Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 80: Chapter 71: Mechanical Ape

Even in the vast universe, where civilizations abound like stars, carbon-based civilizations remain a significant mainstream.

Considering the other three categories, mechanical life, information life, and energy life don’t quite resemble ’humans,’ at least not as material life forms.

Therefore, there’s another saying: carbon-based life represents the indigenous life of all planets, it’s the source of all things.

But humans shouldn’t be arrogant, nor should they think of carbon-based beings as one family.

Because not all interstellar carbon-based life forms descended from apes, they may not even be of the primate order, or even originate from mammals.

There are countless alien beings of bizarre shapes and ghostly sounds.

Hence, popularizing the LSP aesthetic became Mr. G’s unshirkable duty in the past life.

But now, what appeared before Gao Gong was indeed a humanoid creature.

It had four limbs, with palms on its hands and feet showing signs of obvious degeneration.

Its features were somewhat terrifying, resembling a flattened fathead minnow, with nostrils the size of coins.

As for the hair, it was somewhere between octopus tentacles and nerve bundles.

Du Zhaodi instinctively touched her arm and retreated behind Gao Gong.

The ponytail girl didn’t mind mechanical transformation; she considered it a way to enhance male charm. But this sticky, oddly shaped entity made her skin crawl.

Gao Gong studied it closely, noticing a distinct bloody hole in its chest, with dried green ooze on the surface.

Strangely, he did not find any reproductive organs on the creature, not even reproductive pores.

Could it be a clone product?

Gao Gong then found a ’nameplate’ on the creature’s waist.

’Life Form No. 3151’

On the reverse side was another line of text—

’Blue Water Technology’

Gao Gong’s expression turned serious, not because of these lines, but because above ’Blue Water Technology,’ there was an emblem depicting a giant mechanical man towering over the sky.

This is the emblem of Cybertron, one of the three great Mother Cities.

Standing atop the entire planet, above hundreds of Mechanical Cities, are the three great Mother Cities, each guarded by a planet-level mainframe, acting as the advanced civilizations’ agents in this ’Cyber Test Field.’

Every enterprise prides itself on contracting projects from the Mother City.

And this ’Cybertron emblem’ is the ’Mechanical Mark,’ indicating that this ’Ocean People’ is an outsourced project of the Mother City.

”Creating humans, huh.”

Gao Gong knew that one of the mainline tasks assigned to the three Mother Cities by advanced mechanical civilizations was to create humans.

Only with the presence of ’intelligent life’ can a socio-ecological system above life be born.

Among them, ’Deep Net’ has created numerous AI life forms roaming the Cyber Network. These are not algorithm-supported artificial idiots but genuine electronic life forms with personality, emotion, and memory.

This type of electronic life completes the five essential factors of AI evolution.

Self-replication, self-management, self-repair, moderate evolution, and deep learning.

’Fortress’ has cultivated a group of bionic people, living, reproducing, and self-iterating by the billions within the Mother City.

The embryonic form of a civilizational ecology has taken shape.

This is also why the importance of humans decreased after the war, with only a few human elites allowed entry into the Mother City.

Only ’Cybertron’ remains, in players’ impressions, the sole planet main brain whose ’KPI’ didn’t meet standards.

However, Gao Gong doesn’t think so; the three Mother Cities cooperate and compete with each other, and no civilizational system is isolated.

Their ultimate goal, or rather the ultimate mission of the Cyber Test Field, remains unknown because no one has ever ’cleared’ it.

After the Cyber Tide erupted and became irreversible, the entire planet was swallowed by advanced civilizations’ Black Hole Weapon.

Gao Gong stroked his chin; at least one thing was certain.

’Cybertron’ was also engaged in human creation, and the failure of the human-making plan was undoubtedly influenced by external factors, like the Beast Mechanical Disaster.

”What’s wrong?”

Seeing Gao Gong hesitate, Du Zhaodi couldn’t help but ask.

”I’m thinking, if we can preemptively create humans, we might seize the initiative.”

This time, it was Du Zhaodi’s turn to fall silent.

Gao Gong was taken aback for a moment, turning to see the ponytail girl blushing, eyes flickering, her composed and competent aura mostly gone, muttering incoherent things like ’career first,’ ’babies are cute,’ ’everyone is still young,’ and ’but it’s not impossible.’

Gao Gong immediately realized, cleared his throat, and nonchalantly said, ”Just joking, let’s continue exploring.”

Du Zhaodi’s eyes widened, and the word ’jerk!’ flashed through her mind.

...

After about five minutes, one of the three teams that entered the mist was attacked.

”The exoskeleton was damaged, but not severely. The opponent’s weapon was a metal spear, pierced a small hole in my armor, equivalent to the power of a large caliber sniper bullet.”

A voice of an exoskeleton warrior came through the intercom.

However, in the next moment, Gao Gong’s expression turned cold, his palm instantly transforming into a ’Bloodthirsty Hooked Leg,’ sweeping forward violently. With a ’clang,’ a black spear was skewered into the ground not far away.

A black shadow flashed and disappeared in the distance.

”Trying to run!”

Gao Gong’s wrist flicked, using a single molecule line to hook onto a big tree, his figure disappearing in an instant.

The ’newcomer’ turned around to look, the distance was empty and desolate.

Suddenly, ’its’ shoulder was in pain, a massive force pulling from high above.

Gao Gong descended from the sky, his iron knee striking fiercely into the opponent’s waist, slamming it to the ground.

Before the opponent could react, a strange claw appeared above its forehead, the grating metallic sound of ripping echoed, metal sparks flying from the friction between them.

[You have dealt 27 damage to the Mechanical Servant.]

Mechanical Servant?

Gao Gong paused, his other hand reaching for the opponent’s neck halted instinctively.

The other also stared at Gao Gong’s ’Bloodthirsty Hooked Leg’ in a daze, gesturing frantically.

”Are you saying you’re a servant of those previous Mechanical Hunters?”

A moment later

Observing the figure less than a meter high in front of him, wrapped entirely in animal skins and metal, the ’half-human, half-monkey’, Gao Gong curiously asked.

The other nodded excitedly, the pile of electronic components on its body swaying.

A mechanical version of the late ape-man.

”Do you know Old Sunx?”

Hearing this name, the servant ape became even more excited, gesticulating and pulling at Gao Gong’s sleeves as if to lead the way.

”Do you know this monkey?” Du Zhaodi asked curiously.

”I don’t, but an old guy I know does.”

Gao Gong studied the Mechanical Ape and asked, ”Can you understand what I’m saying? Do you have a name?”

The other indeed did, the ape enthusiastically wrote three crooked characters on the ground.

”Friday, good name.”

”So you’re saying, you recognized me as one of Old Sunx’s group by my hand?”

”Then what’s with this fog, is it a weapon of the old generation Mechanical Hunters? Interesting.”

With this ’Friday’ leading the way, Gao Gong quickly reached the real burial ground.

An inconspicuous earth mound.

Gao Gong also met ’Friday’s family, a tribe of late ape-men numbered in the tens, with weapons made from polished steel bars, and small forges and generators in their nests — ’pots and pans’.

According to Gao Gong’s semi-guess, half-deduction, they were tamed by Mechanical Hunters, taught the ’ways of fishing, woodcutting, farming, and reading’ of the ’Neo-Humans’.

If all goes well, perhaps in a few hundred or thousand years, these new Mechanical Homo Sapiens will replace post-war humans and become the dominant race of this planet.

And those Classical Stream Mechanical Hunters might become the Prometheus of a post-apocalyptic style.

Of course, all of this was Gao Gong’s flight of fancy; according to a normal timeline, in less than three to five hundred years, not even three years, this planet would explode.

”You’re saying that the things Old Sunx left behind are all placed inside this mound?”

’Friday’ nodded and shook its head simultaneously, his hands gesturing as if performing a rap song.

After watching for a while, Gao Gong understood, ”You mean, there’s some danger inside.”

’Friday’ nodded, then after thinking about it, went back to his earthen hut and returned with something in his palm, a metal apple.

Gao Gong accepted it, and his system panel automatically displayed its attributes.

Electric Shield Fruit (Mechanical Creation): After use, dispels a 3*3-meter energy shield fog, with a 60% chance of heavy metal poisoning, and an 80% chance of diarrhea.

Gao Gong’s eye twitched. Although he had altered his stomach, he didn’t want to test it on himself, so he changed the topic: ”Can you let my companions in?”

’Friday’ shook his head vigorously, pointing to Gao Gong’s hand, suggesting that perhaps only the inheritors of the Classical Stream Mechanical Hunters, or rather, biological weapon Implanters, could enter.

No wonder Old Sunx said nothing, his biological implant was the best key.

Gao Gong thought for a moment, handed the walkie-talkie to Du Zhaodi, and asked her to wait outside, then entered the mound alone.

The mound contained simple, crude graves, with names chiseled crookedly on the tombstones; but at least the quality was decent, or else the bones would have been exposed.

”Old Sunx wouldn’t make me dig up each grave, would he?”

Fortunately, Gao Gong soon discovered a blind spot: most graves only had names on them, but some were marked with engraved, blurred designs.

Following the marked graves, Gao Gong unearthed a pile of Biological Transformation materials.

[You have obtained a Level 2 Biological Transformation Blueprint: Big Tree Scythe]

[You have obtained a Level 2 Biological Transformation Blueprint: Bone Radiation Corpse Armor]

[You have obtained a Level 3 Biological Transformation Blueprint: Demon Horn]

[You have obtained a Level 2 Biological Transformation Blueprint: Petrol Flame Whip]

[You have obtained a Level 2 Biological Transformation Blueprint: Electronic Bee Eye]

[You have obtained a Level 1 Biological Transformation Blueprint: Biological Gun]

[You have obtained a Level 1 Biological Transformation Blueprint: Jet Clamp]

Gao Gong stood up straight, dropped the shovel, and dusted off his pant cuffs.

According to the task prompt, aside from the blueprints, there should be implantable Biological Weapons.

But after so many years, even if there are Biological Weapons, few should still be usable, right?

At some point, the fog began to thicken, accumulating around the graves, giving off an inexplicable eerie feeling.

Gao Gong knew the danger ’Friday’ spoke of had arrived.