Arriving at Mars

After Babata's explanation, Luo Feng was naturally eager to go. That evening, Luo Feng spoke with his family. December 3rd, 2061, morning. After breakfast, Xu Xin went to the garage to drive to work. Luo Feng called out, "Dad, Mom, I won't be back for lunch, but I'll be home for dinner. Pingping, Xiaohai, make sure to listen to Grandma and Grandpa at home~~" He dotingly kissed his two sons, then walked out the door. In the courtyard, his figure blurred and he vanished instantly. High in the sky. Luo Feng shot into the sky, swiftly piercing through the cumulus clouds, flying higher and higher. Above the clouds, the sunlight was even more dazzling. He flew in one breath to an altitude of about 8000 meters, hovering in mid-air. "Babata, bring out the Heilong Spaceship. Oh, and activate stealth first, don't let the satellites detect us," Luo Feng thought. "Don't worry, a top-tier spaceship from the Black Dragon Mountain Empire being detected by your Earth would be a huge joke!" Babata said. At the same time, a massive black saucer-shaped spaceship, about 100 meters in diameter, materialized out of thin air beside Luo Feng. Its hull was emblazoned with a winged dragon. Luo Feng took a deep breath. One hundred meters in diameter might not sound huge, but it was still awe-inspiring up close. In terms of size, it was considerably larger than a typical high school football field. "Beep!" The outer hatch opened automatically, and Luo Feng flew into the laser-lit passage. The inner gate then rose. ... Inside the Heilong Spaceship's control room. "Luo Feng, the demonic Babata is at your service!" A crisp, smug voice echoed throughout the control room, and Babata's avatar appeared on the main console screen. Luo Feng grinned, "Let's go!" "Alright," Babata chuckled. Buzz! The sound was very low; even a powerful individual like Luo Feng could only barely detect a faint tremor inside the spaceship. Its comfort level was far, far superior to that of an ordinary car. "Do you want to activate the external view simulation?" Babata asked. "Any simulation level from 10% to 100% is possible." "External view simulation?" Luo Feng was surprised. "Because the spaceship's hull is made of thick metal, you can't see outside directly with your eyes, so we must use external view simulation. It's similar to your Earth's 3D projections, but... the effect is far superior to your Earth's 3D projections," Babata explained. "Activate, 100%," Luo Feng said directly. Whoosh! The control console, seats, and floor of the control room all vanished. The surroundings became a hazy atmospheric layer. "The Heilong Spaceship is flying through the atmosphere and will soon completely leave Earth. It has already left!" Babata's voice echoed around him. Luo Feng instantly saw the boundless expanse of space in the distance, vast and endless. Luo Feng turned his head to look behind him. A massive, azure planet appeared in his vision. "Earth!" Luo Feng couldn't help but hold his breath. It was too, too beautiful! Although he often saw this image on the internet and television, when he truly left Earth aboard a spaceship and witnessed it with his own eyes, the sense of shock... it touched his very soul. The azure planet continuously shrank! The Heilong Spaceship and the azure planet grew further and further apart. "Earth, Sun." Luo Feng's gaze swept past Earth. In the far distance, there was a planet like a burning ball of fire—the Sun. "The spaceship has accelerated to 100,000 kilometers per second. It will now proceed to Mars at a constant speed," Babata's voice rang out. Luo Feng turned his head again, looking in the other direction. "Truly dreamlike!" Luo Feng couldn't help but exclaim. "Oh, Babata, over there." Luo Feng pointed to the left. In the distance, massive ice chunks surrounded by gas were flying, and the Heilong Spaceship easily overtook them. "That's what you Earthlings call a comet," Babata said. Luo Feng looked around. The mysterious yet boundless starry sky. In the distance, occasionally there was a planet, or even some asteroids, some cosmic dust, and so on. "It's too beautiful," Luo Feng praised. "It is beautiful, but if you see it too much, you'll find it boring and cold," Babata said. "Let's go with 10% simulation," Luo Feng said. Whoosh! The surrounding starry sky instantly became very faint, like a layer of illusion, but he could still see Earth and the Sun behind him, just very faint and indistinct. The original control room's floor, chairs, console, and lights all reappeared. "This 100% simulation, it's like being entirely in space. If I didn't use my mental energy to check, or touch with my hands, or sit on a chair, but just floated, I wouldn't even feel the control room existed." Luo Feng couldn't help but praise it. The 100% simulation was indeed excellent. "Of course the effect is great. 100% simulation is standard for B-class spaceships and above!" Babata said. "If it were a basic A-class spaceship, a 50% simulation effect would be considered good. Unless you install an excellent external view simulation system yourself, which is a very expensive luxury." Luo Feng couldn't help but ask, "What's with the spaceship classifications?" Although he had inherited memories, the Golden Horned Beast's inherited memories wouldn't detail human spaceship classifications. "A-class corresponds to 'Planetary Level'." "B-class corresponds to 'Star Level'. C-class corresponds to 'Cosmic Level'... E-class corresponds to 'Sector Lord', and F-class corresponds to 'Undying'." "Many items are categorized by tiers." "Like the laser cannon before, it was a B6-class laser cannon. The mothership we found in Relic No. 12 was a B-class mothership. This Heilong Mountain Model X81 is a 'C5' class spaceship. Because it's a C5-class mothership, even Cosmic Level experts would need to expend great effort to destroy it." "Also, energy crystals are the same; they're divided into A-class, B-class, C-class... The higher the class of energy crystal, the rarer and more expensive it is." Luo Feng nodded as he listened. This was a very simple classification, clear at a glance, making it easy to understand which tier the laser cannons, energy crystals, and spaceships belonged to! "Babata, can the list of metals I gave you earlier also be classified this way?" Luo Feng suddenly realized. "Yes." "The list of metals you gave me that the Golden Horned Beast needs can be clearly divided into five classes. A-class metals are suitable for Planetary Level Golden Horned Beasts, B-class metals for Star Level Golden Horned Beasts... E-class metals for Sector Lord Golden Horned Beasts," Babata affirmed. Luo Feng nodded slightly. The growth of the Golden Horned Beast primarily depends on the growth of its 'inner world,' and for the inner world to grow, it needs to devour metals! There are three main ways to devour metals. The first method is devouring alloys, spaceship wreckage, and so on, or low-tier pure metals, which is the least efficient. This is also the slowest way for a Golden Horned Beast to evolve; it would take 100 years to go from Star Level First-tier to Cosmic Level First-tier. The second method is devouring pure metals of its current level! For example, Luo Feng, currently a Star Level Third-tier Golden Horned Beast, can devour B-class metals with nearly 100% purity! If Luo Feng reaches the Cosmic Level, he would need to devour C-class pure metals. With this method, Luo Feng's evolution speed can double! From Star Level First-tier to Cosmic Level First-tier, it would only take 50 years. The cost, however, is a large quantity of pure metals of the corresponding level! The third method is 'metal combinations,' just like humans need to eat different dishes to get various nutrients to be healthiest—it's the same principle! For the 'inner world' to grow, if several metal combinations are devoured simultaneously, it might have miraculous effects! The evolution speed could increase anywhere from one or two times to dozens of times. For instance, the optimal metal combination for a Star Level Golden Horned Beast to devour is 325 types of B-class metals, nearly 100% pure! Furthermore, these 325 pure metals must be in precise proportions. Devouring them all at once like this! Increases evolution efficiency by 89 times! "Currently, Earth has almost exclusively common, low-grade metals. Only what you call 'gold' is an A3-class metal! The 'blue gold' metal your Earthlings discovered on the moon is an A6-class metal," Babata said. "There isn't a single B-class metal." Luo Feng nodded. This was also why the Golden Horned Beast devoured 'war bases.' The Golden Horned Beast, having reached Star Level First-tier, couldn't find B-class metals on Earth, so it could only eat whatever it could get. Alloy wreckage from spaceships and such had the lowest digestion efficiency, no different from eating common metals, just smaller in volume. "The Golden Horned Beast evolves fastest by using 'metal combinations.' But even with common metals, it can still cultivate. However, 'Body of the Ancestral God'...' Luo Feng felt helpless. The two secret techniques his Golden Horned Beast practiced—'Body of the Ancestral God' and 'Absolute Space'—relied on extensive practice and insight for 'Absolute Space'. But 'Body of the Ancestral God' had extremely stringent requirements. 'Body of the Ancestral God' allows the Golden Horned Beast's body to grow larger or shrink! Therefore, to cultivate it, one must directly consume 'metal combinations,' ingesting them so that the complex metal ratios are absorbed by the body, improving some of the Golden Horned Beast's genes, enabling its body to shrink or enlarge! It could be said that... For the cultivation of 'Body of the Ancestral God,' cultivation itself is secondary; the main thing is eating 'metal combinations,' and directly eating them, ingesting them into the stomach, rather than devouring them into the 'inner world.' Moreover, each formula for 'Body of the Ancestral God' was even more difficult and complex than the highest-tier metal devouring formulas for Luo Feng's evolution! ... "Luo Feng, we're almost at Mars. The spaceship is beginning to decelerate," Babata's voice rang out. Luo Feng looked. With 10% external view simulation, Luo Feng could see the red planet in the distance ahead! Its color, a reddish-orange, clearly wasn't as beautiful as Earth. Whoosh! The spaceship quickly entered Mars' atmosphere, which was clearly much thinner than Earth's. "Babata, prepare to open the hatch." Luo Feng ran directly towards the spaceship's mid-level hatch exit. As he ran, his Moyun Combat Armor rapidly extended, quickly covering his entire body. He also wore a combat helmet, with only his eyes visible. The black saucer-shaped spaceship slowly descended. During its descent, the hatch opened directly. Whoosh! A figure flew out directly, clad in blood-red combat armor, a pair of cold eyes gazing down. "Hmm? Mars' gravity is so weak." Luo Feng clearly felt the difference in gravity between Mars and Earth. He immediately adjusted the gravitational magnetic field generated by the 'miniature planet' within his body to adapt to Mars' gravity. "This is—" Looking down, Luo Feng immediately saw towering, seemingly decaying colossal structures—pyramids—standing in the vast, sandy landscape in the distance! One, two, three...