly and asked, "How long will it take to be repaired?"
"It's not a big problem. It's just that the No. 2 core unit of the space jump array has malfunctioned. It will certainly be repaired in two to three hours."
The manager of the engine compartment patted his chest and promised, "Together with the time for debugging, it will certainly be able to perform a space jump in three, no, four hours at most!"
"Four hours …"
Iron Commander Zhou Hengdao took a deep breath.
There was nothing else he could do at that moment except for breathing.
Four hours was an extremely awkward period of time.
Supposedly, the federal army had established a lot of teleportation arrays on the Grand Desolate Plateau recently. Even if they did not take Burning Prairie, they could still teleport one or two legions to the Blood Demon Sector, although they would mostly land in the Blood Demon Sector, which did not bode well for them.
However, in the plan of the Patriots Partnership, the best solution was naturally to drag the Flying Star Sector down with them.
That was why Zhou Hengdao had requested to take Burning Prairie.
Everything seemed to be going well, and the Flying Star Sector had fallen into his and Lu Zui's trap step by step. But as it turned out, such an uncanny accident had happened at the last moment.
Boarding and disembarking an army of a hundred thousand was an enormous project. The boarding work alone took three hours. Now that they had to evacuate Burning Prairie, regroup into battle formation, head to the teleportation array of the federal army, and activate the teleportation array again … they wouldn't be able to get down without half a day!
That was not counting the blow to their morale.
As the saying went, a long delay means trouble. Zhou Hengdao only had a few people under his control after all. Most of the soldiers of the Union Army were still ignorant.
But they were not idiots. The longer the event was delayed, the more unexpected variables there would be.
There was nothing Zhou Hengdao could do. He could only wait patiently for the space jump array to be repaired.
"A rat?"
His expression was somewhat distressed as he kept muttering, "A rat? A rat! "
…
"A rat!"
In the middle and rear of the warship more than ten kilometers away from Zhou Hengdao, inside the engine compartment, Ji Wende, the deputy chief tutor of the Burning Prairie Fleet, roared thunderously, too.
He was so angry that his crimson neck was almost exploding. He jabbed the young man's head hard and shouted, "Mouse Bai, what do you want me to say? You were so arrogant that you performed the simulation training of space jumps in the Grand Illusionary Land more than a hundred times. Every time, it was flawless and smooth!
"This is the first time you've done it in person, and you're in charge of the most insignificant post. Yet, you chickened out and made such an unforgivable mistake!
"You — you —"
"It's not my fault!"
Mouse Bai had foam all over his head and dirt all over his face. With panic flashing in his eyes, he craned his neck and exclaimed, "It was obvious that a rat crawled into the crystal processor and bit the crystal wires. Who could've predicted that?"
"You're still being stubborn!"
Ji Wende was almost mad. "Why didn't you turn to the mentors, the tutors, or the old masters when you discovered the problem but did it on your own? How could you have solved such a complicated problem on your own? "
"I did!"
Mouse Bai defended himself, somewhat pitifully. "At that time, the engine compartment was full of foam, and earsplitting alarms were echoing. Everybody thought that there was an explosion somewhere and was too busy to react. I shouted a few times, but they all ignored me. I thought that it was not a big problem. I had dealt with it before in the Grand Illusionary Land. So, I decided to do it myself.
"Rat? Rat? "
Ji Wende grabbed his ear hard and lifted him up, before he roared, "I say that you were the one who attracted the rat to Burning Prairie. Who told you to be nicknamed 'Mouse Bai'?"
"Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!
Ouch! "Mouse Bai hurried to beg for mercy." Uncle Ji, I was wrong. I was wrong. Please let go of me. Let me make up for my mistake and participate in the maintenance, too. "
"Make up for your mistake my ass. You want to add to the mess, don't you? Tutor Li, send the boy to the single confinement room for a month. Don't let him out for one second less! "
Ji Wende let out an earsplitting roar. Mouse Bai closed his eyes hard because of his saliva, which made him look like a little mouse shivering in a tornado.
Ten minutes later …
After a loud noise, the door of the confinement room was slammed shut, and Mouse Bai was left alone in the darkness.
When the tutor outside gradually walked away, Mouse Bai's face, which was both wronged and regretful, suddenly changed. He became mysterious and unpredictable, as if he were enshrouded in a vague mist.
For a moment, his vibe changed drastically. He no longer looked like a teenager but an old man who was almost two hundred years old and had weathered endless storms.
His sharp eyes pierced through the thick shell of the warship and looked at the south of the Dark Desolate Domain, as if he were expecting something.
Squeak! Squeak!
A translucent mouse that seemed to be carved out of jade crawled out of nowhere and landed on his shoulder. A dark gold stripe of light spread from its head to its back and tied up its entire tail. It wriggled agilely and extended to his ear, tickling him.
"I hope that my judgment is correct!"
Mouse Bai lay in a corner of the confinement room comfortably with his hands behind his head. The stinky toilet was right next to him, but he did not care about it at all. He smiled at the mouse and said, "It's a pity that we've just possessed this body. This body can't withstand too much soul polishing yet. For now, it can only wield the capability of the third level of the Refinement Stage!
"Otherwise, this would've been a good game. We could've played it to our heart's content!
"Forget it. There will be plenty of opportunities when we run into the Imperium of True Human Beings in the future!
"Iron Commander Zhou Hengdao is in such a hurry to perform a space jump. Is he scared of the arrival of certain unexpected variables? What kind of trap is this? What kind of unexpected variables are they? "
Speaking of 'unexpected variables', a face suddenly popped up inside Mouse Bai's head. The smile on his face was even more mysterious.
Yes. He had thought of someone who would be an 'unexpected variable' wherever he went.
"Is it you, Li Yao?"
Bai Xingjian, the ruler of Spider Den in the past and the Pirate Potentate, and Mouse Bai Xingjian, a minor soldier of the Burning Prairie Fleet today, smiled at the mouse transformed from the remaining soul of Yan Xinjian, the unparalleled expert of the Heaven's Origin Sector, the Flying Star Sector, and the Blood Demon Sector, who was most likely to break into the Divinity Transformation Stage in the past thousand years.
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