Chapter 10: Life-taking Sprint (Part 1)

In a sense, the original owner wasn’t entirely wrong.

In the universe, civilizations are as numerous as the stars. Among them, nearly half are Mechanical Civilizations, and out of the top six Level 9 Civilizations, three belong to the Mechanical System.

This phenomenon is due not only to the strength of the Mechanical Civilization itself but also because mechanical ascension, compared to the other three ascension methods, is the easiest to trigger.

However, the most abundant is not necessarily the strongest.

Gao Gong glanced at the Personal System on their Attribute Panel and breathed a sigh of relief.

Sports System 9%

Neural System 5%

Endocrine System 1%

Circulatory System 5%

Respiratory System 1%

Digestive System 1%

Urogenital System 1%

Reproductive System 1%

The transformation rate of the eight major systems varies, with no more than a 10% difference between the highest and lowest.

This means there is still a chance!

Human body modification is irreversible. If it exceeds 10%, one can only follow the original owner’s plan for a purely mechanical path. However, if it’s below 10%, there is still hope for salvation.

To his knowledge, the most powerful civilization in the observable universe is indeed a Mechanical Civilization, but not exclusively so.

Returning to the pre-open beta stage of the "Cyber Realm," before the mechanical riots began, before the World of Infinite Strong People emerged, before the destruction of Ancient Times, before the ancient corpse crisis, and before the quantum crisis occurred in the later part of the distant game, and before the utterly despairing three Celestial Calamities showed any signs.

Such a good opportunity comes only once.

Only the strongest can master their fate.

As the electricity started, a tingling sensation spread throughout his body, with the current strength controlled to a level the human body could endure through the adjustment of the access device.

In the modified circulatory system, cells, when stimulated, transmit impulses, pierce the cell membrane, generate a potential difference, and induce bioelectric currents, thereby enhancing his mental state.

The essence of biomechanical transformation is to gradually replace the life operations in the human body system with bionic systems through continuous human body modification.

As the transformation rate increases, sometimes, simply charging a certain amount of electricity can make the body secrete a day’s worth of nutrients.

Incredible!

Rumor has it that some biological enterprises within the ’Nightless City’ have developed rapid charging technology for the human body—charging for five minutes ensures a day of alertness, body circulation technology that you deserve.

However, only pure mechanical beings with a 100% transformation rate can completely eliminate the need for food and water. For Gao Gong, charging is more about stimulating his mental state to avoid fainting during the return to the city.

In the crisis-ridden Iron Sand Desert, aboriginals, mutant species, and semi-mechanical creatures pose threats everywhere, with fainting being no different from waiting for death.

However, on the other end of the walkie-talkie, there was no sign of anger, but rather a piqued interest:

"Just you, able to wipe out an entire squad of my knights. Impressive, very impressive. Are you interested in joining our Knight Order? I can grant you higher-level modifications, allowing you to surpass the artificial soldier threshold and directly become our combatant."

"Higher-level modifications? How high? Higher than yours?"

"Compared to me? My status might be beyond your imagination," the person on the other end laughed.

"To be honest, my imagination surely surpasses your expectations."

Gao Gong climbed onto the hood of the off-road vehicle, squinting into the distance. The tight-fitting T-shirt, already damaged, had been torn off, revealing a robust upper body with three thumb-thick cables plugged in, and the desert’s unique hot wind hit his face. The iron tag around his neck clinked, displaying a ruggedly patterned ’G.’

"Young man, don’t be too rash. The world is much bigger than you imagine!" The other party finally showed a trace of impatience.

Gao Gong chuckled, tossed away, flicked out the last cigarette, threw the cigarette box out of the vehicle, jumped inside, and slammed the gas pedal.

"Since the world is so big, how can we only be slaves to Artificial Intelligence."

"What do you think, former military AI, War!"

The Iron Sand Desert was once a cluster of cities from the Old Civilization Era. During a mechanical war, it was first plowed by nuclear explosions and then swept by a large energy weapon, leaving behind ruins and debris.

The sky was dense and dim from nuclear dust, and the remaining plants and animals underwent certain mutations due to the dual effects of nuclear and energy pollution, causing them to emit a large amount of radiation heat.

Elsewhere, nuclear winter would cause smoke and particles to be injected into the planet’s atmosphere, blocking sunlight from reaching the surface, leading to a sharp temperature drop, desolation, and bare land.

But here, the large number of radiated organisms combined with mutated plants to form a unique post-disaster environment where the temperature didn’t decrease but instead spiked, making survival impossible for ordinary people, and even Mechanical Modified People found it hard to survive in the desert’s Radiation Zone.

The survivable areas are all zones modified by enterprises, which the locals call oases.

The off-road vehicle accelerated with full power, kicking up a storm of sand, its target being one of these oases.

In the vehicle, Gao Gong observed the surrounding environment while studying the NPC template he had stolen.

Gao Gong didn’t take the Knight Order high-ranking member’s recruitment seriously.

Though on this planet, the Knight Order is a strong underground faction, and biomechanical technology is something many corporations emulate. Players have even boasted on forums about the Knight Order’s hidden quest chain, which indeed offers rich rewards.

And in the later stages of this planet’s main storyline, some players even managed to curry favor, investing immense effort to raise their reputation and friendship, ultimately becoming high-ranking members of the Knight Order.

And then he fell into a trap.

Every knight in the Knight Class gets modified into a sub-body, or rather a clone, of that military AI.

Although the Knights can retain their personality templates and memory libraries, once "war" is needed, they will directly control the consciousness of all high-ranking members — including the players’ accounts.

It’s like letting NPCs level up their accounts for free.

This kind of consumption pattern isn’t even as good as the monopoly enterprises of Nightless City.

Although those large corporations also use various means to control employees, including but not limited to making employees’ thoughts into read-only mode stored in the corporate database, or injecting artificial adrenaline under the guise of free medical care during overtime, or directly implanting high-frequency chips in the access chamber and releasing high-intensity electronic noise during vacations — at least they pay.

Compared to the Knight Order, these big companies are actually more respectable.

Even though these salaries eventually end up back in the pockets of big enterprises after being handled once, twice, or thrice.

"Tsk tsk, the Cyber Experiment Field, since it’s an experiment field, naturally, it needs experimental materials. After a war, wouldn’t humans be the best consumables?"

Not only on the Mechanical Split Star, but all players’ starting points, the newbie villages, are various types of Cyber Experiment Fields.

The definition of a Cyber Experiment Field is the exploration, research, and development of different civilization ecosystems and the technology tree under that social ecosystem by an advanced civilization.

It can be monopolized by super corporations, or controlled by artificial intelligence of the future, or even through the aggressive invasion by alien species, and apocalyptic survival environments, not to mention clone cultures, biohazards, and chaotic parties among intelligent species from different planets.

In the gray area of the Civilization Council, the diverse civilization technology trees are taking root and sprouting in anti-civilization ways.

As summarized by players later —

In this game, there are two issues that hinder technological development: one is peace, the other is ethics. Peace is resolved by war, ethics are resolved here.

This is the Cyber Experiment Field.

However, for players, this is not a bad thing.

Because there are many experimental and forbidden advanced technologies here, players can use these technologies to achieve cross-civilization power enhancements.

Planet-level civilizations are Level 1 Civilizations, and under this scale of civilization, the level cap for the main profession is 30, which is Tier 1; but in the Cyber Experiment Field, there are scientific research knowledge and experimental results that can realize Tier 2 and even Tier 3.

"They’re finally here!"

Gao Gong suddenly looked up, only to see three small black dots approaching him at a visible speed in the sky above.

’Drones of the Knight Order!’

As soon as Gao Gong made his move, he was aware that with the Knight Order’s ruthless style, there was no way they would just let it go easily.

Additionally, more intuitively, on the game panel, the task was in an status.

’Beep beep beep——’

Name: Military Technology·Falcon No. 3

Category: Drone

Quality: Fine

Weight: 38kg

Flight Altitude: 5000 meters

Control System: Low-level Military Chip

Energy: No. 3 Energy Battery (Endurance 6 hours)

Flight Module: Turbo Boosters *4

Attack Module: Mini Gatling Gun *100 (Bullets) Small Anti-Armor Missiles *2 Micro Rocket *1

Attack Range: 2000 meters

Shield: 200

Attached Template: Destruction Mode (causes explosive shockwaves to objects within a 5*5 meter range)

Note: Although it is military technology from the Old Civilization Era, it remains practical after numerous battles.

In the game "Cyber Realm," equipment is divided into Whiteboard (Assembly Line Products), Fine (Custom Templates), Excellent (War Weapons), Rare (Strategic Weapons), Epic (Black Technology), and Era-defining (Trans-Civilization).

Among them, Whiteboard is the most ordinary weapon and equipment, Fine corresponds to Alliance Specialties, and the Knight Order’s Old Civilization Era military technology undoubtedly belongs to the latter.

Gao Gong sharply turned the steering wheel, and the next moment, a fierce chain of firepower raised a large amount of dust, almost sweeping the rear compartment.

At the same time, Gao Gong heard faint ’whooshing’ sounds in his ear, followed by a strong explosion accompanied by a wave of mud rolling over the car roof, nearly turning the windows yellow in an instant.

The chase and escape caused the scenery outside the car to change dizzyingly.

Gao Gong nearly twisted the steering wheel into a pretzel, the wipers ’wa-la-la’ sounding, his foot tapping the accelerator pedal at high frequency, changing rhythms to disrupt the drone’s tracking system.

If it was the most advanced model of a drone from Nightless City, it would undoubtedly be equipped with tracking weapons and pinpoint strike systems, a weapon against the city’s super transformers and cyber psychosis patients.

If it were any more violent, electronic signals would directly connect to the ’Armed Space Station’ in the planet’s orbit for large-scale physical clearance, what one might call ’justice from the sky.’

If it were such a level of strike, it could easily resolve Gao Gong without question.

However, if it were truly like this, the difficulty of this task would not merely be ’ordinary,’ given that above ordinary, there are difficult, nightmare, hell, and even cross-civilization level tasks.

In fact, the firepower intensity of the three drones has already, in a sense, exceeded the ’ordinary’ level.

An increase in difficulty on one side inevitably leads to a decrease on the other side.

Gao Gong knew why, in fact, after the first wave of attack didn’t particularly disastrously hit him, he knew it was stable.

The vehicle turned its nose, the engine roared, and the off-road vehicle slashed into the concrete forest.