Starting as a Mechanical Hunter

Chapter 546 - 79: Energy Mushroom · Mushroom Girl

For a Sage, the best way to die is naturally at the steps of knowledge.

From this perspective, David died as he should have.

Just as David passed away, Gao Gong’s fingers flexibly executed a First Transformation, linking together the shattered fragments of the Void Realm, like tiny streams of light, drilling into the cracks of the ’Crystal Ball’, using their final bit of value to restore this segment of ’Starry Sky Cloud Code’.

The specialty of a ’High-tier Code’ is that all virtual-related substances can seamlessly connect to it.

Otherwise, Gao Gong would not dare use this move; if there was any operational mistake, wouldn’t he also perish?

Of course, the advantage of using this move is significant: a Level 54 Sage can be instantly killed upon contact.

For management in such large corporations, their combat strength may not be strong, but once they decide to flee, they’re as difficult to kill as top-tier viruses.

Glancing at the rewards in the taskbar, Gao Gong opened his hand, and the Civilized Stick catapulted towards him.

Name: Wisdom Staff

Category: Virtual Hardware

Produced by: Earth Net Group

Quality: Tier 3: Fine

Attributes: ??

Operating Mode: Requires Earth Net Group’s special mark to ’unlock’

Note: Tier 3 personal equipment, in a certain sense, much rarer than a superstructure of the same tier. Do you understand its significance?

Gao Gong naturally understood; there’s no doubt, the difficulty of building massive civilization architecture far exceeds that of personal equipment.

However, there’s a possibility for massive civilization architectures—like a certain civilization, or a super corporation, to pile resources, manpower, and scientists without caring about energy consumption or cost-effectiveness, and to build them.

But it’s challenging to do the same for Tier 3 personal equipment because a crucial aspect of crafting personal equipment is ’mass production’.

So, the manufacturing difficulty from low to high is ordinary personal equipment, superstructures, mass-produced personal equipment, and mass-produced superstructures.

A group of scientists creating a super corporation would not manufacture such a ’Tier 3 Equipment’ for the personal combat power of an individual, even if that person is part of the corporate management.

This doesn’t match their style.

They are Sages, not Warriors.

Therefore, there’s only one possibility, that this ’Wisdom Staff’ has already been made by Earth Net Group for mass production.

"Interesting, a Tier 3 weapon requiring decryption, good thing it’s not Tier 4, or else there’d be no way."

Level 4 Civilizations belong to Ascension Civilizations, and Tier 4 Equipment is naturally Ascension Equipment. Even in the universe, this equipment is very difficult to decrypt, and even Advanced Civilizations struggle with brute-forcing them.

After all, this concerns the choice of ascension paths.

No civilization has completely identical ascension paths.

But Tier 3 Equipment is different, especially when one of the rewards Gao Gong received is called the ’Sage’s Inheritance’.

’Ding——’

[Download complete, you have obtained a Tier 3 Civilization Architecture Blueprint—Earth Crust Engine Type IV]

[Your Alliance Points +30,000]

[Leader Reputation +3,000]

Earth Crust Engine: Even in the Mechanical Realm, only the Heavy Machinery Civilization can operate this industrial creation. When you have enough Earth Crust Engines, you can even move stars. Of course, this version of the Earth Crust Engine is more focused on energy storage; it extracts geothermal energy from the Earth Core, undergoes complex processes, and ultimately converts it into pure energy.

"At last, I can give Director Du an answer," Gao Gong breathed a sigh of relief. As a new enterprise, insufficient production capacity is the biggest issue, and in this regard, no amount of fighting ability could help.

However, with this thing, the production shortfall will be greatly resolved.

This is why, even as just a blueprint, the rewards are so plentiful.

A glance at the Alliance Template showed that Leader Reputation had already broken through 40,000, reaching ’41,800’. Once it hits 50,000, the boss template task can be activated, and Gao Gong’s fourth template would fall into place.

...

When Dida saw Gao Gong again, she saw Mr. G waving a Civilized Stick. The stick was silver-white, with the handle engraved with strange patterns, and the base bore a string of odd numbers. Strangely, Dida recognized each number, yet when taken together, she couldn’t understand them.

With each turn of the Civilized Stick, it seemed to Dida that a ’three-dimensional numeric model’ took shape; it appeared to be an electronic sandbox, or even a stereoscopic human form. She even saw herself, as a girl model taking shape alongside the Civilized Stick’s movement.

The girl even glanced at her, smiling slightly.

’What a strange piece of equipment.’

Dida didn’t dare look much, hastily saying, "The digital guardians outside have retreated, was it your doing, sir?"

"Yes," Gao Gong did not explain further, turning around and extending the civilized stick, thrusting it fiercely into the space ahead. A layer of digital barrier manifested and then shattered, revealing the real space, with creaking power devices and specially manufactured freezing chambers resembling morgues due to their proximity to the energy reactor.

"Let’s go."

Once they entered reality, Dida couldn’t maintain her form, becoming transparent and on the verge of disappearing. Without data injected into the ’bionic shell’, she would turn into an electronic ghost within five minutes, her intelligent data dispersing everywhere.

Her mouth opened, but before she could speak, the sound of ’ding’ resonated, indicating the completion of a task.

[Task complete, reward: one energy shell remolding]

’Turns out the plot has moved forward.’

Dida suddenly understood, falling silent and following behind.

They bypassed the location of the energy bar’s insertion point, and with the opening of a metal gate, the two arrived at the core of the ’Earth Crust Engine.’

It was a massive ring-shaped reactor, with a ’reactor core’ every ten meters.

Unlike a typical nuclear reactor, it had no ’fuel injection port’. Its base directly connected to the earth core, extracting magma and utilizing the high-temperature, high-pressure environment to directly draw fission particles, which then orbited on the ’ring energy circuit’ for further energy reactions, refining into the most primitive energy.

Though not the first time shocked by the high-tech architecture in the game, the sight of this ’super nuclear power station’ with an estimated thirty-kilometer diameter still left Dida awestruck.

As for Gao Gong, he had long lost interest in such planetary structures; compared to the existence of giant structures, the present Tier 3 structures were just ants.

Gao Gong closed his eyes, and the next moment, the operation platform on the perimeter of the ’ring energy circuit’ lit up, beginning parameter adjustments.

"Go down."

"Huh, huh!?"

Dida was stunned for a moment, yet before she could react, Gao Gong’s ’wisdom staff’ touched the back of her head, pushing her out.

This female player did not fall into the ’abyss’, but as the energy circuits lit up, she was absorbed into the center of the ’ring energy circuit’, collapsing into various data forms.

The next moment, pure energy radiance shone from the reactor core, enveloping her.

The meticulously adjusted parameters began to take effect, and at the same time, the ’biological computer’ functioned fully, akin to building blocks—during this period, any delay in data processing would trigger a chain reaction.

Carbon-based, information, energy, mechanics, among which, information and energy have the closest relationship. The radiation species and black hole species traveling through the universe are mostly nurtured from reactions between these two.

However, even then, creating an energy shell from nothing required at least three conditions.

The first, a top-notch charging device like the Earth Crust Engine

The second, an experienced practitioner like Gao Gong

The third, the ’life circuit’ exclusive to energy species

As someone ambitious about promoting the ’Rich Lady Love’ series across the universe, Mr. G naturally researched the xp—oh no, the life structure—of energy species, gaining ample experience.

The energy shell he chose for her was called the ’Walter Energy Mushroom’, a fungus-type species wandering in the Walter star system. Although an energy creature, it bore the traits of fungus-type biology, able to disperse mycelium and capture vast amounts of cosmic radiation information.

Perhaps it was precisely because of this characteristic that over eons, it gradually transformed into a pure energy creature.

If the Tier 1 and Tier 2 ’energy mushrooms’ were still just highly survivable, excellent at capturing information, but otherwise lacking, reaching Tier 3 made them completely different.

Fungus-type species, upon reaching Tier 3, undergo a ’human form’ transformation, and the transformed energy mushroom is also known as the ’Spirit Race.’

The Spirit Race has another nickname: ’Cosmic Elf,’ with their mastery over energy manipulation and various talents through the roof, ranking among the top ten in the energy system.

This was Gao Gong’s gift to an old friend.

Gao Gong rubbed his forehead, sighing and talking to himself, "If it weren’t for an old acquaintance, who would bother with this hassle? All I need is just a decoy."

The radiance grew brighter, and within it, an energy species resembling a girl above and a mushroom below gradually took form.

...

At the same time, Gox’s ’virus invasion operation’ announced its conclusion, and the entire network of the Earth Net Group was successfully paralyzed by her.

If it weren’t for her actions, Gao Gong’s operation wouldn’t have gone as smoothly. This young lady single-handedly blew up the avatars of four sages, violently and ruthlessly.

"Boss lady, we need to retreat, Mr. G has sent a message."

"Retreat, retreat for what! We charge straight into the Earth Net Group headquarters and flatten everyone!"

"..."

Before the big, black guy could think of how to persuade his boss lady, Gox suddenly squinted, twirling the lollipop in her mouth and raising the rocket launcher in her hand.

Not far away, with the sound of footsteps, an elder slowly emerged from the data stream.