As Xiang Yi opened the panel on the robot in front of him, he felt a significant amount of his Spiritual Power drain away in an instant, leaving him slightly lethargic.
The devices he had controlled before were mostly small ones. This was his first time controlling something so close to a humanoid form.
Just as he'd felt on the ship earlier, he really didn't have enough Spiritual Power to take control of the entire vessel.
However, Xiang Yi wasn't about to get ahead of himself. Now that he had control of this robot, the rest would be much simpler.
"What are you doing?"
Just as Xiang Yi was planning to use the robot to sneak into the ship's cargo hold, a question rang out from far behind him.
Two people were striding toward him from deeper inside the space station.
Judging by their attire, they were the ship's pilots.
Xiang Yi immediately backed away, letting the robot resume its task. As the two men approached, he put on an innocent act and explained, "Oh, I just saw all this mechanical material and wanted to take a closer look. I've always been pretty interested in this stuff."
"Oh, a scrapper, are you? In that case, why not pick a few pieces to take with you?" one of the pilots offered, pointing to the line of transport vehicles behind him.
He sounded surprisingly friendly and earnest, as if he genuinely wouldn't mind if Xiang Yi took something.
Still, Xiang Yi resisted the urge to do anything unnecessary. "No, no, it's fine. I'm just looking," he said. "I'm supposed to be unloading over there, anyway. I'll be gone as soon as I'm finished."
"Alright then. Take your time."
The two of them paid Xiang Yi no more mind and prepared to board the ship.
But just before they left, Xiang Yi suddenly asked, "Where is all this stuff being sent?"
"Just the neighboring Star System," the pilot replied casually, completely unconcerned with why Xiang Yi was asking.
"Oh."
As the ship's hatch closed, Xiang Yi sprang into action.
He couldn't possibly miss this chance. In a port this massive, who knew when another ship would be heading to a different Star System.
Xiang Yi approached the rear of the ship again. This time, no robot came to stop him.
The robot that was supposed to stop anyone from getting too close had its weak AI Control System severed by Xiang Yi. The rest of the robots were physically connected to the engineering equipment they were operating, each with its own task, so none of them could stop him.
This gave Xiang Yi the chance to watch the entire process of the mechanical scrap being loaded into the cargo hold up close.
Of course, it wasn't a huge problem even if he couldn't get a close look. The loading method simply involved an engineering vehicle grabbing a transport's container and dumping all the mechanical parts directly into the cargo hold.
The whole process was impossible to miss.
Although he could see it clearly, actually figuring out a way into the cargo hold wasn't so easy.
Based on his observations, the container, held by the engineering vehicle, would stop roughly four meters above the cargo hold as it dumped the scrap.
If he wanted to get on the ship, he had to jump down from this height, into the cargo hold.
This freighter had four cargo holds in total: two on each side at the rear, stacked vertically. A central rotating mechanism could swap the positions of the upper and lower holds.
It looked like the lower hold on each side was already full, and one of the upper holds was now being loaded.
The ship was about twenty meters tall. The two stacked cargo holds were slightly taller than the ship itself, meaning each hold was probably around ten meters high inside.
Jumping down into an empty hold would be no different from jumping from the fourth or fifth floor; it was suicide. However, if it was filled with mechanical scrap, that height would be slightly reduced.
If he could use the ship's superstructure to break his fall, the drop could be shortened even more.
Once he understood the process, Xiang Yi dashed to a transport vehicle just as it was about to be lifted toward the cargo hold, and grabbed onto the edge of its container.
Just like that, the engineering vehicle lifted him more than thirty meters into the air, high above the ship.
Xiang Yi was about to jump onto the roof of the ship, planning to use it to break his fall before dropping into the cargo hold.
But once he was up there, he realized the cargo hold opened vertically. The raised hatch cover completely separated the opening from the rest of the ship's roof.
This was to prevent the mechanical materials from the container from smashing onto the ship and causing damage.
At the same time, this design also meant that if Xiang Yi chose to jump onto the ship's roof, he would no longer be able to climb into the cargo hold.
He could only use the hatch cover to break his fall, not land on it.
Besides, the container was already empty. Xiang Yi had no time to think. The machine below would retract the container at any moment.
He decisively let go of the container's edge, pushed off its wall with both feet, and leaped towards the edge of the cargo hatch cover.
THUD—
Xiang Yi's body slammed into the open hatch cover. With outstretched arms, he desperately scrabbled at its edge.
The feeling of his muscles tearing in his arms and fingers forced him to let go almost immediately, but the impact had served its purpose, slowing his descent.
There was still about a six-meter drop below, which was within his acceptable range.
He kept his body straight as he fell, making no move to roll and disperse the impact.
Who knew what sharp objects were lurking in that pile of scrap? If the impact drove one through his chest or head, he'd die without ever knowing what hit him.
An injury to his legs, on the other hand, was survivable.
Just like that, Xiang Yi dropped into the ship's cargo hold.
The moment he landed, his knees buckled and he pitched forward, absorbing most of the impact with his knees and arms.
After the pain from the impact faded, Xiang Yi suddenly felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his leg.
He looked back and found that a steel rebar, sticking out of the mechanical scrap, had pierced through his left leg. It was the same leg that had been injured when he first arrived in this world.
Xiang Yi gritted his teeth, enduring the intense pain as he tried to move his leg.
But the rebar was wedged between tons of scrap. The section below him might as well have been twisted into a knot. There was no way he could pull it out with his bare hands.
And just then, the light from the port's illumination system shining into the cargo hold was blocked by something.
Xiang Yi looked up.
Blocking the light above him was the container of the next transport vehicle, lifted by the engineering equipment.
'Okay, maybe a leg injury isn't survivable after all...'
After the initial stages of his escape went so smoothly, Xiang Yi was once again reminded of his terrible luck.
Staying directly under the opening meant being crushed to death. Afterward, it would be questionable if anyone could even piece his body back together from the wreckage.
It seemed he no longer had time to find the right angle to pull his leg off the rebar.
It seemed he was going to die in this dark corner of the ship's cargo hold.
In that instant, everything before Xiang Yi's eyes seemed to slow down.
The specter of death jolted his consciousness.
Amidst the ROAR of tons of mechanical scrap crashing down into the hold...
Xiang Yi was suddenly free of the rebar. He scrambled into a corner, dodging the impact behind him—a force that could have killed him ten times over.