This is not mechanical ascension...

Chapter 595: Lurking in the Mountains of Alloy Materials

"Is this... a psychic puppet?"

It was seen that those responsible for the handover and transportation were all special life forms wrapped in a metal shell engraved with energy patterns.

Its joints are made of translucent crystals, with liquid ancient spells surging inside, and a fist-sized star core embedded in the chest of each puppet.

This is not a mechanical creation, but an advanced product of rune technology. It is quite popular in the Federation. Its function is similar to that of a mechanical body, but its manufacturing process is completely different.

Not only that, the spaceship brought by the other party was also an ancient sailing warship.

Of course, it only looks similar on the outside, but it is engraved with an extremely complex rune array and is also capable of interstellar travel.

"This... there shouldn't be any intelligent system on it." Li Ming couldn't help but hesitate, his mind changing.

The entire sailing ship is covered with a layer of sophisticated rune shield.

Li Ming had a hunch that if he sneaked past in the shadows, he might be discovered.

Directed at me specifically, or just a coincidence?

Li Ming speculated in his heart, he estimated that it should not be a coincidence.

His various methods have probably been studied clearly long ago.

For example, you can hide in shadows, you can hide in metal machinery.

As master craftsmen, their achievements in mechanical technology are unparalleled. The three major civilizations simply avoided this and did not use mechanical technology at all.

He could even further speculate that perhaps that star gate node was also constructed by rune technology.

Rune technology is completely different from mechanical technology, and he has rarely come into contact with it. Even in the Federation, rune technology only serves a small number of middle and senior managers.

The main reason is that it has an application threshold, and its essence is composed of various runes that can mobilize cosmic energy.

These runes contain spiritual power and are almost impossible to produce on an assembly line basis, so they can only be drawn by manpower.

Therefore, there are no relevant creations applied to the lower class life.

Right now, Li Ming’s biggest trouble is how to cross this distance and sneak onto the opponent’s ship.

"Fuck..." Li Ming really didn't expect this.

It would be easy to jump out and kill people now, but he needs the coordinates of the star gate.

I guess these two guys in front of me may not know the coordinates.

After flipping through the control page, I found that most of the abilities were related to mechanical bodies.

“However, my ability to possess is not specific to mechanical bodies, but carriers…” Li Ming’s heart moved slightly.

As the shadows flickered, he had already rushed into a shadow further ahead.

This was the location he had chosen specifically, and the psychic puppet in charge of the transportation stepped over the shadow as he had expected.

[Psychic Puppet--Class B: A puppet made using rune technology, it uses mental power as the main driving force and can deeply understand commands.

Control conditions: 700,000 metal energy
Control ability - split and combined: can decompose limbs and temporarily combine them with other controlled objects. 】

The moment the control prompt popped up, Li Ming had already infused metal energy and took control.

"Ok?"

The moment the psychic puppet stopped, Carlo cast his gaze over there. After a slight hesitation, he walked forward and examined it carefully.

"It seems to be an energy fluctuation..." After disassembling the energy core and finding no other problems, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"This thing is actually born to be a vehicle..." Li Ming in the shadow was quite surprised as he had not yet possessed it.

After the possession, part of his body data will be forcibly strengthened on the vehicle, which is equivalent to strengthening.

With the current level of caution, we are bound to notice something is wrong.

After the other party confirmed that there was no problem, he possessed it. The metal shell on the surface seemed to be thicker, but the change was silent. Li Ming even carried out deep convergence and tried his best to weaken it.

"Could it be because of the ability of [Split Combination] that multiple psychic puppets can be freely assembled, and perhaps even form something like armor? Why does it feel similar to the Mechanical Holy Spirit..."

Li Ming couldn't help but guess that the upper limit would definitely not reach the Mechanical Holy Spirit.

The possessed psychic puppet, silently carrying the wailing redstone, has arrived on the sailing ship.

"Fortunately, the control system is powerful, otherwise it would be a real waste of time." Li Ming muttered to himself.

Carlo was greeting Bernhard. After a brief greeting, the sailing ship started and also sank into the jump channel.

Some Covenant soldiers who had never seen rune technology could not help but exclaim in surprise.

As Li Ming expected, this was not the final handover.

They gathered them at another place, and this time the ones responsible for the transportation were X-level life forms.

It is not only responsible for receiving this batch of wailing redstone, but also other materials.

We are almost there now.

This examination was the most rigorous, and even Carlo himself underwent a mental examination.

The goods were transferred only after confirming that there were no problems.

"Sure enough, it's all rune technology..." Li Ming moved the possessed psychic puppet again.

This spaceship is more like a rune fortress, with three floors, which makes it more magnificent.

If Reynolds and Mikhail came instead, they would probably be at a loss as it is a completely different technology tree.

Li Ming knew the X-level life form responsible for transportation. His name was Evans, nicknamed "Puppet Master". He was good at making psychic puppets.

After the handover was completed, Ivans was ready to set off.

This time we are indeed heading to the real star gate coordinates.

During the process, Li Ming remained motionless, not wanting to fail due to any accidents.

After staggering for more than half a month, he finally saw the star gate leading to the coordinates of the Holy Castle.

This is the largest star gate Li Ming has ever seen, standing in the void.

Each metal edge of the hexagonal frame presents a constantly changing color scheme, and the bright blue vortex inside is almost the same size as a star, with a large number of spaceships immersed in it at all times.

Only the three major civilizations can build a star gate of this scale that can directly cross a journey of half a year.

Similarly, except for the star gate nearby, all the fortresses and outposts here are made of rune technology.

There are three X-level life forms in charge of guarding this place, all of whom are strong men with energy levels exceeding 1500X.

There is also an old acquaintance, Knox, the King of Winter.

Ivans was in charge of handing him over. He looked at the vigilant Knox and frowned, "Do I still need to be tested?"

"This is the process..." Knox said indifferently.

Ivans had no choice but to suppress his body's instinctive reaction and plug in the mental state detector, saying speechlessly: "Are you really afraid that Qinglong will lurk here? The core transportation section is all based on rune technology, and he can't do anything about it."

"It's better to be prepared." Knox said in a muffled voice.

A large amount of materials were transported down and quickly transported into the spacecraft. Without stopping for the first time, they were transported into the star gate. "The materials are constantly being transported... I guess a batch of metal materials has been transported in." Li Ming has switched to the possessed psychic puppet again.

The center responsible for overall mobilization here should also be the psychic center.

This is a kind of quasi-intelligence created by a spiritual entity and has no underlying code.

It is also impossible to invade remotely through Suzaku.

He estimated that he only had one chance to make a move, and after that, the other party would definitely change all transportation plans.

"When we take action, we must first destroy the star gate..." He was thinking when a crazy idea emerged in his mind.

"Instead of intercepting it here, it would be better to go directly to the Saint Castle. They must have accumulated a lot of materials..."

As soon as this thought came to mind, it surged uncontrollably.

"No, there must be a Titan relic guarding it. If I act rashly, I might get caught..." Li Ming warned himself, but he couldn't help thinking: "But, as long as I'm careful enough and fast enough..."

His eyes flickered, and he decided to wait. If he could still get a large amount of metal materials, there would be no need to take too much risk.

He opened the smart terminal and found a new control object - [Metal Material Detector]

Although he did not anticipate the situation with Rune Technology, he also thought that it might be inconvenient to detect him while he was hiding this time, so he built this thing.

Its ability [Metal Detection] can detect metal resources within a certain range. According to his experiments, the S-level can detect up to one billion metal energies.

As for whether to upgrade it to level X, he was quite hesitant. After all, the versatility of this thing was relatively low.

It might only be used once, so it's not worth wasting a portion of World Blood and one billion metal energies for it.

"Forget it, let's wait a moment..." Li Ming suppressed his thoughts.

As a psychic puppet, just wait here.

Over the next period of time, various materials were delivered one after another.

There are also a lot of metal materials mixed in it, but the largest batch among them only has 600 million metal energies.

Moreover, the materials will not stay here. They will be transported all the way and will directly enter the star gate, so it is difficult to accumulate a large amount of metal materials.

Li Ming realized this. He was carrying a metal box in his hands. The dull sound of footsteps echoed in his ears. His mind was locked on the star gate again. "Either go back or go in..."

For this, he has already wasted nearly two months. If he returns empty-handed...

After thinking it over for a while, he had made up his mind, "I'll do it. If I really get into trouble, the worst that can happen is that I can ask the Supervisor to support me..."

He thought about it for a while and found that there were some backup measures, so it wasn't a big problem.

Li Ming acted immediately. He replaced the possessed psychic puppet again and followed the rune warship that was transporting materials into the star gate channel.

The distance of this jump was extremely far. Even through the stargate channel, it took nearly a day to sail out from the other side.

Dense arrays of warships and fortresses as big as regular planets almost cover the entire area. There is not only rune technology and mechanical technology here, but also various strange technological routes.

Various blockade devices crisscross each other, and the void is filled with hidden gratings, which is extremely strict.

It is extremely difficult to act secretly here.

Li Ming followed the towed transport spacecraft silently and landed on an interstellar fortress, which was almost in the central area.

A psychic wearing a silk robe followed them and controlled the psychic puppets through the psychic center.

As soon as he landed on the ground of the interstellar fortress, his heart began to beat fast. This was the metal detector taking effect, and it went off the charts.

Sure enough, it had to be here. Li Ming was slightly excited, but he suppressed it.

Carrying the materials, he followed the psychic puppet in front of him and entered the interstellar fortress.

There are fewer blockades inside the fortress, and many blockade measures are still unable to penetrate real objects.

The cargo they were transporting was a high-grade material called "Silent Stardust", which passed through metal warehouse doors along the way.

Based on the response of the [metal detector], Li Ming can roughly anchor the location where the metal materials are stored.

"I don't know how many of these metal materials there are, and I don't know how advanced they are..." Li Ming thought and opened the control page.

He also upgraded his [Subspace Folding Ring] from S-level to X-level to avoid the problem of being unable to accommodate high-level materials in the future.

The interior and strength of the folded space are naturally greatly expanded, and even have new capabilities.

[Living Storage: Can temporarily store living things that are lower than the level of controlled objects. ]

"It can actually hold living things..." Li Ming looked at the explanation in surprise. It is an interstellar consensus that this kind of stagnant space cannot store living things.

The possessed psychic puppets had already entered the storage room, and after leaving behind the Stardust of Annihilation, they left one after another.

.........

"... The overall materials are almost 70%..." Costat looked at the data summary and nodded: "The speed is faster than expected..."

Schmidt and Heins looked unhappy when they mentioned this matter.

With such a fast speed, the additional manpower and resources required are naturally endless.

“The next materials won’t be produced so quickly, and some even need to be refined on the spot,” Schmidt emphasized.

"Be cautious," Costat said, pausing before adding, "Especially safety. Qinglong's methods are hard to predict. He might have noticed our big move."

"Using rune technology is just to prevent him." Schmidt said, "He is a mechanical master and doesn't know much about rune technology."

"And when will the Chaos Star Gap take action?" Hines asked impatiently, "What on earth is your Saint Emperor thinking? When the time comes, he demands more manpower."

"Our plan has already taken into account the possibility of Qinglong taking action. Is he still worried?"

"The Holy Emperor must have his reasons for doing this." Costat frowned slightly.

In fact, he didn't quite understand why Adam suddenly became so concerned about the Chaos Star Gap and even asked him to report every detail.

……

Li Ming has already escaped from the psychic puppet and hid in the shadow of the metal corridor. The detection measures inside the fortress are far inferior to those outside.

He was very familiar with entering this kind of mechanical and technological territory, and the first thing he did was to cover the surveillance cameras.

He didn't dare use Suzaku to invade. He estimated that the overall strength of the artificial intelligence here was probably no less than that of Suzaku.

Adhering to the principle of being as cautious as possible, he carefully absorbed a tiny hole on the target metal warehouse door.

Then the whole person shrank and rushed in.

After entering, Li Ming's breathing almost stagnated, and his eyes were full of brilliance, which was the light reflected by the metal material.

The entire space is filled with a wide variety of metal materials, and various cutting-edge alloys are placed in special storage containers.

"Nova alloy, a metal material forged in the instant of a supernova explosion..." he murmured. In the interstellar space, it is sold by the gram. He saw two pieces as big as fists.

"There is also void forged steel, which is forged in the most violent fluctuations of the universe's void and contains wormhole fragments..."

He had never bought any of them. The premium was ridiculously high, and now the pile was a meter high.

Li Ming took a deep breath and took a quick glance, then estimated that the harvest this time might be even greater than he had imagined.

(End of this chapter)