A First Taste of Virtual Mechs

She could hardly remember what her life had been like before the apocalypse anymore. All she recalled was that she had just started her second year of graduate school, locked in a daily battle of wills with her advisor, and that she had been reasonably content.

But those memories now felt so distant they no longer seemed like a life she had ever lived.

Xu Lingqu swept the stray strands of hair from her forehead, then settled back into the pod to resume her interrupted exploration of the Sky Network.

She once again chose the default appearance and the default name. Liu Ming trailed beside her, thoroughly exasperated. "This avatar of yours is tied to your real identity, you know. It's really doing a number on your public image!"

"Is that so? It's a real-name system only?" Xu Lingqu was a bit surprised. She touched the little winged [Personal] icon floating before her eyes, and when she tapped it, sure enough, there was a verified badge for a Moye Military Academy cadet.

So a place like the Sky Network had survived by surrendering enough rights... Still, as a company caught between the Empire and the Federation like this, the moment it ever made a move to defect, it would inevitably deal a massive blow to one side or the other.

"Yep, but you've got me. I can help you go anonymous, no problem," Liu Ming said, reaching out and giving a light touch. Xu Lingqu's identity icon flickered a few times and vanished. "Pretty impressive, right?"

Liu Ming seemed practically omnipotent in the digital world. Xu Lingqu asked, "And how come you're so familiar with the Sky Network?"

Liu Ming stiffened, his head dropping slightly. "Well... when you weren't around, I got a bit bored sometimes, so I piggybacked through the smart-net of the household robots and hacked my way in. But since I didn't come through the pod's proper channel, I couldn't manifest in my full form, so I was just wandering around in here as a string of transparent code..."

His behavior was very much like an elementary schooler caught in an illegal internet cafe.

"Alright, no one's blaming you. Let's go. You know this place so well—where can I try out a mech?" Xu Lingqu's current location resembled the lobby screen of an Earth game. It was a massive plaza where people kept appearing and disappearing.

Some made their way down the surrounding streets; others turned into beams of white light and vanished on the spot. Xu Lingqu's ordinary appearance and unmodified gibberish name let her blend seamlessly into the crowd, though Liu Ming's silver-haired youth form drew plenty of stares.

"Then we need to head to the mech zone. Let's go!" Liu Ming grabbed her hand, and the two of them instantly soared into the air, dissolving into streaks of white light that vanished where they had stood.

When they landed again, a colossal arena shaped like a Roman Colosseum stood before them.

Xu Lingqu stepped through its gates, and two floating options appeared before her eyes.

1. Arena

2. Training Room

Xu Lingqu picked number two, and the scene before her shifted instantly. She now stood in a gray-white space, wide and tall, but with only her and Liu Ming—who had transformed into a ring on her finger for convenience—it felt far too empty and desolate.

Liu Ming shifted back into human form. "You can go ahead and try out a mech, master. But fair warning: the virtual mechs here are pretty mediocre. They can't even compare to the replicated ones, let alone the real deal. That said, none of the real mechs out there can compare to me."

Xu Lingqu noticed the mech selection interface to her right. Tapping it, a one-meter-tall page materialized, with categories for virtual mechs and replicated mechs.

As an anonymous, unregistered user on the interstellar Sky Network, she couldn't choose replicated mechs, so she directly clicked on virtual.

The virtual mechs had no special names. They were divided into five types and simply named after them: Speed, Power, Defense, Attack, and Heavy.

Xu Lingqu chose the first one—Speed.

A massive gray-cyan mech, about six stories tall, materialized instantly before her. In all her time in the interstellar era, this was the first time Xu Lingqu had ever gotten such an up-close look at a mech, even if it was virtual.

The towering machine was assembled from tens of thousands of mech components. Xu Lingqu recalled how much effort Natata and the others had poured into making even a single component last time, and she now understood with total clarity just how much a mech engineer was worth.

No wonder the teams of master engineers who could independently design and build mechs were so scarce.

The cockpit sat in the center of the towering mech. Xu Lingqu pressed her hand against its surface, and the next second, she was inside.

The cockpit was neither too spacious nor too cramped. A seat sat before several hundred control buttons, and behind it was a circular platform two meters in diameter whose purpose she couldn't guess.

"That's where you stand during battle so the mech's neural link can connect to your body," Liu Ming's voice echoed through the cockpit, though he himself remained unseen. "Don't be scared. I can parasitize any mech. With me, you can just set it to autopilot, and I can optimize the mech's performance and boost its mobility, too."

Xu Lingqu rose from her seat and stepped onto the circular platform. Metallic tendrils immediately descended from above, forming a protective suit of what looked like an exoskeleton around her body.

"For ordinary people, even virtual mechs like these, which don't restrict spiritual power, still put a ton of strain and pain on the pilot. But well, obviously, you're not exactly ordinary. Heh." Liu Ming once again amused himself with his own rambling.

Xu Lingqu truly felt no strain or pain whatsoever. Standing on the platform, she tentatively raised her hand, and the mech mimicked the movement perfectly.

Still no pressure.

This time, she jumped outright. Still no significant resistance. So she simply let loose, and the colossal machine soared and landed across the gray-white space, spun around, and delivered a high kick in one flawless, fluid motion. In the real world, such a move could topple a building in seconds.

Liu Ming watched with great satisfaction. Xu Lingqu's adaptability to mechs was simply too high. Other people would spend a whole month just practicing walking back and forth after interfacing, yet she'd been hooked up for ten minutes and was already pulling off combat moves like a veteran.

"Try the weapons!" Liu Ming said.

A pair of weapon options for the Speed-type mech immediately appeared before Xu Lingqu's eyes—a longsword, and a laser cannon mounted on the left shoulder.

With a single thought, a miniature version of the longsword materialized in her hand, and the massive mech likewise held a gray longsword. With her guidance, the blade spun smoothly through its grip.

This mech lived up to its name, the Speed type. Light and agile overall, it could close distance fast in combat, deliver rapid strikes with the sword, then pull back—built around a hit-and-run philosophy.

"Weapons are better honed in actual combat, anyway," she muttered. Swinging and slashing at air in this empty space just made her feel ridiculous.

Xu Lingqu tapped to exit battle mode and hopped off the platform.

"Then we can head to the arena!" Liu Ming said excitedly.

For the sake of fairness, the interstellar Sky Network's arena prohibited the use of replicated mechs. For the general public's experience, only virtual mechs were allowed.

The Imperial Military had also explicitly banned mech soldiers from coming here to ruin civilians' fun with their overwhelming advantages.

Some military academies outright forbade their mech-soldier students from climbing this leaderboard—it was beneath their dignity. But other schools had no such rule, so mech-soldier cadets who hadn't been selected for the Imperial Military's mech corps still played on it, since ranking high meant earning money.

As a result, the top hundred was a mix of civilian experts and military cadets, while the top twenty was basically a monopoly of military academy mech soldiers.

Fortunately, Xu Lingqu hadn't been selected as Moye's mech soldier, or she wouldn't have been allowed into the arena at all.