This is not mechanical ascension...

Chapter 641 Development Progress - 90%
After the sale was announced, all distribution nodes welcomed an unprecedented boom. However, thanks to the fact that the distribution nodes were basically orderly and civilized, no major problems occurred.

Li Ming and his two companions had imposed restrictions. In order to prevent scalpers from making money that belonged to them, the distribution nodes were locally adapted, and only one mechanical seed could be purchased with one identity certificate.

"The first batch of one billion will probably be consumed soon..." Mikhail estimated.

It’s not that they don’t want to produce more, but the materials used to build mechanical seeds are very special and require complex extraction, so the production capacity cannot keep up for the time being.

"Don't be in a hurry, take your time..." Li Ming stayed and looked at the data for a while, then logged off.

When I went out, I saw Anduin was still waiting outside, even watching the live broadcast of the sale.

"Your Excellency is very heroic." Seeing Qinglong coming out, he put away his smart terminal and said with emotion.

You, a guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes, have you also learned to flatter so directly?
Li Ming glanced at him and said, "Thank you for the venue."

"It's a small matter." Anduin waved his hand.

Li Ming chatted with him for a few words and then prepared to return to the Mechanical King's Court.

Anduin still politely sent him to the star gate node and watched him leave.

Then he opened the smart terminal, logged into the black hole network, and searched for various information.

He always felt that what Qinglong had done not long ago could not have happened silently.

With the help of Anduin's stargate, the trip took only about a month.

Returning to the Mechanical Royal Court and getting off the spaceship, Li Ming glanced at the smart terminal and saw that the Dominant Laboratory was almost reaching the designated location.

In just two or three days, the first batch of modified mechanical bodies have already made their voices heard on the interstellar network and are even broadcasting the transformation live.

Various technology review bloggers spent extremely high prices to purchase mechanical seeds from scalpers and recruited volunteers to conduct experiments in order to get the first batch of traffic and publish various eye-catching videos.

"Research on the sexual characteristics of mechanical life forms, and their unique breeding abilities!"

"Surprise! A famous interstellar color website has a new section - Mechanical Life!"

"A fantastic idea - give my dog ​​a mechanical transformation, and it will become a mechanical life, even smarter than me."

Various weird videos emerge in an endless stream and gradually develop in a curious direction.

In fact, there are many evolutionary routes in the interstellar space, and new evolutionary routes appear occasionally.

However, this path of mechanical evolution has a universality that even the path of genetic evolution does not have. As long as the length of mechanical transformation meets the requirements, one can embark on this evolutionary path.

Some people even experimented with microscopic organisms and discovered that they could actually be transformed.

Then, a market that even Li Ming could not have expected emerged: mechanical pet transformation.

Many people want to modify their pets to make them smarter, more able to accompany them, or even perform some unspeakable activities.

The previous mechanical transformation method was cold, but the mechanical seeds are different. It is a new race of life with a different meaning.

A third-party laboratory has conducted high-precision observations and found that the modified aircraft will also show signs of wear and tear over time, that is, the passage of lifespan, which has really shocked many people.

"You're back..." Ulrich hurried over. No matter how busy he was, he would rush over as soon as he received the news that Li Ming had returned.

"Yeah." Li Ming put away the smart terminal.

The first thing to do after returning is naturally to enlighten the mechanical body.

After a long period of capacity adjustment, the efficiency of mechanical production has increased by more than ten times compared to before, and has reached nearly forty or fifty times.

In just one month, tens of millions of mechanical bodies were accumulated.

Of course, the vast majority of them are still mainly F-class. With the Mechanical Royal Court blossoming everywhere, the demand for low-level staff is extremely high, and all of them rely on these F-class mechanical bodies to fill the gap.

The main force for normal combat is Class E. If one wants to reach the strength of the main combat forces under Reynolds and Mikhail, one needs to use Class D machinery as the basis and fill in each evolutionary level.

However, the D-class mechanical bodies under his command now are less than ten million and need a large number of replenishments.

"After this batch of F-class mechanical bodies are released, the gap at the bottom level should not be too big. We should mainly produce E-class and D-class mechanical bodies."

After the enlightenment, he said to Ulrich.

In order to cope with the adjustment of the production line, when purchasing related equipment, high redundancy is basically adopted. The assembly line that produces F-class mechanical bodies will definitely have no problem producing E and D-class ones.

"I understand." Ulrich nodded, and only left after sending Li Ming back to the Heavenly Palace.

"I don't know what the reaction will be from Gutierrez." Li Ming pondered in his heart. He had no acquaintances in the Star Alliance's upper echelons, and he had no way of inquiring.

But the Domination Laboratory and the Flesh and Blood were both stolen, which was a fatal blow to the Covenant. It was impossible for Guterres to remain silent.

Although he was thinking in his mind, his hands did not stop moving. He picked up various medicines with ease and poured them into his mouth.

Sitting on the platform, developing gene seeds.

"It won't be long before we reach the 90% mark." Li Ming thought. On the way back, he used the spare time to develop the formation.

Energy particles gradually overwhelmed him, and at the same time, various problems regarding the path of mechanical evolution continued to ferment.

After the large-scale release of the Mechanical Seed, even if the Mechanics Association made various plans, it was difficult to predict the future direction.

For example, half a month later, someone revealed a high-interest loan called "Transformation Loan", which was a special plan made by some large machinery transformation companies to deal with the seeds of machinery.

Many people cannot afford mechanical modification surgery that meets the standards, so they provide certain loans and discounts to enable these people to undergo the modification.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as it complies with local laws and regulations.

But later some people claimed that the modified parts used by these companies did not comply with regulations at all.

Since the purpose of mechanical modification is to meet the requirements of the mechanical seed, it does not matter even if some old and non-compliant components are used.

Just fuse the Mechanical Seed as soon as possible, and the special abilities of the Mechanical Seed can repair some hidden problems.

After the whole body is transformed into a mechanical body, there will be no rejection reaction at all, so the cost of transformation is greatly reduced.

However, this repair of the mechanical seeds is not without cost. Many people have gradually discovered that their modified organs will have various short circuits and breakdowns, and require additional metal materials to repair.

But this would require them to spend their own money, so they were naturally unwilling to do so and launched a protest.

At the same time, there have been cases where people have difficulty adapting to their bodies after mechanical modifications, leading to depression and even suicide.

In short, good or bad, true or false news is circulating, and the road of mechanical evolution finally comes to an end.

One month later, in the Mechanical Royal Court, in the Heavenly Palace.

The black energy particles surging throughout Li Ming's body continued to boil and gushed out from deep in his bone marrow.

When it left the body, it suddenly slowed down, and then exploded. In the time distortion domain, even the details of particle fission could be seen clearly. There was a fiery expansion in the body, scales covered the skin, the pupils turned into black vertical pupils, and the hair fluttered.

Accompanied by a sudden burst of explosive force, Li Ming changed his development system, instantly suppressing the changes in his body, and all the energy particles were restrained.

His body seemed to have turned into an extremely hard stone. Even if it was going to explode, it could only happen inside.

It was not until a long time later that he exhaled a breath of gas mixed with particles of various colors.

He stood up slowly, and crackling sounds came from all parts of his body.

"Finally 90%..." Li Ming's heart couldn't help but be excited. The physical improvement brought about by the increased strength was better than nothing for him now.

More importantly, only the last 10% is left to fuse the X-level gene seed.

After slightly adapting his body, he switched back to the development system and began to try to reduce the development efficiency.

After a moment, he had a rough idea in his mind.

"At the original rate, it would only take three months to reach the remaining 10%, but now it may take a year."

"One year! It's just around the corner." Li Ming was not disappointed. This was all within his expectations.

I casually opened my smart terminal and glanced at the interstellar news. A month had passed, and the popularity of the Mechanical Seed had not subsided.

This is mainly because of the endless stream of related news it generates.

The hotly discussed issue in recent days is “breeding issue”.

The reproduction of mechanical life is through the combination of core energy and the "metal proto-bodies" peeled off from both parties to shape the prototype body and give birth to offspring.

The offspring that are born, because they are mechanical life forms, grow extremely fast.

This means that if they are recognized as the offspring of normal reproduction, they will enjoy a series of social benefits.

And because they are too smart, they can easily outcompete those ordinary lives.

If he denies it, would it be considered a crime if it causes fatal harm to him?

Similar ethical issues arise one after another, posing great challenges to interstellar society.

Li Ming glanced at it and stopped paying attention to it. Instead, he looked at another message from Sheffield.

He traveled around the interstellar space and abducted three guys who had made great achievements in life science and technology, all of whom could independently formulate X-level gene seeds.

"Tsk tsk..." Li Ming smiled with an ambiguous meaning. Just over half a month ago, the split Dominant Laboratory had arrived at the designated location and completed assembly.

Edmund is still uncooperative and is eager to be tested in various experiments.

……

In the sea of ​​stars, a planet with life that was once extremely brilliant was now shattered by some extremely strong external force.

The crustal plates were floating in the void like broken pieces of ceramic, and the floating core magma had cooled and solidified into gray-brown.

Endless metal debris was floating around, even forming a special environment similar to an asteroid belt, with a large number of broken limbs and debris covered with a layer of ice.

"You... who are you?" A faint mental fluctuation appeared in the void.

Hoffman stared in horror at the huge creature holding a trident in front of him. He was weak and covered in blood.

He had never seen such a life form before. It came from nowhere and seriously injured him with one blow.

It also exuded an aura that made him feel vaguely frightened, a sense of oppression he had never experienced before, and even gave him an illusion that the other party was the ultimate life form?

But he knew that was impossible.

Tanus said nothing, but stretched out his hand, and an invisible force pulled Hoffman towards him.

Hoffman struggled non-stop, but there was nothing he could do, so he could only keep threatening: "If you kill me, the Higher Lifeforms United Organization will not let you go, and Lord Qinglong will not let you go!"

Tanus turned a deaf ear and pressed his entire body into the surface of his body. His skin seemed to have opened a bloody mouth and gradually swallowed him up.

After a long time, the cracks on his body seemed to have healed a little, but he frowned again, "One is far from enough..."

……

In the Stargate passage, in a gorgeous spaceship, Sheffield received a response, looked up, and said with a gentle smile: "You are very honorable. His Excellency Qinglong will come to greet you personally."

There were three life forms of different species before him, all of them looking quite strange.

"We are honored that Lord Qinglong has come here in person..." One of them spoke with an ethereal voice. He had four independently movable compound eyes on his face, and his blue skin was covered with translucent silicon-based scales that displayed environmental parameters in real time.

"However, the research on the ultimate evolutionary path does not require personal greeting, but resources and plans."

Sheffield's face changed, and he said helplessly: "Mr. Graham, please rest assured, I am just expressing that Mr. Qinglong attaches great importance to this matter."

Another person also spoke. He had a hunched body, his facial skin was piled up, his hair was gray, his lower body was a spindle energy body, and his voice was hoarse:
"Sheffield, if the gene fragments you provided were not indeed very powerful, we would not have followed you. However, with only those gene fragments, we are still several star systems away from the ultimate life form."

Sheffield smiled bitterly, "Sir Micah, I understand. We are here to find a way."

Sheffield felt helpless, this journey was more difficult than he had imagined.

Researching the ultimate path to evolution sounds tempting, but there is no evidence to support it.

All of them clearly understand the pain points in studying the path to ultimate evolution.

No matter how powerful Qinglong is, it will be useless without the relevant materials.

Naturally, they had no ability to compete with Qinglong. Rather than being blamed by Qinglong, it would be better for them not to come.

It was only when he took out the star beast corpse that Qinglong had given him that he barely aroused the interest of these people and got them to follow him.

As for whether Qinglong could keep these people, Sheffield had no idea.

Qinglong’s requirements are very strict, and he cannot find anyone who has connections with the three major civilizations.

These guys are basically the same as him. They have grudges against the three major civilizations, or because of racial reasons, their personalities are purely eccentric, and they are all very difficult to deal with.

On the other hand, research experiments require great subjective initiative. If these people are unwilling to do so, even threats will be of little use and may even have a counterproductive effect.

I should have known not to take this job. If things turn out unpleasantly, I would be unpopular with everyone.

Sheffield couldn't help but sigh inwardly, hoping that Qinglong could convince them.

(End of this chapter)