Free Web NovelChapter 289: Chapter 93: Well 5 Strikes
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"The closer it comes to the appointed time, the weaker it becomes. This core of the Inner City is indispensable to it, heh, unless the Ulaga virus inadvertently troubles it—we can’t take our chances."
Looking up at the vast emptiness of the giant Heart Core of the Inner City, he squinted his eyes slightly. Jing Wu didn’t set foot inside, but finished speaking.
"Then just follow the zero code’s regular pattern as usual, that way none of you will be left out. It’s not like you guys haven’t seen the zero code before, just that I have a different level of existence."
"It won’t notice us. We can now dismantle and understand it completely," Jing Wu said, addressing the Iron Craftsman who seemed unconcerned.
"Iron Craftsman, we’ve already reached our destination, but we mustn’t be detected coming out, though it’s not easy being unchangeable," he guffawed.
Iron Craftsman patted something strange that looked like a fish.
All in all, there were four of them.
One after another, they dispersed into the Inner City, where the ground was filled with the remains of Mechanoids, stacked in a disordered heap.
Outside the city.
...
...
Although his initial disposition was as murky as before, he had come up with several other ideas.
Jiaxie couldn’t figure out what Zero was at all. This exploration was a commission from the Jiaxie, and the purpose of this venture was to retrieve a chip of vital importance from Zero for Old Plank. "Zero is the shadow of Old Plank’s heart, though Old Plank never mentioned it, he has only seen Old Plank... but ultimately the essence of Zero is incomprehensible," Jiaxie explained.
"But looking at it, the more it matured, the more it seemed like that silver-haired youngster, the one who looks a lot like the leader of a disease countermeasure squad, and yes, that youngster turned out to be one of them. I’ve only ever seen Zero in the Inner City and I don’t know what form it can take, or any specifics about it," said Jiaxie, shaking his head.
Unconcerned with Zero’s unpredictable twists, since the city was too twisted, he felt a bit lost.
He had a severe allergy, just like Jing Si and Jing Liu, often experiencing difficulty dealing with these big guys.
He originally thought that Zero was worth making connections with. Jiaxie looked towards the vague direction with anticipation.
"What kind of existence is it, what kind of emotional attitude does it have towards humans, and what spirit does it have towards Mechanism City? What kind of existence is it exactly, since I’m increasingly unable to understand it? I’m just very curious about this whole thing called Zero, which seems to have a will to be seen. This place, not ashamed to be called a black-zoned area, is far too convoluted with Mechanism City’s twists."
This decision was, of course, going to increase his analytical prowess and provide a more complete solution. Normally, he would always make decisions that had a bit of negative emotional undertone, knowing it wouldn’t affect him emotionally, but with this situation, even Little Bai himself did not fully understand some of the events.
Jiaxie, a data analyst, was also the protector of the family, ultimately known to Jiaxie.
"You’re just showing a non-emotional façade, not directly jumping to conclusions. It’s only because I think you’re already upset that you’re acting this way, not at all? What is it then?"
"I won’t be upset or afraid, and it won’t be difficult. I’m just a person who enjoys observing; besides, I don’t have any special emotions, so aside from that, the grandeur of Mechanism City will excite me more than anything else."
"Do you really like being in a place that has some kind of emotional disposition?" asked Jiaxie, while they were on the move.
There was also a specific purpose to this huge underground river, which Little Bai could immediately sense; it was the payment for the two mercenary evils currently confronting each other.
The two prepared to go to a support banquet, while Little Bai and Chuanbai were on their way.
Performing this kind action would give him an advantage in some situations in the future.
Once Little Bai extracted the Heart Core, he would destroy the opponent’s facility to prevent retaliation.
Ponk Yong was startled for a moment.
"Your friend’s girlfriend is not mad, not broken, and only infected with Ulaga. It’s just Ulaga infection, bringing her wrath upon you, since a wrath wave is coming. There’s still three days left for the auction, meaning the handover will wrap up in one bundle, attaching a convenient problem. But now the fact that you’ve exchanged communication with it, and because you carry the Ulaga disease precaution equipment, the disease countermeasure squad will kill you if identified as an infected person, Ponk Yong, during the rage season," Little Bai warned him, although he was cursed by Ponk Yong, who could not find a proper treatment for his own "girlfriend."
"Maybe we can find Zheng Old and the squad leader there, we’re going to the Great Hall Avenue. I have other things to take care of now. Goodbye Old Jiaxie," said Little Bai, who had decided to give up on this task and let Jiaxie handle it. He discovered this just a while ago and decided not to treat it anymore.
Souls amid the borderlands of reality had already twisted their world.
Such things as being born in this time and place, one cannot rely on them, although you can only look upon the high-priced living environment and conclude that something amiss has been made clear.
To proceed forward, it can only look upon those sights it had never seen, for this is why it has a vehicle in front of it.
Demanding less and less gradually,
and receiving ever lower treatment, although there is a large crowd fighting for existence, this does not excuse the fundamentally correct treatment they receive.
After my prices drop, the relentless competition begins, all because they need to survive, need to work hard, never stop learning, just like it, every person following suit.
No matter how hard they try, there still seems to be a never-ending stream of people in the front rows of the carriages,
It learns whatever it can, puts in the work, gains knowledge wherever there’s a deficiency,
but it will inevitably be blocked, resembling the word "Shen Ta" that aspires to climb even higher levels, the heart-core humans.
Every few carriages form a group that becomes a different social stratum, the more forward the carriage, the higher the status.
Like a room in a speeding train, in this world of Mechanism City, each carriage becomes a microcosm of a different social class.
After a few glides through the circles of this soul’s world, he’s just another soul within it, a soul that remains unresolved like white mist, not hard to dissect.
Eventually, a pitiable white fog extends its hand, reaching into a cup full of engine oil, making a connection with this Heart Core Mechanoid’s ongoing journey.
"It’s still quite true that this Inner City makes one wordless," freewebnovel.cσ๓
The four words, peace and love, became particularly ironic.
At its core, using machine race individuals as sacrificial spokespeople for peace and love? But does the surface really shine bright?
Somehow, the South Market has attracted an origin of great evil, a large pile of nefarious deeds, but one cannot be sure what kind of hall they are running down there.
South Market, isn’t it?
Who knows, maybe after this a Mechanized Demon Sect will emerge, although Shen Ta’s set may not always have someone to witness, but if a formation comes together well in the North District, despite the great divine stick being slain, it has become a gathering place for the divine stick as it is today, then what about North District?
The hearts of these rich people are filled entirely with the will to live, and their mouths are full of charity, yet the tragedy of the Jiaxie’s child is not the only one in the dazzling, bright-lit East Market.
Purchasers don’t care how much they spend or what they buy as long as their consumer desires are sufficiently transmuted into covetous beasts.
"An Automatic Home Lover" is just an audio device from the company "Peace and Love," which will transpose its own consciousness into the voice, when the time comes, to model a complete woman,
But in reality, this one from the mechanical race, is a man, a detail observed by the attentive white mist.
In reality, they all rely on mechanical bodies to model their presence; especially their voice is from the mechanical race.
This "Automatic Home Lover" might actually be some sort of nefarious product, and perhaps the white fog is considering whether or not to completely sever ties with this "Peace and Love" company.
"What you call living is real, what I call life is but the facade of a mountain,"
said Jiaxie knowingly.
Mikkel was very different when it came to service time, the "Automatic Home Lover" always wearing a smiling face made him even more delighted to see it, even scaring the little thing to tears.
As a result, Mikkel never started to laugh, likely due to the extreme emotional fluctuations caused by the Ulaga virus infection.
Perhaps due to these days of experiencing the depths of malice, this Heart Core Mechanoid was, in the end, embedded with the soul of a machine race cup in front of Jiaxie and white mist.
Although they are not as formidable as the giant weapon makers of the Inner City, Marcon Group’s matters are not few, for these machine race individuals owe debts they can’t pay off.
They can only truly return to a fresh new body after earning enough to cover the interest and debt for Marcon Group, they only have a limited time to fulfil such needs.
A Heart Core Mechanoid will inevitably be forcibly harvested for other uses, just like fulfilling certain machine race organic material needs— at that exact moment, the retribution comes.
However, when these machine race individuals fail to repay, not only could they afford many luxury items, they even allow machine race individuals from outside the city to enter with enough credentials by offering high-interest loans, as the Marcon Group is the big credit loan institution behind this "Peace and Love" company.
And this "Automatic Home Lover" is the eye-catcher.
White mist, looking at the cup with the word "Peace and Love" carved into it, wonders how to respond to this matter.
Feeling uncomfortable and furrowing his brows, even Jiaxie seems to have implicitly guessed.
Just letting the machine race vent their essence, granting them a "tool" that has a soul to experience even more tangible feelings, that seems to be the reason... for implanting such a mysterious device in the Heart Core, potentially letting the machine race detach from the body.
But mechanical races like this are extremely evil...
Children would be terribly scared and die immediately upon discovering their parents had bought one of these things, though many young people still buy them, despite not having any particular strength.
They are interesting and rich gadgets, simply speaking. They’re used as parts to soothe people’s desires, crafted from silicone to mimic human skin, to relieve stress. In the mists of the former world, these were just playthings for children.
Equipped with a Heart Core Mechanoid within the cup, they look even more remarkable when they change shape, but such mighty cups have been around since ancient times.
However, they were put aside as some sort of "cup-shaped" data interface, yet they possessed complete Heart Core Mechanoids.
Changeable... with the design of a mechanical creature—it is but one precious sleeve of a female friend, called so for that specific reason.
Jing Wu released the white mist very quickly.
Is it not done by hand, looking at it from the perspective of the mechanical race? Can they even find a female friend with this? freewёbnoνel.com
Chu Qing faced Little Bai, spritzing out a line of foul language, with his whole body wrapped in an extremely cheap mechanical shell, like a young man named Wang.
"Damn you two silly prongs, always so damn slow! You truly infuriate me! Hustle up, we’ve got to move forward! Repair that damn fine girlfriend of mine, or it’ll sneer at us, mock me, as if it’s alive! Gosh, my Mara! You find that amusing, don’t you?"
This mechanical race being, a young mechanical fellow, simply looked very friendly.
Little Bai felt very strange about the opening they encountered, it wasn’t like anything he imagined a middle-aged mechanical being would do. Zheng knocked on the door and Little Bai answered. The building looked very unique, almost like a row of identical train carriages.
Little Bai and Zheng had finally reached their destination.
...
...
They are very evil at heart—But he had to admit that these creatures, with their original depravity, presented a challenge to face this vast group.
"It’s strange that this task is classified as level ᴀ."
In a blink, they surrounded them. Emanating the scent of humanity, they showed their bloodthirsty nature as they emerged from various huge tunnels.
In the misty world of the past, it was said that one could ride the southern cockroaches as mounts.
There were still cockroaches, albeit giant ones, not just rats. The small rat extermination team saw no end to the huge creatures they encountered. It became clear that the undercity was more than just giant rats.
Little Bai and Zhu Qing quickly descended the sewer, which looked significantly expanded, unlike the simple construction observed by those passing information through real-time communication devices. Was it even possible for these degenerate creatures to pass through Mechanism City’s vast sewer infrastructure?
These rats were indeed monstrous products of depravity and corruption, which was rather interesting to Zhu Qing. Although they had the physical form of rats, they were immensely larger in size.
Little Bai and Zhu Qing moved very quickly because they smelled the unique scent of flesh and blood, which was more pronounced than the scent of the mechanical race’s bodies, compared to the smell of human flesh on the surface. Obviously, the undercity was teeming with mechanical beings.
The group of four split into two teams, communicating through their devices.
While Zheng and Jing Jiu went to search for Jiaxie’s cousin and provide treatment, Little Bai and Zhu Qing headed forward into the sewer to hunt down the giant rats.
Although Little Bai and Zhu Qing did not require any special consideration for mechanical bodies, as they were still flesh and blood, albeit not ordinary, they were both equipped with communication devices, making Zhu Qing a useful contribution.
Zheng’s task was to go to a certain family’s residence in a rehabbed common carriage to fix a friend’s girlfriend.
Of course, there were common carriages, economical carriages, first-class carriages, and luxurious carriages, since it was indeed a carriage.
This residence looked exactly like a row of train carriages because of this, hence it was called a railroad town home.
At the same time, the greatest black market in the entire Inner City could also be found in Black Feather Street, which was also an entertainment district. Different factions gathered here, making it a wasteland. Black Feather Street was an entertainment district, while Big Hall Street was a piece of desolate land with gatherings of various factions. The southern district was divided into three areas: Big Hall Street, Black Feather Street, and the train home city.
Mechanism City Inner City, Southern District.
...
...
If that’s what it was like to truly feel as a mechanical being, then he should have been standing firmly on his feet for quite some time, considering how long Mechanism City had been established, observed by Jing Wu, who hadn’t taken on a mission yet.
Little Bai, who had also not yet accepted a task, did so nonetheless. The task of killing the giant rats in the sewer and moving forward was quite a challenging high-level ᴀ task. Little Bai, despite not having accepted a task, was still quick to equip communication devices for himself and Zhu Qing, who didn’t need to consider their mechanical bodies much, even though they were actually made of ordinary flesh.
Some cases are simply impossible for me to handle.
He, who never refused a small assignment, went on to do some "minor tasks," for not wanting Little Bai to become a killer because of him, even if it meant letting the White Fog do all the hard work—after all, the hired guns helping with the assignments were all from the South District.
Before moving forward to repair a certain Common People’s love in the South District, Jiaxie decided to take on a level-p assignment.
Having unexpectedly bumped into Jing Si, he decided not to split the reward and just shared it, since the assignment was quickly completed anyway.
Chu Qing had just begun to explain about some Ulaga diseases to Little Bai and Jiaxie, who had a taste of Mechanoid clan customs and attitudes in Shenyue, as they continued on their way to the South District.
Jing Si started moving.
"All we can do about the Ulaga disease is cure it, and that’s the only event we’re involved in. We have no idea about the inevitable battle protocols, and the Mechanism City might even face a crisis. But we can only offer support, and our support might very well be up for auction by Zheng Yue and the team leader."
"Do we really not want to participate in the auction?"
Jiaxie thought for a moment and said, "Ultimately I haven’t said much; it’s just some thoughts."
Jiaxie wondered if he could somehow gauge the full extent of Little Bai’s capabilities and whether contact could have any effect.
He seemed to have a sort of royal control over his sequence of eyes, which was no different from anyone else’s eyes in that respect.
If the eyes of Erleipu had ever appeared in history, they would’ve been mentioned explicitly—since they hadn’t, it’s even less likely that anyone knows about this sequence of eyes.
But what might happen if there were words versus sequences, or sequences among themselves, or even words against words, nobody really knows the outcome, and not all reactions are obvious.
While some people have sequences and others have curses, all they know is to keep exploring.
But Jiaxie, for one, didn’t know the source, the sequence, and the progressional steps involved in the manifestation of these sequences, even though they were already commonplace in the Inner City.
Little Bai, who had a lot to consider because of his unique vision, began a conversation.
Very few people are even aware of the Ulaga disease’s binding effects, much less its more complex implications of heavenly blessings or curses.
Little Bai, who had never showcased his sequencing abilities before, can only deduce that Jiaxie had been relying on his centuries’ worth of efforts to identify Mechanoid sequences without directly revealing the capability.
If only it were so simple to explain.
Jiaxie also considered the possibility that Bai could be hiding some sequencing powers behind a figurative veil that sometimes shrouded even his own vision.
Eventually, he couldn’t hold back any longer.
Just occasionally, these ripples only appeared when Little Bai was nearby.
Jiaxie was originally going to ask another question altogether—what Little Bai thought matched up with him, how close he was, what kind of changes in the data would allow him to see further into the future, and whether he would be able to discern more specific details.
The half-truths were the most difficult to discern.
"Honestly, I have only caught glimpses of the drama so far; it’s just a hypothesis I have about you. There’s so much going on, how could you ever think so complexly? Does this reasoning sound right? With my data linkage, I can proceed into a certain depth of interaction, corresponding to a certain flow of data—but am I a soul bender who corrects the righteous path?"
"How do you know there’s a taboo experiment here, again? Why would you think that Mechanism City might actually face an external threat? How could you even know about all this? What exactly is the basis for your current cut-off point of reasoning?"
"Some sort of evidence?"
Jiaxie, not wanting to continue further, blocked Little Bai’s path.
Little Bai decided to leave.
"Perhaps you could find Zheng Yue and the team leader. That’s where their boys like to fight the most; it’s a station just below the South District."
There were a few people standing in the original place... a strange atmosphere pervaded after the evil altar below the taboo experiment was destroyed.
Maybe it was a coincidence that he appeared in Mechanism City at the right time, wanting to leverage this particular event for attention because of Jing Liu, or maybe it was quite fortuitous.
Little Bai couldn’t help but think of a particular result that involved Jing Liu, and he had a part of it with him—these older masters’ knowledge.
It was a unique special case called Zero, the earliest manifestation of which occurred during Chuanbai’s schooling within that connected body of the Old Plank. Bai never expected he would deal with these bigwigs.
He would choose to join the procession and slowly increase his presence in the black-zone domain before he went back to the Mechanoid City.
Little Bai started questioning whether there would be a battle with Zero in Mechanism City very early on.
