Chapter 261: Strangeness Everywhere (2/2)

Han Jia landed neatly on a floating rock suspended in midair. The mech’s massive weight did not even stir the rock as Han Jia stood on it.

Ye Chong quickly recovered from his dizziness. His body felt like lead, so heavy that even moving his finger was a chore. Ye Chong quickly made an estimate of the gravitational field strength, and found that it was probably about five times that of the trash planet.

Even with Ye Chong’s physical strength, the strong gravitational field was enough to make movement difficult. Thinking back on how those herbivores leaped, Ye Chong felt embarrassed of himself. If it was him running, he would never be able to match their speed. Those animals were strong.

Ye Chong felt grateful. If he had been careless, those animals would be a big mess to deal with.

Ye Chong did not continue advancing, but stayed where he was and examined his surroundings. With five times the average gravitational force, Han Jia was now less powerful in combat. Han Jia’s design was not meant for battle in strong gravity environments like this. With five times the gravitational force, energy consumption would increase steeply. Han Jia would also be unable to reach its maximum speed. Besides, in this environment, Ye Chong felt like he was carrying four times his own body weight, and his hands felt five times heavier than normal. With this, Ye Chong’s hands would slow down, and his combat endurance would also decrease.

If he did a high speed Thomas’s Spin here, Ye Chong knew that he would suffer grave internal injuries from it. With five times the gravitational force, even sitting was hard.

There was not going around the problem. Ye Chong could only exercise caution and continue on carefully. If anything was amiss, he would run away.

The test results was encouraging for Ye Chong. There was air here, suitable for human respiration. Besides, the air quality was excellent, achieving the highest quality level possible. Even so, Ye Chong was not particularly demanding about air quality. To him, it was enough as along as the air was breathable. On the trash planet, pollution was at a critical level. Staying outdoors for long hours would be damaging to the respiratory tract and lungs.

However, Ye Chong also understood that good air quality also implied that the area was suitable for life. In fact, if it was suitable for humans, it was also suitable for most living organisms.

The air quality results was a relief for Ye Chong. The mech’s air recycling system could not run forever, since it consumed energy as well. Since there was breathable air here, it was at least suitable for habitation.

With air, wildlife and the mech’s water synthesizer, he already had all the basic necessities to survive.

Even though there was air outside, Ye Chong did not leave his mech. The environment was still largely unfamiliar to him, and it was safer to stay in the mech.

Numerous floating rocks seemed to suspend in the air, as though they were supported by something invisible in this strong-gravity environment. Ye Chong could not understand how this was possible. Moreover, when Han Jia stood on these rocks, they did not move at all.

What was this all about? Ye Chong could not for the life of him understand how these things came to be.

”There’s so much in this world that’s a mystery,” he thought to himself, and quickly moved on.

Ye Chong flew Han Jia carefully, avoiding the rocks in the air as he advanced slowly.

The further he flew, the more he discovered. There were more and more rocks suspended in the air, and there seemed to be no end in sight. Besides the purple fauna that he found earlier on those rocks, there were also a brown, lichen-like vegetation.

In this dark space, many faint blue sparkling dots surrounded the rocks. They seemed to be scattered randomly around the rocks, and brought life to the darkness.

The rocks were all scattered about irregularly. Ye Chong quickly found that flying was not a wise choice. With gravity, evasion during flight was a lot harder.

Fortunately, Ye Chong was adaptable. He quickly found a wonderful alternative - leaping, just like those herbivores. Han Jie leaped from one rock to another. Since the rocks were not too far apart, it was a suitable way of moving forward. The only problem was that Han Jia was a lot larger than those herbivores. This was a hindrance when moving between the rocks.

Besides, Ye Chong found that it was impossible to move the floating rocks vertically, parallel to the gravitational pull. However, it could be moved horizontally, and that was a curiosity to Ye Chong.

Ever since he entered the rest mist, he had encountered so many strange things. Until now, he could not understand any of them. As he continued to meet new and unexplainable phenomena, he learned to accept them quickly. After all, everything was strange around here, so different from what he knew of the world.

While he did not investigate the logic behind the things appearing around him, Ye Chong still studied everything carefully. Learning about his surroundings in unfamiliar territory would greatly increase his chances of survival.

As Ye Chong moved further in, the rocks grew closer together. This made Han Jia’s advance even harder. In the end, Ye Chong could only fly upwards.

He flew on for three days. While Han Jia was slowed down in order to avoid the rocks, he still covered a fair distance in these three days. However, Ye Chong noticed grimly that the energy consumed in these three days was equivalent to the energy ordinarily used up in two weeks. If this continued, the energy would quickly run out, and Ye Chong’s most effective means of self defense would be gone.

In these three days of flight, Ye Chong encountered a few herds of those herbivores.

The only encouraging thing was that Ye Chong had finally reached the uppermost layer of the asteroid region. This was apparent from the wider expanse of empty space he reached now.

This empty space stretched on for more than 3,000 kilometers.

3,000 kilometers was the limit of Han Jia’s scanning system. ”I didn’t think an asteroid belt will have such a mysterious place,” Ye Chong could not help but exclaimed. One can imagine the massive expanse of the asteroid belt.

Ye Chong paused as he studied Han Jia’s holographic scans. In the next moment, Han Jia quickly took off.

Since he was at the edge of the asteroid belt, there were no rocks to stop Han Jia, and the mech advanced swiftly.

The rocks were denser further ahead. The rocks below Han Jia grew closer and closer together. Gradually, the rocks below Han Jia formed a solid piece, like a gravelled road. Further still, the rocks were now just flat earth.

According to Han Jia’s holographic scans, what laid ahead was a huge continent.