The key difference between S-class mechas and other smart mechas was that S-class mechas could complete a mental match with their owners, connecting their AI directly to the owner’s brain. Through this, the owner could control the mecha with their thoughts.
There weren’t more than ten S-class mechas in the whole of the empire, and the people who could use them were mainly either corps commanders or the people who had been selected to succeed them. That his uncle had secretly given this mecha to him made Xi Wei feel excited and overwhelmed at the same time.
He couldn’t help but ask, “Uncle, I have to hide this mecha away too, right, and not let people find about it?”
Berg smiled and said, “That’s right. I developed this mecha in secret, and didn’t register it with the Imperial Mecha Association.”
This wasn’t a surprise. The Mecha Association definitely wouldn’t allow Berg to hand over an S-class mecha to an omega to pilot. So he had developed the mecha in private, and escaped the oversight of the Mecha Association.
“Xi Wei, you have to be careful. The S-class mechas in the empire can be counted on one hand, and they’re all very familiar with each other. Egret hasn’t been registered with the Mecha Association, so he’s a stranger to them. If the other S-class mechas discover him, they’re likely to automatically designate him as an enemy, and attack him with heavy firepower. You’d be put in a very dangerous situation.”
Xi Wei nodded seriously. “I know. I won’t use him lightly. I’ll only pilot him when I absolutely have to.”
Berg said, “Good. Fortunately, Egret is a flight-type mecha. He has the highest flexibility and flying speed in the empire, but his combat ability isn’t as high as the other military S-class mechas. In the future, if you come across danger, if you can’t defeat it, then run. Understand?”
Xi Wei smiled and said, “I understand!”
If you can’t defeat it, then run—that was the best policy. In the years that his uncle had been hiding in the palace, secretly developing mecha, there was no way that he could have stealthily made a combat mecha with advanced firepower capabilities. He certainly couldn’t have gotten his hands on things like particle cannons or nuclear warheads. It was already amazing enough that he had made the fastest mecha in the empire on the sly.
The only thing was that S-class mechas were mentally controlled. The mecha needed to go through a mental match with its owner. If the pilot’s mental threshold wasn’t high enough, or the person himself couldn’t attain the mecha’s recognition, he might receive a mental backlash from the mecha rejecting him. He might even be designated an enemy, and be internally destroyed.
Berg continued, “Right now, following my preprogrammed orders, Egret has automatically activated and completed a preliminary version of the mental match. If you want him to thoroughly submit to you, you need to enter the cockpit and do a complete mental match with him. You should get in and let Egret form a connection between his AI and your brain.”
“Okay!” Xi Wei walked into the cockpit, and found that the interior was incredibly spacious. The cabin’s decor was countless times more beautiful and refined than that of a C-class mecha, and there was a high-definition navigation screen in the cabin. It also had a bedroom to use on long-distance trips, that came fully equipped with a large, soft bed and complete bathroom facilities. That was to say, now that he had Egret, he could go wherever he wanted in the Empire. As long as he avoided the danger zones, it was no problem even if he traveled around the entire universe!
Full of excitement, Xi Wei sat down in the pilot seat. All around him were white threads glowing softly, that were probably the mecha’s neural fibers. As soon as he sat down, the soft threads wound like vines around his wrist. The screen in front of him instantly showed the ongoing status of the mental match. The progress bar was filling up fast.
0%…50%…100%!
It didn’t even take three seconds for Xi Wei and Egret’s mental match progress to reach a hundred percent!
Egret’s snow-white wings unfolded with a clang, and the mecha suddenly soared into the sky. Breathless with exhilaration, Xi Wei held onto his seat with both hands, and said, “Egret, fly a bit faster!”
The mecha AI morphed into a hologram of a white bird and fluttered its wings a few times, then lightly perched on the back of Xi Wei’s hand. “Yes, owner. Adjusting flight speed now.”
“Great!” Xi Wei gently patted the little bird’s head. Since it was a hologram, his fingers passed right through, but that didn’t curb his fondness for Egret one bit.
Egret also noticed this, and he happily flew up and landed on top of Xi Wei’s head.
Xi Wei had Egret fly loops over the vast underground factory. Berg saw this scene through the screen, and the corner of his mouth couldn’t help but rise slightly.
Ivan looked up at the sky in astonishment, and after a moment, he said: “Your Highness, it seems like Xi Wei’s mental strength doesn’t lose to yours. He successfully finished the mental match so quickly.”
Berg’s eyes were full of appreciation. “I knew from the beginning that he wouldn’t let me down. He was born with high mental strength, and he’s been training hard all these years. He’s only fourteen years old now, and he’s able to complete a mental match with an S-class mecha with a threshold of 300. He’s already more powerful than many alphas.”
“That’s true. Many alphas simply have no way of handling S-class mechas. Even the sons of important generals, who’ve inherited their fathers’ excellent genes, still have to wait until they come of age at eighteen to drive an S-class mecha. Xi Wei is really amazing to be able to control Egret at only fourteen.” Ivan looked thoughtfully up at the giant white mecha in the sky. He asked lightly, “When you decided on him as the successor of the Underground Alliance, was it also because of his high mental strength at birth?”
Berg smiled and said, “That was only one factor. Truth be told, I’ve been observing him in secret over the years, and I’ve found that whether it’s in terms of character, capability or mental strength, he completely fills the requirements for succeeding me as the leader of the Alliance. Since I married, there have been a lot of things that aren’t convenient for me to handle personally. Now that Xi Wei’s grown up, it’s time to hand over some matters to him. You should send out an announcement to the members of the Alliance, saying that Xi Wei will start as the deputy leader of the Alliance, and I’ll let him learn while slowly passing down my duties to him.”
Ivan respectfully saluted him. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Xi Wei played until he was giddy. After flying Egret for a dozen or so laps around the factory, he came to a stop still feeling like he hadn’t gotten enough. Sure enough, an S-class mecha was outstanding. He flew a dozen laps around the factory lightning-fast, but with high stability, so that Xi Wei hadn’t felt dizzy at all.
After he made Egret come to a stop, Xi Wei came out of the cockpit, and put him away in the storage device in his crystal necklace. He smiled and said to Berg, “Uncle, you’re really amazing. This mecha is absolutely great.”
Looking at the boy’s beaming face, Berg couldn’t help but smile and say, “You like it?”
“Like it!”
“Do you know why I gave him to you?”
“Uh…why? Actually, such a high-level mecha, I probably won’t have much use for him at school, right?” Xi Wei asked, scratching his head in confusion.
Berg said, “Since you’ve gotten your hands on such a high-level mecha, of course you shouldn’t let him go to waste. From today on, you’ll be the deputy leader of the Underground Alliance, and help me carry out some tasks. How about it, do you think you can do it?”
Xi Wei stared blankly at him. “Deputy leader? I only just joined…”
“That’s not a problem, as long as you have the ability. You’re my only choice. In all of the Alliance, besides you, there’s no one else who can pilot Egret.” Berg looked seriously at the boy in front of him, and said, “You’ll first take up the post of deputy leader, while you learn how to manage this huge organization. After all, I’m already married, and I’m living with Drew right now. From time to time, he’ll come back to see me. Oftentimes, it’s not convenient for me to go out, so I’ll have to pass down some tasks for you to help me with.”
Xi Wei straightforwardly said, “I understand, Uncle! I’ll try it out.”
Berg smiled and nodded, saying, “Mr. Ivan will explain the past and present circumstances of the Underground Alliance to you in detail. I still have things to do over here, so let’s end it here. I’ll contact you again through Egret’s communicator.”
“Alright, Uncle!”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, the video call on the screen in front of him cut off.
“Xi Wei, come with me.” Ivan stood in the exact middle of the room, and placed his hand on a fingerprint scanner. A door suddenly opened out of the originally sealed room. The two of them walked single-file down the corridor behind it, and reached another room.
This room seemed to be completely empty, with nothing but four bare silver walls.
But Xi Wei knew that it definitely couldn’t be that simple. Sure enough, Ivan walked to the center of the room, and after entering a password, pulled down a holographic menu. He entered a series of complicated commands into the menu. The four silver walls suddenly lit up, and row after row of densely packed images quickly appeared on them.
Ivan smiled and said, “This is a list of the members of the Underground Alliance.”
Xi Wei: “…”
This was so impressive it was a little frightening. Exactly how many members did the Underground Alliance have?
Ivan explained, “Right now, the number of omegas in the Alliance is only about a thousand. Because of the Alliance’s top-secret nature, when I’m recruiting members, I need to observe them over the course of their four years at Ellen Academy. I need to take their family background, character and conduct into full consideration. The most important point is that they themselves must have a strong desire not to get married off by the association. If that’s the case, the Alliance will help them, whether it’s by giving them suppressants to delay their heat, or simply forging them an entirely new identity.”
As he spoke, Ivan copied the list of names into Egret’s AI, and set the privacy settings so that only the owner could access this top-secret information.
“You can take your time to learn more about our members. For now, I’ll tell you about the origin of the Underground Alliance.”
Ivan opened up another document folder on the holographic menu and pulled out some files. “One year, the capital planet experienced a viral epidemic. Locke Castle, which once had countless inhabitants, was reduced to a ghost town overnight. There were a few pregnant omegas and a doctor who survived the disaster by hiding underground. That doctor was the founder of the Underground Alliance, Dr. Shaun. He researched and developed suppressants. When the survivors gave birth, he had the few omega infants take them from a young age, and so they grew up under the identities of betas.”
“In total, there were four omega children who survived that year. There were a pair of brothers, Ling Feng and Ling Yu. The older brother, Ling Feng, went to medical school and became a doctor; the younger brother, Ling Yu, went to a military academy and became the youngest major general in the empire’s history. The third child, Dave, graduated from the Imperial Mecha Manufacturing University. Now he’s at our Locke Castle Headquarters, helping us make various kinds of robots and mechas. The last child was me. I came to Ellen Academy, and became a teacher under the identity of a beta.”
Xi Wei listened attentively. A doctor, a major general, a talented mecha manufacturer, and a teacher at an omega academy…that all of these powerful omegas came from the Underground Alliance were evidence of the strength of this organization.
“Afterwards, who knows from where, but the military found out about the existence of the Underground Alliance. Things like suppressants are anathema to alphas. The military decided to surround and destroy the Alliance, and confiscate all the suppressants. Fortunately, Ling Yu had already infiltrated the military as a major general. He found out about the plan in time, and sent a message to the headquarters. This let many omegas make preparations, and they were able to escape disaster.”
“However, the military still brought their full strength against them, so no small number of omegas were arrested. Dr. Shaun, the first leader of the Alliance, committed suicide in the underground city beneath Locke Castle. The military mistakenly believed that the leader was gone and the Alliance had been eradicated. They didn’t know that in fact, Prince Berg was already a member of the alliance, and Dr. Shaun had chosen him to be his successor. After Dr. Shaun passed away, Prince Berg took over his position as leader of the Alliance. He joined forces with Major General Ling Yu, and they sent many omegas to other galaxies under the guises of betas, so that they were able to make a clean escape from the military’s pursuit.”
“Many of the names on the list I gave you belong to omegas who escaped that year. Most of them are now living in various places under the identities of betas.”
“After Berg took over, the organization laid low. Suppressant manufacturing was moved to the underground factory beneath Ellen Academy. The underground city beneath Locke Castle was rebuilt, and many new security checkpoints were added. Dave is in charge of Locke Castle, and the manufacture of robots and mechas. We also have an agent at the Imperial Central Hospital, Dr. Louis. He’s in charge of the supply of suppressants and related materials.”
Seeing how absorbed Xi Wei was listening to him, Ivan smiled and said, “That’s the story of the Underground Alliance, from its origin up to its present circumstances. When the military suppressed us, it was actually because of those stupid alphas who were afraid that omegas would be smarter than them. If suppressants get rid of the difficulties of heat, omegas won’t be forced to marry them anymore. Just depending on our native intelligence, we could definitely become leaders in every walk of life, and even rise to become high-ranking officers in the military. Alphas can’t stand the thought of this, and so they won’t tolerate the existence of suppressants.”
Xi Wei soon understood. It was evident that many omegas were actually smarter than alphas, but due to the natural disadvantage of heat, they had no choice but to get married and have children after reaching adulthood. If suppressants could be distributed for widespread use, all omegas would take them, and there might even be some who would choose to never get married. If that happened, alphas would certainly be unhappy.
Those self-important alphas definitely wouldn’t be willing to let omegas walk all over them. That was the reason behind the military finding some thin excuse to wipe out the Underground Alliance in one blow. It’s too bad they never considered that both the palace and the military might contain spies from the Alliance. They thought they had been very successful in clearing out the Alliance, but they had only succeeded in removing a layer of skin. The true Alliance had survived intact and moved underground. If they found out that the new boss was his uncle Berg, that bunch of idiots would probably have their jaws drop to the ground.
Xi Wei couldn’t help but sigh with emotion. Omegas truly were smart; although their physical strength couldn’t compare to alphas, their IQ could definitely crush some alphas into the dirt!
After Ivan finished copying the data to Xi Wei’s mecha AI, he said, “It’s getting late, we should be heading back.”
Xi Wei nodded. “Okay.”
“In order to prevent your classmates from becoming suspicious, you should try to avoid coming here too often. When you need to come, I’ll coordinate with you, and bring you to the anatomy lab after class.”
“Got it.”
Xi Wei said that and turned to follow Ivan down the road back. The two of them rode the platform back up to the anatomy lab.
There were hundreds of anatomical models lined up side by side in the anatomy lab, all looking exactly the same. Outsiders definitely wouldn’t be able to find where the trapdoor laid. If two people suddenly appeared in the middle of the room, or if they disappeared, nobody would be able to see it clearly either way. Someone had certainly paid careful attention when designing this room.
The two of them looked at each other and smiled, then left the anatomy lab for their respective rooms.
When Xi Wei returned to his dorm room, Aiden had the computer on his lap and was intently watching a movie. When he walked up behind him, he found that Aiden was actually concentrating so hard on a porno. Xi Wei couldn’t help but ask, “How come you’re looking at this kind of thing all the time? Is marking that fun to watch?”
Aiden smiled and said calmly, “The teacher said that the exam is going to focus on this. Not to mention as an omega, if don’t learn this, what am I going to do if I meet an alpha who doesn’t understand it? The one to suffer will be myself, so I have to study hard.”
Faced with this guy, Xi Wei was just speechless. Aiden didn’t seem to mind going through heat at all, and even seemed to be awaiting it?
After taking a quick shower, Xi Wei went to his bedroom and laid down on the bed. He called out softly in his mind, “Egret, are you there?”
A gentle voice sounded in his head right away. “I’m always here, owner.”
Xi Wei said, “Open the files that Ivan copied over today. I want to take a good look at the Underground Alliance’s members.”
“Alright, owner.”
Egret quickly opened the list of Alliance members. Though Xi Wei had closed his eyes, streams of information flashed continuously through his mind. This was the benefit of the mental connection between the AI and his brain; even when he was feigning sleep with his eyes and mouth closed, he could still communicate seamlessly with his mecha.
Looking at photo after photo, Xi Wei suddenly said: “Stop! Go back to that person you showed me just now.”
“Oh, is it this one?” Egret obediently returned to the information of the person that had flashed by just a moment ago.
Xi Wei carefully examined the photograph, and couldn’t help but frown slightly. “How could this be?”
Egret asked, puzzled, “What do you mean? Owner, do you recognize him?”
Xi Wei took a detailed look at that person’s information—
Full name: Dean Sherman.
Date of birth: 10/20/756.
Relations: Paternal grandfather, Christian Sherman; father, Chet Sherman; mother, Leanne Warwick.
Recorded below were some line graphs showing the curves of his pheromone data, genetic data and so on. Xi Wei didn’t really understand it. The list of his family members, however, he realized the significance of at a glance. This man called Dean was a member of the Sherman family. One of the empire’s six major corps, the Rose Corps, fell under the influence of the Sherman family. The emblem branded on the corps’s battleships was a white multiflora rose, and the entire corps also dressed in a pure white uniform.
Roses looked beautiful, but were full of hidden danger; this was the meaning the Sherman family had in mind when giving the Rose Corps its name.
Xi Wei was quite clear on the basic facts of the empire’s six major corps. Among them, the Rose Corps held a rather strange position. It wasn’t close to the palace, and it didn’t associate with the other corps; it could be seen as an independent power. At present, the leader of the Rose Corps was General Christian Sherman, who had already reached a hundred years of age. It looked like this man called Dean was the grandson of General Sherman.
—What made Xi Wei so surprised was that the man in the photograph resembled Randy to an extraordinary degree.
There was only the fact that the man in the photograph was clearly younger, and looked to be more inexperienced than Randy. But with his chestnut hair, fair skin, and the gentle and warm look in his eyes that curved while smiling, he was practically a teenage version of Randy. Even the blue ring he wore on his finger was exactly the same as the one General Craig had taken out!
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The author has something to say:
I'm so happy every time I get to a part about the Alliance. Haha, this is a true gathering of monsters! Each omega is more awesome than the next!
Alphas simply can’t take it easy anymore.
In the future, when the military meets, the alpha generals will have to look at each other in sympathy. “It seems like my omega is part of the Alliance…”
“My omega too…”
“Mine too…”
Klaire has a face full of tears: “Mine is going to be the next boss, okay?! I’m so tired I can’t take it, this is going to make chasing him even harder!”
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