Over 48 hours have passed since Phillip was able to recover the Power Cores. Since then Gray was busy trying to salvage what was left of the ship’s system and mainframe.

And not only that, Gray was able to repower a subsystem in the ship which was Surveyor Ship which main use is to do reconnaissance missions. It doesn’t have enough power to leave the atmosphere. Moreover, it was stuck inside the ship and couldn’t get out.

The solution was to just make a hole large enough for the ship to fly out. But that required Phillip to have enough power and energy to rip apart the rotting ship.

So as Gray was transferring her systems and hardware into the Surveyor Ship, Phillip was hunting around the foggy forest to eat and store energy using his tail.

Now, his tail has reached more than 5meters in length and more than 12inches in diameter. Though the thickness of his tail wasn’t like this before, the reason for this was that he was trying his best to shorten it while storing more. Due to the fact that there was a limit in Nanite control inside his Augment Suit, extending his tail more would make him unstable.

He tried spreading the stored fuel throughout his body, but it only made him heavier and less mobile. The more he hunted, the more it got difficult for him to move his body.

“Gray, how’s the system transfer going?”

[System Transfer at 23%]

“It’s been three days and it’s still at 23 percent?”

[System Precepts are in Terabytes. Due to the ship’s damaged Mainframe, Data Transfer is crippled.]

“Can’t you just drop the unneeded precepts?”

[System Protocol No.11 does not allow me to destroy or abandon System Precepts that still exists.]

“Well as captain, I order you to ignore Protocol 11.”

[System Protocol No.23 states that only system creator can command Genealogy Research Assistant Artificial Intelligence to destroy stored information and precepts.]

From the sky, Phillip lands on the part of the ship where Gray calculated to be the safest point where he could rip open for the smaller ship to come out.

“I’m going to start forcing this open. Tell me if anything gets caught up.”

Without waiting for Gray to answer, he raises his arms and both connected to the end and became a giant single-edged blade. And using his herculean strength, he drops the giant blade and leaves a huge cut on the steel armor and a bit of the hull of the ship.

[Hull penetrated. 2 of the needed 50 meter gap is fulfilled.]

After his first strike, Phillip takes a deep breath and lets out smoke when he exhaled. It was from his body generating so much power his muscles overheated. But thankfully, this wasn’t much of a problem. All the cells that needed replacement immediately were replaced by his stock from his tail.

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He then continued and struck the armor several times more. After a while, he managed to create two lines that created a 90 degree angle.

Phillip looked at his tail.

The tail was about 3/4th of its original size and had become lighter than before. It goes without saying that he has burned so much energy that his body is literally smoking.

[Suggesting captain to rest]

“No, I’m alright. Rather, I’ve stored so much energy right now I’m curious to how much I can exert so much in one go.”

[So this is a capacity threshold test?]

“…somewhat like that.”

Phillip goes to the point where the two lines meet. But instead of a giant sword, Phillip makes his tail melt and change it into four arms growing from his back.

He slips his hands into the gap and then with his herculean multiplied by three, he bends the 10mm thick armor plating of the ship open and continued to pull while roaring his lungs out enough to sound like a giant beast. His muscle cells and Augment suit were so overworked that his body started to shine red hot and was smoking.

But as he was doing it, a loud ring entered his ears.

[Attention: Unknown Ship signature detected]

[Communication frequency unknown]

Immediately, Phillip lets go of the thick sheet of steel and dropped on his knee while catching his breath.

“Can you identify whether it’s hostile or not?”

[Negative. Ship signature is not registered in my database.]

“Where is it coming from?”

[It is 600km South-west of our position. Target is moving at 290kmph and is decelerating.]

“They must’ve had detected the ship’s signal when we came online. Gray, pause the system transfer and cut excess power. Salvage what you can with the weapon’s system and await for my command.”

[System transfer has been paused.]

[Power Saver Mode initiated.]

[Searching Available Weapon System]

[Weapon Systems Overriding Bypass enabled: Pulse Cannon Online at 30% power]

After catching his breath, Phillip rushes towards the misty forest and hid himself in the shadows.

But as he was running, he noticed that he couldn’t retract his excess arms. It was because he overheated and some of his cells have been welded on place.

[Detecting Damage Nanites in Augment Suit system]

[Damaged Nanites are undergoing self-repair. They will be restored over time. Overheating Threshold has been recorded.]

“That’s good to hear but keep you attention to the intruders.”

[Impossible, I am Gray, the Genealogy Research Assistant Artificial Intelligence. It is my first priority to research and examine all biological subjects.]

“Yeah, yeah, I understand, but keep it down. They’re here.”

As a loud electrical-like engine sound was approaching, Phillip hid deeper into the trees and watched the approaching ship.

To his surprise, the ship wasn’t exactly like what he expected.

It wasn’t big, but it was significantly bigger than the ship that he was trying to pull out of Gondola.

Its outer armor was full of rusty parts. The engines were decent but didn’t match the rest of the ship. There was barely any window and the obvious windows were blocked with steel plates that obviously belong to a different ship. It was basically a flying rusty ship made of scraps. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration that it’s just a flying piece of garbage dumpster.

From its bow, a small camera pops out and then started scanning the exterior of the ship. This made Gray ring inside Phillip’s ears.

[Warning! Warning! Gondola has been scanned!]

“Calm down, Gray. They haven’t done anything yet.”

[System Protocol No.22 states that any threat to the stored research data and precepts should and will be eliminated.]

[Powering Pulse Cannon]

“As Captain, I order you to stand down! They are not threats for now.”

Gray fell quiet for a minute,

After the scanning was done, the ship retracts the camera and circles around for a while. After that, the ship heads towards the open place closest to the Gondola and lands.

And when the unknown ship’s hatch finally opened, five people in full body suits with armor and weapons come out.

However, when Phillip saw one of the men’s shoulders, he saw something familiar.

“Celes Empire…”

-End of Chapter-