Qin Chu maintained his faltering indifference: "It has nothing to do with you."
"It's alright?" Levy scoffed.
These words hit his nails again.
Perhaps due to the beast tide, Levi wasn't angered enough to run away this time. He used force to pull Qin Chu into the nearest cubicle.
The door slammed shut.
Immediately following was a rustling sound, then Qin Chu's hoarse voice snapped, "What are you doing!"
Levy did not reply.
The cubicle quickly fell silent, a deliberately suppressed silence.
A few minutes later, a communicator suddenly rang.
The owner of the communicator leaned against the door of the cubicle, his brow furrowed.
Qin Chu's chest was bulging violently, but he deliberately kept his breathing low and light.
"Let go, there's news." His voice was steady, with only a barely perceptible tremor at the end.
Levy still did not reply, nor was he able to reply.
But he reached out and touched Qin Chu's wrist, unfastened the communicator's latch, and threw the portable communicator out through the gap at the bottom of the partition door.
The communicator lay pitifully in the empty bathroom, ringing for a while before stopping on its own.
After a while, when the communicator rang for the third time, there was finally sound again in the cubicle.
With a "bang," Qin Chu suddenly pushed open the partition door and walked out.
His appearance was perfectly fine, except for a small damp stain on the hem of his shirt near his belt.
I don't know if it splashed on while washing my hands, or... something else.
Ignoring the person left in the stall, Qin Chu picked up the communicator and quickly left the restroom.
As he stepped out of the elevator and headed towards his room, he happened to see that the restaurant on this floor was already open for business.
Burke, carrying a lunchbox, was looking for someone. When he saw him, he quickly waved and said, "I was wondering why I couldn't find you. So you were planning to eat at the restaurant today?"
The others also called out, "The crown prince isn't here, come over here!"
Upon hearing this, Qin Chu was caught in a dilemma: whether to stay or leave.
After thinking for a moment, he could only wash his hands again and sit down at the dining table.
With Levy gone, the men he brought with him had already become close with the military personnel.
One side boasted about how great they were when they were space pirates, while the other side bragged about which space pirate crew they had captured. Although their stories were completely irrelevant, the atmosphere was surprisingly harmonious.
Only after eating half of his meal did Camin ask, puzzled, "Hey, where's our boss? Where did he go?"
Qin Chu paused, holding his chopsticks, and quickened his eating pace.
Levy didn't emerge from the elevator until the group had almost finished dinner.
"Boss, we've left you some food here!" The space pirates waved to Levi.
Levi didn't intend to go over, but after seeing Qin Chu sitting at the table, he changed direction.
Seeing him approach, Kamin immediately stepped aside.
He asked, somewhat puzzled, "It's past mealtime, why is the boss so late?"
Levi smiled, his blue eyes looking at Qin Chu opposite him.
"It's because some people don't understand the importance of reciprocity."
Chapter 143 Relationship
Soon, the people at the base noticed that the atmosphere between General Qin and the Crown Prince had become even stranger.
It's as if something else has been added.
Many people were still eagerly anticipating Levy's beating, but the men Levy brought quickly became close with the military personnel.
Qin Chu passed by the training ground during a break.
Several space pirates emerged from the mental testing equipment in the center of the arena, pointing at the screen with smug satisfaction: "See? I told you I'd pass, didn't I?"
"Wow, that's impressive!" someone exclaimed. "Dude, how do you train?"
The space pirate looked embarrassed: "It's just that I have to avoid the mainframe's scrutiny when I'm hauling goods. I've gotten used to it after a while, haven't I?"
Immediately, everyone around burst into laughter.
Qin Chu withdrew his gaze and walked towards the equipment room.
These special teams consist of individuals who have met the required mental standards and have undergone rigorous virtual scenario testing. Their purpose is to allow them to simultaneously enter the virtual world and systematically rescue all trapped human consciousnesses.
Even in the military, there aren't many people who meet these standards, but surprisingly, the few that Levy brought were all qualified.
Upon entering the equipment room, several officers were gathered around the instruments placed in the center, their expressions somewhat wary.
"Sir, Noah's machine has been installed in the main unit and now requires your fingerprint to unlock it," an officer said.
Qin Chu nodded, and as he approached, Burke couldn't help but remind him again: "We still need to be careful. Although Noah is fine, this is an instrument that the mainframe has been in. What if there's some kind of virus?"
"If it can't even handle these small problems, then Noah, this artificial intelligence, should be discarded."
Qin Chu reached out and pressed his hand into the fingerprint scanner.
A notification sound rang out, the screen lit up, and a childish electronic voice announced: "System starting..."
Everyone stared intently at the progress bar in the center of the screen.
"Residual AI has been detected. The remnants are attacking the system..."
As soon as the sound came out, everyone tensed up.
Qin Chu looked up at Burke, who immediately turned to the woman in military uniform sitting on the other side of the instrument: "Wife, I'm counting on you!"
What followed was a long wait.
Qin Chu instructed someone to stand near the power outlet so that the power could be cut off immediately in case of any problems, and to prevent anyone coming to help from getting hurt.
The images on the screen changed several times in a row.
"Residue has been cleaned up."
"System successfully started..."
Burke's wife's serious expression relaxed slightly.
Noah's familiar voice rang out again: "Ding, Noah, Imperial Military Operations and Logistics System, First Legion Unofficial Member, ID: 215929007..."
"Alright," Qin Chu interrupted him, asking, "How are you feeling?"
"Absolutely fantastic!" A tiny figure appeared on the screen, puffing out its chest. "If I had hardware like this earlier, I could take on ten mainframes!"
"You're bragging so much, but it seems there's nothing wrong with you," an officer laughed.
Qin Chu felt a little relieved, straightened up, and saluted the woman in military uniform: "Thank you."
"Of course," the woman replied, returning a military salute.
"Take your wife downstairs to rest. We'll probably need to trouble her again sometime during this period," Qin Chu said to Burke.
Burke quickly led his men out.
These two have a really good relationship; their child is already five years old, and they even had a little playful fight when they went out.
Qin Chu usually doesn't care about these things, but recently he has been subtly and overtly "draged down" by Burke several times, so he couldn't help but turn his head to take a look.
"How's the data retention? Are the virtual world coordinates I recorded still intact?" Qin Chu asked Noah.
"Don't worry, sir, everything is fine," Noah replied.
Seeing that Noah was functioning normally and that the data Qin Chu had risked to gather earlier was also intact, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. This meant that their mission's success rate had increased slightly.
Next, the information on the special team members and the battle plan were input for Noah to analyze.
It was quite dangerous for Qin Chu to be caught in the electric fence at the time. Noah protected Qin Chu and returned him to his body, sustaining some damage in the process. Now that he's been repaired, he's clearly very happy, and while analyzing the data, he also greeted familiar faces one by one.
However, after the data analysis was completed, Noah raised another question.
"Sir, the AI has greatly dispersed human consciousness to make our rescue more difficult. We've marked too many world coordinates, and even if we can connect these worlds, the special team still doesn't have enough manpower."
"This will inevitably lead to an increase in mission duration, and the probability of team members getting lost will also increase significantly."
"How many more people do we need at the very least?" Qin Chu asked.
“At least twenty,” Noah replied.
Qin Chu frowned.
Twenty may not sound like much, but due to the stringent requirements, it's not easy to gather enough people. The current few hundred are the result of the military's rigorous selection process.
"The only option is to contact the special prisons and transfer out the eligible prisoners," Qin Chu said.
"Yes, sir."
There's nothing we can do about it. Now the military not only has to rescue the dormant human consciousness, but also has to guard against the upcoming beast tide, and even prevent small humanoid race alliances in the surrounding areas.
Even ignoring these external threats, we still have to be wary of the cabinet causing trouble, and we really don't have enough manpower.
Someone recalled the scene they witnessed at the training ground earlier that day and remarked, "Actually...aren't there readily available qualified candidates outside?"
"That's true, at least ten of these space pirates meet the criteria, right?"
Several officers immediately began discussing the issue: "In terms of management difficulty, those prisoners are much harder to control; these space pirates are at least..."
They still listened to Levy.
Rounding down means listening to Qin and Chu, right?
For a moment, everyone looked at Qin Chu again.
Qin Chu lowered his eyes and pondered, remaining silent.
Noah suddenly remembered something and exclaimed with delight, "Sir, you can ask Levi for help! His mental level is just as high as yours, and in the virtual world, one person can replace at least fifty squad members! Besides, he'll definitely be willing to help; he might even get angry if you don't!"