My Weekly Refreshing Mentor Spirit

Many times, I didn’t even go to school for an entire month...

In the Consciousness Space, Susu was still very excited, saying, "Brother Li, Brother Li, the clothes, furniture, and decorations I bought today will arrive. Check the nearest station when you get back home. These are for setting up our little room..."

Xue Dili: "..."

Xue Dili didn’t know what to say about this girl, but let her be. Even if she shops online, she can’t buy much, and she spends even less than Hercules used to recharge games with him.

The morning was spent like this, attending class while chatting with Susu.

Within the Consciousness Space, time reset once again.

This time, who will be the new traveler? Xue Dili was very curious.

When the time came, a tattered mechanical lens appeared in the Consciousness Space.

Xue Dili’s brow twitched. This lens looked familiar, resembling the Fearless Mecha of 5332.

When he took it in his hands, inspecting it, he realized it was indeed a Fearless Mecha, though it seemed to be an older version, and its damage and malfunctions were more severe than the 5332 that previously visited his Consciousness Space.

With a sigh, Xue Dili examined the soul imprint of this core and found some damage. He brought out some materials he had used to repair 5332, including a mechanical spider base and numerous mechanical arms, even keeping the soldering iron and tin intact, not lost amidst all the strange occurrences.

Fortunately...

Xue Dili began repairing this Fearless Mecha’s core, just as he had done with 5332. Even its speaker was broken. Despite 5332’s previous condition, it still managed to guide Xue Dili on how to solder and wire, but this Mecha almost lacked this function entirely.

It seemed very weak. The true essence of the Fearless Mecha lies in the soul imprint embedded within its inner wall, which is the core of the Mech’s soul. The rest are just external limbs, interchangeable at any time.

However, the machine has a piercing wound on its soul core, likely from an insect’s stinger, piercing through, although it didn’t directly harm the inscription. Still, Xue Dili didn’t know how much damage had been done.

Merely from this wound, one could see how fierce the battles had been between the Fearless Mechas and the insect swarms. The insects had evidently learned as well; knowing that destroying a Mecha’s body wouldn’t completely kill them, they devised ways to target the core.

This wound that penetrated the soul imprint might not have been accidental, but rather the insects’ initial target.

As Xue Dili pondered while examining the injuries.

He took a photo, posted it in the group, and directly tagged Captain Xing Jia’er of the Interstellar Corps and Vice Captain Stanley.

Sage (Second Generation): I salvaged an old Fearless Mecha in Subspace. Can you contact 5332? Have it come over to retrieve this senior Mecha’s core.

This message quickly climbed up in a group filled with baby pictures and strategy guides. Soon, Captain Xing Jia’er responded.

Captain Xing Jia’er: Okay! I’ll contact 5332 immediately.

This message seemed to have no impact on the chat group, with others still posting baby pictures, sharing stories, and various training guides. Xue Dili felt like he had entered not a cross-world chat group but a Pokémon breeding discussion group.

In the Parallel World, he had become their Pokémon, that segment of his soul becoming their incubating Fairy Egg.

Xue Dili stopped browsing and focused on repairing the Mecha’s injuries.

Soon, 5332 requested to enter Xue Dili’s Subspace, which he allowed.

What arrived was a huge agricultural machine covered in soil and dump buckets. Xue Dili could even smell the mixture of soil and lubricant.

"Long time no see, 5332," Xue Dili said.

"It’s only been less than a month, Brother Xue Dili," the farming machine replied.

Right before Xue Dili’s eyes, this farming machine transformed into a farm vehicle standing on its own.

Although it was rather abstract, Xue Dili held back from commenting, instead asking, "It’s nothing major, I just recently salvaged another Fearless Mecha, and I’m not sure what it is or how badly it’s damaged, so I had you come over."

said nothing further and stepped before Xue Dili, its camera noting the core in hand, its tone growing urgent: "An old model predecessor..."

"Old model?" Xue Dili, while repairing according to the spots he had previously fixed on 5332, inquired.

"Or rather, an original model Fearless Mecha. This was among the first batch to fight the insect swarm. At that time, Colony Star 3 had just fallen, and we hadn’t discovered the weaknesses and behaviors of the insects. Hence, the initial batch of Fearless Mechas were designed with conventional firepower and configurations. We didn’t even have Scorched Earth Mechanized Soldiers’ support back then..."

"So initially, the losses were extremely severe for those units..."

narrated quietly.

Following that, it discarded all external parts of the cumbersome agricultural machine, revealing a small, eight-legged figure that nimbly crawled over to Xue Dili.

"This large agricultural machine is still too unwieldy, switching to this angle to speak with you," the little robot said, its camera facing Xue Dili.

Xue Dili made room, giving half the space to 5332. As they worked together on repairs, 5332 recounted past battles.

"The predecessors used weapons from internal conflicts, meaning guns and cannons. At that time, we hadn’t constructed Mechas specifically to combat the insect swarm, which would later become the Scorched Earth Mechanized Soldiers."

"There was a time when predecessor sacrifices were immense, so much so that there wasn’t time to upload books before they were entirely scrapped, reaching a point beyond recovery."

"When we later descended on the third Colonization Star, we found abundant fragments of predecessor Mechas scattered across the surface, many already buried by sandstorms, becoming part of the landscape."

"This unit appears to be among the first to engage the insect swarm, still bearing much of the original structure that we later refined and strengthened, enhancing the Mech souls’ robustness while being more space-efficient."

"This spot here was soldered incorrectly. This Mecha is not like mine..."

Xue Dili: "..."

He realized that despite believing he remembered all 5332’s solder points, repairing another Mecha shouldn’t be an issue. Yet, he found that the things he had memorized might have been wrong; many connectors on the prototype were different...

Thus commenced a series of rewiring and resoldering techniques.

Once a speaker was fitted, 5332’s mechanical leg tapped against a connector point, seemingly supplying power or perhaps communicating.

"Senior, senior..." 5332’s speaker continuously called out to the veteran of an old era.

....................................