Shi Huajing had always felt grateful toward Cillin. He was the one who had pulled him out of the mire and returned him to the stars.
“Did you run into trouble? Is it related to the Eleventh Squad?” Shi Huajing asked.
“No, it’s more of a private matter. How are you doing over there?” Cillin asked.
Shi Huajing was current in Sector A, the star sector where many major political groups resided in. While their military strength was obviously weaker than the actual military, their ability to influence major decisions was a different story. Each and every one of the political heavyweights was someone who could cause quakes in GAL, and a couple of them belonged to none other than the Shi Family itself.
Cillin explained his thoughts and asked a couple of relevant questions to Shi Huajing. He didn’t go into details regarding Mo Heng’s situation.
“Give me a moment.”
Shi Huajing left for a bit to ring up his connections and investigate the relevant info Cillin had provided him with. A while later, he came back with a frown.
“Miracle again? What happened?”
In GAL, Miracle Co. Ltd was most famous for their high-end bioweapons and gene medicine. Their gene medicine especially was galactically known as the most successful—and most expensive—within the industry. Cillin had clashed swords with the company in the past, and it was looking like history was going to repeat itself.
“You’ve heard of Miracle’s ‘Plan A’, right? The one that was announced two years ago and won massive support from nearly the military, the political bodies and even most of the populace?” Shi Huajing asked.
Cillin had, but only after he returned from the Mist Bodhisattva Empire. Plan A was a publicity stunt to create ten thousand rank A persons within 24 hours, and it was very successful. Ten thousand plus rank B or rank C persons had evolved into rank A after they were injected with Miracle’s latest gene medicine.
So convincing was the publicity stunt that more than one powerful faction had pledged their support to the company. The chaos that damaged and destroyed countless actually enriched the company as it provided them with more than enough places to procure test subjects, and justifications to conduct their experiments. Budget no longer became an issue, and the people were literally begging to be experimented on. It was to the point where they didn’t even need to conceal their activities anymore.
“I’m planning to infiltrate that location. Can you help me?” Cillin asked.
“You’ll need to deal with the joint defense network of Sector C yourself, but yes, I can handle the rest,” Shi Huajing declared with confidence.
“Sounds like congratulations are in order.”
“I guess so. Thanks.”
Shi Huajing wasn’t the only “young master” of his generation who was eligible to inherit the Shi Family—in fact, he was only the fourth in the order of succession—but he was still a legitimate heir. Back then, nobody gave two thoughts about him because he had left the family of his own accord. At the time, many people even believed that he would follow in his suicidal mother’s footsteps and commit suicide.
However, not only Shi Huajing had come back, he even won the strong support of several persons with real power and his mother’s faction in just a short time.
“They were hoping that I would return because the current world is all about finding as many useful cooperation partners as possible. Also, my parents’ divorce was the matter that caused the two families to become estranged back then, so my return gave them the opportunity and the excuse they needed to repair things. Even if that wasn’t the case, who else can they support if not me? Those waste-of-breaths? Pfft,” Shi Huajing finished with a disdainful snort.
The first thing he did upon returning to his family was to teach his half-siblings a lesson. In fact, he almost beat two of siblings to death after they provoked him. However, not only did the patriarch of the family ignore his actions, the people in the household started looking at their returned young master in a new, favorable light.
Although he was the fourth young master, his words held far more weight than his older half siblings. The Shi Family was a political family, so the art of pragmatism was practically born into their genes. Moreover, Shi Huajing had proven himself to be a wise and capable person, so they had no problems currying favor with him openly or subtly at all. If anything, the family was happy that they could boast about him when talking about his generation.
“Let’s discuss the details after you’ve come to Sector A. I’ll contact you after I’ve made the preparations to receive you.”
“Okay.”
After cutting the transmission, Cillin read the data Shi Huajing just sent to him. It was the planetary data of the research base he was looking into, something the young man couldn’t have obtained with his previous standing. It was proof that the young man really was doing excellently in the family right now.
The Miracle research base was a site where “Plan Exceed” was being conducted, a project whose goal was to research a way to exceed rank A. The project had an incredible amount of supporters due to the current climate, so Cillin couldn’t risk exposing himself. This presented a couple of problems, however. For one, he couldn’t bring more than a couple of people with him on the mission. However, a couple of people were nowhere enough to deal with the trained and enhanced troops who were guarding the base.
He walked out of his lounge. He was going to prepare a special “gift” for the research base.
First things first, Cillin went to the shooting range. It had been an hour since he gave Tang Qiuqiu the PTS B, and the girl was still practicing her shooting skills. Not only that, the target configurations had reached a fairly complex level, not that it stopped the girl from hitting the bullseye at all.
“Alright, you can stop now, Qiuqiu,” Cillin interrupted the excited girl.
Tang Qiuqiu looked reluctant, but she obeyed and tried to take off her helmet. However, Cillin gestured for her to stop before pulling out a new gun with a slightly different design, but the same S symbol on it.
Tang Qiuqiu’s eyes immediately lit up. Her disappointment at being interrupted thrown to the back of her mind, she ran up to Cillin like a rabbit and asked rushingly, “Is this the upgraded version of the gun?!”
“Yep. The gun you’re using just now is the smoothbore B-type model. This one’s the E-type model. Unlike the B-type, the E-type is a rifled gun*, so its trajectory is even harder to grasp… although you probably don’t care about trajectories when shooting anyway. My point is, that this gun will be harder than the B-type to master.”
(*When I knew less about guns—by which I mean absolutely nothing—I translated this as spiraling bullets. Now I’m not sure if I translated correctly. This is all sci-fi tech so it’s not like I can ask Cillin “Hey man, when you say 螺旋弹 are you referring to the rifling or the bullet itself? For now I’m putting it down as rifling. Sorry for this translator’s note, you may get back to the story now.)
Just like before, Cillin fired the gun once as a demonstration without explaining anything. After he passed it to Tang Qiuqiu, he said, “Qiuqiu, this gun model is called the Purgatory Thunder Snake, and it’s invented by a man named Guan Feng. If you can use the E-type properly, I’ll bring you to see him in person. I give no guarantees, but he’ll probably like you enough to design a PTS gun of your own. Would you like that?”
“Of course!” Tang Qiuqiu chirped excitedly before remembering something. “Say, what other models are there besides B and E?”
“There is the blade-type PTS K, and the snowflake-type PTS S. However, both guns require strong body constitution to master, so remember to stay on top of your physical training as well.”
“Got it! But I don’t think I can improve much as I am right now, big bro. The district I was born in has below average average gene rank and no A-rank people at all. No matter how much I train, I won’t be able to become as strong as Cary and the others. I may have to get gene therapy to grow stronger.”
This worried Tang Qiuqiu a little. Although gene improvement technology had become a lot less unreliable than they used to be, she still couldn’t help but distrust them.
“That is for me to worry about, so you just focus on training yourself.”
“Okay! Thank you big bro!” Tang Qiuqiu was in super high spirits right now, so after inspecting her protective suit for a bit, she immediately resumed her training once more.
Tang Qiuqiu quickly confirmed that the PTS E was a lot more difficult to master than the PTS B, but she was confident that she would be able to master it eventually.
While Tang Qiuqiu was practicing her shooting, Cillin went away to address a couple of things to Eudy. After that, he went to his lab and stayed there.
“Oh? Our commander is good with technology too?” Mogas gave Wheeze a poke after seeing Cillin entering a laboratory. The gray cat was licking its paws right now.
Mogas had encountered commanders and A Squad central figures during his service, but none of them were true technicians. Only a very small number had a lab on their own, and all of them were hobbyists at best. His new commander seemed different though.
Wheeze shot him a glance before replying lazily, “You should broaden your horizons, son. Anyway, it looks like Cillin is plotting something devious again, so grab your popcorns and be ready for a very good show.”
Mogas was very curious, but Wheeze simply stuffed its mouth full with fish biscuits and refused to say anything more. After being Cillin’s companion for so many years, it could tell even without eavesdropping on the transmissions that the Eleventh Squad was going to get a new mission very soon. It was going to be a difficult one too, or Cillin wouldn’t go so far as to unlock his hoard of monstrous concoctions so to speak. This meant that Wheeze must prepare itself for the mission as well. How? By gouging itself on even more food, of course!
Ten days later, Cillin stepped out of his lab and spoke with Beaver to catch up with the recent happenings in Vanguard and GAL. A large meal later, he returned to his room and slept for two days straight. After he woke up, he immediately assembled the Eleventh Squad for a meeting.
The base had an assembly hall, but it was entirely too big for the current Eleventh Squad, so the meeting was held in a meeting room instead.
“Xi Kai and Xi Mu are kinda busy right now. They need ten minutes to sort out their stuff,” Tico said after walking into the meeting room.
Cillin nodded. “We’ll wait for them.”
Everyone else was already present. This would be the first time they had an all-hands meeting since the recruitment.
While everyone was chatting with each other to pass the time, Mogas suddenly let out a sharp cry, hugged his stomach and dropped to the ground. He rocked back and forth and looked to be in great pain.
Everyone turned to look at Mogas, but not the four new recruits. They either looked elsewhere and stared at their feet with an odd expression on their face.
“What’s wrong, Mogas?” Cary asked concernedly.
Still hugging his stomach, Mogas squeezed out, “My period pain… is killing me!”
Everyone: “...”
Phoebe facepalmed and felt like sinking into a hole. She knew that the sonuvabitch was going to say something crazy! At this rate, everyone’s going to think that the A squad members are crazy!
Tico was halfway to Mogas’ side when she heard his reply and felt her eyes twitch madly. She wordlessly turned around and returned to her seat. A confused Scarlet Wind was about to ask what “period pain” was until Tang Qiuqiu shut him up with the usual smack. Going by his experience, whatever Mogas said couldn’t be a good thing.
An expressionless Cillin gave Mogas two seconds before waving Snowball on. “Throw him out!”
“Wow! I’m up! I’m up!” Mogas hurriedly cut his rolling act and climbed to his feet. “Hahaha, I was just joking, man! Seriously though, I need to go to the toilet, so wait for me for a bit, okay? I’ll be back very soon, so please don’t start the meeting without me!”
Mogas dodged Snowball’s big, meaty paw and raced out of the meeting room after that.
“Huh, he actually needs to use the toilet? What happened to him?” Xiao Shang asked.
Czedow replied, “He stole a fish biscuit from Wheeze and ate it.”
Seeing that everyone was still confused, Czedow elaborated, “Wheeze hasn’t washed its paws for days, so the fish biscuit is infested with at least ten types of microbial colonies that can cause a gastrointestinal disorder such as E. Coli and more.”
Everyone turned to look at the gray cat who was nonchalantly licking its paws before thinking to themselves: dude should’ve known better than to challenge sir cat.
If this was on the ship, Wheeze would actually pay closer attention to cleaning itself and make use of the many, many automatic sterilization equipment on the ship. On land though, the cat’s wild nature took over its finer control immediately. Cillin had been pretty busy lately, so no one was around to tell it what to do. Also, even without sterilization equipment, Wheeze was perfectly capable of eliminating even the germ on its fur if it felt like it. It just couldn’t be bothered to do so—why would it when there wasn’t any germ in the world that could harm it?
Cillin took one glance at the smug cat’s tail and knew that it had “poisoned” Mogas on purpose. Even Czedow was cooperating with Wheeze and avoided mentioning the stranger germs that were infesting the fish biscuit. After all, there was no chance E. Coli could’ve given someone with Mogas’ constitution a stomach ache. Also, Wheeze just wanted to teach the chatterbox a lesson, and why not?
Ten minutes later, Xi Kai, Xi Mu and Mogas—who felt much better after finishing his business—entered the meeting room. Now that everyone was present, Cillin began talking about their future plans and arrangements.”
“Eudy and Dias will be leading the missions penciled on the mission list…”
Cillin went through everything his crew should pay attention to during and after the missions. He also gave them a rundown of the state of affairs of various hunter regiments, and some of the information he learned during the Vanguard general meeting.
However, the crew soon noticed that something was amiss. More specifically, some people weren’t assigned any mission at all.
“Er, commander, did you forget to mention yourself, or…?” Mogas asked.
“Czedow, Shusag and I have another mission to attend to; a top secret mission that is to be kept within the Eleventh Squad.”
After the meeting was over, Cillin received a call from Ji Feng.
“I’ve taken out the person you mentioned and removed a couple of saboteurs here and there. Good job. You saved some B Squads an internal strife or two,” Ji Feng said.
Ji Feng seemed unusually cheerful today, so Cillin asked, “Did something good happen today?”
“Blue Butterfly has begun their revenge.”
“Oh? Heaven’s Birth must’ve suffered a ton of losses.”
The news solidified Cillin’s determination to set out at this time even further. With luck, Blue Butterfly and Heaven’s Birth’s war would keep his target sufficiently distracted.
Ji Feng clearly knew that Cillin was planning to do something during this time. In fact, the reason he contacted Cillin was to inform him about the elimination of the spy and the war between Blue Butterfly and Heaven’s Birth. The other B Squadrons would hear about the latter eventually, and he didn’t mind sharing the news with Cillin first.
“When will you be departing?” Ji Feng asked.
“In two days.”
Not long after the transmission ended, Cillin received an encrypted message from Czedow. The sender of the message was Shi Huajing. He said that had arranged for someone to cooperate with Cillin at a famous sanatorium at Sector E, and all he needed to do was seek out that person.