Chapter 285: Scanning the entire planet
Alex didn't even have time to check how much stronger he had become from reaching D+ rank.
No, he headed straight back down to the planet's surface the moment he awoke from the Remnant memory.
He was so quick to act, that his ship accelerated instantly from orbit down into the atmosphere.
The speeds were so great that huge sonic booms could be heard for miles upon miles, ringing across the planet three times over until the effect of his reentry faded.
In reality, most modern conventional ships could also do this, but nobody was bold enough to attempt such a speedy reentry, for fear of crashing right into the surface at near incomprehensible speeds.
That wouldn't be good for either the pilot, or the planet…
At first he tried using his spatial perception to scan for any deep crevices in the earth while flying over the oceans.
His range had even increased to a spectacular 750 metres from his rank up to D+ rank, but that was of no interest to him at the moment.
He quickly gave up that idea, as he realised not too long in that not only were the normal ocean depths well past 1000 metres, but the deepest parts would exceed far beyond that.
If he was stronger, maybe C+ rank, he might have had the range, but at his current level? Impossible.
This left him with only one choice.
"King, scan the entire planet for any deep pits, creeks, or holes in the oceans. Don't just scan the oceans though, scan the landmasses just in case."
He ordered the AI on his ship, also aptly named 'King' just like the ship itself, to initiate the scan for him.
He wasn't just piloting a top of the line ship for no reason, it had its uses other than to just get him from place to place.
And right now, it was serving such a purpose.
Within seconds, a pulse was sent out by his ship, undetectable to any other ships nearby, that encircled the entire planet in seconds.
A hologram gradually started to appear in the middle of the command deck of King, with a full, 3D reproduction of the planet slowly appearing in the images in real time.
"Full scan of the specified planet has been completed."
After around 30 seconds, the entire hologram of the planet was completed and displayed fully, in unimaginable detail for Alex to see.
But he waved away all of the unnecessary information and instead switched the entire thing to heightmap mode, much like the video game designers of the 21st century used to create terrain in their inferior video games.
He asked the AI to highlight the deepest areas in red, and in the end, 3 spots on the planet were highlighted a deep red.
Two of them were on opposite sides of the planet, in two completely different oceans, while the third was somewhere in a piece of uninhabited land.
He ignored the one that was on land for now, and instead locked his full attention on the two areas in the oceans.
'Eeny meeny miney…'
He picked one of them at random.
'You!'
His choice happened to be the ocean farthest away from where all of the conflicts were taking place.
In reality, this seemed like the most likely place for the Red Demons to be building some kind of mega weapon, since the less populated it was, the less likely they were of being discovered, which had clearly worked until a complete cheat like Alex was introduced to the playing field.
Alex set the ship's autopilot to the coordinates of the chosen deep sea trench.
The engines roared to life as the ship shot through the atmosphere once more, though at much more manageable speeds this time, leaving behind the sight of the Shen Wu system's vast, sprawling conflict zones.
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As the ship hurled towards the ocean, Alex reviewed the data King had gathered.
The chosen trench was an abyssal canyon, deeper than anything natural on Earth or Mars.
The scan suggested the trench's depth exceeded 12,000 metres — well beyond the limits of which the human body, even a typical D rank awakened's body, could handle without some sort of supporting equipment or vehicle.
"King, keep the senses on high alert. We don't want any surprises." Alex commanded.
He doubted that his ship would be able to spot and alert him to something quicker than his own spatial perception could, but it was better to be safe than sorry in Alex's eyes.
"Affirmative, Captain. Sensors engaged at maximum capacity." The AI responded.
As the ship neared the coordinates, Alex switched to manual control.
The spaceship turned aircraft glided across the ocean's surface before descending into the depths, turning it into a submarine by this point…
The external lights activated, piercing into the inky blackness of the deep sea.
The pressure increased as they delved deeper, but even the pressure at 1000 kilometres deep into the planet's mantle couldn't crack the ship's hull, let alone a measly 12 kilometres.
The only indication that he was even moving at all came from the real time blip of his own ship on the enlarged map of the Abyssal Canyon on the hologram.
Alex, represented by a blue blip, was descending rapidly into the trench at dozens of metres a second, which would put him near the bottom of the trench in around 20 minutes.
He was in a race against time, but he didn't want to risk disturbing the waters enough to alert the enemy to his presence, if they really were hiding down in this trench.
"Scanning for any anomalous structures." King, the AI, reported.
Minutes passed, and Alex's patience was running thin.
He was halfway down the trench by now, and still, there was no sign of any activity at all.
Which only begged the question, how did the Red Demons move in and out of this so called base and leave little to no trace of their presence there?
Alex was beginning to suspect that his random choice may have been wrong.