Hyberian Wars Chronicles

It was a strange feeling; Qianlong suddenly found that his control had become incredibly smooth, and his desired reactions were precisely reflected on the control panel.

The result of this change was that the Harvester he was piloting suddenly kept up with Aina's rhythm very smoothly.

"There are ten seconds left until entering the atmosphere. It is recommended to manually activate the secondary impact protection device to minimize the impact force."

Following Phantom's reminder, Qianlong manually adjusted the settings.

A thick layer of armor began to extend from the edges of the Harvester, covering the main cockpit area.

With a violent shake, Qianlong immediately felt an increase in pressure on his body, and the temperature around him began to rise.

"Gravity for unit V42-52 is at standard 3 times, and gravity is increasing. It is recommended to activate the anti-gravity device to level 3. The life support system's load is increasing; it is advised to manually adjust to 70% operational power to maintain the mecha's power and prevent unexpected evasions," Phantom provided a series of suggestions.

Qianlong quickly adjusted various parameters, feeling the temperature rising further, already reaching 50 degrees.

However, it seemed to plateau at that level, and Qianlong began to sweat profusely.

"How long until we exit the atmosphere?"

From the outside, the Harvester appeared completely red, as if it were glowing from the heat.

"Calculating... 172 seconds remaining."

Qianlong silently began the countdown, and when only ten seconds were left, he started to operate the Harvester for posture correction.

"Recommendation: activate thruster 4, activate thruster 6, and deactivate the rear thruster."

Qianlong began to operate accordingly.

As the Harvester broke free from the atmosphere, it quickly adjusted its state and hovered in the sky.

Aina and Jones also began to adjust the posture of the Pioneer.

Aina noticed Qianlong and was momentarily taken aback; he had adjusted his posture so quickly. Just before, she had seen him struggle with the initial movements, displaying the typical awkwardness of a novice.

Qianlong piloted the Harvester to Aina's side.

Aina regained her composure and said, "Stand by in place and wait for the Guardian to scan the surrounding danger levels."

At that moment, several light Guardians passed through the atmosphere, sweeping by.

Qianlong looked at the optical imaging patterns below; the ground was a desolate yellow, littered with broken rocks, deep pits, and uneven peaks. At first glance, it didn't seem like a place where life could survive.

Jones yawned and said, "Kid, how do you feel? Are you feeling the pressure? If it's too much, you can set the life support system to the highest level."

"Thanks for the suggestion," Qianlong replied politely.

"However, that means your time here will be shortened, and the danger level will increase. You'll have to gauge it yourself," Jones explained.

Phantom then spoke up, "Should we scan the nearby area?"

"Will it consume a lot of energy?" Qianlong asked.

"It will consume 30% of the remaining energy."

"Declined."

Qianlong rejected the proposal; someone had already gone down to search, and there was no need to take unnecessary risks. Besides, even if they did find a problem, how would he explain it to the others? How did you detect it?

He couldn't just say it was the Harvester that explored it, could he?

About an hour later, the Light Mech that had gone ahead to explore provided feedback.

"Preliminary safety confirmed."

"Let's go."

Aina led the way downwards, and soon the three landed on the ground.

"We need to deploy the collectors at designated locations. Each of us will be responsible for one direction. If you encounter trouble, call for help, and do not deviate from the deployment area," Aina instructed.

"Understood."

Qianlong began to release collectors along the route according to the provided map.

The collectors were small, about the size of an adult's palm, specifically designed to collect geological information and perform preliminary analysis.

Due to the lack of time for slow exploration, they adopted a net-casting approach.

As long as one collector returned valuable information, most of the investment could be recouped.

Deploying the collectors was not a simple task; according to the mission requirements, the three of them had to deploy 108 collectors.

Qianlong was assigned 30 collectors.

In a way, this could be seen as a favor for the newcomer, while Aina and Jones had their workloads increased.

Qianlong piloted the Harvester towards the coordinates marked on the map, with the distance between one coordinate and another taking about half an hour, some closer, some farther.

In total, it would take about 15 hours to deploy all the collectors, though that was theoretical.

"Phantom, calculate how long it will take to deploy all of them?"

"Estimated at 16 hours and 23 minutes; if including return time, it will be 23 hours and 11 minutes." Phantom provided the answer without any pause.

On the surface, the data seemed manageable, but the reality was different. First, this was just the first step, and during this time, they couldn't rest their eyes and had to endure the harsh environment.

Qianlong didn't remain idle; he started chatting with Phantom.

"Will there be resources here?"

"Without specific scanning and analysis, just from the preliminary terrain assessment, there is a 70% chance of usable resources, 20% chance of no usable resources, 5% chance of rare resources, and 5% unknown," Phantom provided a preliminary answer.

Qianlong nodded; it seemed that this month's commission wouldn't be too disappointing. The high salary of Harvesters was not just due to the base pay but was more closely tied to the resources extracted.

1% of the resources extracted would become the Harvester's commission.

As for any major discoveries, there were also rewards, which were more substantial, amounting to 5% of the total revenue from the resource extraction.

Of course, none of this was particularly important; the most crucial point was that the final interpretation would be determined by Hyberian.

Qianlong was currently responsible for surveying these areas; even if he discovered resources, it wouldn't count as a special discovery since it belonged to Hyberian, unless under special circumstances.

Qianlong arrived at a designated location, deploying a collector. The oval machine, about the size of a fist, unfolded its edge gears and began to rotate. The tail was conical, and the collector drilled into the surface, securing itself in place. The green indicator light on top began to flash, indicating that the deployment was complete.

Once Qianlong confirmed the installation was finished, he began to head towards the next destination.

It was an extremely monotonous task.

As time passed, the temperature began to drop, and unexpectedly, night was approaching.

Phantom provided a warning.

"Temperature is dropping, expected to reach minus 124 degrees."

So cold? Qianlong was somewhat surprised.

Phantom replied, "The danger level of night operations is increasing."

Qianlong glanced at the task time given by Aina; there were still 25 hours left. Theoretically, it was sufficient, but no one could say for sure if any unexpected events would occur, so it was better to finish the tasks first.

"Continue operations," Qianlong responded.

The Harvester continued towards the next target when Phantom issued a warning.

"Unstable air pressure detected, continuously increasing."

Qianlong glanced at the scanner; the instrument remained quiet, detecting no anomalies.

"Phantom, provide a plan suggestion."

"Calculating options. Priority option one: proceed to temporary coordinates 712, 142 to evade. Option two: walk forward 5 kilometers and take cover at the base of the rock fault. Option three: evacuate the area."

Qianlong looked briefly; option one had a significant deviation from the coordinates, while option two was actually the most suitable. However, no one knew what kind of weather might form, and option three was immediately discarded by Qianlong.

After hes

itating for a few seconds, Qianlong chose option one. He began to deviate from the task area and headed towards the coordinates.

(End of Chapter)