195: Chapter 196 B7

The main elevator descended steadily into the depths of the earth, accompanied by the low rumble of its motors.

Unlike the short trips to other floors, this elevator ride lasted for a long time.

Lin Li stood in the spacious elevator car, subconsciously checking his watch, calculating the descent time.

When the elevator finally came to a complete stop with a slight sensation of weightlessness, Lin Li checked the time: "A full five minutes have passed."

The speed of this elevator in Shelter was not fast.

Lin Li had roughly estimated that the descent speed was about three meters per second.

On Earth, this speed would only be considered a slow, turtle-paced passenger elevator.

"Three meters per second, for five minutes." Lin Li did some quick mental math: "That means this elevator has descended about nine hundred meters in one go?! The vertical depth from the surface must already exceed one kilometer!"

This was the first time Lin Li had ridden the elevator for this long since unlocking the permissions for Shelter.

Deep underground, buried so far beneath the earth's crust that it could withstand planetary-level orbital bombardment, he became increasingly curious about what good things were hidden on this B7 level.

"Ding—" The elevator doors slid open slowly to the sides.

Just like the floors above, a clean, tidy, and wide corridor with a silver-white minimalist style appeared before Lin Li.

The lighting strips on both sides of the corridor lit up in sequence as he walked.

On the smooth metal floor of the corridor, three guide lines were painted using some unknown, fadeless fluorescent paint.

These three guide lines pointed in three different directions, each ending at a heavy, automated armored door.

At the starting point of the guide lines, a few simple signpost words were written in High gothic: Factory Zone, Cultivation Zone, and Office.

"The zones are clearly divided." Lin Li rubbed his chin. "It seems this Cultivation Zone is where that batch of new cultivation pods mentioned in the system reward list is located.

And the Factory Zone likely contains assembly lines similar to the Matter Constructor that can produce large equipment. I hope this time it's a complete machine, not more junk that I have to scavenge parts for. It would be best if it were an all-purpose 3D printer that can manufacture anything I need."

As for the last one, the office. Previously, when he unlocked the B3 level, there was also an office. The designer of Shelter seemed to have some obsessive-compulsive disorder, liking to keep an exclusive, independent space for themselves on core floors. It made sense for another one to pop up here.

Lin Li thought for a moment and decided to check the barracks first.

He followed the blue-glowing guide line in the middle for a while and arrived in front of a huge automatic door.

"Hiss—" As the identity verification passed, the heavy armored door slid open automatically to both sides. Lin Li stepped inside.

The next second, in the huge space behind the door, rows of blinding white cold light sources were lit up one after another, from near to far, like dominoes!

"Holy shit..." Lin Li stood at the entrance, looking up with his mouth wide open.

Before him was a super-massive underground space, even larger than the giant stadiums on Earth, with a vertical height exceeding that of a multi-story skyscraper!

In this underground hall, so magnificent that it triggered megalophobia, dozens of rows of giant bookshelf structures, as tall as buildings, were neatly arranged!

Each giant bookshelf was equipped with multiple open elevators capable of moving up and down rapidly.

And in every dense compartment of these bookshelves that pierced the dome, a glowing cultivation pod was neatly embedded!

Lin Li swallowed hard and strode toward the nearest bookshelf.

He arrived in front of a cultivation pod and looked inside through the thick glass. It was filled with clear, pale green nutrient solution without any excess impurities, and the pipeline interfaces were as new as ever; it was clearly a batch of brand-new equipment that had never been used.

After a long while, Lin Li finally snapped out of this grand sci-fi industrial spectacle.

He immediately opened the pv terminal on his wrist, "Old Seven! Forget about the mess up there! Drop whatever you're doing and come to the Cultivation Zone on the B7 level as fast as you can!"

"Understood! Creator."

A few minutes later, a heavy and rapid sound of steel footsteps echoed in the corridor. Iron Man 73's massive body huffed and puffed as it hurried over.

When 73 stepped through the door, its electronic eyes scanned the dense array before it, and the blue light clearly flickered violently!

Obviously, even its logic processor experienced a brief lag. Even for an ancient Iron Man that had seen much during the Golden Age, 73 was stunned upon seeing this exaggerated troop-producing array.

Subsequently, it rarely used a synthetic voice with a tone of surprise to offer sincere praise: "It is truly unimaginable! Beneath this remote, fringe world that doesn't even rank on the Imperial star map, there is hidden such a massive and intact clone space!"

Lin Li asked impatiently: "Old Seven! Scan it quickly and see how many cultivation pods are hidden here?!"

The optical sensors in 73's eyes began to rotate at high speed, and a circle of invisible microwaves swept across the entire underground hall.

After just three seconds, 73 directly gave a terrifying number: "Report, Creator. Within this area, there are a total of five hundred thousand standard clone cultivation pods stored. The power lines are all intact and can be activated and brought online at any time."

Hearing this number, Lin Li was completely shocked!

What is the concept of five hundred thousand?

According to the words of that Commander Chu from an old TV show on Earth: Even if there were five hundred thousand pigs on the other side, it would take ten days or half a month to catch them!

Not to mention that these are five hundred thousand fearless, tactically knowledgeable, and infinitely upgradeable The Fourth Calamity about to descend!

With this army of five hundred thousand joining Shelter's faction, the armed forces and industrial development speed of the Spark Alliance would see an unprecedented, terrifying explosion.

"This is so timely!" Lin Li was ecstatic in his heart. "Fortunately, we have been attacking everywhere in the galaxy during this period, and the territory we have taken is already large enough! There are two Outpost Planets currently being developed nearby, and further away are the agricultural worlds, the capital of Mobius that we can completely take down soon, and the Gorgon industrial planet with massive resources!"

"These planets are all awaiting development, and people are needed everywhere for underground mines and surface factories."

"With these five hundred thousand top-tier cyber-slaves who don't need a salary, I believe the development of Shelter's influence will definitely be like riding a rocket, shifting straight into the fast lane!"

You have to know, the players brought over from Earth are not those illiterate natives from the Warhammer world!

At their worst, these people are modern individuals nurtured by nine years of compulsory education. Moreover, Lin Li will definitely prioritize selecting those elite talents from various industries—mechanical, chemical, nuclear physics—on Earth and give them game helmets!

Looking at the dense array of talent incubation pods before him, Lin Li nodded with satisfaction.

He led 73, walking around the bookshelves in this huge space.

After confirming there were no other hidden easter eggs, the two followed the guide line in the corridor and walked toward the door named Factory Zone.

"Hiss—" When the heavy automatic door of the Factory Zone slowly slid open to both sides, another huge space with an extremely high dome appeared before them.

But with the extreme shock of the five hundred thousand cultivation pods just now, Lin Li's mindset was much calmer this time.

Furthermore, compared to the airtight bookshelf forest next door, this Factory Zone area seemed very spacious, even a bit deserted.

In the center of the massive underground space, there was only one giant silver-gray rectangular machine, as tall as a building, with perfect geometric proportions, standing quietly there, with no seams or exposed pipelines on its surface.

73's voice sounded in Lin Li's ear. There was even a hint of rare awe in its voice. "Creator, this... this is actually a complete [ World Forger ]!"

"World Forger?" Lin Li raised an eyebrow. "That name sounds awesome! Goodness, could it be that the wish I just made in my heart has come true? Could this thing be that kind of wish-granting machine where you just input a command and it can create anything out of thin air?"

However, before Lin Li could even grin, 73, like a heartless bucket-of-cold-water machine, poured a basin of ice water over his head. "Creator, your understanding is only half right."

73 walked up to the giant rectangular block and reached out to stroke the cold metal shell. "However, the AI program with extremely high independent intelligence within the core of this Forger... seems to have been completely erased."

The smile on Lin Li's face stiffened. "Erased? What do you mean?"

73 explained: "In the Golden Age, every ultimate industrial device that could be called a World Forger had an AI program with extremely high computing power and independent consciousness bound within it!"

"The purpose of this AI was to quickly retrieve blueprints from a massive knowledge base and perfectly understand the user's abstract or vague forging requirements, thereby coordinating the one billion nano-robots inside to materialize and forge them at the fastest speed."

"But now..." In 73's electronic synthetic voice, there was actually a hint of imperceptible sorrow. "Its independent consciousness has been formatted and erased by some higher authority. It now only has a cold, mechanical recovery and forging execution program left. It is dead."

Lin Li scratched his hair in speechlessness. "Uh... so, my condolences. Just tell me directly, what can this pile of castrated, unintelligent scrap metal actually do now?"

73 restrained its emotions and returned to its rigorous reporting mode: "Theoretically, if the blueprint library were intact, it could directly use molecular recombination technology to forge all known non-living objects in the three-dimensional material world. This Forger belongs to a relatively new model, produced in the early stages of the Men of Iron rebellion."

"It is 550 meters long, 550 meters wide, and 350 meters high. Inside, it seals one billion micro-nano-robots responsible for coordinating manufacturing. However, because its main control consciousness was completely erased, the massive amount of Golden Age blueprint data stored within it has also been basically lost."

Lin Li frowned. "No blueprints? That's easy to solve!" Lin Li pointed at 73. "Don't you have quite a few mechanical blueprints from the Golden Age stored in your head? Can't you just plug in a data cable, transfer the blueprints, and have it produce according to the blueprints?"

Hearing this layman's suggestion, 73's blue-glowing electronic eyes immediately displayed a human-like look of disdain as it stared at Lin Li.

"Creator, your lack of knowledge is truly astonishing." 73 mercilessly activated its sharp-tongued mode. "Please understand that the operating logic of this World Forger is completely different from the previous Matter Constructor!"

"The Matter Constructor is essentially just a high-level production machine tool; you can input data at will for it to process. But this massive World Forger, in the definition of the Golden Age, is basically equivalent to a super-sized production Men of Iron with an independent personality!"

"Of course, now it is just a massive corpse that has lost its soul." 73 continued to explain. "As a material world forger that once possessed independent algorithms, it refuses direct external data input at the underlying protocol level."

"Under your highest authorization, I can indeed issue underlying commands to turn it on or off. But I have no way to forcibly convert my complex blueprint data into its internal format and transmit it into its core processing area!"

Hearing this, Lin Li's face turned completely dark. "In other words, although this thing has incredible hardware and can build everything, because the software system has been wiped and there are no blueprints inside, it is now a super-sized brick that looks good but is useless? It can't build anything?!"

73 nodded coldly: "Yes, Creator! We got a good thing, but we didn't get it completely."

"Damn it!" Lin Li was so angry he cursed. "Then what the hell is the use of this thing! The system of this crappy Shelter is so unreasonable. Every time it gives a reward, it always gives these defective products that are missing limbs and require me to figure out how to repair them!"

Watching the Creator jumping up and down, the blue light in 73's eyes flickered. "Creator, please calm down first." 73 said slowly. "Please note, although it has lost its original built-in blueprints, its physical object analysis and scanning function is still intact!"

"What does that mean?" Lin Li stopped cursing and looked at 73.

"It means that as long as you put any physical object that can fit into its internal space, whether it is scrap iron or a high-tech creation, into it for a thorough molecular scan."

"Its core processing area will automatically perform reverse engineering and generate the complete manufacturing blueprint corresponding to that item! As long as you add sufficient basic materials later, it can perfectly replicate and manufacture it in batches, just like cloning! Whether it is fine internal components or complete, massive objects!"

Hearing this copy function, Lin Li's eyes instantly lit up, brighter even than when he saw those five hundred thousand cultivation pods!

"Holy shit! That works!" Lin Li slapped his thigh. "Hmm, then we can just dismantle that matter-energy conversion giant cannon on the surface. Throw it in and let it scan and copy! Doesn't that mean we can mass-produce cannons from now on?!"

"That is of course the case. After all, that anti-matter matter-energy conversion cannon was just a most ordinary... conventional infantry weapon in the Golden Age. For this Forger, copying it has no technical difficulty."

"..."