294: Chapter 294 First Remote Control

6:00 AM.

East District Training Ground of the Forward Base.

The sky was just beginning to brighten as gray light seeped down from behind the heavy clouds, illuminating the ground of the training ground into a shade of iron gray.

The training ground was a rectangular, flat open space, 800 meters long and 400 meters wide, with its ground paved with a layer of compacted gravel.

It was surrounded by a circle of skyfall steel fences, outside of which was a row of containers crammed with monitoring equipment.

T-01 stood in the exact center of the training ground.

With its white paint job, completely different from the dark gray of the combat models, from afar it looked like a white giant standing in the open space.

It stood quietly there, the cockpit hatch wide open, waiting for the first tester of the day.

Su Mingyuan stood on the command platform on the east side of the training ground, with Tao Zhe beside him, three laptops and a portable energy spectrum analyzer placed in front of them.

Zhao Cheng was staring at more monitoring equipment inside the container.

Zhang Dabiao leaned against the edge of the fence with his arms crossed.

Chen Rong and Lin Wan stood behind Zhang Dabiao with different expressions—Chen Rong curiously looked at T-01, while Lin Wan was expressionless.

"First round of tests." Su Mingyuan glanced at his watch. "Zhou Xiaojun."

A young soldier walked out from the ranks.

Zhou Xiaojun, 21 years old, Grade A Root Bone, had recently completed a Breakthrough to become a First-Order Martial Artist.

The reason he was chosen was because his various data sat right in the median among more than 2,300 First-Order Martial Artists—neither strong nor weak, making him the most representative.

Zhou Xiaojun was obviously a bit nervous.

He walked to the front of T-01, looked up at the white mecha, and swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"Don't be nervous," Tao Zhe said in the communicator. "It's just like driving a mecha normally, only the control method is different. After entering the cockpit, follow the guiding steps given to you by Tianheng."

Zhou Xiaojun nodded, climbed up the mecha's boarding ladder, and entered the cockpit.

The hatch closed.

A string of real-time data popped up on Tao Zhe's screen—Zhou Xiaojun's heart rate, spiritual power fluctuations, Divine Sense strength, and all mechanical parameters of T-01.

"Begin," Su Mingyuan said.

Inside the cockpit, Zhou Xiaojun sat in the seat and took a deep breath.

The synthesized voice of Tianheng came from the earphones—

"Spirit Command Chapter · Elementary Control · Step One: Close your eyes and perceive the Spiritual Qi in the Dantian."

He closed his eyes.

The warm ball of Spiritual Qi in his Dantian spun quietly, feeling just like when he would Cultivate normally.

"Step Two: Guide the Spiritual Qi to extend outward along the Meridians of the arm, contacting the mecha control interface through the palms."

Zhou Xiaojun placed both hands on the control console.

Spiritual Qi slowly flowed out along the Meridians of his arms, seeping from his palms into the metal surface of the control console.

He felt a strange sensation—after the Spiritual Qi left his body, it entered the skyfall steel conduits beneath the control console. The space inside the conduits was different from the Meridians, wider, colder, and harder. When the Spiritual Qi flowed inside, there was a slight sense of resistance, like water flowing into a thicker pipe.

"Step Three: Expand perception along the conduit network and attempt to cover the entire mecha."

This step took about thirty seconds.

Spiritual Qi spread along the conduit network toward the mecha's limbs. Zhou Xiaojun could vaguely "feel" the mecha's right arm, left arm, legs, and torso—it was like touching something through a thick layer of gloves, not very clear, but he could touch it.

"Step Four: Attempt to issue action commands."

Zhou Xiaojun wanted to make the mecha raise its right hand.

T-01's right arm moved.

But it wasn't "raising"—it was more like a "twitch".

The right arm rose by about ten centimeters, and then dropped back down.

Zhou Xiaojun tried a few more times and gradually got the hang of it.

T-01's right arm was raised—this time fully raised, and although the movement was a bit stiff, it indeed reached its position.

Then the left arm.

Then taking a step.

T-01 walked a few steps on the training ground. The movement was very slow, like a child who had just learned to walk, every step cautious, with a slightly unstable center of gravity.

But it was walking.

Zhou Xiaojun inside the cockpit was covered in sweat—not from heat, but from the fatigue brought by the consumption of spiritual power.

Fifteen minutes later, Su Mingyuan called a halt to the test.

"A First-Order Martial Artist should be at this level. Let's proceed to the next test."

He turned his head to look toward the fence.

"Zhang Dabiao."

Zhang Dabiao had waited for these words for three weeks. Looking at the white mecha 500 meters away, his expression inevitably carried some excitement.

"Are you ready?" Su Mingyuan asked.

Tao Zhe nearby finished debugging the monitoring equipment, and all data channels were ready.

"We can begin at any time."

Zhang Dabiao didn't speak again, instead closing his eyes.

The surrounding onlookers also held their breath.

They knew what Zhang Dabiao was going to do.

Without sitting in the cockpit and without touching the mecha.

Standing 500 meters away, using spiritual power and Divine Sense to control a 44-meter-tall iron giant.

Zhang Dabiao's breathing became very slow and deep.

In his Dantian, Spiritual Qi began to circulate.

According to the guidance of the Spirit Command Chapter—the first step was not to control spiritual power, but to release Divine Sense.

Divine Sense.

This word was still very unfamiliar to Zhang Dabiao three weeks ago.

He knew he had spiritual power and could perceive it, but "Divine Sense" was a more abstract concept—Tao Zhe's explanation was "sensory tentacles at the Soul level".

The statement in the Spirit Command Chapter was more direct— "Those of Divine Sense are the extension of the heart. To look with closed eyes is not to observe with the eyes, but to observe with the heart."

Close your eyes, don't look with your eyes, look with your heart.

Zhang Dabiao tried to push his "heart" outward.

At first, there was nothing.

Darkness.

Silence.

Only the sound of his own heartbeat.

Then—he "saw" something.

It wasn't "seeing" in the visual sense, but rather he perceived a "presence".

Five hundred meters away, there was a huge, silent, cold metal object.

T-01.

Connection.

The second step of the Spirit Command Chapter—injecting Spiritual Qi into the carrier along the path of Divine Sense.

Zhang Dabiao's Dantian Spiritual Qi surged.

A stream of Spiritual Qi surged out from his body, traversing a distance of 500 meters along that invisible Divine Sense channel, and poured into the core cabin of T-01.

The moment the Spiritual Qi entered the skyfall steel conduit—

He could feel every single joint of T-01.

He could feel the hardness of the gravel under its feet.

He could feel the tension of the hydraulic rods in its arms.

He could feel the wind blowing across its armor surface.

The iron giant 500 meters away turned into his second body at this very instant.

On the command platform, Tao Zhe's screen lit up.

"Connection established," his voice lowered. "Divine Sense channel stable. Spiritual Qi injection rate—normal. Loss—"

He glanced at the numbers and was stunned.

"One percent."

More than 90% lower than the 47% when Zhou Xiaojun controlled it from inside the cockpit.

Su Mingyuan didn't speak, his gaze falling on T-01 500 meters away.

Then, T-01 moved.

The right arm raised.

It wasn't the hesitant, twitch-like "raising" of Zhou Xiaojun.

It was a crisp, complete, and smooth movement—just like a person raising their own arm.

No delay.

No stuttering.

From start to finish, it was done in one go.

A chorus of sharp gasps sounded around the edge of the training ground.

T-01's left arm raised along with it.

Then put down.

Then stepping forward.

It started walking.

Not the staggering, unstable walking of Zhou Xiaojun.

It was normal, steady, and stride-confident walking.

The 44-meter-tall white mecha walked with large strides across the training ground, every step causing the gravel to crackle, with even stride length and a stable rhythm.

Like a person taking a stroll.

A person with no one sitting inside.

Zhang Dabiao stood 500 meters away, his eyes tightly closed, facing the direction of T-01, motionless.

The wind blew over, fluttering the corner of his clothes.

There was little expression on his face, but the curve of his mouth had never faded.

Su Mingyuan glanced at Tao Zhe.

Tao Zhe's fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard, recording the data of every second.

"Make him do complex actions," Su Mingyuan said.

Tao Zhe pressed the communication button. "Zhang Dabiao, combat maneuvers."

T-01 stopped its steps.

Then its right fist blasted out.

Straight punch.

Fast, accurate, and fierce.

The fist cut a piercing sound through the air.

Followed closely by the left fist.

Then an elbow strike.

Knee strike.

Side kick.

A complete set of combat combinations, six actions completed in one go.

Every action was crisp and neat, with no redundant swaying and no shifting of the center of gravity.

When T-01 performed these actions, the gravel under its feet was scattered everywhere, and the wind generated by the punches of the 44-meter-tall mecha whipped up a cloud of dust in the air.

Around the training ground, it became completely quiet.

Among the hundreds of onlookers, not a single person spoke.

They watched that unmanned white mecha throw punches, kick, turn, and elbow in the training ground—every movement seemed like someone was controlling it from inside, but the cockpit door was clearly wide open, and the inside was completely empty.

And 500 meters away, Zhang Dabiao just stood like that, with his eyes closed, motionless.

"Enough," he said. "Make him stop."

Tao Zhe pressed the communication button.

T-01 stopped in the center of the training ground, its arms hanging by its sides, returning to its initial standing posture.

Zhang Dabiao opened his eyes.

He lowered his head and looked at his own hands—his fingers were trembling slightly.

He thought of that day.

On the wasteland, inside the cockpit of S-01.

The Spirit-Driving Taoist slapped down with a palm, rendering the mecha's left arm useless. He was flung dizzyingly across his seat, the seatbelt digging into the flesh of his shoulders, his ears filled with the shrieks of twisting metal.

At that instant, what he thought was—it's over, I'm going to die in this iron coffin.

Iron coffin.

He had always called the cockpit that.

He had called it that since the first day he got onto the mecha.

All mecha pilots called it that.

Because that cramped space of 1.8 by 0.9 meters would become your coffin once the mecha was destroyed.

But starting today, the iron coffin no longer existed.