Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 561: Chapter 94: Machine Plague

”...”

Gao Gong was silent for a moment before asking in confusion, ”Little A, did you change your personality template?”

”No, I just evolved!”

Along with the words, a holographic projection appeared, revealing a huge beauty with an hourglass figure, standing definitely over 4 meters tall, with a chest bigger than a water tank, capable of crushing people if it fell.

Like you, Lady Eight Feet!

Gao Gong took a deep breath.

Before going to the Divine Land, Gao Gong had specifically uploaded Little A back to the Du Gao Group. He didn’t expect her to change so much, growing more capable.

”What made you want to improve?”

”I want to learn from President Du!”

”I also want to become a rich lady!”

”I want to keep young men!”

”I want to fight ten people on my own!”

”Impressive!” Gao Gong raised his thumb in admiration and then said, ”But the first thing to becoming a rich lady is having money, do you have any?”

Lady Eight Feet, no, Mrs. A, was taken aback by the question. After quite a while, she hesitantly said, ”President Du pays me a salary, so I have a little money.”

”Then you’re a pretend rich lady. Where in the world is there a rich lady without money? Hurry up and open the door for me!”

”Oh, okay.”

Mrs. A, who was easily convinced by Gao Gong’s few words, immediately switched back to her previous mode and obediently opened the door for Gao Gong.

With the sound of the air pump, the door slowly opened.

Inside, in this highly confidential laboratory, at the center stood a huge glass pillar. Inside the pillar was a silver-gray liquid called ’spark oil,’ a means by which mechanical life maintained their shells. This ’spark cultivation agent’ is a Tier 2 top-grade potion, only sold in Mother City, and it works very well. As long as it’s not a fatal injury, soaking in it can slowly repair the damage, and prolonged soaking can permanently increase mechanical energy.

Although the effects are good, this stuff is exclusive to the Mechanical Legion, and acquiring it isn’t easy. Only the leaders of factions have the channels to purchase it.

And within this ’spark oil,’ a humanoid silver-red metal skeleton was soaking, with fingers snapping one by one, creating the illusion of life at a glance.

”Life metal, a modified version of memory metal cells, incorporating biological transformation technology on the original memory metal basis. Theoretically, it can perfectly match most biological transformations.”

Gao Gong tapped on the glass. Stimulated by the tap, the skeleton immediately began to transform. The arm bones, leg bones, and ribs started to shrink and form honeycomb structures the size of fists. Meanwhile, the shoulder blades protruded, instantly thrusting out two pairs of nearly two-meter-long bones, and the skull deformed to a certain extent, revealing rows of pinhole-sized holes.

Despite the abstract shape, Gao Gong immediately recognized it as a D-Level Radiation Beast, a drone dragonfly skeleton—a type of half-mechanical creature that Mechanical Hunters could tame, its antennae receptors connecting to the prosthetic eye’s field of vision.

With another tap on the glass, the skeleton began to transform again, becoming smaller. The spine arched, sprouting palm-sized scales, and the facial bones protruded like a fist-sized hazelnut.

This is... an F-level Iron Rat.

The Iron Rat, a semi-metallic lifeform, its surface covered with a layer of symbiotic iron hide, the central axis leaf, and side ribs forming a miniaturized iron fan. The head, thorax, and tail segments create an exhaust system, capable of darting several meters, feeding on metal.

Next, the skeleton began its performance: Turbo Spider, Self-destructive Scorpion, Iron Armor Leopard, Engine Lion, Reaper...

The most abstract transformation occurred when it suddenly shot up ten meters high, its arms and thighs expanding wildly, becoming as thick as barrels, with a disproportionately large head. Especially its eye sockets, which seemed capable of holding two footballs.

Gao Gong had a sense of familiarity but couldn’t recall immediately, until Mrs. A opened the database, and then he suddenly understood.

Goodness, it was you!

Mechanical Gorilla!

It’s actually called the Super Mechanical Ape King!

”According to the data from Brain-in-a-Vat, this skeleton can already simulate B-level Radiation Beasts to some extent, but there’s a problem. After the transformation is complete, it loses some mechanical attributes.”

Footsteps approached as Director Du walked in, standing next to Gao Gong, pointing to the edges of the mechanical skeleton, especially the key transformation areas.

Sure enough, with every transformation, red powder would fall off, with more powder shed the more exaggerated the transformation.

Sometimes, almost half of the mechanical skeleton would crumble.

Gao Gong finally realized why it needed to soak in the ’spark oil.’

Without the soak, it would probably fall apart after seven or eight transformations.

”Sorry, I didn’t do well. The new ’life skeleton’ is still not debugged,” Director Du said apologetically, which was rare.

Gao Gong shook his head, unconcerned. Modifying level 3 civilization metal isn’t that easy.

The ’memory metal cells’ were metals Gao Gong secretly scraped off the ’collider’ in Nightless City and implanted into his body, with effects that were quite buggy, akin to the antagonist T-1000 in Terminator 2, granting several additional lives.

However, this metal had a flaw: it only had restorative ability, not transformation ability. Once transformed, it was equivalent to destruction.

This was very disadvantageous for Gao Gong’s post-Tier 2 profession, so he specifically entrusted Director Du to improve it.

However, the scientific research capability of the Tier 2 camp was still far behind that of the Mother City. Despite great efforts, they only produced a defective product.

”Biological expert, mechanical modification expert, we do lack some experts in the latter,” Gao Gong remarked with a sigh.

Mechanical modification experts are coveted by major corporations and are difficult to recruit.

Du Zhaodi bit her lip, looking a bit unwilling to accept defeat.

”There’s actually a way.”

”Hmm?” Gao Gong looked at Director Du in surprise. Was there a surprise in store?

”We’ve thought of several plans for the ’life skeleton.’ The best improvement method is to implant a non-cellular organism that rapidly proliferates through replication into its metal cells. Once transformation occurs, this organism will quickly propagate, compensating for the lost parts with the new growth.”

”Are you talking about a virus, and specifically an active metal virus?” Gao Gong asked, somewhat unsure.

No wonder Gao Gong was puzzled. In the history of carbon-based civilization, massive infectious diseases like the Black Death, smallpox, cholera, etc., have always existed, with no medical solutions under current technology, causing large-scale mortality.

However, it’s not just carbon-based civilization; in mechanical civilization, there are also ’mechanical plagues.’ Universally, these mechanical infectious diseases are known as the mechanical plague, more dangerous than biological infectious diseases because, unlike carbon-based organisms, mechanical life forms share the same materials besides their core source and might even be produced in the same factory. If one mechanical plague case appears, essentially the entire mechanical species would be doomed.

While this is the Cyber Test Field, a notorious lawless land, the experimental paradise, creating such a virus and an antigen is a bit over the top.

”Who?”

”You should know this lady, Miss Kate.”

”...Who?”

Gao Gong thought for a long time but couldn’t recall which miss this was. After associating with a rich lady and gaining inner peace, did he forget even the professionals?

Director Du rolled her eyes charmingly and said, ”In the Iron Sand Desert, didn’t you make several deals with her?”

Deals, was this the original person’s doing? I won’t be responsible for that, wait, it was making deals not doing business; did I misunderstand?

Gao Gong pondered, and then it flashed upon him—

”It’s that big orange cat, the catgirl of Mas Edge!!”

Thinking back to when he just transmigrated, he was dirt poor, pinching pennies even to buy weapons, wishing to stretch every cent. The state then was heart-wrenching and tear-jerking to any observer. He even had to use some uncalibrated modified weapons to strengthen his armament.

During that time, he met the female employee transformed into a catgirl due to unmet KPIs; a penniless and a jinxed person hit it off perfectly and began conspiring together.

Later, after he moved from the countryside into the city, he handed over this relationship to Director Du. Subsequently, Du Gao Group rose to prominence, gaining footing in the global arms market with its unique biological chip and mecha technology. As the sole liaison with this emerging group, the big orange cat, no, Miss Kate, naturally rose with the tide, shedding her identity as a rural market salesperson and becoming the sales director of Mas Edge’s weapons department.

The ’mechanical plague virus’ affair was learned from her.

According to her, President Ma of Mas Edge had been mysteriously researching a weapon recently, claiming its effectiveness against mechanical life, looking for an opportunity to test the weapon’s effect.

”Test? How, by attacking a mechanical legion?” Gao Gong said, somewhat speechless.

”That’s what they claimed and seemed to have done, but all personnel testing the weapon were hunted to death by Power Faction Robots without exception.”

Of course, Power Faction Robots were the ’species molecules’ within robots, with the grand vision of purifying the entire planet, achieving the singularity of the mechanical race. Researching a virus targeting them was indeed akin to rogues confronting predators, hitting the barrel of the gun.

”Then what?”

”Afterwards, the experiment naturally failed,” Director Du said, ”but that Boss Ma didn’t give up, continuing to carry out his plan in secret. He even conveyed through Miss Kate the idea of collaborating with us, of course, I refused.”

”Is that so?”

Gao Gong rubbed his chin. It’s no wonder Director Du acted this way; with corporate warfare imminent, no one wanted trouble. Offending the Mother City and having their license revoked would spell doom, as General Cybertron was notoriously protective.

However, for his career transition, he had to take the risk—

A familiar alert sound rang, and Gao Gong glanced at the task panel, raising his eyebrows. Another Cyber Test Field mission.