238: Chapter 238 Human and A Unite

The mech's optical sensors replaced his eyes, spreading the entire view of the mech bay before him in a wider and clearer manner.

Zhang Dabiao moved his fingers slightly, and the mech's right hand moved along with them.

Then he froze.

The five iron-gray metal fingers opened and closed, and the rotation of each joint was crisp and clean without a trace of delay.

When piloting the mech in the past, he could feel an extremely short time lag—about a tenth of a second between his brain issuing a command and the mech completing its execution.

This tenth of a second was usually imperceptible, but in high-speed combat, it was the difference between life and death.

Now, that time lag was gone.

It hadn't been shortened; it had completely vanished.

He wanted to move, and the mech moved.

Completely synchronized.

It felt as if the mech had grown onto his body.

Zhang Dabiao tried again—raising his left hand, turning his wrist, and curling his five fingers in sequence, bending them down one by one from the pinky to the thumb.

The mech's left hand made the exact same movement in the air, perfectly replicating the bending angle, bending speed, and sequence of each finger, just like looking in a mirror.

Previously, when he performed such fine movements, two of his fingers couldn't separate very well.

Tao Zhe said this was because the neural signal resolution was insufficient, the terminal commands were vague, which belonged to the limits of the human body and couldn't be practiced out.

Now they were separated.

Each of the five fingers was independent; whichever one he wanted to move would move clearly.

The neural conduction precision of a First-Order Martial Artist was several tiers higher than that of ordinary people, and this improvement directly mapped onto mech control.

Zhang Dabiao took a deep breath and tried to take a step.

The forty-four-meter-tall mech lifted its right leg from the parking slot and stepped out steadily.

When landing, there was no dull sense of stuttering like before; instead, it smoothly connected to the second step.

In the past, every time a step landed, he had to make a minor adjustment in his head—pulling back a bit if the center of gravity was skewed, and pulling back slightly on the next step if the stride was too large.

These minor adjustments had been practiced into muscle memory, but they did exist and consumed attention.

Now it was no longer necessary.

The body could handle balance on its own without passing through the brain, and the footsteps naturally became steady.

He accelerated, jogged, and then ran at full speed.

The mech ran across the open space of the mech bay, every step carrying the vibration of the ground, but the rhythm of the pace was as uniform as a metronome.

Zhang Dabiao brought up the advanced action library and found the one Tao Zhe just mentioned—point-blank side-roll evasion.

He had tried this movement once three months ago.

At that time, when he ran halfway and prepared to roll sideways, and his body issued the sideways rotation command, the mech's legs were still executing the previous running action.

The two commands collided, the mech tilted to the left, the System alarm sounded in a series, and he had to brake urgently, almost falling over.

Post-incident analysis showed the problem lay in the switching speed of the neural commands—between his brain issuing the two commands of "stop running" and "start side-rolling", there was a gap of a few hundredths of a second.

This gap was enough for his body to react, but not enough for the mech to react.

Now it was different.

Take a deep breath.

Execute.

The forty-four-meter mech suddenly turned sideways during full-speed running, completing a ninety-degree flip of its entire torso within 0.3 seconds.

Its legs crossed to support it, its center of gravity dropping almost flush with the ground, and then it bounced back up to resume an upright posture.

Done in one smooth motion.

There was no stuttering in the middle.

That gap between the two commands had disappeared.

The neural switching speed of a First-Order Martial Artist filled in that blank of a few hundredths of a second.

Zhang Dabiao grinned inside the cockpit.

The other fifteen mechs also started up successively.

In the open space of the mech bay, the sixteen iron-gray big guys began to move, each experiencing the same process as Zhang Dabiao—first stunned, then pleasantly surprised, and then starting to go wild.

Voices kept popping up in the communication channel.

"F*ck, where is the lag? Where did the lag go?"

"Separating the five fingers of the left hand can be done now, you guys try it, they really can be separated—"

"Quick turn! It used to take 0.4 seconds to turn ninety degrees, but now it's less than 0.1 seconds!"

Someone was practicing jumping—the mech squatted, the leg power Systems outputted at full power, and the forty-four-meter iron lump bounced off the ground, flying to a height of sixty or seventy meters, smashing out two pits upon landing, but standing steadily.

In the past, this movement required a squat for buffering upon landing, but now it caught it while standing directly, without even shaking the knee joints.

Someone was practicing combat combo punches, striking alternately with the left and right fists, interspersed with elbow strikes and knee lifts.

Previously, after hitting the third strike, one had to stop to readjust the center of gravity.

Now, after completing a six-hit combo, the center of gravity was still on the centerline, as steady as if nailed to the ground.

Dust started falling from the roof of the mech bay, shaken down.

Zhang Dabiao had already gone through more than half of the advanced action library, getting more and more carried away the more he practiced.

He began combining movements—first a full-speed sprint, followed by an emergency-stop side-slide, then a point-blank side-roll, and after rolling up, he smoothly smashed his fist toward the nearby simulated target.

The entire combo movement was completed in one and a half seconds.

The target was smashed flying more than twenty meters, rolling several circles on the ground before stopping.

The data on the console showed a completion rate of 97.3%, which was almost perfect.

Three months ago when he did this combo, the completion rate was only 41%, and he fell by the third movement.

The S-07 mech next to him was being piloted by en own, who came from Army Aviation and used to fly armed helicopters.

His hand skills were the most delicate among the sixteen people.

He was practicing "continuous direction-changing sprint"—the mech continuously changed directions while moving, simulating the scenario of dodging long-range attacks on the battlefield.

The forty-four-meter-tall mech darted left and right in the open space, its footsteps so brisk that it didn't look like an iron guy weighing dozens of tons at all, but rather like a boxer doing skip steps in a ring.

As he kept jumping, en own himself didn't know what was going on, but the mech's footsteps suddenly gained a certain rhythm.

Left foot tapping the ground, right foot crossing, waist turning, arms spreading—the forty-four-meter-tall mech drew an arc in the open space, as if dancing a waltz.

Everyone in the mech bay saw it.

The other mechs practicing movements stopped, and the pilots watched S-07 spinning, sliding, and turning through their optical sensors, its movements absurdly smooth.

Zhang Dabiao's voice came through the communication channel: "en own, what the hell are you doing?"

en own's voice carried a smile: "The feel is too good, I couldn't help it."

On the observation platform, Zhao Hu had been watching.

Ever since the first mech started up until now, his mouth hadn't closed.

He had seen a forty-four-meter-tall iron giant running, jumping, rolling, and punching, and finally he saw an iron giant dancing.

Zhao Hu turned his head to look at Su Mingyuan, opened his mouth, and found that he didn't know what to say.

Su Mingyuan glanced at his watch.

"Almost time."

He walked to the edge of the platform and shouted down: "All personnel assemble, we depart in ten minutes."

Sixteen mechs stopped their movements simultaneously and turned toward Su Mingyuan's direction.

The mech bay fell silent for two seconds, and then sixteen voices rang out together from the communication channel.

"Received."