This is not mechanical ascension...

Chapter 631 Return to the Royal Court
"Morris' death can be regarded as a disaster relief for us. If we had dispatched core personnel to go there, we would have suffered heavy losses."

"The current situation has simply returned to the time when the Chaos Star Gap War just ended."

Malcolm's consolation from another direction was somewhat helpful.

Gutierrez's expression softened slightly and he looked back at Costat.

“Oh, by the way, the Eternal Holy Throne…” He said in a deep voice, “Without Morris, the rest of us are just lambs to be slaughtered. This Titan relic must be in our hands.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Costat's expression turned strange, and a voice came from outside the screen.

"President Gutierrez, I have absolutely no objection." Levenbeck's half-bloody and hideous face squeezed into the screen.

Gutierrez's face was not embarrassed, but frowned, "This is a top-secret military intelligence report, why are you here?"

"Because I also have a report to make." Levenback said, "I suggest that the Overlord Laboratory be divided up immediately and not gathered together."

"What the hell are you planning?" Gutierrez stared at him.

"Reason." Adam's eyes flickered and he spoke concisely.

"Insurance... Qinglong needs insurance." Levenbeck said solemnly:

"The reason why I stressed before that Morris must not be exposed to Qinglong unless it is absolutely necessary is because if he finds out, we can use the Overmind's corpse to create something that may threaten him."

"This guy will definitely find the body at all costs."

"If Morris was still alive, Qinglong might still be cautious, but now Morris is dead."

"And your use of other forces has made him clearly understand that we have almost no way to stop him in a short period of time, and we will act without scruples."

Levenbaker's analysis makes sense. Dominating the laboratory is of utmost importance and there must not be any more accidents.

"Can you create a second Morris?" Adam asked the key question.

The other two looked at him, and Levenbeck couldn't help but smile bitterly, "It's not just Morris that's important, the fusion medium is now in Qinglong's hands."

The three of them frowned, and Gutierrez quickly asked, "Is it possible for Qinglong to reappear Morris?"

"Unlikely." Levenback shook his head. "People like Morris are extremely rare. The high purity of his Titan blood is a key factor in his ability to fuse his limbs. There shouldn't be another one like him in the current interstellar world."

After hearing him speak so confidently, the three of them relaxed their expressions a little.

But they were also worried because they had seen impossible things happen to Qinglong too many times.

"I hope you three will think about my proposal." Levenbeck said again, "Qinglong found the exact location once, but is there any guarantee that he won't find it the second time?"

In fact, the three of them had made the decision as soon as Levenbaker made the suggestion.

It couldn't be split before because the limbs couldn't be separated.

Now, with the help of Levenbaker's methods, they have already divided the corpse into several parts, and it is no problem to study them separately.

They even tend to think that having all the information firmly in their own hands is a familiar feeling to them.

"We will discuss this matter." Adam waved his hand and ended the communication directly.

"Let's split it up," Gutierrez said immediately. "He's right. This is the safest way. We can share one copy of all the existing research data."

"I want the head, and only the head." Adam spoke first.

The other two frowned slightly. The head contained the greatest value, so they naturally didn't want to give it to Adam easily.

After a short and intense debate, the result was soon reached.

The Empire received the head and paid the ransom of five Class X life forms of the Federation. The reason why it did not pay the ransom of the Covenant was because of Gutierrez's outrageous conditions:
"I joined the game the latest, so the existing Domination Laboratory belongs to me."

To this end, he gave a smaller portion of his remaining limbs to the Federation, and did not require Adam to pay additional ransom for the Covenant.

The existing Overmind Laboratory was also built with the efforts of the Federation and the Covenant, and it consumed a lot of resources.

Gutierrez has his own plans. This time, the Saint Castle incident was another major defeat, and two X-level life forms were captured. He has to give an explanation to the inside, and dominating the laboratory can be considered as a recovery.

After it was finalized, instructions were quickly issued.

.........

What happened in the Holy Castle happened quietly, and no one knew about it except the three major civilizations.

Naturally, they would not publicize such a scandal. All soldiers in the Saint Castle base were ordered to keep their mouths shut. After being dispersed, they were transferred to various secret bases that could not communicate with the outside world.

Until a month and a half later, when Li Ming and Anduin's stargate construction team reunited, there was still no disturbance in the interstellar space.

The person in charge had received Anduin's news long ago, and seemed extremely excited when he contacted Li Ming.

They don't just rush on their way, but can directly build a two-way star gate when they arrive at the destination.

Only the three major civilizations can build a stargate that can directly cross a half-year voyage.

When Anduin's men arrived, they had already divided into small teams.

After reaching a node, some people will stay behind to build a small star gate.

The rest of the people went to the next node. Along the way, they had built no less than ten star gate nodes.

Although this method requires a lot of resources, it saves time and the construction of small star gates is also quite convenient.

Li Ming asked how long it would take, and the person in charge replied firmly, "It only takes twelve days for us to build a small two-way stargate."

"Twelve days..." Li Ming was surprised at the speed and signaled them to get to work.

Their modularity has reached a certain level, and they only need to take out various structural modules from the accompanying transport ships and assemble them.

However, this can only be done for small nodes. The material properties required for large stargates are almost several levels higher.

In front of the legendary Azure Dragon, the person in charge was so excited that he patrolled day and night. In just ten days, he built a small interconnected star gate.

"Not bad..." Li Ming nodded with satisfaction. The small star gate in front of him was indeed not that big. The original Holy Castle would definitely not be able to pass through it, but now only the hall part of the Holy Castle was left, so he could pass through it easily.

"Tataclo?" He turned his head and looked at the uniformed person in charge next to him.

"I'll remember you and mention it to Anduin."

Tataklo's face immediately turned red, "It is my honor to serve you."

Li Ming nodded and didn't stay here for too long. He had already wasted too much time.

Quickly passed through the star gate channel and made more than ten jumps in succession.

Two or three days later, he finally came out of the giant star gate station of the Mechanical Royal Court.

However, there was only one lonely warship, which was Li Ming's main body. In fact, according to the time, he should have arrived at the Mechanical King's Court long ago, but he had been staring at the Holy Castle and did not log off, so he was delayed until now.

He placed the Holy Castle somewhere else and did not bring it back to the Mechanical King's Court. On the one hand, it was to avoid accidents, and on the other hand, he did not want to bring possible disasters to the Mechanical King's Court.

"Tsk..." Li Ming stood in front of the string window, staring at the giant node station in the distance.

This is the new center of chaos. Nearly half a year has passed since the siege.

Hosted by Anduin, with resource support from Sheffield, Barbaroer and others, the central node was rebuilt in the Mechanical Court.

The construction this time is not complicated. The overall shape looks like a hollow metal sphere, but it is five times the size of a conventional life planet. It seems to have started operating, with spaceships coming and going crisscrossing.

The Mechanical Royal Court and the central node are in a pincer attack, and the entire boundless starry sky has long been brightly lit, with subsidiary nodes of all sizes increasing all the time.

Just as Anduin expected, after the siege ended, far more active life forms than before in the chaotic star gap came from all directions of the interstellar space.

And here is the new center of the Chaos Star Gap.

Li Ming still returned to the Mechanical Royal Court quietly, and the "rebirth" construction plan had long been completed.

However, the Mechanical Royal Court has been in a period of rapid expansion recently, and the payments have not yet been settled.

However, several construction companies were very considerate and said there was no rush and they would just pay the money first.

Ulrich and the others naturally came to greet him first. They were extremely excited. Their eyes kept scanning the mechanical body following behind Li Ming, their throats rolling.
The other person was holding a long spear covered with fine cracks in his hand, which was the legendary Kashmir Spear.

Li Ming just chatted briefly and then let everyone go, leaving only Ulrich to report. He said as he walked:

"…According to your instructions, the accumulation of metal energy has been suspended and all efforts have been made to expand. Currently, various types of mechanical bodies have continued to accumulate tens of millions, mainly F-class mechanical bodies…"

"…There are only 8 million E-class machines, and the production line is still increasing…"

"Hmm..." Li Ming nodded, "After dealing with these, we will send the F-class mechanical bodies to various mining nodes. In the future, metal materials will become more scarce in the interstellar space."

“Understood.” Ulrich naturally knew that the popularity of the Path of Mechanical Evolution had not died down. It was said that the release date of Seed of the Mechanic was less than two months away.

The price of metal materials changes almost every day, and the price of mineral stars is also soaring. If it weren't for the Mechanical Royal Court's Qinglong line, those mineral stars that had been negotiated before would have been gone long ago.

"In addition, in recent times..." Ulrich described in detail the expansion process of the royal court.

Li Ming listened carefully. The branch nodes of the Mechanical Royal Court expanded to more than 5,000 civilizations within half a year.

Even in a large part of civilizations, they simply opened a branch with a sign.

But the capital flow cannot withstand such rapid expansion.

The funds now used for expansion and production line adjustment are all interest-free loans from various civilizations.

But Li Ming didn't care. Once the machine seeds went on sale, he would be able to get all the money back within a year.

Afterwards, he went to the mechanical warehouse to perform enlightenment, and the arc storm almost penetrated from the planet warehouse.

It took a whole day to completely process the mechanical bodies that had accumulated for such a long time.

A large number of cutting-edge mechanical bodies have naturally mutated. The number of S-class mechanical bodies exceeds twenty, and the number of A-class mechanical bodies exceeds five hundred.

He selected a part of the mechanical bodies and prepared to secretly go to several coordinates of his choice to build a secret base.

"By the way, there is one last thing." Li Ming said again.

Ulrich behind him had already turned on the recording device to avoid missing any requests.

"Wait two or three days, a guy named Leonidas will come back, and we can just make arrangements for him."

Ulrich nodded.

After dealing with these tedious matters, Li Ming finally returned to Tiangong and his own development room.

Sitting on the platform in the center, he couldn't help but heaved a sigh of relief. He had been delayed for so long and had not properly developed the gene seeds. The current development progress was still stagnant at 75%. Now he finally had time to do it.

However, there is no need to rush at this moment.

As soon as Li Ming stretched out his hand, the mechanical guard behind him held the Kashmir Spear in front of him.

He clenched the Kashmir Spear in his left hand, while three inconspicuous stone pieces appeared in his right hand.

The reason why the Mechanical Royal Court stopped accumulating is not because there is no shortage of metal energy, but because the gap is very large and they don’t need that much, so they might as well focus on other things.

Not to mention the repairs, the 40 billion for the Gun of Kashmir and the 60 billion for the Trinity Stone add up to 100 billion.

Of course, there was one thing he didn't forget.

The [Holy Spirit Core] is still in a broken state, but this thing requires a large number of elite mechanical bodies as a basis, and simply repairing it is of no use, so he has put it aside.

He opened the control page and looked through it. To repair this thing, the amount of metal energy needed was not much, only 200 quadrillion.

“Twenty billion can be described as ‘talent’…” Li Ming felt a toothache.

The total cost of these things is 120 billion. If the cost of repairing the gun is included, it should not exceed 150 billion. He still has about 8 billion left.

The total amount is almost enough to offset the ransom of the three major civilizations, so he is not too anxious to get metal energy.

However, the ransom for the three major civilizations must be provided in batches.

The first batch will arrive soon, just half a month later.

He has already informed Reynolds and Mikhail to send a batch of prisoners over, and they are on the way.

There are priorities.

The first thing that needs to be controlled is naturally the Gun of Kashmir.

As for the other two items, they have certain limitations in their use and should naturally be placed at the back.

After making up his mind, Li Ming was preparing to develop gene seeds, but suddenly he remembered something.

When he switched to another controlled object, his expression suddenly turned into surprise. "Why did it change position again?"

He opened the star map and input a series of coordinates. The star map continued to zoom in and finally stopped at a remote star region.

These are the coordinates of the Dominant Laboratory. Compared with the last location, the coordinates have changed again.

"Could it be that because of the incident at the Holy Castle, the location was changed out of caution?" Li Ming rubbed his chin.

But the changed coordinates this time actually brought them closer to the position of Anduin's men, and it is estimated that it can save at least half a month of time.

"Tsk...interesting..." Li Ming quickly opened the smart terminal and submitted the new coordinates to Anduin.

(End of this chapter)