69novels Chapter 266 A Childish Competition
Chapter 266 A Childish Competition
"It's the two of us teaming up again. Let's go, it's getting late. If we hadn't upgraded our equipment again, with only three days left, we might have had to risk using the big plane to get there."
It was the same tea shop at the south gate of Shrek City, but this time there were only two people there.
"We can't blame ourselves for this. Who would have thought that upgrading soul-guided equipment involving the power of laws would be so time-consuming?"
Taking a sip of sweet, cool tea, He Caitou replied with a hint of helplessness. Although everyone's speed was quite considerable thanks to their flying soul tools, flying for extended periods was no easy task. If they had more time, no one would want to rush so desperately.
Normally, using a large aircraft for transportation wouldn't be a problem. However, the Sun Moon Empire has already laid a tight net, placing all the elites heading to Mingdu for the competition under a "no leaving" policy. While entering isn't particularly dangerous, the "no leaving" policy means that people are already monitoring and observing Mingdu. Unsure of the extent of this surveillance, Long You is unwilling to expose his fastest means of transportation.
Looking up at the sky, seeing that the sun had fully risen, Long You and He Caitou stopped dawdling. After settling the bill for tea, the two left Shrek City directly, only activating their flying soul tool a kilometer away from the city gate and rapidly flying towards the Sun Moon Empire.
On the outskirts of Mingdu, as they drew ever closer to the modern city on the Douluo Continent, Long You waved to He Caitou, signaling them to land directly on the ground. Shrek City had a no-fly zone, and so did Mingdu. If the two of them dared to continue flying so brazenly, they would undoubtedly be bombarded down by Mingdu's city defense cannons.
However, Long You stopped here not only because of the threat from the city's defensive cannons, but also because his detection soul tool had discovered traces of the Mingdu encirclement. Although he was confident that he could slip out of the Sun Moon Empire's encirclement as long as he activated his invisibility soul tool loaded with spatial laws, Long You didn't mind taking a few more steps now that he had the opportunity to observe the situation of the encirclement further.
“Bourne, be careful when you investigate. Avoid all places where there are suspected high-level soul tools and high-level soul masters for now. In half an hour, Cai Tou and I will sit down and rest. Then you can control the nanobots to conduct a more detailed investigation.”
This place is the capital of the Sun Moon Empire, the most technologically advanced place for soul tools on the entire Douluo Continent. From the moment he left the border of the Star Luo Empire, Long You repeatedly reminded himself to be careful, extremely careful, when using soul tools. Soul tools used for detection, which have already created a generational advantage in the three kingdoms of the original Douluo Continent, are very likely to be exposed in the Sun Moon Empire. Therefore, unless absolutely necessary, Long You prefers to use methods that the Sun Moon Empire has never considered for reconnaissance.
Ten minutes later, a somewhat incomplete topographical map was projected in front of Long You. This was a rough map of the encirclement situation that Bourne had roughly detected using his soul-guided detection device. After Long You sent out the nanobots, the unclear areas on this map would be the focus of their detection.
After walking a short distance further, Long You glanced at He Caitou and slightly raised his chin toward the open space beside the official road. The two of them immediately began to tidy up their temporary resting place.
No need to prepare a campfire or anything like that, just level the ground a little. But it was during this opportunity to release three units of nanoprobing robots.
As a fantastical technological means initially developed by Longyou using soul tool technology from a different previous life in the Douluo World, nanorobots, or rather nanotechnology, still occupy a very important position in Longyou's current soul tool combat system. However, no matter how good nanotechnology is, it cannot change the objective fact that its unit diameter is too small.
This means that while the nanorobots possess extremely high detection accuracy, they inevitably suffer from a detection speed issue. If Long You doesn't invest enough resources at this point, simply controlling these nanorobots to move to the required detection location would take more than an hour. For Long You and He Caitou, staying in their current position for an hour is simply too long.
Under Long You's control, the nanobots, detached from their charging devices, coalesced into a mechanical pangolin, silently burrowing into the ground. Compared to the nanobots, the pangolin, over a meter long, moved much faster. Under Long You's control, this pangolin wouldn't rush directly into the encirclement Long You had previously scouted. Instead, throughout its journey, it would continuously differentiate into flying insects, using flight to quickly approach the encirclement.
Once they get close enough to the encirclement, the nanobots can disperse into smaller units and move independently. Three nanobots may seem like a lot, but in reality, they are only about the number of worker ants in a few anthills, and will not attract any attention.
When Long You finished his work and finally began to rest, He Caitou, who had been silent all along, cautiously observed his surroundings and asked, "What's wrong? I was just about to ask, we're almost at Mingdu, why are we stopping to rest? Also, those things looked like soul-guided nano-detectors. Is there anything noteworthy here?"
"A combat barracks, a combat barracks that shouldn't be in this location. I need to confirm whether the presence of a combat barracks here is a routine arrangement by the Sun Moon Empire because Ming has no city walls, or whether these restless guys want to do something during this competition."
"This position is rather delicate. But if the Sun Moon Empire were to cause trouble, what would they do? Leave us all here? Aren't they afraid of incurring the wrath of the masses?"
"Of course we're not afraid. If the Sun Moon Empire wants to unify the continent, it's inevitable that it will incur the wrath of the masses. If it can detain us all now, then whether the sects of the three kingdoms of the original Douluo Continent will still be willing to contribute to the war is completely unknown."
Long You couldn't say he knew everything about Xu Tianran's plans, but he had a basic understanding. As for talent, Xu Tianran was undoubtedly exceptionally talented, but his physical disability was his absolute weakness.
This doesn't mean that Xu Tianran's intelligence was affected by his physical disability, but rather that his personality became extreme due to it, even bordering on dual personality. Perhaps because imperfect people always subconsciously pursue perfection, many of Xu Tianran's decisions tend to be somewhat radical. If these decisions succeed, they can bring sufficient benefits to the Sun Moon Empire, but if they fail, the resulting backlash will be extremely intense.
Twenty minutes later, Long You put down the baby bottle-shaped soul tool he was holding. Bourne had already sent word that all three units of the soul-guided nano-detection robots had arrived at their designated positions. Considering that Mingdu was only about eighty kilometers ahead, Long You and He Caitou had already rested for quite some time. Although they weren't sure if anyone from the Sun Moon Empire was watching them, it was always better to be cautious.
"Let's go, our assistants are all in place. Now we just need to wait for Byrne to gather the information."
He Caitou had no objection to this. At Long You's instruction, Bourne had already shared his surveillance footage with He Caitou, so he was well aware of the situation. They were still some distance from Mingdu, and it was getting late. They should hurry into Mingdu so they could get some rest.
The anti-gravity soul-guided skateboard, which hadn't been used for a while, appeared under their feet. After a short adjustment, Long You and He Caitou sped off towards Mingdu.
Upon entering Mingdu City, Long You felt a sense of familiarity mixed with strangeness. Compared to other places on the continent, Mingdu undoubtedly resembled the place where Long You had lived in his previous life. Looking at the numerous yet orderly flow of people on the streets, Long You couldn't help but marvel at the superior organizational capabilities of modern times compared to the feudal era.
After a brief stroll around the city entrance, Long You quickly spotted his target—a milk tea shop. Considering this was his first time entering Mingdu, Long You had contacted his chief steward (a humanoid soul-guided intelligent robot) beforehand, requesting that he arrange a guide for him within the city.
Led by the guide, Long You and his companion arrived smoothly at the hotel arranged by the Sun Moon Empire for the participants of this competition. It was a large hotel with eight floors. Although, according to Long You's observation, eight floors was not considered high-rise in Mingdu, its impressive ceiling height made it quite tall for the city.
From the outside, it's a completely silver-white hotel, appearing almost metallic from a distance. Inside, the metallic feel is even more pronounced in the lobby.
Although he knew it was impossible, the hotel's streamlined design gave Long You the feeling that the hotel was a beautifully crafted soul tool cast in one piece.
"Simple, elegant, and high-quality – it truly reflects the style of the Sun Moon Empire, completely different from the wooden restaurant we saw in the Star Luo Empire last time!"
Because he was completely indifferent to whether the Sun Moon Empire would unify the continent, Long You was able to calmly evaluate various things within the Sun Moon Empire. In contrast, He Caitou, the former crown prince of the Sun Moon Empire, became even more silent after entering Mingdu. This feeling of having everything theoretically his own yet being treated as strangers was something Long You had never experienced, had no right to speak about, and had no standing to offer advice.
Sensing the oppressive atmosphere around him, Long You didn't feel compelled to tour the hotel right now. Finding a maid in a long silver dress amidst the bustling lobby, Long You easily inquired about the Tang Clan members' rooms. Just as he remembered, although the Tang Clan were the previous champions, they were now competing as an unknown sect, and their assigned rooms were far from ideal.
However, none of that matters. The Tang Clan members' rooms are basically just for show; their actual living quarters will be their own luxurious spheres. The real concern now is how to safely enter the team's rooms. Last time, Long You and He Caitou arrived at the destination first and prepared a "welcome ceremony" for the rest of the group. This time, it's the other way around, and Long You and He Caitou even stood each other up before departure. Long You wouldn't believe there wasn't a "welcome ceremony."
As expected, with the help of the nanobots, Long You easily located the trap set up by Huo Yuhao and the chubby boy Song He. However, what troubled Long You was that the trap they set up wasn't a soul-guided trap, but a purely mechanical one. This made it difficult for Long You to stop the trap from activating using soul-guided devices; he could only destroy it. But looking at the super-bubble slime inside the trap's chamber, Long You could already imagine how much effort he would have to waste cleaning up the room after breaking the trap.
"Personally, I think we should get the energy generator inside the house first. Only by wrapping all the facilities in the house with the energy light membrane can we save some energy later."
Although he didn't physically probe, He Caitou saw the images Long You had captured. Since he and Long You were the ones who created that super-bubble slime, he knew very well how difficult it was to clean. Not wanting to waste his efforts, He Caitou abandoned his emo approach and started racking his brains, trying to achieve a flawless victory.
“This is going to be a bit difficult. Even though this room is the worst in the hotel, it’s still quite well sealed. The nano energy generator is supposed to be a nano-level soul tool, but it’s actually much larger, making it hard to get into the room without opening the door.”
"No, there is still a way. We just need to gather and deform the real nano soul guide to stabilize the slime chamber that will explode as soon as the door is opened. Stabilize it for a maximum of three seconds, and then we can have the energy generator create an energy barrier to surround the entire chamber."
"Hmm, in that case, it doesn't seem like a bad idea. Let me take a look at the structure of the explosive chamber that Yuhao and Xiaopang built. Only by blocking the weakest point of the structure can we hold out for the longest time with the least cost."
"Okay, let me know when you're done. I need to pre-start the energy generator."