Chapter 17: Enhanced Abilities, Single-Soldier Armor

  Mudustar's villa, in the gym, Old Xia Mudustar and Old Zhou are all gathered here. All the metal equipment used for fitness, including dumbbells, are now floating steadily in mid-air in front of them.

  It's been five days since Lao Xia obtained the powers of Magneto, and he has been tirelessly practicing his new abilities non-stop, striving to improve his control over metals.

  From just starting to control a single 10kg metal object within a range of five meters, to now controlling over ten tons of metal objects within a range of thirty meters. Lao Xia's grasp of his new abilities is at an incredible speed, but compared to the original ability owner, Magneto, who can lift a large bridge, it still falls short by quite a bit.

  This also confirms Old Zhou's inference that all transplanted abilities will have a certain degree of weakening, but can be strengthened through continuous practice.

  Lao Xia's current abilities are absolutely overwhelming advantages for Athena and her fake daughter Xialing, as long as Lao Xia is willing, they can only approach within his ability range, and Lao Xia can completely stop their actions.

  After gently putting down all the objects within his control, Lao Xia proudly said to the two onlookers beside him: "How's that? Hasn't my control ability made tremendous progress compared to a few days ago? This afternoon I'm going to challenge the limit of controlling thirty tons."

  At this time, Lao Xia's mind recalled a voice: "Lao Xia, you're getting arrogant again, it's not just you who has made progress in your abilities, watch out!"

  In the gym, Old Xia had just put down a 100-pound dumbbell, and now it was slowly floating in mid-air.

  Lao Xia said with a displeased face, "Mu Xiaozi, I know your mental powers have become flexible and controllable. Also, don't casually enter someone's mind without their consent, that's an invasion of privacy. You should learn from Old Zhou, who has the strongest spiritual abilities but never misuses them."

  Originally, after Lao Xia's ability transplant surgery was completed, Muxin Xing also underwent an ability transplant surgery on the second night. After the surgery was completed, he found that the transplanted ability had indeed decreased in power, but in the following days, he did not relax for a moment and worked hard to train his new heteromorphism.

  He can now see people's thoughts within a range of fifty meters and communicate with those within that range. His psychokinesis has also made significant progress, originally due to the T-virus mutation that gave him psychokinetic shockwave attacks, after transplanting Kyrie's ability, not only did its power increase, but the way he uses his psychokinesis is slowly starting to change. Now he can move objects of around three hundred kilograms with concentrated mental effort.

  Finally, it was Old Zhou. His surgery was performed by Athena. And in terms of practicing and strengthening his own abilities, he was the fastest among the three to make progress. Now, within a range of 300 meters, he can control anyone's thoughts and actions, read their minds remotely, and manipulate their behavior. It can be said that as long as Old Zhou wants to, he can easily control all the actions of ordinary people within his ability range.

  As for Lao Xia's daughter, the original deceased girl is now Xialin Yue. During this time, she studied assassination techniques with Athena. It's unknown what happened, but Xialin Yue, who looks like a noble lady, somehow got along extremely well with Athena, the Terminator. This situation was not anticipated by Lao Xia and Mudanxing.

  Lao Xia said to Muxun Xing: "Right, we should also go and take a look at the situation of that research institute now! It's been so many days since the renovation!"

  He also discovered why Muxin Xing complained that the place was too small when he was practicing his divine fist technique. The villa could no longer meet his needs for continuing to practice magnetic control. Xia had an urgent desire to go to their research institute, where Muxin Xing said it was inconvenient due to traffic and located in a mountainous area with very few people. He could exercise his abilities there without fear of being discovered.

  Lao Xia had already locked the items for exercising his abilities, the building steel and those few planes, in the Muxin Star Bracelet. However, he could only take out and use these exercise materials in an environment where no outsiders would discover him.

  Muxin Xing shook his head in response to Lao Xia's words, "Those houses can't be renovated that quickly, you'd better calm down and wait for a while!"

  Old Zhou smiled and said, "I think you should take advantage of these few days to complete the reinforcement work for Athena. You said it was a time-consuming task, didn't you? Now, just do as much as you can!"

  Lao Xia nodded reluctantly after hearing Lao Zhou's words. After all, rebuilding a house can't be rushed, otherwise it would easily become a dangerous building.

  Just as Old Zhou was about to say something, Athena's voice came from the communicator at this time.

  A military base in the desert area of Nevada, USA. Today, a large number of leaders from various military branches have gathered here, which is extremely rare for them to come together at the same time, to witness a special demonstration of new weapons live-fire exercise at this desert-based testing range.

  At this time, through the telescope, what appeared in front of them was a 2.5-meter-tall humanoid armor in the distant desert hills. Although these gigantic iron guys looked clumsy, they were now attacking and advancing towards several targets in front of them at the speed of a normal person's full-force sprint.

  These humanoid armors' standard weapons are all six-barreled Gatling rapid-fire machine guns, a type of heavy artillery that is usually only mounted on vehicles and aircraft. A powerful and dense storm of firepower follows the movement of these humanoid armors, constantly extending forward, and all targets within their firing range are engulfed by a terrifying hail of fire.

  It's as if the powerful recoil of a machine gun didn't exist, and these humanoid armors fired while advancing at a speed that showed no signs of slowing down.

  At the same time, several humanoid armored vehicles on their backs continuously fired rockets and grenades, crazily bombarding forward. The target location was blown to pieces.

  It was after those high-ranking military officers holding binoculars witnessed everything that happened on the scene with their own eyes, and they couldn't help but reveal a satisfied expression.

  Dr. Evans, the military scientist hosting this new weapon exercise, excitedly addressed the crowd: "Gentlemen generals, what you are seeing before your eyes is the latest single-soldier combat armor developed by our military. I believe you have just witnessed its power through the binoculars in your hands. This single-soldier armor is like a miniature main battle tank, integrating speed, firepower, and defense. Once it is deployed on the battlefield, we believe it will be another game-changer, just like tanks were during World War II."

  A naval commander spoke up at this time: "Dr. Evans, we've seen part of the performance of these armors. But what I want to ask is how they perform on other terrains."

  Dr. Evans seemed to have anticipated the question and replied confidently, "Please rest assured, General, these individual armor suits have excellent sealing properties, a perfect three-defense system, and come with thirty minutes of oxygen that can be used to install special equipment for underwater operations."

  At this time, another air force general spoke up and asked: "With the special equipment that can move forward in the sea, can this thing fly?"

  Dr. Evans replied with a slightly uncertain tone, "We haven't quite reached that level of technology yet, but this individual armor system is absolutely no problem for airborne operations."

  "This is another general asking, this time from the army: 'I'd like to know some data on the firepower, defense and mobility of this individual armor, as well as the price of a set. Dr. Evans, please give us an approximate explanation.'"

  This equipment is most suitable for equipping the army from a performance perspective. The army is now building digitalized troops, and this new equipment is very in line with the infantry core strength of digitalized troops. Moreover, if these individual armor are equipped on a large scale, the interpretation of mechanized infantry will be rewritten.

  In response to the old army's question, Dr. Evans replied hastily: "The individual armor can completely ignore the damage of all firearms under Browning 0.50 caliber, unless it is used with large-caliber anti-material guns and some kind of armor-piercing ammunition."

  The standard armament of the infantry fighting vehicle is a six-barreled Gatling gun, which has enough firepower to destroy most light armored targets. The armor can also be equipped with various high-explosive weapons such as grenade launchers and rocket launchers on the outside. As for speed, it can reach 60 miles per hour when advancing at full speed, but this way, due to the rapid consumption of armor energy, it can only fight for another hour at most. Usually, it is best to advance at a speed of 30 miles per hour while attacking.

  Due to its armor performance and various digital computer systems installed inside, its unit price is at least around $1.8 million!

  Although everyone in the military knew that this high-tech equipment, which seemed to be from a science fiction comic book, would not come cheap, they were still shocked by the price quoted by Dr. Evans. To put it into perspective, the most advanced main battle tank currently available costs around $5-6 million, and this suit of armor was almost one-third of that price.

  It seems that it is impossible for each branch of the military to be fully equipped, after all, the annual budget for each unit is limited. In order for this individual armor to form an effective combat force in a large-scale battle, it would need at least hundreds of units. However, this clearly does not meet the requirements of each unit. To put it into perspective, an army company has roughly around 100 people.

  If the army were to equip a full infantry division, at least 6,700 sets of such equipment would be needed. The procurement cost alone is enough to drive those politicians in the government crazy. This is also something that the military procurement department will absolutely not agree to.

  If that's the case, then these equipment will only be used by special forces in various military branches. After all, this individual armor can still play an important role in low-intensity conflicts.

  An official from the Ministry of National Defense spoke up at this time and asked: "This equipment hasn't been in actual combat before, has it?"

  Dr. Evans immediately replied honestly: "Yes, sir, we have only built these ten experimental prototypes and conducted a series of tests so far!"

  After a brief, hushed discussion with the representatives of various branches on site, the Defense Department official turned to Dr. Evans and said, "Well, it just so happens that we're going to transport all this equipment to Afghanistan tomorrow for live combat testing. After all, there are plenty of terrorists and guerrillas there to test the actual combat effectiveness of these weapons. The Defense Department won't propose a procurement plan without seeing the results of live combat first. Dr. Evans, do you have any problem with deploying your equipment to the war zone for live combat tomorrow?"

  "The report is fine." Dr. Evans said loudly at once.

  "Alright, so this experimental unit will depart tonight and arrive at the war zone tomorrow, where they will engage in actual combat as soon as possible!" With the decision of the Ministry of National Defense official, the US military's individual armor will finally appear in front of the world with its powerful combat power in a few days.