William ignored Sunday's warnings and focused on the base, where scaffolding, machinery, and half-built spaceships provided the perfect obstacle course to test his reaction speed while flying.
With a single thought, his floating body shot forward.
At first, he worried about his unfamiliarity with flight and feared crashing into the metal structures and support frames. But after flying for a few dozen seconds,
he realized that this form of flight wasn't much different from using the Iron Man suit—except it was even more agile and effortless.
With his psychic power extending outward, he could perceive every obstacle around him even with his eyes closed.
The information transmitted to his mind allowed his body to react instinctively.
Unlike the Iron Man suit, where his brain issued commands that were then relayed to neural receptors and processed through flight systems,
this method required no intermediary.
This meant he was even more flexible than when flying with Sunday's AI-assisted navigation.
After flying around the base for half an hour, William noticed that while his flight had many advantages, there was one drawback compared to the Mark suit.
In just thirty minutes, his psychic power recovery rate began to lag behind his energy consumption.
Landing softly, he stood still for a full minute before the slight discomfort from mental exhaustion faded.
After some mental calculations, he estimated that flying like this continuously, without any restraint, would deplete his psychic power completely in about one to two hours.
But being naturally cautious—or simply too accustomed to his comfortable lifestyle—William had never once pushed himself to the point of overexertion.
Every time he practiced magic, he would stop as soon as his recovery rate couldn't keep up with the expenditure.
He had never entertained the idea of depleting his psychic power to force an increase in capacity.
Not only was he unsure if such a method would work, but everyone understood that pushing the body beyond its limits was gambling with health and longevity.
Without an imminent life-or-death threat, why would William take such a risk?
Besides, if things ever got so dire that even after thirty minutes of flight, he still couldn't open a portal to escape, then flying for two more hours and completely draining his power would be meaningless. He'd be better off fighting to the death.
Once his mental energy had fully recovered, William levitated again.
"Clear a safe testing area—I want to push my flight speed to the limit."
"Understood, Sir."
As Sunday responded, all nearby machinery and structures slowly moved aside, opening up a space nearly a kilometer long and several dozen meters wide.
"Sir, I must remind you—if you accelerate too quickly without wearing a suit, your body will experience various physiological strains.
More critically, if your physical body breaks the sound barrier, the sudden loss of heat could disrupt your body's temperature tolerance.
Additionally, the rapid drop in air pressure after breaking the sonic boom could cause massive internal hemorrhaging, or in extreme cases, vascular rupture and cardiac arrest."
Just as William was about to test his full speed, he immediately paused upon hearing Sunday's warning.
After a few seconds of thought, he resumed flying—but this time, he gradually increased his speed instead of rushing to his limit.
Once he started feeling cold, he stopped midair and waited for Sunday's report.
"During this test, your maximum flight speed reached 140 meters per second, equivalent to 504 kilometers per hour."
"140 meters per second?" William was incredulous. "In the blink of an eye, I can cover 40 to 50 meters, but my top speed is only 500 kilometers per hour?"
"Apologies, Sir, but that is the reality."
"My recommendation is that you engage in combat in smaller environments where your speed will be overwhelming.
However, in large open spaces, I strongly suggest you continue using the Mark 7 armor."
"Alright, while this wasn't my absolute limit, I have no interest in testing how much cold my body can endure."
Having completed his flight experiments, William finally turned his attention to the base.
Hovering about ten meters in the air, he scanned his surroundings and asked, "How many 35-meter spaceships do we have now? How long does it take to build one?"
"When you left for Mars, the base was still incomplete because we were rushing to build the first spaceship.
After the first ship was finished, there was no immediate demand for more, so for the past month, the focus has been on completing the base itself.
Now that the base is fully operational, three 35-meter ships have been produced.
At the current production rate, the base can build one small spaceship every ten days."
"You mean, including the ships stationed outside Earth, the one being built in England's Aerospace Center, the one returning from Mars, and the one on standby on Mars, I now have a total of eight 35-meter spaceships?"
"Yes, Sir."
William did some quick mental calculations.
"In that case, halt production of the 35-meter ships."
With eight small ships already available, his attention shifted toward something bigger.
"Start verifying, redesigning, and testing the 100-meter-long Predator-style spaceship."
After a brief moment of thought, William added, "The exterior doesn't need too many modifications—just remove any non-essential or purely decorative components.
The focus should be on upgrading the interior and weapon systems.
The interior must be redesigned to match human aesthetics, living habits, and operational needs, while also incorporating security measures to prevent internal mutiny.
As for the weapon systems, keep the Predator's energy cannons, but add missile systems and ten one-ton tungsten rods."
"Tungsten rods?"
Sunday paused for a few seconds to run calculations before responding.
"Are you planning to deploy tungsten rods from orbit, using gravitational acceleration to strike the ground at hypersonic speeds—essentially creating a city-destroying kinetic bombardment system?"
"Heh, since when did you get so clever?" William smirked.
"This method is far more environmentally friendly than nuclear bombs—no radiation, no pollution.
Upon impact, the tungsten rods will generate shockwaves comparable to a magnitude 10+ earthquake, instantly leveling a city like London.
And because the event will mimic a natural earthquake, underground nuclear bunkers designed to withstand conventional explosions could collapse, or at the very least, suffer severe infrastructure damage, severing communication with the outside world."
"Apologies, Sir. I'm not sure where you heard about this weapon concept, but based on my calculations, destroying London and its underground fortifications would require tungsten rods weighing at least 20 tons each.
However, if your target is only the central metropolitan area of London, then a one-ton tungsten rod would be sufficient to destroy most of its buildings."
"Ten rods at twenty tons each... That's 200 tons total."
William frowned. "What's the maximum payload capacity of a 100-meter spaceship?"
"400 tons."
(End of Chapter)
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