Chapter 210: Fusion

“Logically speaking, spider-shaped mechas should be better suited for war. So why haven’t they been developed much?” Yang Bo had a question in his mind.

After looking into it carefully, Yang Bo understood: “It turns out that the mechanical arms of these crawler mechas are their weak point.”

The mechanical arms of the crawler mechas are the biggest weakness. If the arm armor is thickened, the internal power system needs to be larger, and if the power system is larger and the arm armor is thickened, the overall energy system requirements for the mecha increase.

However, if the defense of the mechanical arms isn’t strengthened, it’s easy for the mecha’s laser cannons to hit them. While the multiple arms of crawler mechas are an advantage in battle, they’re uniquely the greatest weakness too.

The crawler mecha’s arms can’t be as thick as the legs of humanoid mechas. The energy system can’t handle it.

The mecha itself can’t be made too large either; making a crawler mecha 20-30 meters tall would turn it into a giant target.

Although humanoid mechas don’t have as many mechanical arms as crawler mechas, both their hands and feet have sufficient defense. Plus, when equipped with an energy shield, the combat strength of a humanoid mecha increases significantly.

Crawler mechas can’t be equipped with energy shields, which is another weak point.

That weakness is control! Normally, mechas only need both hands to be operated, but as for the crawler mecha, like the one Yang Bo was seeing, it needed to control 12 mechanical arms at once. It’s the most difficult type of mecha to operate.

“High control difficulty doesn’t mean much to me. I can directly simulate signals with my Optical Ability.” After careful consideration, Yang Bo decided to give the crawler mecha a try.

As for beast-shaped mechas, their attack strength is relatively weak. After all, unlike humanoid mechas, beast-shaped mechas can’t wield several-meter-long energy weapons.

Moreover, it’s difficult for people to adopt the attack mode of a beast in their thinking. It’s easier for people to adapt to the attack patterns of humanoid mechas.

Crawler and beast-shaped mechas are used often too because each has its unique characteristics.

However, beast-shaped mechas are more suitable for reconnaissance missions compared to humanoid mechas.

For now, Yang Bo couldn’t enter the mecha game because his mecha was still under repair. He had no choice but to wait until after the repairs were finished before he could switch to the crawler mecha for training.

Yang Bo took a glance at some information about the post-apocalypse game mode. This expansion pack had not yet been released, and Yang Bo was eagerly anticipating it.

Looking out the window, he saw the ocean boiling, layer upon layer of waves crashing into the shore. Waves as tall as 20 to 30 meters smashed against the coast, and his home’s front lawn was littered with debris: seaweed, various shells, and deformed marine organisms.

Unrecognizable creatures and more debris flew across the sky, being swept inland by the wind.

After resting, Yang Bo headed to the Underground Bunker to start his routine mecha training.

After finishing his mecha training, he went to feed the invisible mice, those little creatures.

Then, he began refining Gene Serum materials. This time, Yang Bo took out a notebook, preparing to document his insights while refining the Gene Serum materials.

He was especially going to record how many reactions occurred during the refining process after the materials were placed in.

“I need to find an opportunity to buy a high-end energy detector.” Now looking at these energy-laden substances, Yang Bo could see red, green, black, and white energy particles, but he had no idea what their actual function was.

He wanted to experiment, but he didn’t have enough tools or enough test subjects.

As Yang Bo was engrossed in refining materials in the lab,

the Fat Boss was in his room, angrily cursing: “What an idiot woman?”

“Is her brain broken? The team leader must also be an idiot for letting her into the team!”

“What’s the relationship between that woman and the team leader, I wonder?”

“Because of her, our entire team is being cursed at on the forums!” The Fat Boss vented his anger, smashing things while cursing.

The Fat Boss and his friends thought the mecha game was just another regular game. Like many other gamers, they enjoyed communicating with each other, making friends in the game.

Earlier, Yang Bo had saved the Fat Boss’s small team, and they posted a video of Yang Bo killing a mutant beast on the forums.

That’s when the trouble hit. It agitated the mecha pilots, whose unique fighting styles are invaluable. Although low- and mid-level mecha pilots don’t mind, since their combat techniques aren’t scrutinized,

master-level mecha pilots have their own distinctive fighting styles. If they’re recognized in battle in the future and their style is analyzed, their chances of failing increase.

Because a mecha pilot’s combat style is formed over a long period, it’s not something they can change in an instant.

It’s like knowing the fighting style of the enemy’s ace marksman—then you can deploy tactics specifically to counter it.

This also involves personal privacy. Sure, people can argue that Yang Bo killing small creatures being posted on forums didn’t raise any privacy concerns.

People complained, but who would speak up for the little guy?

Unless Yang Bo sued himself, others received punishment, but it also exposed his real identity.

Master-level mecha pilots are different. Not only do they have significant influence, but they are also valuable national assets.

Because of that, the Fat Boss and his friends were cursed repeatedly in the game. Standing at the entrance of Base 16, waiting, they never saw Yang Bo’s mecha. They kept getting cursed at in-game.

Furious, the Fat Boss left the team and exited the game, feeling highly depressed.

After smashing things, the Fat Boss headed to the forums to explain what happened, only to find that everything had already been posted.

There had been just three people involved: the Fat Boss, that woman, and the team leader.

Afterward, someone from the team leaked their chat audio, revealing that the team leader had been favoring a certain female member, the same one who had botched several previous missions.

As a result, the team leader’s reputation tanked.

After all, nobody likes playing games with teammates who constantly screw up, especially those ‘helpful’ teammates who never admit they’re the problem.

The Fat Boss felt significantly better, muttering, “I don’t know what that woman was thinking…”

He reflected on everything, then re-entered the game, repaired his mecha, and deleted the account.

After that, he created a new account, went through the assessments, picked a new name, and entered the mecha game again.

“This time I made some money, but I caused trouble. I hope people don’t recognize me in the future.” The Fat Boss regretted his actions. Even though he earned more than 800,000 game coins, which equaled over 800,000 credit points, he couldn’t feel happy about it.

They’d killed a mutated beast, a massive one at that, so after submitting the mission, they earned a whopping ten million game coins.

But the Fat Boss wasn’t pleased at all. Someone had analyzed the video and calculated the nerve reaction speed and hand speed of the player, showing he had master-level mecha skills.

“Idiot!” He muttered angrily, still unsatisfied as he re-entered the game.

This incident caused a significant buzz in the game, but it didn’t stir any reaction from the military because this was all normal.

After all, the mecha game was initially designed to allow citizens to train in mecha operations and remotely control mechas to complete tasks.

The recent events on Pado Planet made all parties reasonably satisfied, from the Alliance Parliament to the military.

A significant accomplishment was achieved with minimal cost and without the involvement of actual personnel. Nowadays, some soldiers have a problematic mindset.

However, society’s trends make people reluctant to speak about human rights or freedom issues without risking being labeled enemies of the Alliance.

Most parliamentarians rode these trends to hold their political positions. The families and factions behind the Alliance don’t care, as they prefer to see the lower class conflict and divide over trivialities—in fact, sometimes, they even manufacture conflict.

Yang Bo’s operational data was high but because it was just a little too high, no one dared investigate it. Who knows what kind of connections he has? What if they end up hitting a big boss?

After finishing the experiment, Yang Bo temporarily recorded the energy in the materials by color. Although it seemed unclear and complicated, he understood it well enough.

The experiment went smoothly. All the materials were successfully refined, and their quality was excellent.

“No big deal.” Leaving the underground bunker, Yang Bo looked out the window at the storm outside and noticed how different it was from the calm, quiet inside.

The room was warm and peaceful, while outside, a violent hurricane caused trash, and even rocks and unknown creatures, to fly through the air.

For just a moment, Yang Bo felt like he was dreaming.

“What should I do next?” He checked the time. His mecha wasn’t repaired yet, and the material refinement experiments were done. He found himself at a loss for what to do.

“Might as well eat first!”

After eating, Yang Bo went back to the Underground Bunker. This time, he trained his superpowers.

After seeing the explosive flame ability of the mutant beast in the game, Yang Bo was curious. How exactly could he make his own fireballs explode?

“Is it temperature?” He wondered. Thinking deeply, Yang Bo figured fire-based superpowers had to do with temperature.

“So how to increase the temperature of my fireballs?” Then, in the next second, Yang Bo found himself stumped.

Yang Bo stared at the flame in his hand. This cluster of fire felt so illusory and ethereal but also so real. He could even feel its searing heat.

The fire danced in his palm, needing no equipment. Watching it, Yang Bo felt like his mind was hitting a dead end.

“Fire is intangible. Could it generate heat, like compressing air?”

“Let’s give compression a try!” Without hesitation, Yang Bo began concentrating to experiment with compressing the flame.

Like air, fire was intangible, yet it emitted visible light and heat.

Step by step, Yang Bo experimented, increasing the energy output, causing the flames to grow.

But despite trying for over an hour, he had no success.

“Should I use high pressure for all my internal energy?” Yang Bo considered another possibility.

“That might be riskier, though.” He quickly dismissed the idea. Using high pressure on his internal energy would affect his body, something Yang Bo was not willing to risk. After all, his body was his capital. If he damaged it, he’d be in big trouble.

“I’ll stick to fine control for now.” Yang Bo switched to another method.

“Fusion.” Yang Bo began to form fireballs with energy in both hands, combining them one by one.

Initially, Yang Bo expected that fusing a second fireball with the first would make the fireball larger, but he was mistaken. The two fused, but their volume didn’t increase. However, the temperature went up.

“It’s working!” Yang Bo felt excited, even though he didn’t fully understand the science behind it.

It didn’t stop him from using it, though.

It was like elderly people not understanding how a phone system worked, yet still using it for calls or browsing the web.

Yang Bo now adopted that mindset: he didn’t need to know how it worked as long as it worked!

One, two, three… Slowly, Yang Bo realized something was off. Once he fused ten fireballs, he found it difficult to control the fusion.

He threw the fireball toward a target 100 meters away, which combusted instantly, creating a powerful shockwave.

“The power’s too low?” Yang Bo felt the fireball’s power was underwhelming compared to the destructive force of a Shockwave Bomb in the game.

“Let’s keep fusing.” Yang Bo decided to test his limits.

When he fused 15 fireballs, Yang Bo found it even harder to control.

He aimed at the same target 100 meters away and unleashed a deafening explosion, exponentially more powerful than when he fused just ten fireballs.

“Next, I’ll carefully observe the structure of a fused fireball.” Yang Bo was quite satisfied with the increased power.

Upon close observation, Yang Bo noticed that when two fireballs merged, their density increased.

Continuing to observe, he saw that when the density of these energy particles increased to a certain point, fusion occurred.

After fusion, the energy particles became brighter, and the color deepened.

The energy particles in the fireball were uniformly red, without a trace of any other color.

After tossing the fireball in his hand, Yang Bo attempted to fuse another fireball directly using his body’s energy.

A fireball formed in his palm, and Yang Bo continued to output energy.

The fireball slowly grew larger. When the diameter reached half a meter, Yang Bo found it difficult to control.

“Something feels off. I can sense the energy in this fireball, but why is it becoming harder to control? Does it really have to be fused one by one?” Yang Bo rubbed his forehead, puzzled as things weren’t going as he expected.