Full health is the kill threshold, no matter if you're a god or a demon!

Morse struggled to stand up, but his legs were as weak as noodles, and he failed twice.

Liu Nian went over and helped him up.

"Thanks." Morse leaned against the edge of the platform, panting heavily. "I haven't been able to stand up in years... my legs just won't listen to me."

Liu Nian took out a set of clothes from his backpack and draped them over Morse.

Morse put on his clothes, then took the stamina potion and magic potion that Liu Nian handed him. After drinking them, he sat on the platform for a while and finally recovered.

"You just said this is a tank?" Liu Nian asked.

"Yes." Morse stood up, stretching his stiff arms. "During the Omnic Wars, these vehicles were used extensively on the battlefield. Although most were destroyed in the war, a few survived. I spent most of my life finally finding this one in the battlefield of the heavens!"

He walked to the control panel, swiped his finger across the screen, and brought up a holographic projection.

It was a bullet-shaped outline, just like the one Liu Nian had seen on the pipeline diagram before.

Morse pointed to the hologram: "Look, its engine core is perfectly preserved. This thing... is a man-made perpetual energy source. It doesn't need fuel, it doesn't need maintenance, and theoretically it can operate indefinitely."

Liu Nian was immediately interested upon hearing this.

His floating city Anaxim's psionic core is also a perpetual energy source, but it is a unique and rare find.

Currently, none of the ones he knows are exactly the same, and there's simply no way to manufacture them.

But Morse said that this engine is a man-made perpetual energy source—doesn't that mean it can be mass-produced?

With this technology, not only will we have backup energy for the floating city, but it won't be impossible to build a new floating city!

"I originally wanted to find this kind of engine and bring it back to Gnomeregan for research. Although our engineering technology has regressed a lot compared to our ancestors, I believe that given time, we will be able to reverse engineer its principles. At that time—it won't just be a single engine, but an entire technological system! The whole of Gnomeregan will become stronger than ever before because of it!"

"Of course!" Liu Nian thought to himself.

If they master this technology, they could build a whole bunch of floating cities, that would be incredibly awesome!

Therefore, Liu Nian felt that he should maintain a close relationship with the engineering dwarf, and go back to have a good chat with Prince Tolbin. Once their relationship was very close, he would then take him to acknowledge his ancestors...

Anyway, researching this stuff isn't something that can be done in a short time.

Judging from what Morse said, it will take at least ten years.

However, Liu Nian was still curious about the relationship between the Engineering Dwarfs and the Space Dwarfs who created these intelligent machines. Regarding this question, Morse said:

"The Star Gnomes are our ancestors. No one knows where they came from, only that they wreaked havoc on the battlefields of the heavens, a series of magnificent battles known as the Omnic Wars. After the war, the Star Gnomes' civilization collapsed, and the survivors scattered and fled. To avoid being purged, they chose to modify their genes and merge with the local races. One branch of them gradually degenerated into the Engineer Gnomes we know today."

"Degeneration?"

"Yes. A complete regression and discontinuity in everything from thought to technology." Morse sighed. "We've lost energy, we've lost factories, we've lost our heritage. A few generations later, we won't even be able to repair the most basic anti-gravity devices. Compared to our ancestors, our current technology is like the gap between the Stone Age and the Iron Age."

Liu Nian thought about it and realized that if humans were in that situation, things probably wouldn't be much better.

Forget rockets, satellites, and cell phones. Do you know how to manufacture an engine? Do you know how to assemble a microscope? How do you make a pencil? What kind of technology is needed for all of these?

Most people don't know where wine and bread come from, and many don't even know how to grow and manage vegetables... Modern people have long been seriously out of touch with the civilized processes that sustain their survival.

Even we are in this situation, let alone civilizations with far greater technology. Once a technological gap occurs, it becomes virtually impossible to repair the advanced equipment they have inherited. And once that equipment becomes completely obsolete, it is essentially extinct forever. (Refer to the technology of the Imperium of Man in Warhammer.)

"This war machine is a relic of the Star Gnomes," Morse said. "Moreover, it's one of the very few Omnics whose engine is still intact. If we can get it back to Gnomeregan, even if we can't crack it, it will still accelerate our technological advancement."

"The engine must be huge, how are you going to get it out?"

Speaking of this, Morse was a little annoyed: "The engine is a special creation, it can't be stored in the backpack space, it can only be moved by brute force... I had prepared two mechanical dragons, but during the previous exploration, I lost everything..."

Liu Nian recalled how Morse had been stripped naked before, and indeed, there was nothing left.

However, as luck would have it, his opportunity came!

While the Colossus might not be able to swallow an Eternal-level artifact (which would cause internal tearing), given its enormous size, carrying this thing on its back should be no problem, right?

This would essentially make Morse owe someone a favor, so asking him to share some technology later wouldn't be too much to ask.

The main problem is that the Divine Dragon Guild doesn't have the technology to reverse engineer eternal-level artifacts; otherwise, they would have simply moved them back to the Floating City.

When Morse told him about having a giant and a little dragon, Morse was indeed very happy and began to plan the next route.

Morse knew more about the situation here than Liu Nian. He glanced at the pipeline system diagram in Liu Nian's hand and then said, "The interior of this vehicle is roughly divided into three levels, which we'll call upper, middle, and lower for now. We're currently on the lowest level. There are four paths to reach the engine, but the path on the middle level is the fastest..."

At this point, Morse's expression turned serious: "But although this path is the shortest, it is extremely dangerous! That path is the mutant!"

He pointed and said, "This tank has a cloning workshop used to quickly produce soldiers and drivers. But over time, the workshop's samples and raw materials became contaminated, and the dwarf clone warriors produced underwent a terrible mutation. They are trapped in the middle layer, unable to get out or die, and have been wandering inside for hundreds or thousands of years."

"How many?"

"I don't know," Morse shook his head, "at least tens of thousands!"

"What about the level?"

"Between level 350 and 400!" Morse glanced at Liu Nian. "So this path won't work; we need to find a way to the upper levels! There are the fewest monsters there!"

Liu Nian said, "I don't think that's necessary! Let's choose the shortest one!"