Sky-cracking Rider

Chen Fei packed around a hundred crates and handled the shipment at the Habulav postal company; the smallest crate weighed almost a hundred kilograms, and the largest one weighed up to several tons.

Because he held the position of a member of the Bear Hunting Special Operations Division, he enjoyed an internal discount that saved him tens of thousands of Star Yuan in transportation costs.

These boxes immediately caught the attention of certain individuals.

Having returned empty-handed to Chen Fei's dormitory, Franco hurried to the Habulav postal company's warehouse and found the neatly stacked crates.

"Every single box must be checked!"

This time, he brought around a dozen people.

They had not only professional detection devices but also psychic ability users skilled in perception and search dogs with keen noses—without opening the crates, they could still find the crystalline blocks hidden inside.

"Reporting to Director Franco, the crates bound for XX City are all filled with natural crystals, the crates going to Northern Industrial University contain crystals too, and those sent to Mesoamerica and Xingdu Kush Mountain Area are also packed with crystals. What's this guy doing with so many crystals?"

"All those crates contain crystals?"

Franco stood gaping in disbelief, aside from that large crate, the other uniform-sized ones might have contained up to several tons of crystals.

Does Chen have a mental illness? All these crystals, what, is he planning to build a house?

Was he enemies with crystals in a past life?

These things aren't even valuable! (Though they are worth a bit of money, the cost of extracting them from the heavily mutant-surrounded depths of the Central Great Desert...)

After meticulously checking all the crates one by one, the reporting staff confidently stated, "Err, yes, they are all crystals! Very strange, this isn't normal!"

No need for detection devices or psychic ability users—one X-ray, and from the crystal structure alone, one could immediately tell the general composition.

Franco said angrily, "I, of course, know it's not normal, damn it... driven mad by poverty!"

The truth was not hard to guess!

With a bit of investigation, Chen Fei's personal financial situation could be clarified. To an ordinary family, five million Star Yuan is a huge sum—the interest alone could suffocate a household, possibly burdening generations to clear the debt. Even for a rank B ability user, it still wasn't a sum payable in a short period.

Even ability users would hardly think of going through so much effort to use a Space System Alchemy Storage Device to move these worthless crystals out of the desert.

Are storage devices more expensive than crystalline blocks being used to store junk?

Really full and nothing better to do!

Looking back, on one hand, guarding an unliquidatable Third Rank Light-element Magical Beast Crystal Core, and on the other, struggling to find money to pay debts everywhere.

Poverty breeds change, if not using special abilities to haul out a Mobile Base Vehicle from the rubbish pile outside the city, barely within the rules as a personal ability, any other way to get such a vehicle would probably get him knocked senseless.

Now impoverished and acting strange, he had acquired a huge lot of crystals and was haphazardly shipping them all over the world.

It is because of poverty that so many incomprehensible actions are taken.

Wait!

Franco seemed to suddenly grasp a clue. He squinted and said coldly, "It's all a distraction!"

Almost deceived by this kid.

These express boxes, it's just a trick to divert my attention, to hide that crystalline block somewhere else while he's at it.

Now the crystalline block is in Habulav, even in Zone B, but the exact location remains unknown.

A distraction?

Everyone looked at each other in dismay.

"Deploy personnel, keep a close watch on Chen Fei, including everyone from Squad 04!"

Franco issued the order through gritted teeth, not wanting to be made a fool as if they were monkeys.

Having once been the leader of a temporary investigation team, he visited the 911 Aircrew Base in the Xingdu Kush Mountain Area, but had left there on bad terms.

Chen Fei had completely forgotten about him, and probably even Hanna Gagel couldn't recall ever dealing with such a person, but Franco had never forgotten.

A devil rises an inch, a path rises a foot. No matter what, he must retrieve that crystalline block once lost in the Central Great Desert.

-

After completing their assessments, each squad, upon resting thoroughly, proceeded to the Bear Hunting Special Operations Division's administrative levels in Zone A2 to confirm their posts.

Similar in intent to the global string of aircrew bases aimed at eradicating mutants, the "Bear Hunting Special Operations Division" posts were for swift strikes against the Water Bear organization. While not as numerous as the military contractors, their combat capabilities were undoubtedly superior.

The only hundred-floor building's 48th-floor meeting room in Zone A2.

Squad 04, consisting of eleven members, arrived here shortly after the previous squad had left. The air still hung heavy with the scent of coffee and smoke.

The familiar blonde lady at the registration handed an envelope to the captain of Squad 04, a First Rank Fire System Mage, now reverted to having cropped white hair, Adrian Benjamin.

She then gracefully explained, "This is your Squad 04's station and plane tickets. Departure is tomorrow at noon via the commercial route, with a layover at Mount Kumgang, and the gear and equipment will be transported by the Joint Defense Committee. It's expected to arrive on the third day of your stationing, and the inventory is also in the envelope. Please check if you need anything else."

"Alright! Thank you!"

Adrian took the envelope and immediately opened it.

"The station is..."

His voice abruptly stopped; his eyes widened as he stared at the stack of papers in his hands, his breathing growing heavy.

"Hey, Adrian, what did you see that scared you like this? Haha, could it be hell?"

"Where exactly is it? Speak up!"

"Hey, elder sister, what exactly is written in the envelope?"

After spending a month together in the Central Great Desert and facing life and death situations, the relationships among all members of Team 04 had grown even closer.

"I didn't know before this either!"

The golden-haired elder sister at the original report location maintained her professional smile but didn't provide any answers.

Adrian spat out a few words expressionlessly.

"The Siberian Tundra!"

"Huh?"

"What?"

"Tundra?"

"Is this some kind of joke?"

"What? It's that kind of godforsaken place!"

"Chirp?"

The members of Team 04 issued sounds of disbelief.

Adrian's mouth twitched as he looked toward Chen Fei.

"Uh! Chen Fei, is it because you offended that Franco guy?"

Lately, everyone from Team 04 had been individually visited and talked to by some unknown department in Habulav.

Crystalline Block? Cannot say, cannot say.

Even the most candid Black BOY Apu kept his lips sealed, he was candid but not foolish; betraying teammates was something he could never do, no matter what.

This was exactly what annoyed the hell out of the board member Franco, who kept a close eye on Chen Fei. In just one month, he managed to strengthen these guys' bonds so solidly they dared to resist the will of the Global United Defense Committee.

Offending a high-rank official and thus being sent to a harsh cold place was naturally expected, wasn't it?

"Uh! Who knows!"

Chen Fei spread his hands innocently.

He had offended too many people to keep track of them all.

If people always dwelt on those troubles, who would want to live like that? It's obviously better to just be happy.

"Chirp!"
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Little Bird echoed from his shoulder.

This unprincipled, shameless little creature never made any other sound no matter what Daddy Chen said.

"Hey! It's already like this, we just have to accept our fate!"

Adrian had just asked casually and didn't really mean to dig any deeper.

After all, they could still drive in the Siberian Tundra; with Chen Fei's Mobile Base Vehicle, they wouldn't be miserably frozen.

In the subsequent checklists, he indeed saw Chen Fei's Mobile Base Vehicle listed.

It seemed like the Bear Hunting Special Operations Division also planned to pack this big vehicle with Team 04 as standard equipment, which saved him a lot of trouble.

Somebody curiously asked, "Can I ask why choose the Siberian Tundra?"

This question didn't reach the golden-haired elder sister at the former check-in point but was instead resolved internally by Team 04.

"Beneath the Siberian Tundra lies many ancient animal remains, some even dating back to before the Ice Age. If the 'Water Bear' organization plans to study mutants, having such a massive ancient DNA sample bank would be very convenient."

Unexpectedly, the magical boundary ape Lulu'an was extremely knowledgeable about Blue Star's natural ecology.

The golden-haired elder sister said cheerfully, "That's right!"

Her gaze suddenly fell on Chen Fei, her smile vanished as she said, "Can't you control your malice a bit? You all need to be cautious around this guy; he's a devil, a murderous fiend!"

A distinctly disgusted expression surfaced on her face.

"Huh? Me, me?"

Caught off guard by her warning tone, Chen Fei looked around and pointed at himself tentatively, his face the picture of innocence.

He clearly hadn't done anything, so why should he suffer such an unwarranted attack?

"That's right, you, you're filled with malice towards everyone, including this little bird on you. I noticed it the moment you checked in,"

The golden-haired elder sister pointed at herself and said very seriously, "I'm an A-grade Psychic Ability User, Doctor of Psychology, Criminal Investigation Expert, skilled in Emotion Perception and Mind Reading Technique."

Check-in itself was a checkpoint; anyone who tried to infiltrate the Bear Hunting Special Operations Division with ill intentions would not get past this golden-haired elder sister—probably wouldn't even get a card and would be taken away right there.

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