What big problem needed Adrian to solve? Of course, it was his Battle Qi skill!
Reed didn't just want Cyra to get on the Midas alone. She wanted all of us to go together! But officially, only Cyra pretending to be Niki was the driver. So we needed some special tricks to sneak everyone else on without anyone noticing.
According to plan, after finishing indoor tests, the Midas would go outside the base for more testing. That's when we could escape the base. Adrian's word arrows were very important for this.
"So I need to make four people invisible this time? But my Battle Qi isn't fully back yet. It might take some time..." Adrian quickly understood what he needed to do. Making word arrows wasn't easy for him, especially several at once. But luckily, time was the one thing we had plenty of.
Word arrows were powerful, but not too hard to make. Adrian just had to hold the arrow and use his mind to change his Battle Qi into words that stick to the target.
It looked simple, but there were rules. Usually, the more amazing the effect and the longer it lasted, the more time it took to make the word. Even if you succeeded in putting on the word, how well it worked depended a lot on how strong the target was. So even though we sometimes had wild ideas to try words like "win" or "die", it never worked out even after lots of effort.
"Battle Qi is already beyond normal reality. Maybe the bigger the change to reality, the more energy it needs," Reed explained. "When Adrian doesn't have enough Battle Qi, even if he puts on a word with clear meaning, it might still fail in the end."
Reed was very interested in this, but she was busy preparing for the Midas test and couldn't spend too much time studying it.
Everything was going smoothly as planned. Three hours passed quickly. Cyra, pretending to be Niki, became the main test driver as expected. During that time, Reed and others taught her the basic controls. She excitedly stepped into the elevator going up to the head cockpit.
Of course, by then the four of us were already invisible. We secretly got in the elevator with her. Nobody noticed us at all!
Other researchers would definitely get suspicious if we suddenly disappeared during the test, especially important people like Idini and Memi. But Reed had prepared for this - she made light magic dolls to replace us.
These weren't like the rough ones I made before. Mia made these herself! They looked exactly like us and could be controlled from far away. So for a short time, nobody would notice they weren't real.
"This is the cockpit? It's totally different from what I imagined!" Cyra was confused as soon as we entered. It wasn't like the inside of a Gundam she imagined. There were no instruments or lots of buttons she couldn't name. The whole place was actually very small and simple!
The space was less than 5 square meters with just one chair. A few tubes connected the chair to the "wall". There wasn't even a window to see outside. With five people squeezed in here, I felt like I was back on a crowded bus during rush hour.
"Adrian, can you use your 'small' word arrow? I can hardly breathe!" The air wasn't moving well inside. I barely found a tiny spot to sit down and couldn't stand it anymore.
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"I don't have much Battle Qi left. That 'invisible' arrow before used up all my Battle Qi. I can't make one now!" Adrian said with a bitter smile. So that was impossible.
"The whole driving process connects to sensors all over through light element spirit links. So whatever the Midas's eyes see is what the driver sees. No need for extra windows! The cockpit has to be small. A bigger one would make it easier for enemies to hit. The deeper inside, the better protected the weak spots are," Reed explained matter-of-factly. She was right next to me but didn't complain at all. She and Mia had to focus on controlling their light magic dolls, so they didn't talk much unless it was important.
As for me and Adrian, nobody paid much attention to our dolls. We just had to find a good spot to sit and "watch". My doll's view gave me a second set of eyes to see outside. (Adrian couldn't use magic, so he just listened to what I said.)
"But it's supposed to be a weapon for the empire. Is it good to hide the weak spots so much?" I felt Reed was being too serious. If the empire could mass produce these based on this prototype - even just two or three would be a huge threat to nearby countries. Normal people couldn't fight it at all!
"What's there to worry about? I'm the official driver now, so this is my personal Gundam from now on. No weak spots is better!" Cyra excitedly sat in the driver's seat. She had the most space. Following Reed's instructions, she used spirit magic to connect to the Midas's system. She couldn't help laughing proudly. "Haha, that's right! It feels like I'm moving myself. I'm about to be invincible!"
What terrible lines! The whole process was basically like using our "Spiritual Convergence" communication magic to connect to the spirit network. But the Midas applied different spirit commands to control the machine. This made classic scenes we'd only seen in sci-fi movies come true. It was also the main reason why the driver had to be a light mage.
"Whatever you say..." I suddenly wondered if making her the driver was a mistake. I buried my head, feeling helpless. But it was already done, so we couldn't change it. Plus, all of us were hiding in here now. If something went wrong, being more sturdy couldn't hurt. Thinking that way made me feel better!
"Test starting. You can leave the hangar now!" With a big shake, Cyra successfully controlled the Midas to stand steady as the outside order came. No matter what, using your mind to control a whole machine had a pretty low starting difficulty.
But the next part didn't go so well. Just when I was secretly feeling relieved, suddenly everything started spinning. The whole cockpit felt like it turned sideways. In the already tiny space, everyone got squished together out of control.
"Mia, can you move your chest a bit? I can barely breathe!" I struggled to crawl out of the pile of bodies. If I wasn't wrong, this feeling meant the machine was tilting by accident. It hadn't fallen over completely, but for the four of us extra passengers who couldn't wear seatbelts, the experience was almost deadly!
Controlling the Midas to walk needed some skill and practice. This was Cyra's first time, so of course she had big problems with the first step.
"What's going on? Niki! Didn't you do well in the last walking test?" Sure enough, her "expert move" immediately raised questions from the watching staff. The test officer asked very sternly.
"It's fine, just an accident! I tripped on the fasteners by mistake!" Cyra made up an excuse through the built-in magic loudspeaker. She tried hard to control the machine to stand up from a half-kneeling position. This time she didn't disappoint and didn't fall again. She finally learned to walk. Although it was slow, she managed to leave the hangar and come to the base's outdoor field.
"First test, shield test!" The shield was made by protective magic formations on the Midas's surface. It had magic defense and physical defense parts. This test was the easiest - just see if the shield could turn on successfully.
"Second test, hand weapon shooting!" By now the field was clear of unrelated people. A huge target was standing in the middle. No doubt, that was what we needed to hit.
"Watch this!" Cyra raised the Midas's hand without hesitation. It was supposed to have a laser-like weapon there, but because of tech limits, Reed had to use a big fire magic formation instead.
Besides the original weapon spots, many new weapons were added all over the machine, like shoulder cannons! These "shoulder cannons" were actually the magic cannons we saw before. The original design didn't have these, but the empire's upgrade idea was "more weapons are better, bigger power is better". They basically wanted to make a super mobile gun platform that could run around everywhere.