As Purple Lightning's body sped across the track in a high-speed slide, Derek Su downshifted and pressed the throttle.
The lower the gear, the greater the torque and power, making it easier to build speed.
Giving it throttle increased speed while also matching the engine revs, preventing the drive from jerking.
Derek Su had no idea what the internal structure of a special lifeform like a Mecha Girl looked like in deployment mode. After all, he couldn't exactly pop open a Mecha Girl's hood. Still, these actions really did produce effects similar to driving a race car in his previous life.
Amid the violent friction between the tire rubber and the ground, Purple Lightning's wheels gradually regained traction as their rotational speed dropped.
But this was not the end.
This was exactly the moment Derek Su had been waiting for.
The instant traction returned, Derek Su immediately cut the control stick in the opposite direction.
Purple Lightning, who had originally been drifting left, twisted her front end and switched into a right drift, pushing her body even closer to the brink of losing control.
But Derek Su did not care about that.
Full throttle!
"Roooar!"
The engine's strained howl tore across the entire track. Red leaves scattered over the ground were swept up by Purple Lightning's swinging rear, flung into the air by the violently spinning tires, then drifted back down in a wavering fall.
Derek Su repeated the same sequence over and over.
Every time Purple Lightning's rear was about to swing past ninety degrees, he immediately connected it into a drift in the opposite direction. In other words, they were bouncing back and forth along the edge of complete loss of control.
By now, Purple Lightning was scared stiff. Her face was pale, her eyes wide, her mind blank. Even the tear tracks on her face had been thrown sideways by the inertia of the drift. Fortunately, Mecha Girls were naturally beautiful and did not need makeup, or she would probably have ended up with a smudged, cat-like face.
"M-M-Master! Master! Stop!"
"I'm so dizzy…"
"I-I can't control it anymore!"
After swaying left and right for seven or eight hundred meters, Purple Lightning finally seemed to snap back to her senses, but she only dared to squeeze her eyes shut and cry out in a stammering panic.
This was the first time she had ever seen anyone drive a Mecha Girl the way Derek Su did.
She had no idea how Derek Su felt.
All she knew was that she had already been shaken senseless.
"Stop?"
Derek Su raised an eyebrow. Watching her Stability and Impact Resistance steadily fall while her Acceleration rose, the corner of his mouth lifted. "How could I stop after coming this far?"
His judgment was correct.
Gentle curves also counted under Purple Lightning's skill conditions.
At the same time, as long as Purple Lightning was turning and drifting, she met the activation criteria for her special skill.
That meant that even if Purple Lightning's acceleration started out slow, he could use continuous pendulum drifts to help her Acceleration stat rise rapidly.
"You don't need to control it. I'll control it!"
Looking at the purple charge bar gradually building along Purple Lightning's spine, Derek Su gripped the control stick, his mind growing even calmer.
To be honest, this was also his first time driving like this. Continuous pendulum drifting in particular placed extreme demands on a driver's reflexes and control over the vehicle.
At the same time, during repeated drifting, the human brain's sense of balance would gradually fail, which could easily lead to mistakes and a crash.
In his previous life, even top-level drivers were already struggling after taking ten consecutive hairpins with pendulum drifts. His talent was higher, so fifteen in a row was still well within his limits, but even consecutive hairpins were not as intense as this.
At least hairpins had short buffer sections between them.
Here, there were none.
At that moment, Derek Su once again felt the benefits of Zane's training. Even though the track in his vision had already turned into a complete mess, he could still reconstruct its original layout in his mind from the chaotic, blurred scenery. He knew exactly where he had driven to and exactly where he was on the track.
And he had not lost his balance.
So, despite the continuous drifting, as Purple Lightning's Acceleration increased, her speed did not slow down at all.
It kept getting faster.
When Acceleration rose to 90, Purple Lightning's Stability had dropped from 70 to 31, and her Impact Resistance had dropped from 60 to 21.
Only then did Derek Su stop using Death Swing.
At this point, Purple Lightning's straight-line acceleration was already enough to crush the fastest Dawnbreak head-on. After all, Dawnbreak's Acceleration was only 89, unless Dawnbreak activated a special skill.
By the time Derek Su straightened Purple Lightning's front end, Purple Lightning ahead of him was already seeing stars. It took her quite a while to recover from the dizziness. Just as they passed a speed detection strip, she stared in disbelief as she realized her speed had somehow already reached 410, and it was still rising.
"Master, am I…"
Her small mouth parted slightly as she muttered in confusion:
"Am I dreaming?
Can my acceleration really increase even without a turn?"
"Of course. Have you ever had a dream this realistic?" Derek Su could not help laughing, and instinctively wanted to slap Purple Lightning on the butt.
Then he suddenly remembered he was not driving Stella, and his hand stopped halfway before he pulled it back.
Meanwhile, Purple Lightning in front had already pinched her own thigh hard.
"Hiss! That hurts!"
The little girl was ruthless with herself. The pain brought tears to her eyes, and it also confirmed that she really was not dreaming.
Her speed had risen!
Under Derek Su's almost supernatural driving technique, even on a straight section with only a gentle curve, her special skill could still be triggered.
Back when she was with Chloe Qin, her special skill had never been triggered at all.
Later, during training races with Derek Su, she learned that her special skill could only activate when she took a turn perfectly while cornering.
And now, Derek Su had overturned her understanding once again.
Looking at the calm man in the rearview mirror, Purple Lightning's eyes were full of admiration.
"Master, you're amazing!"
In that instant, her anxious, unsettled heart finally calmed down.
Even as the Track Emperor, Derek Su had seen all kinds of storms.
But when his own Mecha Girl praised him, he still felt a little smug.
The corners of his mouth rose, his face full of pride. "Of course. I'm the ancient Greek god of Drifting, after all~"
He fixed his gaze on the track.
At the edge of his vision, the silver Mecha Girl was drawing closer and closer.
Now that their speed had risen, it was time to chase her down!
...
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