Hei Zi stared stupidly at Ye Chong with bulging eyes. A moment earlier, Ye Chong began to pick his way through the parts like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower. The huge mech parts weighed like nothing in Ye Chong’s hands. "This … This is ridiculous!" Hei Zi massaged his temples in disbelief. While these were relatively lightweight skeleton parts, they were still parts for a mech; to lift them so effortlessly - was he human?
Ye Chong seemed to move with purpose. Hei Zi was confused - wasn’t he listening to him all the while earlier? He was not eyeing those mech parts back then!
"What a strange guy!" Hei Zi muttered to himself!
Ye Chong looked at the three piles of mech parts laid before him. The three combinations that Mu proposed were now fully grouped together.
Ye Chong walked to the first pile of mech parts, frowned slightly in thought for a moment, and set down to work! One by one, the mech parts assembled themselves like magic through his hands. He moved adeptly like a professional mech assembler, and the whole process went smoothly. The mech presented itself before him, and it grew taller and taller from the legs upwards, giving the illusion of something growing rapidly upwards.
Hei Zi could feel his brain giving up!
Ye Chong stared with knitted brows at the three mechs before him.
While he was unsure of the performance of these three mechs, he knew just from their appearance that they were all excellent products, definitely outstanding! Hei Zi stared dumbfounded at the three mechs without a word.
The three mechs had peculiar designs. They lacked the common metallic gleam found on average mechs, and had a unique quality of skeleton texture. Ye Chong believed that Mu’s proposed combinations were most logical, but still, he felt that something was wrong!
"Strange, what is it?" Ye Chong frowned, studying the three mechs closely!
The three mechs were made of parts of all colors - since they were not originally part of the same set, they looked like a colorful mess, but these three combinations were excellent. Unlike Master’s complete unfamiliarity with mechs, Hei Zi understood mechs at a deep level. The way he saw it, these parts, arranged artfully by Ye Chong, fit very well with each other, unlocking the potential of these parts to their maximum. They were perfect!
"Guy’s a true genius!" Hei Zi grew respectful of Ye Chong. From his perspective, Ye Chong was only improvising, but this improvisation had led to such a degree of perfection. He knew all the parts here like the back of his hand, and had tried to assemble them together. However, no matter which combination he came up with, they cannot be compared with any of Ye Chong’s three mechs. Besides, it took only a short moment for three mechs of this perfection to be produced!
Hei Zi believed that Ye Chong must be infinitely more knowledgeable about mechs than him!
Ye Chong was still deeply frowning, deep in thought.
Hei Zi did not noticed Ye Chong’s perplexity; his eyes were only for the three mechs. If Shang were here and saw how the black-faced burly man could look at the three mechs with tender eyes, he would definitely not stop himself from snickering!
Ye Chong pondered over it, unsure of himself, and moved quickly towards the first mech.
"Ye, is there a problem?" Mu also thought it strange.
"Mu, don’t you think there’s something wrong with these three mechs?" Ye Chong’s voice was uncertain.
"Wrong? In what sense?" Mu was curious.
After some hesitation, Ye Chong said, "I don’t know, but I can feel that something is wrong."
"How is that possible? My calculations should be infallible!" Mu’s voice held an arrogant undertone!
Ye Chong did not reply, but walked towards the first mech and began to disassemble it. "What’s this?" Seeing Ye Chong suddenly beginning to disassemble the first mech, Hei Zi grew baffled and could not help but asked, "What’re you disassembling it for?"
"Reassembling!" Ye Chong replied without looking back
"Reassembling? He’s really out of the ordinary, to strive for perfection even with mechs of this perfection, no wonder he’s miles ahead of me!" The honest Hei Zi grew even more respectful of Ye Chong.
Ye Chong disassembled the mech quickly. At least, Hei Zi had never seen anyone work as fast as him.
"Could I have assembled them wrong?" Ye Chong doubted himself first of all, since he was more likely to be at fault compared to Mu. Ye Chong even thought that the sense of wrongness was an illusion, since he could not exactly point out what was wrong about the mechs!
The fact was, Ye Chong was exposed to a great variety of mechs; with his own expertise, these exposures gradually developed a sense not unlike the intuition in him, and he could quickly evaluate a mech subconsciously. Like learning any language, when a person studies up till a certain point, he would develop a grammar sense; when constructing a sentence, he might not know exactly why, but through a vague decision process, he may choose to replace a word with another more appropriate vocabulary. Of course, this vague decision is not completely infallible, but is still usually quite accurate.
Through unceasing practice and learning, this vague decision making process could be honed to a higher accuracy. It would also mean that the person has advanced to a higher plane of understanding.
These three mechs were obviously styled from mechs of the Orbits, and Mu’s calculations and enhancements were based on physics. This method of combination was more suited for mechs like the MPA’s, where mech technology was more advanced, and the mech models were the result of extensive calculations. Mechs from the Orbits mostly had a natural feel to them, and so the combinations based purely on mechanical and performance-enhancing factors were not in harmony with the design style.
Mu was only a PSI, and emotions were his weakness; hence, things like style, which were not data driven, were naturally not part of a mech’s considerations.
Ye Chong was different. While he was always a logical thinking person, but it was inevitable as a human for him to have emotional senses. Due to his long experience with mechs, he had developed an acute awareness for them. While he could not pinpoint the exact source of the problem, he could sense the discord inside him.
Hei Zi, however, had not yet reached this level of sensitivity, and so did not notice it.
This vague feeling did not leave Ye Chong. He had reassembled the first mech thrive, but still could not see the problem. Ye Chong felt like he had reached a bottleneck, the solution to his troubles were ever closer but unreachable.
Ye Chong was vexed, but could not put his trouble into words for Mu.
If Ye Chong could one day understand his apparent intuition in great detail, it would mean that his knowledge in mechs would have reached a whole new level.
However, as Ye Chong was now, it would take him a very long time to reach that level by himself!
An ancient voice suddenly broke Ye Chong’s increasingly confused thoughts, "Oh, these three mechs look good, only that the style is a little incompatible!"
Style! Ye Chong’s eyes shone brightly as he realized then. "That’s right! It’s the style! The style!" he thought. Every mech has its own unique style. While these three mechs would perform well, their styles were not in harmony! No wonder he felt a little uncomfortable with them.
How should he proceed since he currently realized that style was the problem? Ye Chong’s initial excitement gradually receded to calmness. Ideas flew past his mind, but only aimlessly; even if he knew that style was the problem, how should he proceed?
Ye Chong could not help but lift his head to the voice that triggered his realization, and found it to be Nan Nan’s grandfather. He had focused intensely on disassembling the mech, and did not notice the time. The old man had already awakened from his nap and, upon returning to his workshop, found the three assembled mechs. The old man was a skeleton carver all his life, and had deep insights in abstract concepts such as mech styles. As he noticed the mechs, he could not help but comment on them, lending a hand to Ye Chong.
The old man saw Ye Chong turning to him, and smiled, "Who’d have thought you to be so knowledgeable in mechs. Looks like Hei Zi has much to learn from you, it’s hard to have huge ambitions with just skeleton carving skills in this line of work!" The old man ended his sentence blandly, probably dispirited from his inability to attain those huge ambitions that he had. The old man had become a master in skeleton carving, but his lack of knowledge in mechs had increasingly become a handicap for him.
Ye Chong lowered his head as though in thought, his expression hidden from the others.
They would not have guessed that Ye Chong was having an intense conversation with Mu.
"Mu, I want to learn how to make these skeleton parts!"
"Ye, our priority right now is to treat your illness, your current situation is very dangerous! Based on Lu Caite’s information, we first have to leave the Orbits and find his teacher. That’s what we should do now!" Mu was exceedingly calm.
"Hmm, you’re right, but the incident with Guardian raised a huge ruckus, they’re probably searching all over the Orbits for us now. It’s not a good choice to leave the Orbits now. Besides, all the starships in the Orbits are under the control of the Sanctuary. Without the starships, it’s impossible for us to leave the Orbits!" Ye Chong was equally in control of himself.
"You’re right! Based on Lu Caite’s information, you have to pass the so-called 5 tests by the Sanctuary! As it is, this is not a good time for us to take the tests! However, Ye, your health might suffer!" Mu was worried about Ye Chong’s physical condition.
"Nothing we can do about that! As long as it’s not fatal, I can handle it!" Ye Chong’s plain words were spoken with incredible determination!