Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 902: Chapter 8: Mining-Type Mecha

”I don’t accept this! The efficiency of corn planting is clearly the highest! I’ve developed the Corn Master 3.0 blueprint, which can increase corn yield by 1000 times, so why not use mine!”

Though the brawl ended in defeat, the leader of the corn faction, Cornislav, was still very dissatisfied, gazing with envy, jealousy, and hatred at Potato Master, who was cheerfully planting potatoes.

The hundred acres of artificial farmland in front of him were the result of the opponent’s victory.

”Even though the blueprint you gambled for is of high level, the biggest characteristic of this deformed corn you studied isn’t its yield, but the fact that consuming it has a certain probability of causing bodily mutations,” Potato Master teased his vanquished opponent.

”Lest we become mutated beyond recognition by aliens before we even see one.”

”Brother Xiaofu, if you give me one or two pills that can enhance my bloodline purity, I don’t mind defecting to your side,” a potato faction member said lazily.

”Yeah, aren’t you the only Tier 2 Bloodline Master here? It’s a breeze for you to refine bloodlines,” said another potato faction member.

”Damn it, I am a scholar of plant mutations, not an animal researcher,” Cornislav retorted angrily.

”Then there’s no other way. By the way, why are the potato tendrils growing from above? Potato Master, is your formula reliable?” questioned a player, staring blankly at his Mediterranean potato.

”Of course it’s reliable. It’s a blueprint gambled from the system,” Potato Master rubbed his chin, directing a player who had accepted a task.

”Go to the main control chamber and adjust the gravity parameters of our agricultural area to normal; I suspect the erratic growth of the potatoes is due to weightlessness.”

”Going is fine, but will it add task points?” The player asked, glancing sideways and reluctant.

”Add 10 points.”

”Sure, Master, you work, I’ll immediately relay your command,” the player bent at the waist and bowed his legs, displaying a simpering smile, perfectly demonstrating what it means to be obsequious.

The player crossed through the agricultural cabin, then looped around from the sleep pod to the bridge, transmitting through the bridge to reach the main control room of the escort ship.

This path is about 10km.

The agricultural cabin should have been called the miscellaneous space, located at the ship’s stern. From there, you can see the light-speed vector tailfin of the ship’s rear, which is an advanced structural component for adjusting the course during light-speed navigation, as driving at light-speed is impossible with a steering wheel, involving complex space parameter adjustments.

The sleep pod was originally not called a sleep pod but a spark storage room, with each sleep pod about the size of a basketball court, now transformed into a super bazaar for players.

Most players lay on beds, either playing cards or surfing forums.

Only a few lucky ones receive ship tasks, such as repairing the ship and mecha on the industrial ship, similar to Potato Master’s official task of ’building ship ecology’.

As the 4th Celestial Calamity, players have special physiques: they do not defecate but need to eat periodically; they do not urinate but need to drink water regularly.

This ’only intake, no output’ physique aligns perfectly with the designation of the 4th Celestial Calamity.

How to obtain food and water is one of the few topics that players are enthusiastically discussing recently.

The anti-gravity engine effect of the bridge is very good, directly levitating him, allowing him to pass through the large modules of the ship, effectively taking a shortcut. According to the Maintenance Master among players, this ’ejection technology’ should originally have been a soldier deployment technique for ejecting mechanical species through special channels to violently destroy enemy ships, which also fits the fierce and terrifying image of Cybertron Starships.

Unfortunately, those mechanical lives with full boss panels are gone, somewhat frustrating for the players.

The spaceship doesn’t spawn monsters, this doesn’t make sense.

Grumbling, the player opened the system forum to relax.

While feeling bored, his gaze swept over a post, his body shook fiercely — the spaceship triggered a task?!

And an external assignment task!!!

...

”Why hasn’t that kid returned yet?” Potato Master waited and waited until the potatoes sprouted from all sides, but still didn’t see the gravity parameters adjusted. One ’potato cube’ remained suspended in the air with no signs of descending, infuriating him as he wondered if the kid still wanted his points.

Besides that long-absent kid, his ’ship farmers’ were whispering and showed absolutely no intention of informing him, the landlord. They threw the seeds down and ran away.

”Hey, hey, hey, what are you guys playing at, not doing the task?”

The landlord finally managed to grab a fleeing tenant, angrily questioning.

”Bro, I’m not digging potatoes anymore, bro wants to do more valuable, more mission-oriented work!” The tenant shivered for his dream.

”What do you want to do?”

”I want to mine!”

”...”

The landlord was silent for a moment, then said: ”Are you out of your mind?”

”My brain isn’t broken; if I don’t understand, I’ll check the forum, don’t hinder me from queuing for a spot.”

Only then did Potato Master open the forum to find a post pinned on the Mechanical Split Star page. After skimming through it, he realized something.

Mining isn’t the focus; mining with mechas is the real deal, and more importantly, mining in the Asteroid Belt has a chance to spawn Star Thief wild creatures.

No wonder the players are so excited. They haven’t fought monsters for half a month, and this is a completely different experience. In the Cyber Test Field, they didn’t need to seek out monsters; the monsters would come to them automatically. But in the starry cosmos, aside from the initial excitement that wore off, most of the time was quite boring, or else players wouldn’t even rush to do things like deck scrubbing.

But now, finally, there’s a combat mission! The players were so thrilled their PTSD almost surfaced.

Watching the tenant farmers scurry away, Potato Master silently turned to Cornislav and said,

”I’ll split the land with you; should we farm together?”

”Deal!” Cornislav’s eyes flashed with joy.

”Then you keep an eye on the artificial farm while I take a trip.”

”Where are you going?” Cornislav asked in confusion.

”I’m going to see if I can snag a mining spot too.”

”...”

Although five starships had long queues and four of them were queued up, according to the AI Lady A, the first batch of mining mechas only numbered 400. But the good news is that these 400 mechas are just the beginning; once minerals are extracted from the Asteroid Belt, more mechas can be created, allowing more players to become miners.

With only 400 units, the slots were quickly allocated. The remaining players rarely complained but surrounded the lucky players who got slots, offering back massages and encouragement, though their words were rather intense.

”Brother, you now have two ways to die: either exhaust yourself in the mecha or be killed onboard by us. I personally recommend the first option.”

”Brother, do you want to implant a ’workaholic’ virtual personality? Work efficiency +150%, temporary physical +10, temporary intelligence -10. Anyway, you don’t need to use your brain when mining.”

”Sis, take this bottle of mecha lubricant; you’ll need it at a critical moment.”

”...”

As the light-speed vector tail wings at the ship’s stern emitted dazzling radiance, five starships transitioned out of light-speed state.

Light-speed vector tail wings + Teleportation Engine—this is the standard configuration for spaceships traveling at light-speed.

In front of the spaceship, a dense field of asteroids floated in the void, some as large as mountains, some only the size of basketballs, and some overloaded with metal, resembling a copper mountain.

This area is closer to the fixed star than the Mechanical Split Star and lacks an atmosphere, making the light extremely strong. Some asteroids even caught fire, resembling an enlarged and enhanced version of the Radiation Zone. Of course, nuclear radiation is also radiation.

Inside the Industrial Ship, 400 biomechanical armors coated with radiation-proof layers were launched. Say what you will about the Mechanical Split Star, but in terms of radiation-proof technology and skill points, not even some Level 3 Civilizations could necessarily match it.

Soon, players logged into the mechas, needless to say, they were shocked by the mechas worth tens of millions.

Over tens of millions of Mechanical Energy + tens of millions of Biological Energy—these mechas are so formidable!

The mechas aren’t just coated with radiation-proof layers; the external setup has also been modified. Du Gao Technology’s mechas were mostly human form before, but now they’re more like upgraded versions of mechanical octopuses. The head’s main control center and limbs were modified, leaving only one main body and dozens of tentacle-like mechanical arms of varying types, including mechanical pincers, shovels, drills, and shears. The main body is also equipped with mining baskets, roughly counting, each mecha can carry 300 tons of minerals.

”It’s not entirely for mining, the most critical task is clearing the space routes.”

At the top of the Great Curved Saber, Gao Gong and Du Zhaodi watched the four hundred players in action and explained.

This star map from many years ago clearly isn’t reliable.

Though it’s an Asteroid Belt, if it were a proper route, there would be automatic robots clearing asteroids each year.

Otherwise, crashing into asteroids while traveling at light-speed might be unfortunate, but crashing into a Miniature Black Hole or an alternate dimension is truly inescapable tragedy. Every year, the cosmos encounters numerous travel disasters, encircling the entire Asteroid Belt, with the most frequent cause of death being uncleared routes.

The path Gao Gong is traveling now is undoubtedly an abandoned route.

The cause of abandonment could be either from the supervising force fleeing or being wiped out.

Gao Gong is inclined to the second possibility.

Du Zhaodi glanced through countless industrial parameters before speaking, ”To clear this route in three months, we’ll need at least 300,000 pure industrial mechas, and the materials for these mechas, apart from extracting from asteroids, cannot be manufactured on site.”

Gao Gong’s gaze fell on a small bright spot in the distance, appearing like a star but far brighter than the surrounding stars.

There’s a saying, ”Running towards the mountain kills the horse,” and in the cosmos, if you see a star with bare eyes and attempt to reach it, you’d likely never achieve that, even till the universe’s end.

”No guns, no cannons, let the enemy make them for us.”