Chapter 229: Respective Plans

The banquet was still ongoing. The officers' focus was mainly on Wang Liumei, the head of the Lopez Conglomerate. After they felt they had given Li Boyong enough face, they no longer pestered this person wearing a strange helmet.

Seeing this, Li Boyong simply took the opportunity to slip out of the officers' circle and began to wander among the surrounding soldiers.

He was, after all, an old veteran, and he had quite a bit of experience in how to get along with those crude bottom-level soldiers.

Come to think of it, the Phantom Pain unit was basically divided into three types of people. One type was the ordinary soldiers who were now chatting and joking with Li Boyong. Although they were also elites selected from other units, their personalities still belonged to the category of normal soldiers.

Accompanying these rowdy guys to drink a few times, chatting about cars along the way, and then casually picking a few soldiers who looked more serious to chat about daily life, Li Boyong, as the military commander, gained a bit more human touch in the soldiers' eyes.

It couldn't be called being loved, but at least he was much more pleasing to the eye. Although he wore a strange helmet, he could be considered one of their own.

Having handled these ordinary soldiers, Li Boyong wandered into the pilots' circle.

These pilots were basically the second type of people in the Phantom Pain unit. Most were children adopted by Blue Cosmos's welfare institutions, who then grew into cold soldiers against Coordinators through brainwashing and military training.

These guys had much higher abilities compared to ordinary pilots, and they followed orders, obeyed the organization, and had strong discipline. They could be said to be the intermediate combat power of Phantom Pain and were an important component of Phantom Pain's combat power.

The most representative figures were the Sven trio, and the Xia sisters also belonged to this group in their military resumes.

However, what made Li Boyong want to complain was that many of these guys had the Poker Face skill; he felt the Xia sisters should get along quite well with these guys.

As for the last type of people, they were enhanced humans similar to the Three Stooges. Their numbers were extremely small, but their combat power was extremely fierce.

However, according to the higher-ups' view, they belonged to biological CPUs and were just plugins for machines; they might not even count as soldiers.

This Actaeon Project didn't intend to select pilots from enhanced humans, so there were no enhanced humans on this aircraft carrier.

"Colonel!"

Seeing Li Boyong come over, these elite pilots, who should be called "the real Phantom Pain" in Li Boyong's eyes, showed great respect to him, their Phantom Pain superior, and saluted in unison.

After all, obeying superiors was something that had been carved into their bones by the institutions that trained them.

"At ease. Today is a banquet I managed to secure with difficulty; you guys should just relax properly."

Li Boyong waved his hand, indicating that everyone should continue eating and drinking and be casual.

These guys could be said to be orphans, so chatting about family life wasn't appropriate.

So Li Boyong started from these guys' hobbies and began to create topics. This time, Li Boyong persuaded several people to give up their bad habits like an old political commissar, while also agreeing to some of their not-too-excessive requests in life.

"By the way, where did that guy Sven go?"

After chatting for a while, Li Boyong suddenly discovered that the leader of this group seemed to be missing and confirmed it with Sven's two little partners.

"Probably hiding somewhere staring at the starry sky again..."

The heavy-makeup woman Mudie replied.

"That won't do. It's a rare banquet; you should relax with everyone. I'll go pull him over."

Li Boyong said, preparing to go to several places where Sven might be staying to find him.

It was strange to say, Sven could be said to be the least gregarious one in this small circle, but he was treated as the leader by the others.

Probably, it was the innate "respect for the strong" ideology of the pilot species at work.

Li Boyong wandered around the ship and finally saw Sven's lonely figure on the deck.

"Staring at the stars in a place like this again?" Li Boyong walked over and stood beside him, acting familiar, "You star-obsessed idiot should restrain yourself a bit. At a time like this, you should be having fun with everyone to be happy."

Hearing Li Boyong's words, Sven was silent for a while and explained, "Sorry, because the starry sky tonight is very beautiful, I couldn't help but stare."

The starry sky is very beautiful...

With this wording, he didn't expect him to be a literary youth.

Li Boyong really wasn't good at talking about the starry sky and could only forcibly rely on his superior's orders to pull him back into the pilots' small circle.

Looking closely at this guy's appearance, he was really handsome and cool. If his personality were a bit better, he would basically have the potential to become a human-shaped self-propelled artillery.

He seemed to have heard others complain that the Mudie from just now had Sven as her target at first, but this guy was too cold, so Mudie simply hooked up with the dark-skinned Shams right in front of Sven.

But it seemed Sven didn't have any reaction to this, instead becoming the leader of the two.

After a night of noise, Li Boyong took the opportunity to familiarize himself with everyone in Phantom Pain, which could be considered as getting along with his subordinates.

The next day, the San Antonio Base returned to its daily routine, but Li Boyong's status in the hearts of the Phantom Pain non-commissioned officers became even more solid.

Over the next few days, Li Boyong began to personally help the Xia sisters with devilish training in MS operation.

Originally, the two's combat intuition was very excellent. After adapting to MS operation under Li Boyong's guidance, their strength as pilots began to advance by leaps and bounds.

Ultimately, under the influence exerted by Wang Liumei, the pilot selection for the Actaeon Project deviated somewhat from the original work.

The pilots for the three machines—Strike Noir, Blue Duel, and Verde Buster—didn't change; they were still Sven, Mudie (heavy-makeup woman), and Shams (dark-skinned).

But the pilots for the Rosso Aegis and Nero Blitz were replaced by the Xia Yufang and Xia Yulan sisters, working together with Li Boyong and Wang Liumei.

When the pilot selection for the Actaeon Project came to an end, the development of the next-generation main machine at PLANT's Armory One also neared its end.

As a test pilot for the Abyss, Shihe had just completed a simulated battle against the Chaos in the exercise space outside Armory One.

The result of the battle ended with Shihe using fierce continuous firepower to simulate the downing of the Chaos. However, the Chaos's mobile weapon pod caused Shihe a lot of trouble during the battle, once forcing Shihe into a desperate situation by relying on its elusive sneak attacks.

However, Shihe ultimately relied on her rich actual combat experience to seize the opportunity to break the Chaos's main body, ending the battle.

Completing the battle, Shihe piloted the Abyss back to the hangar belonging to the project.

Leaving the Abyss and handing over the resupply mission to the maintenance team, Shihe began to organize the report on the simulated battle.

With the idea of helping Nicol share some pressure, besides dutifully completing the report, she also added some well-thought-out suggestions at the end of the report, ultimately turning in a report that satisfied her.

Holding her report, Shihe prepared to go to the director's office to find Nicol and submit the report.

Because some time had been delayed, the staff in the organization, except for those with duty missions, had almost all returned to their dormitories.

Arriving near Nicol's office, Shihe didn't encounter a single person.

But just before turning the last corner, Shihe suddenly heard a familiar light laugh, as well as Nicol's speaking voice.

"During this time, I've composed some piano pieces; I hope you can give me some pointers."

"Really? Then please let me appreciate your work, Nicol."

At this time, Nicol was talking to a girl, and although the wording was somewhat polite, the atmosphere seemed quite good. It was just that she didn't know why that girl's voice sounded a bit familiar to her?

Shihe's curiosity was piqued. She wondered who was lucky enough to become Nicol's true love?

With a gossiping mood, Shihe secretly poked her head out, and what came into view was that touch of pink that all PLANT citizens were familiar with. ===== CHAPTER 230 =====