Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 839: Chapter 7: Signing the Contract

Gao Gong arrived rather late.

Because he had a lot of things to confirm with this ’little beauty Gao Yuanyuan’.

It was a very interesting experience.

Although the two didn’t know each other, many of Gao Gong’s secret schemes had to be executed through her.

If it were a Player, this would be no problem at all—you just go full keyboard warrior offline, and if that doesn’t work, you commit suicide online; three days later you’re a brave man again with full Memory Recovery.

But if Gao Gong killed himself, chances were he wouldn’t be coming back.

”...There’s a subtle shift between every different Cyber Wave. If you can properly manipulate these shifts, to a certain extent, you can even interfere with its ’growth process’.”

”You going to Arasaka Tower to absorb that many Virtual Personalities was a brilliant move. Pure Information Life finds it very hard to resist that kind of feeding instinct. You get what I mean?”

Gao Gong said, still a little uneasy. After entering the Conscious Stage, although a complete Consciousness hadn’t yet formed, the Memory Mother could already start to make a preliminary ’contact’ with this world.

This contact would be extremely dangerous.

Because no one knew whether its next ’contact’ would be directly with you.

”I get it, brother. You’ve already told me a lot of the hidden stuff before. I’ll follow the steps you gave me and fatten it up into a big, chubby piglet one bite at a time.”

Being called ”brother” so affectionately by a stranger little beauty felt kind of nice.

But Gao Gong still sternly reminded her, ”But you must be careful. It’s already got its eye on me. If you’re careless, it’ll increase the chance of you being discovered.”

Gao Yuanyuan nodded. ”I understand, brother. Actually, through the Quantum Computer’s calculations, I can already faintly sense that enormous Black Shadow covering our planet.”

”You can sense... it?!” Gao Gong was startled. This little sister named Gao Yuanyuan was that powerful? At Tier 3, she was already able to sense a Tier 5 Memory Mother.

Though right now, the Memory Mother probably hadn’t reached Tier 5 yet.

Gao Yuanyuan nodded and whispered, ”It’s a really big Insect.”

”Alright, let’s split up and act then.” Gao Gong stood up, ready to go scam the Eternal Financial Group into signing a contract.

Gao Yuanyuan hesitated for a moment, then suddenly said, ”Brother, um, there’s a Destruction Form Gox—do you know him?”

”Gox?” Gao Gong frowned and thought carefully. ”This part of my memory seems to be gone too.”

Gao Yuanyuan’s lips secretly curled up a little. She nodded to her dear brother, and her figure once again vanished.

”Brainstorming, what a magical ability,” Gao Gong muttered to himself. ”No.9 Destruction - Mutant Fusion, that deranged little girl—how could I forget her? My Punk Clan is still counting on her.”

”But I’m just suffering Memory Loss, I’m not an idiot. How could I remember one and forget the other? The point is to keep the bowl perfectly level for everyone.”

...

A flash of purple light, and Gao Gong appeared at the entrance of the hotel where the Eternal Financial Group’s ship was docked. He opened his Divine Knowledge, and in an instant, every strong, strange, dangerous presence in the hotel was completely exposed.

The Ascension Talent was extremely handy in most situations.

After all, under normal circumstances, an Ascension Civilization could only ever pick a single Ascension Talent.

”Huh? Interesting!”

Gao Gong touched his chin. Among those auras, he sensed some very interesting things—like Corpse Qi.

Ever since the Civilization Council issued the ”intelligent Races don’t eat each other” resolution, some Corpse Eater Races had rarely shown themselves. And Carbon-Based Species capable of emitting a ’Corpse Magnetic Field’ were also extremely rare.

Even more interesting, this ’Corpse Qi’ wasn’t—or at least wasn’t entirely—Biological Magnetic Field. There was a bit of Mechanical Magnetic Field mixed in.

Mechanical Zombies?

This combo was kind of trendy.

”Excuse me, are you Mr. G?” A waiter walked over and asked.

”That’s me.”

”Perfect. The representative of the Holy Brain Group has invited you over. I’ll show you the way.”

”Alright, I’ll trouble you then.”

As Gao Gong followed behind, his gaze casually drifted to the back of the guy’s head. Using Divine Knowledge, he could sense a faint wisp of Corpse Qi at the back of the waiter’s skull.

’Right on time. I was just worrying about not having a good excuse to go after people from the Eternal Life Conglomerate, and now the excuse walks right up to me.’

The waiter led Gao Gong to the door of a room.

”The Holy Brain Group’s representative is inside.”

Seeing that Gao Gong still hadn’t gone in, the waiter couldn’t help prompting him.

”Oh.”

”By the way, does your hotel have net access?”

Gao Gong rubbed his chin and suddenly asked.

”Of course. Sensory Network, 24/7 Holographic Projection, and portable Brain-Machine Interfaces—we’ve got everything.”

”Oh, then I’ll surf the net for a bit first. You go do your thing.”

Gao Gong looked around, plopped down onto a sofa in the corridor, pulled out a Brain-Machine connector, and plugged it into the back of his head, looking like he really was going to go online for a while before doing anything else.

The waiter was helpless and could only leave for now. If he kept pushing, he’d probably blow his cover.

At that moment, separated by just a wall, Gao Gong activated his Divine Knowledge.

Name: Xie the Sixth Fiend

Race: Half-Mechanical Race

Level: 75

Life Value: ??

Physical Strength Value: ??

Biological Energy: ??

Skills: ??

Boss Template: Divine Corpse, Mechanical Coffin

And as the Divine Knowledge evolved, the opponent’s Blood Volume gradually revealed itself.

Biological Blood Volume: 10,000,000/10,000,000

Mechanical Blood Volume: 15,000,000/15,000,000

Double Blood Volume—turned out to be a total HP tank.

The ”Xie the Fourth Fiend” and ”Xie the Fifth Fiend” beside him had roughly the same Attributes.

Tier 3, surname Xie, and a Half-Mechanical Race.

No doubt, these were Xie Family members here to avenge Xie Egui.

And clearly, the three behind the door had also noticed Gao Gong.

Skills like ”Investigation” were almost impossible to hide from High-tier NPCs.

Thick waves of Corpse Qi seeped out through the crack of the door, starting to corrode Gao Gong’s Biological Magnetic Field.

This was actually the most detested thing about the Corpse Eater Race among Carbon-Based Species—because it could contaminate Biological Magnetic Fields.

”Insect Race Army,” ”Corpse Army,” ”Pollution Army,” ”Void Army”—these were all things on the level of civilization-scale disasters.

Among them, the Corpse Army created by the Corpse Eater Race was one of the big names.

Gao Gong smiled calmly.

Going up against three Level 70+ boss monsters, whether in ”Great Serpent” mode or ”Tyrant” mode, at best he could fight to a draw, and might even take some losses, unless he Transformed and entered Fusion Mode.

But honestly, facing three monsters with an average Blood Volume of thirty million each, that was still a stretch.

However, you just had to show up at this point in time.

Gao Gong instantly hacked into the network of their room.

A Holographic Projection appeared.

He didn’t waste words; with a thought, all the data related to the Cyber Tide was transmitted over.

It was like throwing a big live human into a pool of piranhas—instantly, countless Memory Worms smelled blood and dropped down from the walls, the ceiling, the floor.

The biggest difference between Memory Worms in the Conscious Stage and those in the Unconscious Stage was that the former would ”call friends”; the information bodies split like crazy, and in no time, the whole room was crawling with transparent, wriggling worms.

The three Xie Family old corpses didn’t even have time to erupt before they were swallowed by the worms.

As for Gao Gong, he had of course already legged it, running as far as he could.

A full hour later, when the stuff finally settled down completely, Gao Gong flashed back, pushed open the door, and saw the true forms of these three old Xie Family zombies.

The first thing that hit him was a thick stench of corpses, and then what came into view were bodies covered in ”copper coins”—or rather, copper-coin-shaped lasers. On their shriveled yet towering bodies were black metal bones, whose strength seemed no weaker than the Vajra Alloy in Gao Gong’s own body.

Their fangs looked like some sort of injector, because Gao Gong saw needle holes. Two mechanical great cleavers hung on their backs; Gao Gong tested them—Tier 3: Fine-level—they could extend into super Mechanical Greatswords dozens of meters long.

The most eye-catching, though, were the Yellow Paper Talismans on the foreheads of the three. Even though these things were standard zombie gear, Gao Gong still keenly sensed how dangerous they were.

His biological instincts told him: don’t take them off.

And his past-life veteran instincts told him this seemed to be some special code structure, apparently tied to the life form of these three old zombies.

”Gao Yuanyuan,” Gao Gong said softly.

”Brother,” a light voice sounded in the air.

”I’ll trouble you to perform surgery on these three. They’re full of Memory Worms—be careful not to let them cling to you.”

”Okay, Brother,” she replied softly:

”Also, you can call me Yuanyuan, or little sister.”

A moment later, three Eternal Financial Group employees with gloomy expressions walked out of the room.

The Xie Family had originally been one of the shareholders of the Eternal Financial Group, and every Xie Family member in the group had an employee number.

”So don’t blame us. It’s your Eternal Financial Group’s internal strife that ruined this excellent deal.”

Soon, the three employees began visiting the representatives of the Eternal Financial Group one by one.

They actually didn’t need to do anything; the amount of Memory Worms on these three had already reached a terrifying level. As long as they got close, the Memory Worms would automatically transfer over and then start spreading.

Very quickly, every one of those Aliens developed symptoms of Memory Loss.

With Director Du coordinating on his end, a classic ”empty-handed white wolf” scheme succeeded in no time. They did indeed obtain shares in Du Gao Technology—but this ”Du Gao Technology” was not that ”Du Gao Technology”; it was just a shell company hung on Du and Gao, in the name of ”investing in the two.” The real Du Gao Technology had long been renamed Du Gao Military Group.

”Pleasure working with you,” the red-skinned Alien let out a breath of relief after signing the Tier 3 Information Contract, and said warmly to Du Zhaodi, ”I wonder when you’ll come to our headquarters so we can host you again.”

”When there’s a chance,” Director Du smiled faintly.

Soon, the Alien Spaceship turned into a streak of light and vanished into the sky.

”That’s it?” Du Zhaodi muttered to herself.

”Yeah, that’s it.”