Chapter 498 Career Advancement

After returning to the main base, Li Ming went straight to the warehouse. Suzaku had already been connected to the management system.

As soon as people arrived at the warehouse door, the alloy door in front of them opened automatically.

What comes into view are rows of metal racks, neatly arranged with pieces of mother ore of various shapes.

The mother ore can shorten the switching time of the control object, and the current interval is fifteen minutes.

In the early stages of the Mechanical Royal Court's development, in order to avoid wasting power, he did not allow Ulrich to collect the mother ore.

Only after it had taken shape did he let Ulrich take charge of the matter.

Back then, Ulrich inherited a large portion of Monroe's wealth in the Land of the Stars, and it took him decades to collect more than a thousand pieces.

The Mechanical Royal Court collected 10,000 pieces in just three or four years, which is a huge difference in efficiency.

He absorbed it with great familiarity. With his current level of life, his efficiency in absorbing various special energies was already extremely high.

In just two or three hours, almost all the 10,000 pieces of mother ore were absorbed.

When the mother ore energy reached 10,000, as expected, a special reminder was triggered, asking him whether to consume 10,000 pieces of mother ore energy to shorten the cooling time of the controlled object.

Natural selection determined that the dense mother ore energy turned into streams of light and dissipated from the control page.

The switching time of the control objects was shortened by half again, reaching 7.5 minutes.

The difference between 7.5 minutes and 15 minutes is not that big at present. Now there is [Heart of Talos],

Under normal circumstances, he rarely switched the objects he controlled during battle, but it would not hurt to reduce it further. The resources consumed were not much for the Mechanical Royal Court.

It took a little more time to absorb the remaining mother ore.

Li Mingcai focused on the neatly arranged pieces of metal materials, all of which were various cutting-edge alloys. This was the accumulation of the Mechanical Royal Court over the past six months.

He couldn't wait any longer and immediately began to absorb it piece by piece. It took him another three hours to absorb all the metal materials.

On the control page, the metal energy balance has reached 3.3 billion, which is almost the same as he estimated.

While simultaneously fulfilling his various needs and tasks, the Mechanical Royal Court can still provide a stable supply of 500 million metal energies every month.

It feels so good to sweep with one click.

Li Ming couldn't help rubbing his hands. He really wished there was a progress bar in front of him so he could just pull it and see the next ten years.

Various thoughts drifted through his mind as he crossed the corridor and returned to his room.

Sitting cross-legged in his exclusive seat, a mechanical heart appeared in his hand, emitting a soft glow of gold and silver - [Heart of the Holy Spirit].

Even though this thing requires 2 billion metal energies to control, it is more than enough for him now.

Take control immediately and then consume.

On the control page, rays of light converged and gradually seeped into the [Mechanical Lord]. The words trembled continuously, and finally froze.

[Mechanical Son: Possesses the abilities of [Power of the Son] and [Guard Squad].]

[Power of the Son: Can use metal energy to perform large-scale transformation, repair, strengthening, and construction of controlled objects. The construction process has a certain probability of [Mutation] and possesses the [Glory] trait.]

[Guard Squad: You can construct eight mechanical bodies with [Guard] characteristics.]

There are not many changes in other descriptions, and the number of guards has naturally increased by two.

Then, he specifically clicked on [Mutation] to take a look.

He could only undergo the highest level two mutation based on the original foundation, and still could not surpass his own life level.

The extra ability is this [Glory] characteristic.

"Twenty billion metal energies, in addition to increasing the number of guards, this ability should be quite strong." Li Ming muttered to himself and clicked on the ability description.

[Glory: The mechanical body you construct will enjoy a fixed bonus to the data of the control object of the exclusive sequence, with the bonus sharing being 1%.]

!!

Li Ming was shocked, and then he checked it carefully word by word.

Can all mechanical bodies enjoy the bonus?

He let out a breath. Even though 1% was small, the total amount of his blessing was high. The power blessing of the main combat system was more than three hundred and fifty times the normal amount.

1% is 3.5 times, which is already very considerable.

This kind of blessing does not change with the object he controls, and requires the construction of an exclusive sequence for imprinting.

This means that this blessing can affect the birth of the Mechanical Holy Spirit.

"Tsk..." Li Ming immediately couldn't wait to build his own control sequence.

It mainly starts with the five major enhancements: strength, defense, speed, and physical strength.

He has a total of eight control slots, and he plans to allocate two specialized types of control objects to each of them.

"If abilities aren't shared, the Heart of Talos is useless. Justice Gauntlets, Life Power Core, Vortex Swift Shadow..."

He muttered to himself and spent several hours before coming up with the best combination.

To this end, he also spent 300 to 400 million metal energies to upgrade several defensive control objects.

Finally, the bonus enjoyed by ordinary mechanical bodies has become 1x strength, 2x defense, 1x speed, and 1x physical strength.

In summary, each of his mechanical bodies is at least twice as strong as the original level, with the cost remaining the same and the quality greatly improved.

"What a pity that we can't share abilities..." Li Ming couldn't help but think again.

Otherwise, once the [Life Power Core] is installed, each person will have two lives, which is abnormal.

I don’t know if we can share capabilities if we upgrade in the future.

Fantasizing in his mind, he spent nearly 300 million metal energies to build two mechanical guards, which were only A-level for the time being.

After another three or four months, you can be promoted. After reaching S-level, your strength will increase slightly again. With the guards' armed forces, it is almost approaching 1000X.

After finishing the tidying up here, he left the core base and prepared to enlighten the mechanical body.

The purpose of putting the profession first is to avoid the embarrassing situation where new abilities appear but the mechanical body has already been enlightened.

…

On the imperial capital planet, Heckler had just finished a secret meeting and got off the aircraft with a serious expression. The servants had already opened the palace door.

"The corpse of a Dominant-class Terrax..." he murmured in his mind, the shock still lingering in his heart.

The secret meeting held this time was attended only by the core of the empire, and he thought that the Star of Eternal Silence had been found.

As a result, I accepted such a big news without any psychological expectations.

"This corpse may bring about great changes..." His face was gloomy and uncertain. In the empty corridor, only his footsteps echoed, and the guards on both sides lowered their heads.

If a method to evolve into the ultimate life form is really developed, he will not be the first one to do so in terms of status and strength.

The previous generation of evolutionary bodies took the wrong path and it was impossible for them to advance.

It is Adam who has the greatest chance of promotion.

"The ultimate life form..." Heckler couldn't help but get a headache when he thought about it. This was a power that was enough to reverse everything.

If Adam succeeds, then there's no point in playing this game. They'll just have to surrender. No... by then, Adam will really dare to kill them.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks. John was already waiting in front of the study door, looking a little anxious.

"What's wrong?" He pushed the door open and entered the room, followed closely by John.

Only after the door was completely closed, the patterns on both sides closed, and a flash of light appeared did John whisper, "Sir Ivan, we've lost contact."

"Hmm?" Heckler's eyes narrowed slightly. "Something happened in the Mechanical Royal Court?"

"According to intelligence, the person we sent was exposed from the start, and the target he brought back was just a fake body," Jon explained briefly. "And Lord Ivan believed that the undercover agent's intactness revealed the weakness of the Mechanical Court, so he simply charged in."

"You were still in a closed-door meeting at that time. Lord Ivan acted on his own initiative and has yet to respond. The Mechanical Royal Court is intact, and no fighting has taken place."

When he finished his last sentence, Heckler was already sitting behind the table, his brows furrowed, but he didn't respond.

Jon gritted his teeth and said, "I suspect they have fallen into Azure Dragon's hands, but Azure Dragon has yet to contact the Empire and offer to redeem the captives."

"Just because the undercover agent is still alive, he thinks the Mechanical Court is weak?" Heckler finally said, clearly a little annoyed. "What a fool."

John remained silent. Ivan's guess was certainly more than just this short sentence; it was actually quite reasonable, but he obviously couldn't say it out loud at this time.

"If it falls into Qinglong's hands, this matter... will be troublesome." Heckler was angry. There were already enough troubles, and his subordinates were so stupid.

"Trouble?" John was puzzled. "Could Qinglong dare to do anything to Lord Ivan? He's a member of the Empire."

"So what if he's from the Empire?" Heckler said coldly, "Do you really think no one dares to kill him?"

"Kill him?" Jon was startled, but then he pondered, "If we really kill him, wouldn't that be a good thing? Qinglong will become an enemy of the empire, making it easier for us to take action."

Jon paused, carefully glanced at He He's gloomy face, and whispered, "Yes, that's an idea. Should we contact Qinglong and put pressure on him to take action against Lord Ivan?"

"The Empire won't attack Azure Dragon." Heckler glanced at him. "The latest news is that the Empire and the Federation will adjust their approach to the Mechanics Association and merge it into the Interstellar Alliance."

"What?" Jörgen was stunned. "You're not going to tear it down? You just said you won't tear it down?"

As Heckler's confidant, he understood the value of this news. He was also aware of Heckler's reaction and immediately understood: "Is this Qinglong's work?"

Heckler remained silent. He would definitely not tell John about the body.

But Adam didn't tell him the specific reason why the Machinists Association decided not to demolish it.

He just vaguely guessed that Qinglong probably also knew about the corpse, which was why he was able to force the Empire and the Federation to retreat at the same time.

In this way, the Empire or Adam will not be able to do anything to Qinglong because of Ivan.

This is the big picture.

"This..." John swallowed hard. Seeing that Heckler didn't respond, he realized that it must be some big secret.

Even Ivan's death, if it were real, would seem insignificant.

"Don't get hung up on Robin for now. Let's capture the others on the list first." Heckler rubbed his brows. "How many people have been captured so far?"

"Your Highness..." Jon hesitated, "Ninety percent of the other people we sent to capture the list are already dead."

Heckler suddenly looked over, his eyes grim. "Ninety percent!? How could those civilizations really treat the Empire with such disregard?"

John said hurriedly, "We're still investigating. This death rate is even more exaggerated than a year ago. Something's wrong."

"The Holy Castle is right in front of us. We can't get stuck here." Heckler's face was gloomy and uncertain. He caught nothing with his big net, but Robin was clear-headed.

His eyes flickered as he stared at Jon. "You said before that you wanted to force Qinglong to kill Ivan and come up with a feasible plan."

Jon was startled and nodded quickly, "Yes."

………

After leaving the base, Ulrich was still waiting and asked, "Are we going to deal with those mechanical bodies?"

Seeing Li Ming nod, he continued, "Sending those mechanical bodies out can basically fill our current manpower gap."

"However, our expansion within the chaotic interstellar space has reached its limit. I'm afraid it will be difficult for us to expand further."

Thanks to the efforts of many parties, the Mechanical Royal Court has reached the upper limit of the Chaos Star Gap in just five or six years, of course, within this industry.

He was quite helpless: "We have almost monopolized the arms industry. The market for mechanical employment is not very large, and other industries have already been taken."

The Chaos Star Gap is basically inhabited by groups of plunderers, and there is no good trading environment like that of the Orderly Civilization.

Only arms are the biggest piece of fat, and there are many related markets that have no soil for growth, such as prosthetics, spacecraft and warship manufacturing, as well as various daily necessities.

Ulrich shook his head and said, "Besides, the Mechanics Association is on the verge of disbanding. We've attempted to invade several civilizations, expending enormous energy but achieving little success. We can only proceed step by step."

What he meant by the shallow effect was compared to the expansion speed of the chaotic star gap.

"Don't worry." Li Ming said calmly, "It won't be long before things turn around."

Ulrich was stunned, but didn't ask any more questions. He felt quite excited.

I used to think that the Chaos Star Gap was big enough, but now I feel differently. Looking at the interstellar space, I realize how small the market of the Chaos Star Gap is.

"One more thing..."

Li Ming flew out, and Ulrich followed closely behind. With a little hesitation, he said: "Theo is ready to be promoted to an S-level life form."

"Oh, this is a good thing..." Li Ming was stunned for a moment, and then felt a little emotional.

When he first met Theo, he was already preparing to become an S-class life form, but it took another seven or eight years before he was ready.

Even if the gene seed is developed to 100%, it cannot evolve immediately. Most life forms need a period of sedimentation.

Looking at Ulrich who lowered his head and looked submissive, he knew what this guy was thinking.

In the early days of the Mechanical King Court, Theo and his men had made great contributions. Li Ming naturally would not forget them. He nodded and said, "I will contact Yeyue Biological Company and ask them to give us a discount. You can allocate a sum of money to purchase S-level gene seeds for him."

"Yes." Ulrich couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

As the Mechanical Royal Court continues to expand, mechanical bodies have become mainstream.

Ulrich had to admit that these mechanical bodies were really useful.

The number of S-class mechanical bodies has also been increased.

(End of this chapter)