After exercising until evening, he just came out from the training room and saw Xu Pinghu hurrying deep into the laboratory, appearing quite agitated.
"Uncle Xu, what happened? You’re in such a rush." He called after him.
"Another incident happened." Xu Pinghu looked around and whispered, "I heard from an old friend at the Intelligence Bureau that last night, Youke died."
"Who?" Li Ming was momentarily stunned, then realized who it was, his expression changing slightly, "Sela’s prince?"
No wonder Ren Cangsong did not come home last night.
"Yes, him. He died around nine o’clock last night in the Sela embassy, and it’s said that it caused a huge uproar." Xu Pinghu swallowed his saliva, "First it was Fu Zongchen, now Youke, things have been unsettling recently. You better not go out, just stay put."
"I understand." Li Ming nodded, equally shocked, and various suspicions quickly surfaced in his mind.
After asking around, in the B-4 laboratory, he found Chen Yan, who was performing a centrifugal operation.
Ignoring the gaze of others in the laboratory, Li Ming called her out, and Chen Yan, with a look of embarrassed helplessness, followed him into his room.
"You make it seem like I forced you." Li Ming frowned.
"My persona demands it, it takes time; by next time it will probably just be bashfulness." Chen Yan explained, then asked, "Why did you urgently call me over?"
"Youke is dead, was it your doing?" Li Ming stared into Chen Yan’s eyes.
"Youke is dead?" Chen Yan was equally surprised, then frowned, "I’m not sure, I only handle my tasks, I don’t know anything else except for orders from above."
However, seeing the look in Li Ming’s eyes, Chen Yan felt a surge of fear and quickly added, "It was likely the Torch, killing Youke within Blue Star’s territory could cause the already tense situation to escalate again."
"It must be part of their grand scheme."
"The Torch, are they that powerful..." Li Ming’s eyes flickered, considering that it was an embassy and Youke would not have lacked protective forces, how had he been killed just like that?
Others aren’t like him, able to freely store heavy weapons in the Control Bar and brazenly pass through checkpoints.
Although Youke’s own strength wasn’t high, the difficulty of assassinating him was not less than that of Fu Zongchen.
Chen Yan’s expression hardened, and she solemnly said, "The Torch has been surrounded and blocked by the Yitelan Civilization for so long and is still alive, naturally they have their means."
"In the Silver Star Cluster, seeds of fire are everywhere."
Upon hearing this, Li Ming fell silent, suddenly feeling an impending sense of crisis flowering in his heart.
The Torch’s current strategy towards him was to co-opt, but what if they changed their plan? Could he withstand an assassination?
"What do you think, what are the chances the Torch might kill me?" Li Ming suddenly asked, "I want the truth, if I die, will someone release the footage of your betrayal?"
Chen Yan, feeling suffocated, muttered, "The other day, following your instructions, I reported above that I had subdued you."
"Given the laboratory rumors, they won’t be suspicious. You’re not like Youke, Youke was well-versed..." Having said this, Chen Yan paused, cursing the Torch in her heart.
Youke was knowledgeable, of high birth, common methods of bribery wouldn’t work on him, so they chose to kill him directly.
Li Ming’s origins might not be distinguished, but he is a madman, and what kind of bullshit is Torch, with intelligence as lousy as history!
"Youke was used to beautiful women, but I haven’t had much contact with them, so they can still bribe me, right?" Li Ming pondered thoughtfully.
"Pretty much." Chen Yan said dejectedly, "They’re unlikely to kill you anytime soon, your value is too high."
Li Ming was slightly reassured, he was most afraid of being targeted.
"I thought you weren’t afraid of death." Seeing Li Ming’s thoughtful appearance, Chen Yan couldn’t help saying.
"How did you figure that out?" Li Ming was surprised, "Who isn’t afraid of death? Aren’t you?"
"Ah, it’s troublesome, if the Torch isn’t planning to kill me, Sela might get restless." Li Ming sighed, "Do you think we could get the Torch to come forward and admit to this?"
"Sela?" Chen Yan asked puzzledly, "Following the investigation, it wouldn’t be hard to trace back to Torch, so why would they target you?"
"How did you create the ’spark’?" Li Ming was even more astonished.
Chen Yan took a deep breath.
"You don’t really think that Torch can just assassinate a political leader and then ignite warfare between two sides, do you?" Li Ming’s rhetorical question left Chen Yan speechless.
"A huge civilization isn’t just one person, and thoughts aren’t unified. There might be fools, but there are also wise people."
"Since it’s an assassination, there would certainly be traces left..." Li Ming said, his expression turning strange as if he had thought of something, then continued, "Following the investigation, it’s indeed possible to discover traces of Torch, but what if Sela decides to play dumb?"
"Play dumb?" Chen Yan was puzzled.
"The current situation has Sela at a disadvantage in the game against Blue Star, having suffered a setback. Initially, he could only have left in annoyance, but now Youke is dead, killed within the territory of Blue Star." Li Ming’s gaze drifted:
"What a perfect excuse. If Sela doesn’t make a fuss, I’d rather suspect they’re all fools."
"Even if it’s find out to be Torch, they wouldn’t admit it, they might even pin the blame on Blue Star." Li Ming shook his head.
Chen Yan listened, dumbstruck, then hesitated, "What does this have to do with you then?"
"If Youke’s death can be the work of Torch, why can’t my death be their doing as well?" Li Ming countered.
Chen Yan was slightly startled, his pupils contracted, and he staggered back two steps: "Are you saying, Sela might very well target you and then pin it on Torch?"
Li Ming shrugged: "Exactly, the manipulations of Torch aren’t just about killing one person here and another there, they bank on Sela’s unwillingness to concede."
It’s not about failing to uncover the truth; it’s fearing that even after discovering it, people will pretend to be confused.
Chen Yan left with a heavy heart.
After locking the door, Li Ming calculated that he needed to level up; he hadn’t been willing to use it before due to insufficient metal energy.
The times were perilous, and he wasn’t sure what major changes might still occur, so he needed to enhance his self-protection.
With six hundred thousand points of metal energy, having calculated many Controlled Objects, to upgrade either offensive or defensive Controlled Objects to Grade B was still far from enough.
After contemplating for a moment, he suddenly blinked, "I almost forgot that."
His figure momentarily wavered, and Li Ming was entirely covered by a purple Mecha, cold and solemn. The armor on his right arm opened, ejecting a purple blade, while his left was a pitch-black wound, capable of energy shooting.
As a combat Mecha, it used a neural linkage as the main control system, supplemented by intelligence fire control, and multidimensional data analysis, to avoid excessive delays in combat.
The bulging thruster on his back was slightly cumbersome, and as soon as the engine roared, it spewed fierce flames, nearly burning through the floor.
As the armor worn by Prince Bai Jiang, all its readings were top-notch, a Grade C armor, theoretically able to combat Grade C Life Forms.
However, obviously such a gadget is not easy to reveal, one can’t just wear it out to fight randomly.
After mastering it, Li Ming finally understood the full extent of the Control Effect.
[Solid as a Rock: Reduces physical damage by 5%.]
When he saw it, he was quite shocked for a while, passive damage reduction, too terrifying, a hundred thousand Control Conditions largely depended on this.
Though the number doesn’t seem high, his Controlled Objects could be upgraded and stacked.
He wondered whether it could stack to 100%; if it could stack to 100%, even if only in physical damage reduction, it would be incredibly powerful.
And, since there’s physical damage reduction, there must also be energy damage reduction or the like.
Li Ming swallowed, though he knew without thinking that it would certainly cost a great deal of energy, time, and metal energy.
But this "pie" still looked very tempting.
He guessed it probably came from some kind of Mother Ore because he tried to enhance heavy soil Mother Ore onto it, but was told it couldn’t be done.