This is not mechanical ascension...

Chapter 440: Finally, the Machinists Association was attacked
A few days later, in a slightly narrow cabin, Li Ming sat cross-legged under the coverage of the gravity field. A layer of black energy particles was slowly surging on the surface of his body, sometimes bright and sometimes dim.

Under the stimulation of the evolutionary source, the body's cells become highly active, like a ignited flame, absorbing and spitting out energy particles, promoting evolution within the body.

Not long after, Li Ming slowly opened his eyes and exhaled a stream of energy containing black arc particles, which he quickly absorbed back to avoid triggering an energy storm.

"Hmm..." He glanced at the control bar, and the evolution system was finally completed. The last A-level evolution essence also became S-level.

There is even an additional X-level evolution source, and the evolution blessing directly reaches 64 times. Under the promotion of [Sublimation Source Crystal], the overall evolution blessing has reached times, which is nearly an increase of more than times.

Development efficiency has improved a lot. He estimated that the time to increase development progress by 1% should be reduced to three months.

"Hmm... find seven more X-level life forms and raise all the evolutionary essences to X-level. I estimate that it will be able to increase by 1% within a month..."

Li Ming thought to himself, and the corner of his mouth twitched involuntarily. Seven X-level life forms are not so easy to find.

However, this matter is not so urgent. There are not many people who can threaten his life now, unless an X-level life form that has embarked on the ultimate path launches a sneak attack.

But there is Qinglong at the top. Qinglong is so tough that almost no one will deal with him directly. The Holy Mother Church is a special case.

Thinking about it, Li Ming sighed again, "Unfortunately, the Sublimation Source Crystal is a special type of controlled object and cannot be upgraded through normal means."

In the past six months, he has tried many things to increase development efficiency, but the evolution essence is the most suitable control object.
Shaking his head, Li Ming closed his eyes and continued to develop the gene seeds. It would take at least ten days to reach the nearest star gate.

Two or three days later, a communication request from the Black Hole Network interrupted his development process.

"Holy Mother Church?"

The contact name was just a series of code names, and there was no such note in his address book. He took a quick glance and found that the Holy Mother Church had approved his friend request at some point.

"Tsk... they should have discovered it." Li Ming couldn't help feeling a little strange. According to the original situation, he should have been taken to the lair of the radicals.

I don’t know what these two guys are thinking now.

According to conservative sources, both the Virgin and the Prophet are better than the Oath Keeper.

If he was really brought to the lair of the radicals, things would not go smoothly. With the control objects in his hands, he could sneak away without any intention, but it would not be so easy to clear them out.

All I can say is that things in this world are unpredictable, Li Ming thought in his heart and chose to connect. A dark virtual screen popped up with only a white sound wave line.

It was not a video call, but just an audio connection. Neither party spoke at first. Li Ming was not in a hurry and waited leisurely.

After a moment, the thin sound wave line on the screen trembled, and then the voice of the prophet came, "Sir Qinglong, I wonder if you have any important news to trade?"

Li Ming smiled silently. These guys were really good at pretending to be ignorant even though they knew the truth. Now they were bringing up important news again.

He had been short of Terrax Stones before, so he contacted the Mother Church, but now he has cleared out the conservatives' lair, and the more than twenty Terrax Stones are enough for him to use for a long time.

"The base of your other faction has been wiped out. Do you think this is important news?" Li Ming asked directly.

The prophet fell silent, as if he had not expected Qinglong to be so direct.

Li Ming pretended to be solemn and said, "The previous transactions were all consensual and we both got what we wanted. Why did you suddenly come up with this idea and plan to attack my students again?"

The prophet did not want to mention the previous cooperation, so he said: "I am contacting you for this matter. There may be some misunderstanding between us."

"Misunderstanding?" Li Ming said calmly, "What misunderstanding?"

"We have been separated from the conservatives for many years and have been at loggerheads with each other. This plan was not ours." The prophet explained. Li Ming was speechless after hearing this. Is he trying to fool fools?
"We promise that such a thing will never happen again." The prophet added, "At the same time, in order to thank you for helping us eliminate the conservatives, we are willing to give you two Terrax stones."

Li Ming's heart moved slightly. Is this money spent to buy peace?

This was an unexpected gain. It was indeed a good idea to leave those bodies behind. It seemed that they were quite frightened.

Li Ming muttered to himself, thinking that his family knew their own business, and it would be difficult for him to find the Holy Mother Church's lair in a short period of time, let alone knock on their door.

At the same time, I also don't want to be watched by this perverted organization. Leaving the body behind would be a form of intimidation.

If the other party really doesn't dare to have any thoughts about him anymore, that would be the best. It won't be too late to attack him when he has the strength.

"It seems that this is really a misunderstanding." Li Ming thought, "However, I don't need the Terrax Stone. If you really want to thank me, just change it to metal material."

Metal materials... no shortage of Terrax Stone? It seems that this cleanup has brought Qinglong a lot of benefits, the prophet thinks.

But no matter what, it would be great if Qinglong was willing to put this matter aside for the time being. "No problem, we will provide one ton of Hipponir Star Marrow Alloy and send it to the Mechanical King's Court."

"One ton of star marrow alloy?" Li Ming secretly estimated that this was a high-end material, and his estimated value was no less than 20 billion star coins.

After all, it's free, which is pretty good.

After confirming that this was a misunderstanding, the atmosphere between the two men eased a lot, and the prophet even said, "Mr. Qinglong, the Holy Mother Church split the conservatives and took away a lot of important items. If you find them, we are willing to pay a large sum of money to redeem them."

"Important items?" Li Ming's heart was slightly moved, "What important items?"

"I have pictures here..." said the prophet, sending over a few pictures.

Li Ming flipped through the books and found some strange things, such as oval flesh growths and black busts...

He had never seen any of them, except...

Li Ming's eyes were fixed on a picture. The black circular symbol stone was almost exactly the same as the one in Tan Wei's hand.

I had a hunch that the prophet had gone through so much trouble just for this stone.

"Well...what are the functions of these things?" Li Ming asked casually.

"This..." The prophet hesitated, "It is a matter of organizational secrets, so it is hard to say, but we are willing to pay a price that will satisfy you."

Then, she added, euphemistically: "Many of these things are difficult to use without special methods, so they are just decorations in your hands."

"You have a point." Li Ming nodded, and then changed the subject, "But I didn't find anything you said."

The prophet was silent for a moment, his tone calm, "Really? Then the Oath Keeper may be hiding somewhere else."

After a few perfunctory words, the two ended their conversation. The prophet turned to look at the Virgin Mary beside him, "He should be calmed down for the time being. He is not going to go to war with us."

"But... he pretended not to know about the Oath Keeper Stone." "Our coordinates are top secret. It will take a lot of effort for him to find them. Temporary reconciliation is the best option." The Virgin frowned. "As for the Oath Keeper Stone, unless he didn't kill the Oath Keeper, he will definitely find it."

Her eyes flickered slightly. "However, even if he passes the test of the Kaleidoscope World, he will not be recognized. If it is not handled properly, perhaps the Oath Keeper Stone will help us eliminate this enemy."

.........

"What exactly is this thing?"

After the communication ended, Li Ming also became interested and walked to the tank guard in the corner.

It holds a black stone in its metal palm, and the black symbol has now spread to its entire palm, but has not caused any damage.

Li Ming's heart moved slightly, and he placed his palm on the metal shell of the tank guard and attempted to possess it again.

However, this time, he had a completely different feeling. His entire palm had an indescribable feeling, as if it did not belong to him.

With a gentle squeeze, black symbols surged. Suddenly, the possessed Li Ming felt his mind tighten and his vision suddenly blurred, as if he had fallen into a kaleidoscope, with all kinds of colors passing before his eyes.

He had experienced similar scenes many times, so he was not panicked. After a while, everything in front of him suddenly became clear.

"This is..." Li Ming frowned and looked around, not knowing where he was.

Everywhere you look, there are lush and strong ancient trees, dense and overgrown low shrubs, and even black translucent grass stems and wild flowers.

But they are all made of black translucent crystal, and the entire crystal jungle is filled with crystal clear inky black.

Even the ground beneath your feet is covered with fine sand that feels like soil but has the texture of crystal.

He was extremely alert and checked his physical condition, and found that he was still wearing the tank uniform.

Then, he immediately sensed the control system and found that it was still there, which made him feel a little relieved.

But in such a beautiful environment, what fills the surroundings is the omnipresent hostility and sense of oppression.

Li Ming didn't know where the feeling of oppression came from. He stayed where he was for a long time before he tried to move forward. As he took a step, the world changed in an instant.

The black plants disappeared, replaced by a vast and chaotic sky, as dim as dusk. The surroundings were covered by layers of strange black shadows, and a dark purple mist floated in the air.

The sense of oppression all around was stronger, but it could not cause any harm to the tank guard.

"One step, one world?" Li Ming frowned and tried to take another step forward. The surroundings changed again, as if it had turned into a fragmented world. Gray fragments were floating around, and the spiral stairs were entangled in front of his eyes, and then disappeared into a place he could not see.

"What on earth is this place?" Li Ming looked around and walked forward. The endless interstellar battlefield, the drifting Gobi Desert, and even the underwater scene that was unknown how many meters deep all appeared.

The pressure was getting stronger and stronger. I didn't know how long I had been walking, but in the end, the pressure from all sides was so great that even the tank guard could hardly bear it.

A voice suddenly appeared in Li Ming's mind, "Mechanical bodies cannot be inherited..."

The sound came out of nowhere and Li Ming didn't know what happened.

But the next moment, he returned to the cabin, and at the same time, Tan Wei's metal palm wrapped in black symbols returned to its original state.

It was as if nothing had happened, but the black round stone began to emit slight fluctuations, very slight.

"Inherit? Inherit what? Inherit the identity of the Oath Keeper?" Li Ming could only speculate based on the existing clues.

"Mechanical bodies are not allowed. It seems that only living beings are qualified."

He looked at the black stone and was sure he would not take any risks himself.

But I don't know if it was stimulated by this thing, it has been emitting energy fluctuations, which is very strange, as if it is some kind of frequency.

Li Ming took out the only detection equipment he had, but did not find any clues or signals.

"Weird..." He hesitated. This thing obviously had a secret, but he didn't know what it was.

He couldn't figure it out for the time being, so he could only leave it alone. On the way back, there was no change. This thing was still very calm, but it released energy fluctuations in a special pattern. The interval was 1.58 seconds.

And a piece of news arrived at the Star Gate almost at the same time as him--
[The Empire announces the establishment of an internal review body of the Mechanics Association to investigate mechanics within the country. If any violation of the Empire's laws is found, they will be severely punished! ]

It finally came, Li Ming looked at the statement.

The moment the imperial announcement came out, it caused an uproar among the stars.

"The wording is quite strong..." Li Ming pondered. As the saying goes, one cannot blame the masses. The group of mechanics is quite large, and the benefits of unity are even greater.

If we really want to deal with it strictly and severely, not to mention small civilizations, even advanced civilizations, or even star cluster-level civilizations will suffer serious damage.

But the Empire had severed ties with the Mechanics Association two years ago because of the Hammer Forging Master incident, and had already gone through the first round of purges.

It didn't cause much of a stir. Mechanics from other civilizations all looked over with concern, not knowing what was going on.

But three days later, the situation changed. As if they had agreed on it, the Star Cluster Republican Alliance and the Yongyao Federation quoted the Imperial announcement and also announced a joint review of the mechanics within their territory.

Many mechanics were still in a state of confusion. Wasn’t the Empire conducting an internal self-examination? Why did they suddenly agree?

What frightened them even more was that just one day later, countless civilizations between the stars responded, announcing that they would conduct an investigation and punish the offenders severely and strictly.

If a civilization did this, it would inevitably cause strong resistance. Even low-level mechanics have considerable power in the local civilization, and their network of contacts is even more complicated.

These people are basically the backbone of civilization, providing considerable tax revenue, GDP, and jobs. Moving against them is equivalent to killing one thousand enemies and injuring eight hundred of your own people.

But this situation where almost the entire galaxy is united in exerting pressure is terrifying, and no one is not afraid.

Even the most notorious plunderers and terrorist organizations in the interstellar space have never experienced such a situation of being "condemned by everyone".

More life forms cheered loudly, saying that these mechanics monopolized a lot of resources and were the local tyrants in many small civilizations.

For a moment, I actually felt like "The Interstellar Mechanics Association has suffered for a long time."

(End of this chapter)