Chapter 42: Farewell

“David, you must practice diligently. I’ll be waiting for you in Naan City!” Garen stood by the gate, encouraging David.

“Uncle Garen, I promise I’ll do my best!” In just a few days, David had grown as fond of Garen as if he were family. He nodded earnestly as he spoke.

“Myron, you must work hard too!” Garen turned to Myron.

“Uncle Garen, I’ll get into Naan University together with David!” Myron replied with confidence.

Though only a short time had passed, Myron had managed, through relentless practice day and night, to barely master the Thirty-Six Forms of the Storm Warhammer Technique. With a teacher like Garen, as long as he applied himself, it would not be difficult to further refine his warhammer mastery.

Garen waved at them both. Then, from the sky, a ladder descended. The airship hovering overhead was cloaked in invisibility, so the ladder appeared to extend out of thin air.

David already knew there was an airship above his home, but he had never learned its model.

Once Garen ascended into the void, the sound of engines roared, and the ship slowly moved, its cloaking disengaging. David saw a jet-black craft, its wings stretching thirty meters wide, its streamlined form as graceful as a black swan.

“Heavens, that’s the Black Phantom!” Myron cried out in excitement.

David didn’t recognize the name Black Phantom—he couldn’t recall ever hearing of it.

“The Black Phantom is an ultra-fast atmospheric aircraft with spaceflight capabilities. It holds the same prestige among flyers as the Gladstone does among cars,” Myron explained.

As he spoke, the elegant Black Phantom suddenly accelerated and vanished into the sky as a streak of darkness.

Only now did David truly understand what Myron meant by ultra-fast atmospheric flight. He also understood Myron’s implication: the Black Phantom was the top craft of its size.

Considering that Garen’s attendants were each equipped with Grade-Two warhammers, this made sense.

“Haha! We’re free! Let’s go out and have some fun today!” Myron laughed heartily after seeing the Black Phantom disappear.

“Myron, I’d like to practice a bit more today. In a few days, we’ll go to that shooting range you mentioned,” David replied, shaking his head.

He had recently integrated the Shield Mastery (50% proficiency) and Heavy Axe Mastery (70% proficiency) knowledge spheres, gaining many new abilities that he hadn’t had time to practice. Now that Garen had left and his warhammer skill had nearly reached true mastery (83% proficiency), he could finally focus on other areas.

He always felt short on time, and with tomorrow being the day Mr. Ster and Trainer Jeremy would meet, he needed to plan his schedule carefully.

“David, you’re going to turn into a machine!” Myron shook his head at David, then said, “Forget it, I’ll go home. My mother keeps saying she misses me several times a day. I’ll come find you in a couple of days!”

David had no interest in going out, and Myron, seeing this, abandoned the idea as well. He didn’t linger, but drove off in his Gladstone Six.

Left alone in his empty house, David let out a long sigh.

He entered a side room, which he had converted into a server room, housing a medium-sized server.

As soon as he stepped inside, a chill enveloped him. The room’s temperature and humidity were carefully regulated for the server’s needs.

The medium server didn’t draw on the public power grid; it was equipped with its own energy system, powered by five krypton crystals.

The server took up half a wall. In an age when identity wristbands handled most information tasks, such a bulky server indicated formidable computing power.

David seated himself in the operator’s chair and donned a head-mounted display system, instantly immersing himself in a virtual world.

Virtual reality technology had existed for a long time, but due to its effects on the brain, minors were forbidden from using it.

However, the virtual world David entered was generated entirely by his medium-sized server, with no connection to the Skynet virtual reality network, which gave him the confidence to break the law.

His confidence also stemmed from his 3.4 mental strength—after so much soul energy had fused with his own, he was sure he could handle virtual reality.

Over the past two days, he had studied the medium server during his breaks. As the main server of Lixin Security Company, it contained a closed virtual world built by the company.

Originally, this virtual world was used to test security system operations. Here, one could simulate a neighborhood, a street, even an entire city.

Security systems could be installed in these virtual environments, then subjected to simulated attacks by all sorts of common electronic countermeasure software and intrusion attempts.

It could even load security systems from rival companies to identify vulnerabilities, crippling competitors.

Such tests were impossible in the real world, but the results here were nearly indistinguishable from reality.

David had no use for such an environment, but now that he possessed ultimate access, his avatar could manipulate the virtual world at will.

Ever since he had acquired 20% proficiency in sniping skills, David had wondered how to improve further. Throwing himself into combat with the Zerg with a sniper rifle was out of the question—he wasn’t a sniper warrior, lacked a specialized sniper rifle, and couldn’t just go picking fights with the Zerg.

Other combat abilities could be improved through practice, even if only basic techniques were available and not advanced ones like the Storm Warhammer Technique.

But with a mere 20% proficiency in sniping, he knew he would soon be overtaken if he didn’t advance.

That’s when he thought of using the server’s virtual world. Unlike other sniper warriors, he was also an elite electronic countermeasure specialist, fully capable of customizing a training environment to suit his needs.

David didn’t know how other snipers trained, but he doubted any had amassed extensive knowledge of sniper rifles without even holding an ordinary one. He had both the knowledge and the experience, but what he lacked was relentless practical training in analysis and rapid firing—things a realistic environment was essential for, and which the virtual world could provide.

With a wave of his hand, David pulled streams of data through the air, altering them as he went. Buildings vanished, replaced by stones and earth. The cityscape transformed into wilderness, reconstructed from the knowledge he had gained—though he didn’t know if it matched Rock Planet or a war star.

He then introduced a Spined Stinger Bug, which he had found as a virtual model on Skynet, spending some credits to download it.

This virtual model included the bug’s combat habits; once activated, its movements were virtually indistinguishable from the real thing.

In the virtual world, there were always people with unusual interests, so almost anything could be downloaded from Skynet for the right price.

But David soon encountered trouble. While he could download the Spined Stinger Bug, nothing related to sniper warriors could be found online.

The exoskeleton armor and specialized sniper rifles for snipers weren’t even searchable by name.

He didn’t know if this was unique to Rock Planet or true across the entire Interstellar Federation, but limited to the local Skynet of Peran City, he could only search within those bounds.

In the end, with no other options, he had to create his own. Lacking technical parameters for sniper exoskeletons and rifles, he did have the actual T3 Sniper Assist Device.

He used a micro-scanner to upload the T3’s appearance and structure into the server’s virtual world, and added its control software. While he couldn’t manufacture a real T3 device, he could create a perfect virtual replica.

David activated the Spined Stinger Bug at a distance of five hundred meters. The bug charged at him.

He began calculating and analyzing; the T3 instantly detected random wind, temperature, and humidity of the environment.

At the moment he simulated firing, the Spined Stinger Bug froze. Without real sniper rifle data, the path he calculated appeared as a green line, while the server analyzed the ideal trajectory as a red line.

By comparing the green and red lines, David could determine if his judgment had been correct.