Silver Mirror closed her eyes and sensed her condition for a moment.
Then she said calmly, "Stella's special skill provides an extremely powerful acceleration boost while also greatly increasing Boost Charge. So even though the acceleration only lasts a short time, the skill can be used multiple times."
"Are there any drawbacks?"
"Yes. The skill demands high Stability."
Swain Li breathed a sigh of relief.
He immediately installed a Stability module on Silver Mirror.
He had prepared all kinds of modules for today's race precisely because he was worried about a repeat of what had happened before. Better yet, this Stability module wouldn't reduce Acceleration. At this point, he could say the race was already half won.
Up ahead, inside Stella's cockpit, Derek Su also noticed the change in Silver Mirror's stats.
Her Stability had risen from 61 to 77.
Her other stats had only changed slightly, which meant Swain Li had clearly equipped an excellent Stability module. To give him credit, Swain Li did understand Silver Mirror's skill fairly well. He knew how to use a module to compensate for its weaknesses and maximize its advantages.
Unfortunately...
Derek Su shook his head with a smile and sighed.
He was still too young.
77 Stability.
Tsk, tsk...
"Master." Stella's puzzled voice came from the front. "Why... are there semi-trailers on the first section of the track?"
Derek Su followed the direction of Stella's finger.
Well, would you look at that. They really were semi-trailers.
Semi-trailer-type Mecha Girls were all combat-oriented and poorly suited for speed. What club had lost its mind and put combat-type Mecha Girls on the first section of the track?
More importantly, there were quite a few of them. Three semi-trailer-type Mecha Girls were starting ahead of him alone, with another seven or eight behind him.
This was definitely a bizarre sight in the history of the Panlong Mountain Circuit.
When Derek Su had collected footage from previous Panlong Mountain races, he had never seen any club deploy combat-type Mecha Girls on the first section. He had no idea what was going on this year, and judging by the numbers, quite a few clubs had made the same choice.
"Maybe it's some kind of tactic beyond our understanding."
Derek Su rubbed his nose.
At last, something had appeared that even a top-tier racer couldn't make sense of.
Apparently, he still had plenty to learn.
...
In the stands, Chloe Qin, who had yet to head to the mountaintop to prepare for her own race, stared at the starting area with a cold smile.
She had paid a hefty price to get so many semi-trailer-type combat Mecha Girls into the first section.
Naturally, the whole point was to box in Derek Su and Stella.
Her luck had been pretty good. Or perhaps the heavens themselves were helping her. Although Derek Su had drawn a relatively early starting number, three of the racers she had arranged still ended up ahead of him.
And since the race started five Mecha Girls at a time, Derek Su was bound to encounter those three combat-type racers and get caught up in a clash with them.
She didn't expect those combat-types to accomplish much. They only needed to hinder Derek Su and Stella.
After that, she herself would be waiting in the second section as the final obstacle.
...
10:00 a.m.
The starting gun fired.
ROAR—!
The thunderous roar of engines echoed through the mountains, loud enough to make everyone's eardrums sting.
The first group of five Mecha Girls shot forward.
Dust churned up by their tires swept up the track behind them, and the racers quickly vanished from sight.
Their terrifying speed was on a completely different level from anything seen in advanced races or ordinary training races. Anyone capable of competing at the provincial level had real skill, and on top of that, every racer had carefully prepared high-quality modules specifically for this competition.
Naturally, the result was an even more exhilarating spectacle for the audience.
Then came the second group of five Mecha Girls.
The instant they launched, Lucy Luo and Eternity-01 surged straight to the front with an overwhelming speed advantage. The racers behind them couldn't even get close enough to catch their slipstream.
Viewed from afar, the Mecha Girls themselves were impossible to make out on the mountainside track. All anyone could see were clouds of rolling dust.
One plume steadily pulled away from all the others, opening such a huge gap that it almost seemed separated from the rest entirely.
That was obviously Lucy Luo and Eternity-01.
"So fast..."
Stella felt the pressure the moment she saw it.
As a top-tier speed-type Mecha Girl herself, she could clearly sense the oppressive presence coming from Eternity-01. Not even Thunder-01 had made her feel this way.
Compared to the others, Eternity-01 felt like the real Demon King.
"Relax."
Derek Su could sense Stella's tension.
He reached out and placed a hand on Stella's butt, conveying his confidence through touch.
His expression was solemn and resolute, while his voice was soft and affectionate.
"You've still got me~"
Then he gave her a squeeze.
Still felt just as good as ever.
Stella's pretty face flushed, and she rolled her eyes at him.
But the tension in her heart eased considerably.
The third group was next. Nothing particularly noteworthy happened. Their performance was perfectly ordinary.
Then the fourth group prepared to start.
Something unexpected happened.
The instant the starting gun fired, a thunderclap erupted at the same time.
A magnetic storm field spread outward from the starting line, visibly rippling through the air like waves across water.
"Thunder-01 activated her skill!"
"Right at the start? That aggressive?"
The surrounding racers were clearly familiar with Meisel and his Mecha Girl. The moment they saw what he had done, their expressions changed.
Of the five Mecha Girls at the starting line, Thunder-01 was the only one to launch normally, leaving the rest far behind in an instant.
The other four racers weren't so fortunate.
Some of their Mecha Girls remained frozen in place. Others actually started moving backward. One even slammed headfirst into the guardrail beside the track.
Chaos erupted immediately.
At just the right moment, the big screen switched to footage of Thunder-01.
The audience could clearly see Thunder-01's full 360-degree driving view as well as the inside of her cockpit.
The handsome Meisel sat upright in the driver's seat, a calm, cold smile curling at the corner of his lips.
He didn't say a word.
But that icy smile had already conveyed a clear message to every racer scheduled to start after him.
Stay away from him and Thunder-01.
Otherwise, you were going to suffer badly.
...
[Group 6 contestants, please prepare for the start!]
The announcement rang out.
Derek Su drove Stella toward the starting line alongside four other Mecha Girls.
Right beside Stella was Silver Mirror, who looked exactly like her.
Swain Li kept turning his head, trying to catch Derek Su's eye and silently convey his determination to win.
Unfortunately for him, Derek Su simply stared impassively down the track, completely focused on the race.
Stella, on the other hand, kept turning her head toward Silver Mirror and Swain Li. One moment she was gritting her teeth, the next she was pulling faces. She even took out a pineapple shell and brandished it threateningly at them.
What was this?
Was she planning to turn this into a prop race?
Swain Li didn't take her seriously at all.
[Ten seconds until the start!]
[Ten, nine, eight...]
As the countdown sounded in his ears, Derek Su pulled up the handbrake and floored the accelerator.
ROAR—!
It had been a long time since he had driven Stella, but the roar of her engine was as exhilarating as ever.
Derek Su stared intently at the track ahead, slowly exhaled, and let a faint smile rise to his lips.
[...Three, two, one!]
[BEEP—!!]
"Panlong Mountain... here I come!"
He released the handbrake.
With a top-tier Acceleration stat of 99 after modules, Stella unleashed a burst of ferocious power.
The scenery around them instantly stretched into distorted streaks of blurred light.
Just like Eternity-01, Stella relied on Derek Su's masterful launch technique and her own overwhelming speed advantage to pull away from the other racers immediately.
But Silver Mirror, despite having copied Stella, did not surge forward after her.
She was still at the starting line.
Or rather, she had only managed to move a few meters.
Derek Su and the other three racers were already far ahead.
Swain Li's face had gone deathly pale as he stared blankly ahead.
A steady stream of white smoke was pouring from beneath Silver Mirror's hood.
Almost instinctively, he stepped on the accelerator again.
VROOOM—BOOM!
The engine let out a hysterical shriek.
It was obviously not a normal sound. It sputtered and rattled as though something were lodged in its throat.
The next second...
BANG—!
Silver Mirror's hood exploded upward in a shower of sparks, flying more than ten meters into the air.
Silver Mirror's eyes rolled back, and she passed out on the spot.
"Th-the engine blew?!"
Swain Li's vision went black.
He slapped a hand against his forehead.
"Damn it!!!"
...
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