Chapter 754: Chapter 278: Boss Alliance
According to the style of ancient martial arts novels, the first generation is often the strongest, the second generation is okay, but lacks talent and cannot reach the realm of the first generation; the third generation is more unfortunate, directly due to the factors of vendettas, romantic entanglements, and family decline, they can’t even keep their territory.
Then, a gifted young man goes through various dramatic face-slapping plots, finally mastering divine skills, reaching the realm of the first generation, revitalizing his forces and restoring the prestige of the martial world.
However, in the profession of Mechanical Hunter, it’s completely reversed.
The first generation was still in the ’slash and burn’ stage, not even having unlocked the technology tree.
The second generation did unlock the technology tree but was quickly eliminated due to version updates and stat inflation.
As for the third generation, sorry, the third has already practiced the Mecha Demon Technique in reverse training, completely not being human anymore.
So the third generation ignored the second, and the second was a bit disdainful of the first, feeling like "how can you old things who belong in a retirement home have the qualifications to ’re-adjust the stats’ with us."
Little Woman says they are all trash.
Speaking of which, although Little Woman still looks like a version of a flat-chested loli, she’s not young. She was already 30 when she was in the Iron Sand Desert, and now several years have passed, she can drop the ’Little’ part.
An old acquaintance who was not afraid to die raised this issue, but after thinking for a moment, Little Woman said, "That’s the nickname I’ve got. If you don’t believe me, look at my chest muscles as hard as steel plates—aren’t they big? Or is your little thing very big?"
Soon, the silver-white Great Curved Saber suddenly appeared on the sea, resembling two overlapping silver curved sabers. The silver-white hull of the starship gave a strong sci-fi feel, as if suddenly transitioning from the chaotic Cyber Test Field to the cosmic starry sky.
"What a beautiful sky carrier!" Cowboy Apu couldn’t help but praise; it was at least a hundred times more beautiful than the one from the Security Corps.
"This thing is called a starship," Little Woman said, implying Apu was hopelessly provincial.
Then, in the next moment, beams of radiance enveloped everyone. Before they could react to what this ’radiance’ was, their sight was like a kaleidoscope of rapidly spinning visions, as if being disassembled into countless mechanical parts, or like diving into the belly of a mechanical monster.
When they came to, they were already in a square, similarly silver-white conference room.
Several old people were sipping tea while chatting.
Compared with these ’Old Hunters,’ the few elders before them were genuine elders, with black spots on their faces and skin wrinkled enough to pinch a fly to death.
"It’s actually you," Tamil showed a rare expression of surprise.
"So it’s you, the young scalpel kid—what, here to grind knives again?" C-53145 laughed, revealing a mouthful of mechanical teeth.
C-53145, D 31134, E 12453, representatives of the empire’s Synthetic People and excellent mechanical masters.
"So it’s not that group of old guys, but you old guys indeed," the pilot exclaimed.
Initially, they thought the ’old guys’ referred to the old generation of Hunters but found out it was not the case—they were not Hunters but old generation mechanical workers.
However, in a sense, these three are more heavyweight ’old guys,’ tracing back even to the empire of the Civilization Era.
Back then, during Du Gao Technology’s ’hunting transformation pipeline,’ which was not yet perfected, these old things relied on hand-grinding techniques to help implant numerous prosthetics.
This featured genuine imperial craftsmanship.
"Why have you come to participate, are you loyal to the Leader?" Tamil asked coldly.
D 31134, with a dry pipe in his mouth, chuckled.
"Kid, if you were in the empire, you’d certainly be the staunchest royalist."
"No loyalty, cannot complete Imperial Guard transformation," Tamil insisted: "Now is still time to quit."
"Tsk tsk, kid, let’s put it this way—regarding loyalty to the Leader, we might not have as much as you do, but speaking of loyalty to the empire, you can’t match us even by chasing us," E 12453 added.
"Moreover, to say something you youngsters don’t like to hear, regarding transformation success rate, we’re much higher than you."
"Why? You’re not professional warriors!" another Old Hunter questioned.
"Because they are Synthetic people."
A voice came from outside, as Gao Gong, Du Zhaodi, and Xu Xiaoming entered.
"Leader!"
"Leader!"
"President Du!"
"President Du!"
"Four-eyed brat, so it’s you!" A hearty Old Hunter slapped the other’s shoulder, causing Xu Xiaoming to grimace.
Everyone present was old acquaintances, even the youngest Xu Xiaoming was a veteran in the Iron Sand Desert, and many still remembered the time when this little guy wet himself seeing out-of-control Bionic body parts.
"Sit down, don’t stand," Gao Gong motioned, earnestly pulled out a chair for Director Du before sitting next to him.
"You’ve seen the previous messages, right? Isn’t the Imperial Guard cool, not only mastering some of the faction’s power but also possessing a part of my power."
"Absolutely loyal to the Leader!" Tamil said fervently.
This belongs to the out-of-the-ordinary style, most here were buzzing and asking questions they had thought up along the way.
"Boss, is it really as strong as you say?"
"Cap, controlling so many bodies at once, which one is the main body?"
"If thoughts are divided into a hundred parts, can we manipulate them well?"
"Boss, between the Imperial Guard and ’biomechanical armor,’ who is the stronger?"
Gao Gong glanced at Xu Xiaoming, the young Biologist quickly stood up and said:
"Everyone, please remain calm. I will answer all your questions."
He opened a pre-prepared PowerPoint presentation, the favorite meeting style of old-timers like Professor Han, which was inherited by his apprentice.
"I’ll go through this one by one with you. The core technology of the ’Imperial Guard’ is the ’wetware’..."
As Xu Xiaoming slowly explained, the old hunters gradually quieted down, occasionally showing an expression of realization.
According to his explanation, whether it’s ten guards or a hundred guards, they are essentially one ’shell’ and one ’system’. This is why ’cloning technology’ is part of this ’civilization trait’.
There is a category among the radiation beasts called ’Trunk Separation’, meaning that these radiation beasts can separate their bodies into several parts, which is somewhat similar to these ’Imperial Guards’.
During expeditions, one person becomes a hundred, forming a small guard legion, but usually, the other ’guards’ remain dormant, with only one ’guard’ main body moving freely.
This is somewhat like an executive-level life-saving secret technique, ’consciousness upload’ + ’cloned body’.
And these old hunters understood why these three older guys were more suited to be guards than themselves, because they are synthetic people.
Compared to natural people, the success rate of extracting ’wetware’ from synthetic people is at least 60% higher.
The reason is simple: they are originally a ’mosaic’ creation, a product of ’cloning technology’ and ’biotechnology’.
"Feeling envious?" C-53145 winked at the old hunters.
Meanwhile, the honest E 12453 looked at Du Zhaodi and sincerely thanked her:
"President Du, thank you for giving us old folks, whose lives are nearing the end, a second chance."
"You are all heroes of the group, and the group will not forget you." Du Zhaodi said calmly. Before her subordinates, she was consistently unemotional, but her actions earned everyone’s approval.
"Moreover," C-53145 rarely spoke earnestly: "The Empire is gone, leaving us a group of rootless old relics; now, in rebuilding the Empire’s glory, we are duty-bound!"
D 31134 said to the old hunters across, "Rest assured, even if the transformation is successful, we won’t compete with you for the chance to enter the battlefield. We are primarily responsible for the repair and modification work of the ’guards’."
Xu Xiaoming took a sip of water and seeing that the others had almost finished chatting, he switched to another slide.
The first image showed a four-meter-tall heavy mechanical transformer, emanating a strong sense of massiveness. At first glance, it seemed like a killing machine, and not just one, but a group of them.
The old hunters could immediately tell that it incorporated many advanced techniques from different factions, including Mecha technology, Construct technology, Energy Engine technology, and Prosthetic Body technology.
Xu Xiaoming pointed to the glowing X shape behind the ’guard’s’ heavy chest armor.
"This is the group’s newest model ’X-type energy reactor’, which is ten times more efficient than the old version reactor. Furthermore, this large-scale reactor is on par with large mecha in terms of output efficiency."
He then pointed to the menacing gear spikes on the head, shoulders, wrists, and knees of the ’guard’, explaining:
"Modeled after the gear machine, this full-body construct is astonishingly destructive. Once implanted, even the weak shell parts become killing machines."
"The entire mechanical body uses memory metal mixed with titanium alloy, achieving a 100% liquid metal recovery rate. This means as long as your injury isn’t fatal, it can self-repair during war, albeit with limits."
The mixture of the two metals turned the ’guard’s’ exterior into a flashy gold, quite flashy indeed.
"Since we’re using ’wetware’, and not implanting into the human body system, there’s no need to make do within a snail’s shell, so our weapon designs are quite bold, such as an oversized energy jet."
In the image, a barrel as thick as a water tank was mounted on the shoulder, and without a ’restraint device’, the released energy cannon was not columnar but umbrella-shaped, with a shorter range but stronger lethality.
"Furthermore, since all mechanical bodies are controlled by wetware, we’ve improved the ’AT force field’ into a large ’AT defense field’."
In the image, over a hundred ’guards’ formed an odd battle formation, and then, a transparent defense field protected them entirely, while what they faced was a Beast Tide caused by an S-level Beast King.
This S-level Beast King was probably also performing under the control of ’Little Lady No. 2’.
"I remember, ’AT force fields’ can’t be used by mechanical bodies, right?" an old hunter couldn’t help but ask.
"That’s right," Xu Xiaoming nodded.
"The nature of this energy field is closer to a ’biological magnetic field’, so in a ’biomechanical armor’, the operator must achieve ’biomechanical unity’ with the armor, or synchronize. However, here, we have taken a different technological approach, namely ’soul technology’..."
As the introduction continued, the old hunters’ eyes lit up.
This ’Imperial Guard’ is a monster.
Their melee capabilities can match an A-level radiation beast.
Energy output is comparable to large mechas.
Their method of hunting involves loading biological and combat chips, using the most scientific method for the most savage warfare.
And because there’s no need to consider the tolerance range of human body systems, personal modifications can be exceptionally wild. With this modification level, a typical mechanical transformer would have experienced countless instances of ’cyber psychosis’.
Most importantly, it’s not individual combat, but group collaborative combat.
Gao Gong silently looked at these old acquaintances.
The Cyber Test Field has a benefit: the people here have exceptional endurance.
He was previously worried that transitioning from controlling a single shell lifeform to simultaneously controlling a hundred shell lifeforms might cause rejection.
But now, it seems he was overthinking.
Moreover, becoming a ’guard’ offers a significant advantage unknown to others, known only by Gao Gong for now.
A boss template, and a shared boss template at that.
This is even more exaggerated than any extreme modification.
From a player’s perspective, having a boss template establishes you as a standard boss.
And now, the bosses have grouped together.
