Chapter 1605 - The Familiar but Strange Infiltration
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Li Yao shook the tactical crystal processor on his wrist softly. The picture on the light beam suddenly changed into a 3D map of the part of the starship that he was in.
As he quickly thought, the tubes and joints between most of the cabins were highlighted as half translucent shadows. They broke apart from the main map and combined with each other, evolving into many gaps that allowed him to sneak in.
It was a basic structure painting that he had inferred based on Tang Xiaoxing’s description.
Naturally, such a preliminary map that was made based on oration and deduction was far from enough.
However, it could at least tell Li Yao where the oxygen tubes were.
Li Yao liked sneaking into the starships best. However complicated the starships were, as long as they were cruising in space, a system to make and transmit oxygen was definitely necessary. The oxygen tubes that were connected to every corner were required to deliver the fresh air to the entire starship.
The larger a starship and the more people on it, the greater the scale and quantity of the oxygen tubes needed. It was certainly not an easy task to provide oxygen for a hundred million people in a concealed environment, unless everybody living on a starship lived their life carrying oxygen bottles and wearing masks, which was absolutely impossible!
Firefly had been sailing in the sea of stars for a thousand years. Everywhere was ragged, and the oxygen tubes were no exceptions. A lot of holes and leakages had appeared on them. They were currently under full maintenance and renewal. Naturally, it was impossible to seal all of the oxygen tubes.
It gave Li Yao an opportunity that he could take advantage of.
Zi! Zi! Zi! Zi!
A dark red ring appeared on his finger. The light and shadows rolled on the surface of the ring. A series of runes seemed to have gotten rid of the boundary of the metal surface and moved into the air. Rotating quickly, they constituted a crimson dagger of spiritual energy.
No heat could be felt at all judging from the appearance of the dagger. However, despite the thinness of the dagger, the sawtooth-like fire that was burning at the periphery actually boasted a temperature of over a thousand degrees, allowing it to cut the wall of the tubes made of general metal or porcelain.
Li Yao cut on the tube of the cooling tube carefully. Very soon, he dug a hole that was no larger than a fist in diameter but enough for him to crawl through if he constricted his body.
After crawling out of the hole, Li Yao found himself faced with dozens of tubes that were densely combined with each other. It was truly a forest of tubes!
It’s… here!
According to Tang Xiaoxing’s guidance, Li Yao soon located one of the oxygen tubes.
However, he did not start working on the tube immediately. Instead, he slowly turned his ring, changing the fire from a scorching red into a cold blue.
The oxygen percentage inside the tube was quite high. It would certainly not be a joke if there was a deflagration accident.
In the meantime, he retrieved a piece of magical equipment that was as elastic as a preservative film from his Cosmos Ring. He covered himself with the gadget outside of the oxygen tube.
An automatic pressure test system had been installed inside the oxygen tube. If tremendous high-concentration oxygen escaped, alarms would be triggered, and maintenance personnel would arrive to check in less than five minutes. It would be impossible for the entrance that he was to cut on the wall of the tube to escape their attention.
After everything was set, Li Yao finally focused his attention on prudently cutting the wall of the tube.
After he snuck into the oxygen tube, he did not melt the round piece of the tube back to the wall. Instead, he ‘pasted’ it backward softly through a certain special gel.
Naturally, such a gel did not have a high glutinosity, and the tightness of the material was not very good, either. It could last half a month at best, but that was enough for Li Yao’s plan.
If everything went well, they would be able to rescue Captain Tang Dingyuan in less than twenty-four hours.
Taking a deep breath, Li Yao crouched inside the narrow, zigzagging oxygen tube and observed the darkness inside the tube ahead of him and behind. Then, he did two things.
Firstly, he straightened his arm and aimed the tactical crystal processor on his wrist ahead. A round detector slowly rose out of the front end of the crystal processor.
It was a piece of magical equipment that he used to explore the structure of the tube.
The mechanism was simple. It did not adopt a supersonic wave feedback system or resort to telepathic thoughts for the search. Both of those two methods could be detected by the countermeasure magical equipment that possibly existed deep inside the tube.
In fact, he was not exploring the structure of the tube but the zones with a particularly high concentration of the oxygen up ahead.
In order to improve the efficiency in transmitting fresh air, the oxygen concentration in the tube was many times higher than that in the regular air and close to the pure oxygen for medical uses. Therefore, as long as one could perceive exactly where the high-concentration oxygen flowed to, they would be able to figure out the distribution of the entire tube and all its branches.
A moment later, on the light beam of the crystal processor, a super large map of the distribution of the tubes that looked like a combination of capillary vessels and a neural network slowly surfaced.
Li Yao softly whistled. It appeared that he was not old yet after all!
He overlapped the distribution chart with the 3D map that he had deducted based on Tang Xiaoxing’s information. After rectifying the flaws and errors on the 3D map, Li Yao confirmed his destination again and calculated the shortest route from his location to his destination.
However, before he began, there was one more thing that he needed to do.
Li Yao took out a cylindrical piece of magical equipment the size of his palm with the more than ten antennae folded inside. Then, he stuck the tool to the wall of the tube with gel.
It was a single-threaded device that could send out and received telepathic thoughts.
It could also be compared to a super tiny ‘spiritual tower’ that employed a dedicated route.
The device would work as a tiny unmanned communication base. As Li Yao snuck into the depths of Firefly, he would leave more magical equipment of the same type, which would connect with each other into a secret communication route. In such a way, even if he was deep inside Firefly, Li Yao would still be able to communicate with Long Yangjun, Meng Chixin, and the rest of them freely without worrying about the signal of the communication channel.
After deploying four stealth rune arrays on the four corners of the super tiny ‘spiritual tower’, Li Yao released Neltharion for reconnaissance ahead of him and marched toward his destination.
Five minutes later, he encountered the first obstacle.
It was three pairs of crystal cameras that had been deployed at a turn of the oxygen tube.
What was most sordid was that they were also covered by stealth rune arrays, and they were monitoring the tube invisibly.
Had it not been for the fact that the anti-stealth probe magical equipment on Neltharion was of a higher level and that Li Yao had been paying attention to any possible surveillance equipment, he would have been caught.
But since he had already detected them, everything would be easier.
Neltharion was Li Yao’s best partner in infiltrations and assassinations. In the past hundred years, Li Yao had performed full upgrades on it more than once. Even when he was in the Ancient Sages Sector, he had upgraded the tool with the brand-new techniques and technologies that he had learned from the Nuwa warship!
Neltharion was definitely no longer what it had been in the past.
Furthermore, as an experienced Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, Li Yao was ten times more capable of manipulating Neltharion than when he had snuck into the Nether World in the Blood Demon Sector in the past!
Like a nonexistent ghost boat, Neltharion quietly detoured to the back of the surveillance cameras and extended more than ten soft tentacles that were thinner than a hair. The ends of the tentacles were emitting feeble light in red, orange, yellow, green, and all other colors.
Licking his lips, Li Yao spent three minutes in order to freeze the photosensor in the crystal cameras for thirty seconds. Then, during the thirty-second gap, he hurried to blink past the alert area.
After installing a second ‘tiny spiritual tower’, he went on. This time, he did not run into new trouble again until he moved forward almost one kilometer and installed the third ‘tiny spiritual tower’.
The oxygen tube seemed utterly empty in front, but the air of extreme danger was surging nonstop.
Li Yao had covered his eyeball with a special stealth lens. By adjusting the trafficability of the light of the lens, he was able to see almost all the visible light and invisible light.
But right now, through the lens, he could see that the narrow channel up ahead had been dissected into narrow space that no human being could ever crawl through by dense, dark red rays of light.
If one were reckless enough to pass the area, no matter how fast they were, they would certainly block the rays of light briefly, and the alarms would certainly be triggered.
After pondering for a moment, Li Yao took out dozens of rhombic crystals large and small from his Cosmos Ring. They were all translucent and as clear as water, with a higher trafficability of light.
Narrowing his eyes, Li Yao calculated crazily. The dozens of rhombic crystals were dancing if not ‘flowing’ on the tip of his fingers agilely, allowing Li Yao to further understand their features and the angle between every two facets.
Half a minute later, Li Yao’s hands suddenly froze. Then, his fingers turned into ten phantoms as he threw all of the rhombic crystals toward the dark red web of light!
Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!
The rhombic crystals cut in between of the dark red rays of light steadily.
Those rhombic crystals had all been brought from the Ancient Sages Sector by Li Yao. They were of a high quality without the slightest impurities and as clear as any crystal could be. The dark red rays of light passed through them almost without meeting any hindrance.
However, because of the different facets of the rhombic crystals, the direction of the rays were subtly changed.
In the new direction, another rhombic crystal would be waiting for the rays. After a few refractions, the rays were restored to the original direction again.
The whole process took less than 0.01 seconds. Barely any interference was caused. But quite a few dark red rays of light were twisted into a curve from a straight line. A space big enough for Li Yao to crawl through had appeared in the middle.
Li Yao’s eyes were glittering brilliantly. He stuck his hands against his body and crossed his legs. Floating in midair purely based on his spiritual energy, Li Yao crawled through the hole like the softest eel!
It was possibly the most complicated trap that Li Yao had ever come across.
Almost a hundred dark red alert rays had been deployed. He had to calculate time and time again how to change the angle of the rays to create enough room for him to pass through. It took him forty-seven minutes to finish the test.
However, after he took care of the headache, the remaining traps, such as a ‘gravity sensation system’, were not worth mentioning at all.
One hour, forty-six minutes, and fifty-two seconds after Li Yao entered Firefly, Li Yao reached the area above his destination.