Ye Chong seemed to have utterly lost himself in the process. He was so absorbed by the fun of modifying mech. Moreover he was much more focused than before without Yining this time, since he also skipped the idle chatter and was fully invested to the modification process.
He grew acquainted with the apparatuses and his hands moved faster. The afterimages had started overlapping on each other. It was as if the audiences were watching some Sci-Fi movie; their mouths stayed open in disbelief.
"Madness! Insanity! Ye Chong, our contestant is going faster! Based on the data we had freshly obtained, Ye Chong has already achieved a whopping Mach 3.88 at his hands! Looks like our champion in the making is doing fantastic! I wonder if he ever has a limit or is this actually his maximum? Well nobody knows! That's why we would watch on in curiosity and to witness the show of the century!"
Ye Chong was engrossed in every detail of his craft. He looked all concentrated and the grim face of his slowly turned gentle. The sober was washed away by his passion towards mechs, exerting a one-of-a-kind magnetism. The stern eyes were cleansed as they sparkled in a refined wisdom and craftsmanship! The face and his smooth, continuous movements gleamed like a diamond rinsed from the mud. It was dazzling, yet so mesmerizing. No one was bothered by his torn clothings and no one cared if he was not handsome enough for the standard of public. At that very moment, he was the center of the tempest swirling the entire academy! He attracted everyone's attention and had blinded the audience from seeing the potent performance by the other contestants!
As the audience had their eyes frozen on Ye Chong, the shape of the modified mech started becoming discernible.
The sound of paper muffling the microphone echoed, "Okay, we had just acquired the design plan submitted by Ye Chong. Well, by our standard of conduct, this should never be available till the end of the tournament. But thanks to our diligent staff and our supportive fans below, our loving principal had finally agreed to bestow this to us under special permission. It was quite a hassle but I would guarantee this would worth the trouble we had gone through! Alright…"
"Hmm… Hmm…" the commentator took a glance at the papers.
"Yes! Yes! Yes! The moment we looked at this plan, everyone of us at the studio held the same thought; this person is absolutely a genius among the geniuses! Assuming Ye Chong's frightening speed of his hands has defined us his impressive discipline in self-training, then this very piece of plan could easily define to all of us here today, that he also possesses masterly knowledge! And I would like to highlight something for everyone on the seat - this piece of design was rated a perfect score at our mech modification assessment system! In addition, the concept of his design is overwhelming enough to make all our 12 advanced mech modification technician nod their heads! They responded simultaneously with approval. A perfect score! A masterpiece!"
And that comment landed on the audience like an atomic bomb. The audience could no longer inhibit the fiasco rumbling inside them. Hisses, bustles and rustles took over the floor.
Cousin Xiu's eyes were totally glued at the screen watching Ye Chong. Her eyes glossed like a lake in autumn, calm and still yet seemingly uneasy. She seemed to be figuring out something in her mind. Meanwhile, Xuelin had lowered her head, with the expression changing from time to time. Her face was once blushed, then it became drained. Sometimes one could hear her mutters or sound of her grinding her teeth. Her eyes wavered, her lips quivered.
"Well, well, well. Plot twist: Ye Chong is a super processor himself! In b4 his mechanical arm broke from that speed!" tossing a meme, the commentator spoke on humorously.
And everyone at the bottom laughed out loud.
"A new glorious record has been written today at this tournament 300 years after the academy was founded. Gorgeous it was yet saddening! Since it wasn't our student who made the record! We should be ashamed of our inability! Sniff sniff!" The commentator's voice sounded remorseful and that made most of the actual students from the academy lowering their heads embarrassingly.
"Anyway! We should take the precious time to have some word about Ye Chong's acclaimed design of perfection! Firstly, Ye Chong actually discarded the traditional humanoid design for his mech. In exchange, he incorporated the design of an aircraft for the main body. It is a daring attempt as the humanoid designs aren't widely used for no reason today. However, an aircraft design is undeniably much more practical for the upcoming race. The reason is that the limbs of a humanoid design do not contribute anything to speed. Our aircrafts are mostly circular nowadays, in which the design was not fancied by our Ye Chong. He dropped the idea of the mainstream aircrafts and went for the ancient design - the arrowhead to build the main body."
The audience boomed in exclamation. It looked like they were the corns rolling in the popcorn machine, exploding anytime soon if more shocking facts were fed upon them.
"For the engine, he had selected Firebird-III, also a non-mainstream engine choice. And believe me, most of the students don't even have an idea of what a Firebird-III is. Generally, the Firebird-III provides forceful motion while only having 1/2 of the weight of the mainstream engine choices in the same category. It also has the largest scope of direction control among the other engines of its grade. This vitally eliminates the major issue of lack of direction control in the arrowhead design. The downside of this choice though is its overwhelming energy drain. However, it remained as the chosen one by our Ye Chong." The commentator took a quick sip and carried on explaining.
"Contrary to the usual mechs, the side wings at the front of the mech do not simply consist of flimsy metallic board, instead, a few more additional engines are installed on them. That would permit the ability of a large scope of direction change, but it would be quite challenging to the pilot of this craft.
Moving on with the shape, unlike the traditional arrowhead designs, Ye Chong seemed to have tweaked the aerodynamic aspect of this design - which would further reduce the C.D. of the former designs. Just in case our audience was confused by the fancy terminology, C.D. as in Coefficient of Drag means the level of drag or resistance of an object when it travels in fluid environment like the air in this tournament. Fundamentally this has justified the fact that our Ye Chong wields great theoretical knowledge. Certainly amazing! How many of us who are 30 years old and below today would even have interest in theoretical knowledge? Let alone being able to acquire such a result!
Next, there is also something unique about the location of center of gravity for his design. It's very bold…"
Before the commentator's voice landed, the screen changed as it zoomed away from Ye Chong, showing the whole craft.
Ye Chong had completed all the necessary modification. Seeing how he was left with ample time, he leisurely took a can of spray and began painting the mech blue. A light blue arrowhead, which would obviously cause another round of chatter at the audience below.
The mech was literally Gliding Joy! The one he created at Yining's place before!
The Gliding Joy this time was slightly different than the one before. This was because Ye Chong took the time to further fine-tune the design of its main body. Of course, Shang would take most of the credits during this. Shang was unhappy being "enslaved" by Ye Chong and he was angrier than ever at the fact that Ye Chong purposely ran away from his ultimate chemist training. Well, we all knew that Ye Chong did not give a damn. To avoid that, Ye Chong eventually succumbed to 24/7 modification designing.
Ye Chong's deep interest for mech seemed to be inborn. The mech theories were not as disinteresting as the chemist's theories. At least Ye Chong knew where Shang was going when he briefed about mechs. Once Shang switched to the chemist lecture mode, Ye Chong only knew he had to run… and run fast!
Shang could only whined a bit in the end. Since it was indeed pointless of him to lecture if there was no practical for Ye Chong to work with.
Back to the stage, Ye Chong felt something was amiss. Oh yes! He grabbed another can of spray and painted two large letters at the body. "G.J." which is an abbreviation for Gliding Joy - the wavy curve of the G with the the silver hook at the J intrepidly. Cheekily, Ye Chong tossed the can away and declared the completion of his mech, the Gliding Joy!
"Ye Chong our boy turned and squinted, 'ain't nobody got time for that!' He had much better things to do than putting the can back nicely. But well this is what a bad boy would do. Go hide your kids before they get hit! Wait, hide your flowers too!" The commentator humored Ye Chong's throw.
One must admit that Ye Chong did have a great luck. In every room, the choices of the parts given were actually different from each other, with some of them being randomly given. Yes, that means Ye Chong had Firebird-III in his room by luck! No, by fate!
Ye Chong fondled the glossy skin of his baby. That profoundly devoted gaze of his was shrill-worthy for the kitties at the spectator's area.
Just when the audience was going to start applauding, something surprising happened again!
Ye Chong took a flip and went into the cabin.
Yes! The cabin!
"What he's doing?"
"I don't know. I have enough shock for today…"
"I had lost track of what's happening…"
"I don't want to live on this planet anymore…"
Everyone was stupefied, including the commentator who shut his mouth and watched carefully what Ye Chong was doing. He would not want to miss a detail of an anticipated miracle from this boy.
Beep.
Gliding Joy activated.
"What?" The people were terrified.
"Did he just turn on the mech he just built?"
"Has he even tested his mech?"
"Of course not! That aside, is he committing suicide?"
"Oh my gosh… Does he know where he is? That is the mod room! The indoors! With only 150 meter away from the walls, even a normal speed of mech about Mach 2 would take 1 second to hit the wall."
"Somebody stop him!"
"That means, he's going to suicide?"
The crowd panicked.
The girls at the seats began shrieking in fear. People covered their eyes as they refused to witness a brutal crash from a genius. They would never be able to face such ending for a boy, of becoming a splat of flesh on the wall with scraps of metal on the ground!
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Even the commentator could hold it no longer, "Ah!"
No one could imagine of piloting a mech at high speed in a narrow room like this! It skips one's heartbeat even from thinking about it. The intensity started building in everyone's mind, like a dynamite blowing up soon.
"Is he mad?"
"Does he really think it's his showtime? That's why he wanted to put off a show?"
"I don't know. He could be the stupidest genius I ever came across. Hahahaha." The envious participants sneered as they whispered.
"He's gonn-" The noise stopped abruptly as Ye Chong on his Gliding Joy disappeared like a strike of blue lightning, right in front of everybody.
The expecting collision did not occur.
The light blue Gliding Joy reappeared as it braked 2 meters right before the wall. Such a visual impact to everyone at the tournament, a prime definition of extreme-motion to extreme-motionless, a heart-shocker!
"Di-Did… Did he just accelerate at a 150 meter distance? I-Is that even possible?"
"No way! No way I'm digesting this! This has to be due to pure coincidence! Yeah! Luck! He was just lucky!"
The whispers went on.
"Well, that is it! Ladies and gentleman!" The commentator sighed in relief, "The Lady Luck seemed to have smiled at Ye Chong today! He actually stopped right before the wall in such a brief distance! This is extraordinary! This is unbelievable! I guess the God would fear losing such a genius this quickly too! But oh my, Ye Chong, you should really learn from your fatal mistake! The pressure-buffering system in a racing mech is obsolete by nature and might be insufficient to protect the impact from your behavior just now! Please value your life more than anything else! This is for everybody at the seats as well!"
And the crowd nodded heavily in agreement.
His action was heart-wrecking indeed. There were quite a few people whose hearts literally skipped a beat when they saw what Ye Chong did. Their faces turned pale and seemed to be collapsing.
On the other hand, Ye Chong jumped out of Gliding Joy normally. Yes, normally. His expression was bland, as usual. There was hardly any expression, as if the thrill he did was nothing. The grim on his face returned as indifferentlyas he stared at his masterpiece. The kitties on their seats screamed on top of their lungs again, "Ye Chong! Oh my!" "He's so cool!" "I can't take it anymore!" "Such dangerous man, if that's dangerous, I'll be dangerous too!"
The YC fans club seemed to be sprouting anytime soon.
Ye Chong did not seem to be interested though. He walked to the processor at the center of the room, pushed a few buttons to officially declare his completion.