Chapter 1 1:27 PM

November 23, 2016, 1:27 PM.

Zheng Guo Northwest Region, Seventh Aviation Training Base.

Even in winter, the midday sun outside was still dazzling, but in the almost completely enclosed training base, solar lamps were generally used to replace natural light to simulate various lighting conditions. In theory, it would be easy to heat the internal space to over two hundred degrees using strong light.

Of course, it could also be completely closed and, through formations, draw out the internal energy, causing the internal space to rapidly cool to below minus one hundred and fifty degrees Celsius.

At this moment, one could see that the entire vast testing area, covering more than nine square kilometers, was a silent, lightless expanse. The ground within the testing area was covered with pitted, gray rocks and dust, and occasionally one could see ring mountains of various sizes, whether man-made or naturally formed.

If someone were to find themselves in this dark and silent environment, they would surely be surprised to discover that this huge testing area, sealed off by a layer of special material along with a magic array, was actually a near-vacuum, almost like outer space! Not only that, but if this person could also see radiation, they would be able to detect that the strong particle radiation and other types of high-energy radiation in this area far exceeded normal standards.

It was almost… like the moon.

And in the center of this enormous testing area, simulated to resemble the moon, one could see a cluster of cyan-violet spiritual light, rapidly brightening like a torch, illuminating half of the base.

[The temperature difference on the lunar surface is extremely large. When sunlight shines directly during the day, the temperature can reach one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty degrees Celsius, while at night the surface temperature drops to below minus one hundred and eighty degrees Celsius.]

[We have already tested that Professor Su, you can completely withstand ultra-high temperature environments exceeding two hundred degrees Celsius, not only moving freely, but even absorbing the thermal energy from this high-temperature environment for your own use… So next, it will be the low-temperature endurance test at around minus one hundred and fifty degrees Celsius.]

In the center of the spiritual light, a figure not wearing any spacesuit or protective suit was holding a long spear with a sleek design and a silver-cyan body. He wore a fixed communication device in his left ear, and upon hearing Yu Sheng's voice from behind, Su Zhou calmly replied, "No problem. Although I don't really like very cold weather, minus one hundred and fifty degrees Celsius should be manageable with a bit of effort."

Although he said that, the entire testing area was in a complete vacuum. Su Zhou was actually directly converting the thoughts in his mind into electronic signals through the 'soul communication plugin' recently developed by Yan Sheng, and transmitting them to the observers far away.

[I understand, after all, dragons are indeed weak against ice.]

The voice coming from the earpiece was quite humorous, and Su Zhou was quite surprised and asked, "Oh, Yu Sheng, you play Pokémon too?"

[No, I don't play, but my little daughter likes to play.] This Yu Sheng had been in office for less than ten years and was still quite young, and communication was not rigid: [Alright, Professor Su, we have just proven that you can use your pure physical body to move on the lunar surface under direct sunlight. Physical activity no longer requires oxygen, and adaptation to various high and low-pressure environments is also very perfect… To be honest, your physical body is almost like it was born to operate in space.]

[I even suspect that the original source of your dragon blood is a kind of divine dragon that lives in space?]

"Maybe, perhaps it's some kind of Yuan Magnetic Heavenly Dragon, or an Aetheric Giant Dragon."

Su Zhou chuckled—of course, there were dragons and snakes that could survive in space. Su Zhou had no doubt that his future true form could definitely move in space like a spaceship, but he was still far from that point: "Let's start the experiment first."

[Then prepare to begin.]

Without much more conversation, after a brief greeting, the steel dome of the entire enclosed testing area began to operate, and the magic arrays engraved on it began to light up one by one, starting to operate rapidly.

As the magic array was activated and began to extract energy, the temperature in the testing area, which was originally as high as nearly a hundred degrees Celsius, immediately began to plummet—in just three seconds, a drastic temperature change of more than two hundred degrees Celsius was achieved. In an instant, apart from a circular environment centered on Su Zhou, a cold wave swept in that was enough to freeze steel brittle, like a cream cracker.

In the thermal lens, it was as if the whole world had turned from red to blue.

Although it was called a cold wave, there was no wind, no water, and no cold air being transmitted, only the space itself having its thermal energy extracted.

However, this kind of cold wave was blocked by an extremely thick barrier of spiritual energy before it could get close to Su Zhou.

"Although it can be blocked, what does it feel like to be at minus one hundred degrees Celsius..."

After wrapping his whole body in spiritual energy to maintain his body temperature, Su Zhou curiously stretched out his hand, passed it through his own spiritual energy barrier, and reached outside—immediately, he raised his eyebrows: "Oh ho, that's interesting."

He retracted his hand. In just a few seconds, the surface of his arm had already slightly stiffened, frozen hard—if Su Zhou didn't use spiritual energy to cover himself and maintain a certain temperature, then even he would inevitably become stiff and even difficult to move in the extremely low-temperature space of the universe.

"Sure enough, it's still a bit troublesome. Dragons being weak against ice isn't just a game thing, the regeneration ability is greatly suppressed."

At this time, it was already very clear that Su Zhou was currently conducting experiments for future exploration of the moon.

Originally, this type of experiment should be carried out wearing heavy spacesuits, but because Su Zhou was the only commander-level combat force, and his life form meant that ordinary spacesuits were of no use at all and would only hinder his actions, Su Zhou participated in special individual tests, unlike others.

Although there were also certain factors involved in exploring Su Zhou's current body data, Su Zhou didn't care. In fact, in the previous high-temperature environment test, Su Zhou had indeed demonstrated extremely strong extraterrestrial combat capabilities.

Even in a vacuum, high radiation, ultra-high temperature, and low gravity simulated lunar environment, Su Zhou could still control his actions very well. Even when moving at hypersonic speeds, running back and forth in the testing area, there were no signs of loss of control.

In fact, in the absence of atmospheric resistance, he could even achieve a peculiar type of inertia-free turning and high-speed maneuvering.

But now, in an ultra-low temperature environment below minus one hundred and fifty degrees Celsius, even Su Zhou felt quite restricted.

"The only weakness of the Undying Blood is that in extremely cold environments, the regeneration ability is greatly weakened—although as my strength increases, the influence of low temperature becomes smaller and smaller, even a commander-level cannot completely ignore it."

Although the stiffness in his arm disappeared in just an instant, Su Zhou was still a little worried: "This is actually my weakness—and I really haven't encountered an opponent who is good at using frost or low-temperature combat. And a real powerhouse, or rather, a perfect life form, doesn't need weaknesses!"

This must be overcome!

Although Su Zhou had many thoughts in his mind, for Yu Sheng and others observing Su Zhou's test data, only a few seconds had passed. Seeing that Su Zhou's spiritual energy shield could indeed guarantee his body temperature and completely isolate the surrounding cold environment from affecting his body, he nodded with satisfaction and then said: [Professor Su, how long can this shield last? This will determine the safe activity time we set for you in the lunar night.]

"This spiritual energy shield?"

Su Zhou was slightly stunned by Yu Sheng's words, and then he smiled: "This thing is just the spiritual energy flow that naturally dissipates from me. It's just that when I'm active in the city, I lock it on the surface of my body, preventing it from spreading."

"I can maintain this kind of shield for a lifetime."

[...I see...]

The voice in the communication was silent for a few seconds. After a few seconds, he said again: [Then, can you fight? In this situation.]

"No problem."

Without saying much, Su Zhou directly raised the silver-cyan long spear he held tightly in his right hand.

World Tree Spear.

A branch of the Nine Worlds Tree, gifted by the Europa Union a month ago, was handed over to the Zheng Guo government, and at Su Zhou's request, the best extraordinary artifact craftsman in Zheng Guo created a long spear with an extremely simple and sleek design according to Su Zhou's requirements.

The properties of the Nine Worlds Tree branches vary depending on the world they have passed through, and the branch given to Su Zhou happened to have passed through the 'Netherworld', so in addition to its wood attribute, it also possessed a thick Yin spirit and ghostly power.

This was certainly powerful, but it was somewhat incompatible with Su Zhou himself, at least, incompatible with the image Su Zhou presented to the public—although his image now was indeed not that of a good person, at least Su Zhou shouldn't be the type to carry a sinister long spear with countless wraiths surrounding him when he appeared.

Even if he was a demon king, Su Zhou's design elements should lean towards demon dragons, lava, and thunder.

In response, the Zheng Guo craftsman adopted a peculiar 'cultivation method'. He buried this divine wood branch in the peach orchard of Mount Kunlun, using the power of another divine tree to provoke the antagonistic nature of the World Tree branch's own wood attribute, purifying the Yin spirit attribute originating from the Netherworld, transforming it into a purer soul power. Then, he had Su Zhou provide a little blood as an enchanting material, casting it into an extremely powerful 'Yin Lightning Spear'.

Yin Lightning, silent lightning. In simple terms, this was a divine wood spear that could directly strike the soul, had a great bonus to spiritual bodies, and possessed the power of thunder.

However, having a bonus to spiritual bodies did not mean that the spear's destructive power in the material world was lower than that of ordinary magical artifacts.

Grasping the spear tightly, Su Zhou's right arm muscles bulged, and violent cyan-violet spiritual power poured into the World Tree Spear like a tide entering the Gui Xu (a mythological bottomless abyss), causing a distinct spiritual energy pattern to light up on the surface of his arm—and after charging for two seconds, the surface of the silver-cyan World Tree Spear suddenly shone brightly!

Buzz!

There was no air, and there was no sound in the vacuum environment, only the vibration of spiritual energy, causing a slight tremor that rippled through the soul.

In less than a second, the light on the surface of this radiant javelin suddenly contracted, turning invisible. Then, its entire body seemed to disappear, even遁入灵界(dùnrù língjiè) (遁入: escape into; 灵界: the spiritual realm), completely disappearing from the material world!

Even the Zheng Guo researchers who had been monitoring the situation from afar were stunned to discover that the World Tree Spear in Su Zhou's hand had truly completely disappeared.

And when it reappeared, it was at a small ring mountain two kilometers away.

There was no sound. Dim thunder light spread, decomposing the silver-gray soil and rocks. Only ripples of spiritual thunder undulated, and after a few seconds, a huge crater with a radius of over thirty meters appeared on the ground, replacing the original ring mountain. The restored silver-cyan World Tree Spear stood upright in the very center of this ring mountain.

"Time used: 0.09 seconds! It crossed a distance of 2400 meters in such a short time!"

A researcher observing the data exclaimed, "The speed of the World Tree Javelin exceeded sixty-six times the speed of sound?! That's terrifying!"

[No.]

Beside him, the prosthetic eye in his left eye flashed red light. Yu Sheng stared at Su Zhou and the World Tree Spear in the distance, and he revealed a smile: [After the World Tree Spear is projected out, it escapes into the spirit world, turning into a pure spirit body. The speed of a spirit body is inherently difficult for us material beings to react to, and if we only calculate the impact force, it is at the level of six to eight times the speed of sound in Earth's environment.]

[As expected of a javelin forged from a divine wood containing Yin spirit power. Combined with Professor Su's power, it is truly difficult to resist.]

Silently, a single strike to kill the enemy—this was, Yin Lightning.

However, Su Zhou himself was still not entirely satisfied with the destructive power of this strike.

"It feels like this is only about as destructive as a regular high-performance missile."

Raising his hand, using his spiritual energy to recall the nearly two-meter-long silver-cyan javelin, Su Zhou shook his head slightly: "In fact, the collateral damage brought by the shockwave is not even as good as a missile."

[Be content, Professor Su. Do you know how much a high-performance missile costs? Even without the warhead, it's nearly a hundred million, and you can unleash a strike comparable to a missile costing hundreds of millions after charging for two seconds.]

Yu Sheng could only sigh at Su Zhou's obviously too greedy thoughts: [In any case, the fact that you can exert such combat power in the lunar environment already exceeds our imagination—apart from you, the other explorers have shown varying degrees of decline in their strength in simulated experiments. Moreover, you also have the 'true form', which is more adapted to the lunar environment, as a trump card.]

[However, in the plan, they were originally just additions. Most of them are just professional researchers. Only you are the real combat force and protection… Since Professor Su, you can guarantee your complete combat power, then it seems that on the moon, we don't have to worry too much about the possible dangers on the moon.]

"Yes, I understand."

To this, Su Zhou nodded slightly.

He naturally knew what Yu Sheng was talking about when he said danger.

That was naturally the aliens who might be alive in the spaceship.

Or rather… alien monsters.