Chapter 117: Red Feather 40943909 (Part One) The Blazing Spark flower, a perennial herb known for decades, thrives in high temperatures and requires proximity to magma for growth.

A century to sprout, a century to grow branches. A century for leaves, a century for flower buds, a century to bloom, a century to bear fruit. The resulting fruit is called the "Blazing Orchid Fruit"; consuming three at once can vastly enhance the user's mental power, converting their entire latent mental potential into usable force in the shortest possible time.

For Boundary Masters who have integrated the Christal Orb, consuming just nine Blazing Orchid Fruits can nearly unlock all their inherent mental potential and maximize the expansion of their "Domain," making it a treasure-grade medicine for rapidly boosting the strength of Boundary Masters or Ability Users.

The existence of the Blazing Orchid was stolen from the Roman people by Earth Federation spies. Over several centuries, the Earth Federation managed to find only nine Blazing Orchids, yielding twenty-seven mature Blazing Orchid Fruits, which ultimately created the legendary "Sun," "Moon," and "Star" Three Grand Marshals of the Earth Federation two centuries ago. On the front lines, the three Marshals, having reached the limit of their power, once joined forces to annihilate two Imperial Guard Legions directly commanded by the Roman King!

"Nearly a hundred Blazing Orchid flowers!"

This deal was truly worth it. Gu Xiachen struck an agreement with Yurista at the fastest possible speed.

Gu Xiachen issued his first formal appointment decree since taking office:

Peng Hua is appointed as the Headmaster of the Special Operations Bureau's direct Ability User Training School. Aredia is appointed as the Chief Academic Officer of the Special Operations Bureau's direct Ability User Training School. Yurista is appointed as the Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Chief Academic Officer of the Special Operations Bureau's direct Ability User Training School. Maria is appointed as the Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Chief Academic Officer of the Special Operations Bureau's direct Ability User Training School. Borehand and the Mohe brothers are appointed as the Director of Security and Director of Inspection, respectively, for the Special Operations Bureau's direct Ability User Training School, responsible for overseeing all work of the Chief Medical Officer.

The series of appointment orders was quickly disseminated through the Federal office system, and officials within the Special Operations Bureau busied themselves, swiftly completing all handover procedures. Yurista’s scientific research team smoothly settled into the Ability User Training School and promptly handed over the codename for the colony planet and the coordinates where the Blazing Orchids were discovered to Gu Xiachen.

The Special Operations Bureau's custom-made "Wind God" series high-speed assault cruisers lifted off from the Bureau's direct base located in the heart of Oceania. Sixty high-speed assault cruisers pierced the atmosphere and entered space.

As the fleet was bypassing the lunar orbit under the escort of the Federation Patrol, a vast field of ionization energy suddenly erupted ahead. A warship bearing the symbol of a silver cross on its stern burst forth from the silvery ionic mist and rapidly approached the Special Operations Bureau fleet. When it was still about ten kilometers from the lead Special Operations Bureau flagship, signal lights flickered on the warship's midsection, requesting approach.

Gu Xiachen ordered the flagship closer. An armor plate on the enemy vessel's side slid open, revealing a massive viewport. Andre, Ferdinand, and Lagus, clad in white robes, stood behind the window, smiling faintly toward them.

The two warships drew closer until they were less than ten meters apart. Gu Xiachen could clearly see a faint silver downy hair above Andre’s upper lip.

Andre’s lips moved: “Good luck! Space is treacherous; I hope we meet again!” he seemed to hint, communicating through lip-reading.

Bowing slightly, Gu Xiachen replied in kind using lip movements: “Thank you. It must have been quite difficult for you to return to Earth alive. My luck has always been good.”

Andre smiled. Ferdinand slowly drew a finger across his own neck, making a gesture symbolizing a throat-slitting danger. Lagus forcefully tapped the viewport with his hand and glared fiercely at Gu Xiachen.

Peng Hua, standing nearby, was not to be outdone. He leaned close to the viewport, smiled broadly, flashed two middle fingers, and thrust his lower body forward a few times aggressively.

The two vessels brushed past each other. Gu Xiachen watched the opposing warship, suppressing the urge to order it destroyed. There was something aboard that ship that felt dangerous, something that made his heart pound. He didn't know what it was, but his Primordial Dao Embryo was spasming. A sense of inherent danger coiled in his mind.

Staring intently at the receding warship, just as he was about to order acceleration, another burst of ionic mist spewed out. A warship, its outer armor tattered almost to disintegration, with a statue shrouded in black mist carved onto the navigation section, charged out. Without needing to slide open external armor, the outer plating outside the bridge viewport had long since vanished. Even the thick bulletproof glass of the viewport was riddled with cracks of varying sizes, through which a large group of people could be seen standing in the command cabin.

Pobibi bowed slightly toward Gu Xiachen through the viewport. Gu Xiachen frowned but returned the salute. The two vessels passed each other and rapidly moved away.

An equally dangerous feeling emanated from the battered warship, especially from the two young men in the command cabin, dressed in opulent black robes, their faces perpetually tilted upwards at a thirty-degree angle. When their peripheral vision briefly flickered over him, the Primordial Dao Embryo throbbed violently—like a rabbit encountering a tiger—it instinctively convulsed, nearly shattering into fragments.

Bitter cold energy erupted from the core of the Dao Embryo, filling it. The spasming Dao Embryo slowly relaxed, returning to normal.

Through the viewport, a squadron of sixty warships from the Pantheon Alliance was seen flying out from the atmosphere to greet them, escorting the battered vessel back toward Earth.

“Something is wrong. These stragglers, who lost their capital on Heaven Star, why are they being welcomed with such ceremony?” Peng Hua muttered in surprise.

“Never mind that. The Blazing Orchids are the most important thing! Full speed ahead, let’s rush to Colony Planet Three as fast as we can!” Gu Xiachen forcefully shook his head and decisively issued the order.

Colony Planet Three, as its name implied, was the third colonizable planet discovered by the Earth Federation. This planet was comparable in size to Earth, but its natural environment was extremely harsh. Eighty percent of its surface consisted of rock strata and barren, sandy wasteland; fifteen percent was covered by hypersaline lakes. Four-point-three percent was occupied by bitter water lakes, leaving only zero-point-seven percent comprised of potable freshwater lakes and rivers.

It was a specialty producer of various mineral salts, metallic ores, and some strange flora and fauna. The Federation maintained two large chemical plants and several mining companies with operations here. The Federation Academy of Sciences operated two research sites on the planet: one dedicated to studying the local plant communities, and the other to the local animal communities.

There were over two hundred and seventy million colonists on the planet, mostly civilians who could not survive after unemployment on Earth Prime. A small fraction were prisoners exiled here. The Federal Military maintained a standing garrison force of fifty thousand army personnel and one hundred and fifty thousand marines, along with a nearly obsolete space fleet consisting of thirty first-generation warships.

Traveling from Earth Prime, a civilian fleet required four and a half months; however, the Special Operations Bureau's custom-made high-speed assault cruisers reached their destination in a mere twenty days.

The one-hundred-and-fifty-meter-long high-speed assault cruisers swept low over the ground, the muffled roar of their engines shattering the windows of a nearby military barracks.

Before the two garrison warships could even approach, they were forced back to the ground by two Wind God assault cruisers. Twenty high-powered assault cruisers circled above the garrison base, blocking the launch channels for the garrison's space fleet.

According to the intelligence provided by Yurista, researchers stationed by the Federation Academy of Sciences discovered those Blazing Orchids during a field survey and collected one for lab experiments. Somehow, the local garrison caught wind of it, and the leader of the local garrison, a Federal Major General, immediately found an excuse to detain the Academy's two transport ships at the base. Since the Academy personnel couldn't send the Blazing Orchids to Earth, they could only transmit the intelligence via a highly classified channel.

The moment the launch channels for the local garrison's space fleet were locked down, the communicator on Gu Xiachen's flagship rang with an urgent chime; someone was requesting a communication link.

The connection was established. A chubby, greasy-faced Federal Major General appeared on the screen, loudly shouting while waving his fat, coffee-stained hand: “Who are you people? Why are you blocking our fleet’s launch channels? Can this action of yours be interpreted as contempt for the Federal Military?”

Gu Xiachen walked before the screen and silently transmitted his electronic identification credentials. The portly Major General froze, stammering inarticulate sounds for a long moment! The real authority held by the Special Operations Bureau was far beyond that of a minor garrison commander like himself. This garrison Major General's standing within the military was lower than that of a Lieutenant Commander in the Federal Military!

Ignoring the evidently incompetent Major General, the fleet proceeded according to the coordinates given by Yurista, arriving near a volcano that was slowly erupting.

The volcano stood over two thousand meters high, with an eruption vent exceeding three hundred meters in diameter. Large amounts of churning magma continuously flowed from the crater, cascading down a section of the mountain where it had collapsed. At the foot of the mountain, a lava lake several hundred meters in diameter had gathered. The terrain near the peak was complex, strewn everywhere with strangely shaped volcanic rocks solidified from cooled magma. In some places, chasms plunged hundreds to thousands of meters deep, revealing the characteristic red glow of lava below—a single misstep into these fissures would certainly mean utter annihilation.

There were thirty-six geostationary positioning satellites orbiting Colony Planet Three. Guided by the satellites, the fleet quickly arrived at the coordinates where the Blazing Orchids were discovered.

Thirty high-speed assault cruisers took up defensive positions high in the sky, while ten warships landed on the ground. Five hundred elite Special Operations Bureau commandos, clad in "Stalker Model" combat suits and armed with cryo-ray cannons, rapidly burst from the warships, securing the high ground nearby. Intermission reminder

May Day’s Third Burst Where are the monthly tickets? (To be continued)

For more novels, visit storyread.net.