Five prismatic crystals hovered around, emitting crystal lines and swiftly forming a Crystal Shield.
From behind, six thick mechanical arms in gleaming blue slowly extended; their surfaces surged with electric arcs, the ends transforming into Energy Clusters that could mimic electromagnetic palms or even shoot out Energy Light Columns.
In his hands, he held a prismatic ion sword, and as he slightly shifted his thoughts, the Tank Guard Armor he wore, and the prismatic ion sword in his hand, both thrummed with the light of thunder and fire.
Thunder and fire soared into the sky, swirling around, causing ripples, and the floor completely exploded; his aura terrifying, akin to a Thunder Flame Knight.
"In this state, I should be able to play around with C-level Life Forms that have less than 60% of their development progress," Li Ming mused, "Facing C-level Life Forms with awakened core abilities, surviving shouldn’t be a big problem."
Using Materialization was a significant part of his combat capabilities; his whole body was C-level weaponry, with defense and offense not being an issue, though his speed was a bit lacking.
In this state, however, he could completely compensate for this with five pairs of shoes.
The Controlled Objects he had upgraded, none were wasted all played their intended roles.
He still had two hundred thousand metal energy left and hesitated whether to upgrade his shoes, but shook his head after a moment.
A pair of C-level shoes required sixty thousand metal energy, increasing speed by 300%, but the second pair was greatly discounted, the active abilities couldn’t stack, and the passive only increased by an additional 100%.
The cost was too great for little benefit, better to wait until he was a major player to upgrade.
"Can run, can fight," Li Ming nodded in satisfaction, having taken a firm step towards the path of Controlled Objects he had hoped for.
As his development progressed, his body’s parameters would increase further, and with the amplification from the Controlled Objects, every 1% of development progress would bring him significant improvements.
The only issue was the cooldown time in switching Controlled Objects; increasing his strength only unlocked the Control Bar but couldn’t reduce the time.
He felt this feature should be reducible, it’s just that he had not found the method yet.
While Li Ming was busily enhancing his own strength.
In Luo Chuan’s office, he received a phone call.
However, he was unapologetically furious, immediately bursting into a tirade, "Who told you to kill Fu Zongchen, at such a sensitive time, causing such a big mess, what if it leads to unfortunate consequences!"
He didn’t give the other side a chance to speak, spitting words all over.
"Shut the hell up!" The other person finally caught a break and retaliated angrily, "Are you out of your mind? I’m still out here catching interstellar pirates, I don’t have time to go back and kill Fu Zongchen."
"So you just put such a big hat on me because I didn’t answer your call this morning?"
"Wait a minute... Fu Zongchen is dead?" The other finally expressed some shock.
"It wasn’t you who killed him?" Luo Chuan was skeptical, "I thought the teacher had ordered you to kill Fu Zongchen."
"The teacher hasn’t bothered with me for half a year," the other scoffed: "You really think highly of me, what exactly happened to Fu Zongchen?"
"I went to his inauguration banquet, he was speaking fervently, but suddenly his head was blown off by someone." Luo Chuan reported simply:
"Zhu Yunshen immediately locked down the entire villa, General Ren Cangsong also arrived, they checked everything inside and out, but no bullet holes, no firearms, nothing was found."
"Nothing found?" the other grew more skeptical: "Zhu Yunshen I can understand, but the people under General Ren Cangsong aren’t slackers."
"Ballistic trajectory backtracking? Particle tracing? Three-dimensional state modeling?"
"All possible methods were used, to quote Zhu Yunshen, it’s all contradictions everywhere, unless someone can control bullets to turn corners," Luo Chuan shook his head: "But even so, where’s the gun?"
"Superpower psychic force? Directly controlling the bullets?" he added.
"If someone can control bullets, and even surveillance cameras can’t capture that, what level of Superpower User would you say that is?" Luo Chuan spoke deeply.
The other was silent for a moment, then exclaimed: "Apparently, Fu Zongchen made an enemy out of somebody formidable, but you think too highly of me, I’m not at that level yet."
"Actually, there’s another bizarre thing," Luo Chuan hesitated: "The armor Prince Bai Jiang gave to Fu Zongchen was stolen."
"General Ren Cangsong and Zhu Yunshen flipped everyone thoroughly, everyone present was a big shot; they even turned their underwear inside out, but nothing was found."
"Good lord..." the other couldn’t help but marvel: "Who is this new player on the scene, has to be at least a B-level Life Form, I feel it’s more than one, it has to be at least two, collaborating from inside and outside to pull off this plan."
"The question is, who could hire two B-level Life Forms to kill Fu Zongchen?" Luo Chuan said helplessly.
"It’s not our teacher, is it?" the other hesitated.
"I asked already, it’s not." Luo Chuan gave a bitter smile: "Fu Zongchen isn’t worth that much to our teacher."
The two didn’t come to any conclusion from their discussion; finding it rare to chat for a while, the other party again brought up Li Ming.
"... Level 16 development potential, what do you think?" Luo Chuan spoke lightly.
"What!?" He exclaimed, "If nothing goes wrong, there’s almost a 100% chance he’ll become an A-level life form. Where did the teacher find such a defiant fellow?"
"Can our Blue Star’s genetic standards really give rise to such high potential?"
"You’re making a big deal over nothing," Luo Chuan scoffed.
The two chatted a bit more before Luo Chuan finally hung up the communication, his eyebrows tightly furrowed, wondering who was responsible.
Three days later, a piece of news shook the Blue Star Civilization. Candidate Commissioner Fu Zongchen had been assassinated, causing an uproar.
A spokesperson for the Blue Star’s upper echelons claimed it was very likely the work of the terrorist organization from the Silver Star Cluster—Torch.
They vehemently denounced Torch and also paid their respects to Fu Zongchen.
"Phew... After lurking for five days, I finally killed him." Classical music played in the bar, and the cripple let out a long breath, weary as he maneuvered around the bodies strewn across the floor, and sat on a high stool.
Leaning over, he took out half a bottle of liquor from behind the bar, poured himself a drink, tasted it, but finding it off, stood up, fished out some ice cubes from a bucket, dropped them into his cup, and took another swig, then nodded in satisfaction.
He ripped off the chain from around his neck and struggled to pull out an old smart terminal from a drawer.
After snapping a photo, he opened the Black Hole Network, just about to submit his mission when the dense array of red dot messages startled him.
"Damn, Old Cripple, you’re really awesome!"
"What is this?" His eyebrows furrowed. Thinking something major had happened, he scrolled to the very last message notification, which caught his attention, from Li Ming—"Mission accomplished."
He was stunned, his pupils contracted, as if struck by a heavy hammer, his breathing hurried, the sound of his racing heart thundered in his ears; trembling, he opened StarNet, and the first pushed notification confirmed his suspicions.
"He really... killed him." The cripple’s voice trembled, feeling as if something heavy that had been pressing on him had completely vanished.
In Jingnan, Fu Zongchen’s villa remained heavily guarded, with various high-tech instruments, such as sonic detectors, high-frequency capture devices, and particle wave oscillators, being deployed.
Zhu Yunshen rubbed his palms together; before him sparks flew as a line of city guards held ion welders, slowly cutting through the vault door.
The process had continued for two days, and as a circular cutting line connected, the vault door was cut open, revealing a small gap just large enough for a mechanical dog to enter.
An intelligent mechanical dog was activated, jumped through the gap, and prepared to open the vault door from the inside.
However, when the mechanical dog landed and unfolded, the 360-degree surround video footage sent back startled everyone present.
"Minister, Minister..."
Zhu Yunshen frowned and quickly walked over to the screen, his face suddenly turning pale, "How could this be!?"
Inside, the vault was a mess, with traces of flames and scorched marks everywhere and solidified iron slurry covering the floor, leaving almost nothing behind.
Someone had already been there.
Zhu Yunshen’s face looked extremely troubled, beaten to the punch again, just like the armor that had mysteriously disappeared.
"It must have been stolen before Commissioner Fu died. All personnel who came and went are under our surveillance; it’s impossible for someone to have carried it out," a subordinate speculated.
Zhu Yunshen kneaded his temple, feeling a wave of fatigue as if being toyed with by someone.
"Collect data for analysis, report it to the investigative team," he waved his hand, disinterested.
The investigation into Fu Zongchen’s death was still ongoing, and even an investigative team had been established.
As for the so-called murderer "Torch," it was merely an explanation given to the outside world.
Outside, events were shadowy and unpredictable, while Li Ming stayed in the laboratory, letting the storms rage against him, tirelessly developing the gene seed day after day.
In a blink of an eye, more than half a month had passed since the deaths of Fu Zongchen and Youke.