The lights came on and the voice of the AI announced, "Welcome, stranger."
Li Ming peered inside, hesitated before entering, took a few photos around the spacecraft, and then sent them to the Black Hole Network for an appraisal.
It was then that he noticed, a few hours earlier, Uncle Lame had sent him a message.
"Kid, I’ve stolen the item. Silver Grey City is conducting a city-wide manhunt, but the guards were dispatched elsewhere, so they’re short-handed. Where can I find you now?"
Good! Li Ming took a deep breath and quickly replied, "I’ll send you a location. Come find me here and remember to bring the item."
Uncle Lame replied with an ’ok’ emoji, clearly waiting for Li Ming’s message.
With a weight lifted off his chest, Li Ming finally began to explore the spacecraft, only to find that aside from the public areas, he was locked out of all other ship cabins.
"I apologize, but as a visitor, your access is limited to public areas only," the AI apologized; the ship card could unlock the spacecraft, but that was it.
"Only the captain’s authorization or highest level access can enter other ship cabins."
"The captain is dead..." Li Ming, feeling frustrated, opened the Control page, accessed a small AI brain he had obtained earlier, took control, and suddenly a flood of hacking-related information poured into his mind.
Characters swirled around, system permissions, firewalls... soon, he became an experienced hacker.
"This low-level AI, it can be cracked by overloading its basic digital logic with a DoS attack, but I don’t have the tools," he muttered.
He frowned and then activated [Computing Support], elevating his hacking skills to an advanced level. His mind was a whirlpool of information that made his head spin.
"Whew..." Li Ming massaged his temples, took out the rudimentary smart device he bought and carried with him, quickly dismantled and reassembled it.
"Using it as a medium, although the Y332 chip isn’t great with graphics, its core frequency is decent, but needs to break through the power consumption wall..."
He pondered, then said, "As a public visitor, my electronics require special voltage needs, requesting that you increase the voltage by 25%."
"No problem," replied the AI, well within the visitor’s permissions.
"As a public visitor, I need to complete a job requiring the use of a public computer, please open the data transfer port."
Li Ming connected the smart device to the data port, then plugged it into the adjusted voltage socket, and began his operations swiftly.
"Warning! Warning!" The room lights flickered erratically, and the AI’s voice fluctuated rapidly.
In just a minute or two, sparks shot out of the smart device in Li Ming’s hands.
Simultaneously, all the lights on the spacecraft went out and then flared brightly again, the AI’s voice now steady: "Hello, Captain."
Li Ming was not surprised; it would have been quicker if he had had the right tools to handle the low-level AI.
"Open all ship cabins, access the voyage log, and the recent surveillance records," he commanded.
All the cabin doors opened simultaneously, and Li Ming began to search each one, looking for anything valuable left behind.
About half an hour later, Li Ming had moved everything he could find into the public area.
There were many weapons, a heap of firearms and ammunition, but not much was useful; most of it was junk.
Still, if absorbed, they could provide him nearly a thousand points of metal energy.
While absorbing the metal energy, Li Ming examined the voyage log.
"These guys have cleaned up at least a hundred targets..."
"The coordinator’s contact time was shortly after the assassination, must be one of their high-level officials..."
As time subconsciously slipped away, a flash appeared in Li Ming’s eyes, then he relaxed again.
"This is a nice ship. Where did you get it, bought it second-hand?" Uncle Lame walked into the cabin, looking around curiously.
A rectangular object covered with a black cloth was on his back.
"I didn’t buy this; I found it," Li Ming casually said.
"Found it?" Uncle Lame laughed, "Then you’re incredibly lucky, kid."
He glanced around nonchalantly, but his expression suddenly froze, his pupils dilated, then he quickly walked over to a pile of miscellaneous items, picked up a black garment, trembling with disbelief, "This... this... this is the ’Ash’ insignia."
Li Ming turned to look and saw a red flame on the garment.
"Seems so?" Uncle Lame, visibly shaken, "What kind of reaction is that? This is a ’Ash’ ship! How did you come by this..."
"Wait..." Uncle Lame suddenly realized, looking at the spacecraft card on the table, an unbelievable thought occurring to him.
He gulped, carefully asked, "Did... did you, surrender?"
"Huh?" Li Ming was taken aback, not expecting Uncle Lame to ask such a question, and responded, "Do I look that spineless?"
"I wiped out that group and took their ship’s card to check it out," he said nonchalantly, leaving Uncle Lame stunned,
Wiped out... that group?
He knew what caliber those guys were, if it weren’t for a tip-off last time, setting numerous traps, and calling in reinforcements,
Even then, it was a gruesome fight, barely escaping with his life.
And now, Li Ming had taken them out just like that?
A rush of emotions surged in his heart, words at the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t know what to say, just standing there dumbfounded.