Chapter 1 Exhausted Return

Night fell, and Su Mo returned to the Shadow Ark, looking utterly exhausted.

Sun Duoxiang, seeing Su Mo's return, eagerly greeted him, smiling and asking, "Boss, you're back! Did everything go smoothly?"

"Not really. Any problems on your end?"

Su Mo asked listlessly.

"Boss, you don't have to worry when I'm on the job. Everything's been moved back. The stuff is all stored with that monster."

Sun Duoxiang quickly replied.

"Good, I'm going back to rest."

Su Mo said, heading towards his room.

Sun Duoxiang watched Su Mo's retreating figure, scratching the back of his head, a bit puzzled. The boss is getting richer, so why does he seem more unhappy?

A moment later, Su Mo returned to his room. He lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, his head throbbing.

As soon as he closed his eyes, images of various materials and Star Coins flooded his mind.

Then, Su Mo sat up, sighing. He wouldn't be able to sleep in this state.

He pulled out his phone and began browsing the Star Ring Forum, looking for techniques for finding materials and strategies for quickly accumulating contribution points.

After searching for a while, Su Mo's lips twitched slightly. He found that there were tons of posts on the forum, but very few contained high-level information.

Especially when it came to advanced materials, almost all the searches turned up posts about buying them. No one mentioned where in the star sea they could be found.

As for earning contribution points, there were so many posts it was dizzying.

The various posts were all over the place, some even quite exaggerated. For example, some post titles were like, "How to Become a Contribution Master in Ninety-Nine Days."

When opened, the poster would write a bunch of useless and uninformative stuff, then pick out a bunch of high-level material collection tasks and ask people to directly hand them over.

As Su Mo was scrolling through the posts, he suddenly saw the title of the top-ranked popular post, and his eyelids twitched.

"On Whether the Federation's Number One Mysterious Expert is as Invincible as Rumored - Not Necessarily!"

This post had unexpectedly become popular in a short period of time, with over ten billion views and tens of millions of comments.

Curious, Su Mo clicked on it.

"The Federation's hidden number one expert, initially known for piloting the pseudo-V generation mecha You Ji (Specter Abomination) to defeat Duke Danluka's fleet of the Demun Empire in the Reindore Star System. Five years later, during the mixed battle between the Imperial and Allied forces, he raided the joint transport fleet of the Gormotos Empire, the Greygoles Empire, and the Demun Empire. He severely injured Princess Alan, a top expert of the Greygoles Empire, and killed Duke Astin, a top expert of the Gormotos Empire, with his own power. At the same time, he seriously damaged the top expert Gu Kan'er and the level 5 ship Crystalweave, who came to support them. Later, he intercepted the transport ships of the Falais three empires. From the existing leaked combat videos, we can analyze that this Federation top expert is very abnormal. All of his combat movements are as if he foresaw the enemy's attacks. Every movement of controlling the mecha is incredibly precise. Even in the worst situations, there is almost not a single unnecessary movement. Everyone who fights against him is like a child whose actions are being seen through."

"Is it possible for a normal person to reach this level? Therefore, I boldly speculate that this so-called number one expert of the Federation is abnormal. He is not as terrifying as we see. It's just that he uses a Guang Nao (optical brain) to assist him, which allows him to predict all the enemy's actions in advance and make corrections and the best counterattack plans. Therefore, there is no need to mythologize him..."

......

Su Mo was also surprised to see the content of the post.

"Damn, this expert called Old Fox is something."

"Hmph, nothing much,"

The Fabricator·Devourer said in a low voice.

"Haha, don't say that. What he said makes sense, and he pointed out the key point. Now you understand why I try to go into battle myself as much as possible, and only let you assist me when absolutely necessary, right? It's mostly to make myself stronger, so I won't rely on you all the time. And his analysis makes a lot of sense. From a certain level, my own combat level has already reached the scope of optical brain assistance."

Su Mo said happily.

"People are belittling you, and you're still so happy."

"Why shouldn't I be happy? It's very comforting to see."

Su Mo was very interested in checking out the popular comments.

Several comments were very popular.

"Don't believe this expert, everyone. This guy is an expert from the Imperial Army, purely someone who can't win in reality, so he comes to trash talk online!"

"Verdict: this guy is a retard who's just here to disgust us. The experts of the Imperial Army are the only experts, and our experts are fake."

"Imperial lackey."

......

Su Mo couldn't help but laugh as he looked at the top-ranked replies.

However, he did see a relatively high-quality reply, which was also replied to by that expert.

The reply read: "I disagree with your opinion. Although the Federation's number one expert doesn't have many public combat images, every battle is incredibly fierce, even activating the Fallen Mode. And he can withdraw from the Fallen Mode with great willpower. How powerful is that? On the other hand, Duke Astin of the Gormotos Empire could not turn back after activating the Fallen Mode, and was eventually killed in the Fallen Mode. From this point, it can be proved that the Federation's number one expert's strength is beyond doubt, and he doesn't need any optical brain assistance at all. Also, let's not talk about how expensive optical brains are, the most important thing is that you can't buy them even if you want to. So far, no one has been said to own one."

The expert gave this explanation.

"What you said does have some truth, but as far as I know, after entering the Fallen Mode, it is indeed basically difficult to withdraw, but it is not completely impossible. You only need to use something called a Yizhi Huan (Suppression Ring), which allows you to rein yourself in at a critical moment. Of course, a certain amount of willpower is also required. Therefore, your point can only show that his own strength is not bad, and cannot prove anything else."

......

Su Mo was also watching with great interest. People from both sides were scolding each other online over this topic.

However, as Su Mo was scrolling, he suddenly froze.

A notice post's popularity skyrocketed explosively, instantly overturning this discussion post and becoming the number one popular post.

Su Mo was also curious. What kind of post is so awesome?

He curiously clicked it open and took a look, then his expression became serious, and he sat up from the bed.

"What's wrong?"

The Fabricator·Devourer, sensing something was wrong, asked in a low voice.

"The Gormotos Empire has high-profile released the latest announcement that they have prepared enough money and contribution points and are about to exchange for the first Star Destroyer in history. The entire forum has exploded."

Su Mo explained with a frown.

The click rate of this notice post has already exceeded 10 billion, and there are as many as hundreds of millions of comments.