The Strongest Brain in the Interstellar

So something is still wrong? Where did it go wrong? What hasn’t been activated…? Jiang Hui tried again, but found that she still couldn’t stand up, and the mecha seemed to be completely motionless. She couldn’t help but feel a bit discouraged.

Then, she heard a somewhat helpless voice, carrying a familiar, cold, stern tone. It seemed a bit distant but also felt like it was right by her ear: “Don’t concentrate all your mental energy in your smart little brain. You need to spread some of it elsewhere… Otherwise, how can you control the mecha?”

It was Stark’s voice.

But what did he mean by “concentrating all your mental energy in your brain”? Wasn’t she… wait? She seemed to have understood something.

She had just entered the current situation through something resembling a simulation pod, so she should be in a state of full mental sensory control. It was similar to the holographic pod, but unlike the holographic pod, all it took was to move her mind to project the desired actions onto the virtual image in the network. But now, what she was operating was a physical object, so it was naturally more complicated than just thinking about it.

She was familiar with commanding mental power, though she wasn’t sure if it was exactly what Stark meant. She decided to give it a try.

As her mental power spread through her limbs and body, she instantly felt a strange sensation of attachment, as if layers of force were enveloping her. These forces followed the direction of her mental power’s movement, constantly building up.

The sensation was quite peculiar. Even though it felt as though countless forces were pulling her in different directions, Jiang Hui vaguely sensed that her entire body, including her vulnerable neck and head, had become incredibly strong, as if she had suddenly gained the strength of a thousand men.

It hadn’t been so apparent earlier, but now that she had connected with the sensory input of her limbs, Jiang Hui suddenly realized that the mecha’s stance was slightly off. It felt as if… the mecha was crouching.

Although it wasn’t a physical body and shouldn’t have been tiring to crouch, the sensory perception was the same. So, Jiang Hui tentatively tried to straighten up.

Crack, crack… rumble…

A sudden series of mechanical sounds echoed through the quiet battle hall, starkly out of place and drawing everyone’s attention like a signal.

What’s that sound? Isn’t this a class? Is this an enemy attack?!
That was everyone’s first reaction.

Following Stark’s instructions, they were all struggling to connect with the mecha’s auxiliary pod, but unfortunately, most of them couldn’t keep up and got stuck at this step. Stark didn’t rush them. It seemed that this step was really crucial, and he patiently repeated it twice before leaving them to try on their own.

There were indeed some people who succeeded, like Clarens, Jaidy, and Tader. Whether due to their experience or their stronger mental power, they managed to succeed after a few attempts, even if it didn’t work the first time.

Following Stark’s guidance, they selected their level of sympathetic resonance and entered the loading state, awaiting the integration of their mental power with the mecha’s auxiliary operating system.

However, none of them expected that before they even fully grasped the procedure, someone had already skipped ahead in the class.

While the few who had just entered the simulation state were still figuring things out, the majority of students who hadn’t yet managed to activate the auxiliary pod jumped out to check what was going on, curious about the unexpected noise.

They were startled when they looked—while they were still “fighting” with the mecha’s auxiliary pod, someone was already able to move the mecha. Had they been too slow and missed an important step?

Oh… that was probably the mecha Jiang Hui had selected. Damn, it was Jiang Hui who did this.

They couldn’t help but acknowledge—truly, as expected from their “number one.” She could really accomplish anything. Yes, Jiang Hui didn’t know that her classmates in Class Two, who found her very easy to get along with, had nicknamed her “The First.”

This was not only because she had won first place in the orienteering race, but also due to the admiration they had after observing the competition from a third-party perspective. Jiang Hui seemed to be able to do anything, and always seemed to be one step ahead of everyone else.

Clarens, who thought he had already moved quickly enough, fell silent as he watched the progress bar reach 90%. He had a lot of experience, and although his family had been strict with him due to his young age, it didn’t stop him from learning about this field. Compared to the confused students, he was naturally at an advantage.

Moreover, he had chosen the highest level of sympathetic resonance. Given his mental power strength, the speed at which he connected with the operating system was just as fast, if not faster, than others… Logically speaking, even if individual mechas had differences, there shouldn’t have been such a large gap.

As for the other two, who were also close to successful connections, their unwillingness or confusion could be set aside for now.

Stark had been watching the entire process from the demonstration pod and sighed.

She was truly a person who made you both at ease and uneasy at the same time—how could something unexpected happen even during normal operations…

But this kid’s talent is even stronger than I expected.

Stark’s eyes darkened slightly. He had already known about Jiang Hui’s combat talent. The moment he saw her, what stood out to him wasn’t the figure of his friend (Jiang Hui’s father), but the faint shadow of her mother. It wasn’t deep, but so similar. That aura of standing alone, independent from the world, seemed to pass down through generations like a cycle.

He had originally thought she would, without surprise, follow the same path as her parents, but now it seemed that she might surpass even what he… or they had imagined.

Although the Empire developed the mecha auxiliary pod to protect those with incomplete mental domain awakenings, the situation was not absolute.

There were some individuals whose mental power was extraordinarily gifted, with both the strength and stability of their mental energy surpassing many adults, even though they were minors. For them, the auxiliary pod could actually limit their development, hindering their natural talents. But in order to protect these individuals, the Empire’s central laboratory later introduced a hidden mode for the auxiliary pod: the full sympathetic control mode.

As the name suggests, the mecha auxiliary pod is a tool designed to assist in piloting the mecha, replacing the mental resonance string system in normal mecha operation as the intermediary for controlling the mecha. It is safer than the latter but also comes with more restrictions.

To accommodate different levels of mental energy and conditions of incomplete awakeners, the system was set with seven resonance levels: 30%, 50%, 60%, 75%, 80%, 85%, and 90%.

The first three levels are too low and are generally used for specific purposes or by non-combat research personnel, while the latter four levels of sympathetic resonance are the most commonly chosen by students learning to pilot mechas.

However, Jiang Hui did not fall under any of those categories. She belonged to an eighth type, one that was not listed among the above. Due to her mental power conditions being close to that of a high-level fully awakened individual, she skipped the sympathetic resonance selection step entirely and directly entered the full sympathetic control mode, which is the closest to directly controlling the mecha.