Revisiting Azur Lane

"Well, how should I put it, the Siren over there seems to be salvaging something."

Zhou He glanced at the file icon on the map and said.

"Salvage something?"

Hood's eyes were slightly stern, thinking of Zuikaku's complaints just now. The Siren fleet was sailing at a low speed with a main battleship on board. It was not a malfunction or basking in the sun, but was looking for something to salvage!

"Well, you guys should avoid that area for now. Be careful not to get sucked into the testing grounds of other worlds."

Zhou He gave instructions.

"clear."

Hood collected his thoughts.

It seems that the area they are in is not as simple as imagined.

Chapter 58: Construction of Port Area

“This world is a little strange.”

Before passing by Tirpitz in the testing ground, Zhou He had never paid much attention to the world he was in, because before that he didn't even have the ability to protect himself, so there was no point in thinking about other things.

However, after encountering the Siren's abandoned base, the mirror sea and the Siren's mysterious salvage operation one after another, he had to face up to the problem of this relic.

“… Let’s first check if there is any situation in the other two blocks.”

Looking at the file icon that was almost submerged by the Siren icon, Zhou He moved his eyes away - this block was the block to the north, the block that Hood would pass by and light up when heading northwest, and the block in the middle of the two blocks that Hood and Bismarck were leading the team to explore this time.

If there are no special problems with the other two blocks, then he can consider whether to take over the file salvaged by the Siren. During this period, if the file is taken away by the Siren, it means that there are smart observers or other experimenter Sirens nearby, or there has been a large human fleet passing by. On the contrary, if the file has not been taken away for several days, then it is obviously a trap to attract passing ship girls to take over, and then lead them to strange places to do strange things.

"Whether it's Siren's sting operation or not, this area needs to be cleaned up. It's just a matter of when."

The same principle applies to everything in the world: if you don't move forward, you will regress. Zhou He made plans in a very short time. He glanced at the cat Akashi who was driving the boat seriously, found a place to sit down, took out a notepad and pen from his pocket, and drew a simple four-circle circle. The innermost and smallest one was the port area, and the three circles outside were the sea areas that he had already lit up and were about to light up.

Use two lines to divide the outer three circles into four parts. The outer circle in the north is the area where the Siren salvaged documents were found. He drew a black five-pointed star here, which means that the danger level is high and requires a final strategy.

As for the two blocks next to it, Zhou He waited patiently for Hood and Bismarck to go explore. During this time, he asked Akashi about the possibility of developing a portal between islands. As a result, the cat stared at him for a long time with a strange expression of "what are you talking about?", and he gave up this black technology project in disappointment.

Since a portal is not possible, the only option is to build a high-speed water transport ship that is convenient for long-distance attacks, and let his ship girls use it when they return from the attack.

The waiting time was not long. After bypassing the Siren fleet, Hood entered the outer three circles of plates in the west. The moment it lit up, Zuikaku's reconnaissance plane dispelled a large area of ​​fog and continued to go deeper.

The aircraft carrier's reconnaissance speed was really fast. It only took about ten minutes to explore most of the western plate, while Hood and others only moved a small distance on the map.

"There aren't even many Sirens. This is normal in the west."

Seeing that Zuikaku had completed the exploration of the western block, Zhou He breathed a sigh of relief. He was quite afraid that the southeast, northwest, northeast and south were all Siren traps. After thinking for a while, he gave a new order to Hood: go south and clean up any Siren team encountered.

Soon after the order was given, Hood changed his course and did not ask Hermione to light a cigarette to make contact, but instead carried out the order unconditionally.

After figuring out the situation on Hood's side, Zhou He shifted his attention to Bismarck - this side was relatively far from the target location, and there were many Siren fleets passing by on the road, some of which were from the northern block. The Long Island reconnaissance aircraft also helped to dispel some of the fog in the northern block during its reconnaissance there, and determined that only the area where the documents were salvaged in the north had a large number of fleets active, and the rest were small fleets.

After the Bismarck squadron, full of martial virtue, sank all the Siren fleets they encountered along the way, they successfully lit up the third block in the east. Then, Zhou He saw the corners of the black vortex that was rotating deep into the block and the Siren icon that was not in the form of a battleship.

In the experimental organization, Sirens are divided into three parts: mass production type, executors and experimenters.

The mass-produced type is the battleship-shaped Siren that Zhou He had been beating up before. The executor refers to the Siren model with a humanoid appearance. The experimenter belongs to the command level, such as the purifier, observer, tester, etc.

The Siren that appeared on Zhou He's map at this time was the executor.

“There’s a big problem here.”

Zhou He immediately wanted to give Bismarck a new order: adjust the direction of advance and tell the reconnaissance plane on Changdao not to fly around randomly, but to stay alert above the team.

Bismarck also executed the order unconditionally. The team adjusted according to the direction given by Zhou He and bypassed the black vortex area where the executors were located. They carefully and cautiously dispersed the fog in a small area in the east. However, since this area was full of executor Sirens, subsequent exploration was completely impossible. Zhou He could only let them leave this area and go south to deal with the small Siren fleet that sneaked in in the past two days.

He himself painted the entire east side black on the notebook. This is an area that cannot be approached in the short term and is more dangerous than the north.

The gains from this exploration were great, and Zhou He realized that he couldn't relax yet.

However, the foreign enemies were still very strong, but he was not discouraged at all. Now it was no longer the time when he first traveled through time. He had many talented people under his command. He avoided the Siren's large army not because he could not defeat them, but because he did not have enough personnel and did not want to take the risk.

He will go back and see if the restaurant in the furniture box will give Manju as a gift. If it does, he will choose an auspicious day to turn the remaining four cubes into KanColle. Then he will directly gather them together and pick them from both the east and the north!

……

With a somewhat high and subtle emotion, Zhou He switched endlessly between looking at the sea and observing the status of his own ship girl. More than two hours passed in a flash. The patrol boat moving at full speed had returned to the area covered by the headquarters, and a familiar island appeared before his eyes.

"Meow, is this our port area? What a great place meow."

Every ship girl who joins the port will be amazed by the location of her own port, and Akashi is no exception. After running into the bay, she looked at the two buildings of the headquarters and the hot spring pool and didn't know what to say. Zhou He naturally noticed her little expression, chuckled twice without explanation, turned around and walked out of the control room and the living room, came to the rear deck and glanced at the coast more than ten meters away, silently switched the system interface, stared at the "dock" function item, and soon, the option of "whether to materialize the dock into reality" popped up.

He chose yes.

Originally he thought there would be preview items similar to furniture, but the reality was that the moment he chose yes, a very large area of ​​blue light emerged, including the bay and the sea where he was, and it condensed from bottom to top like 3D printing, forming an ultra-large work platform that occupied half of the bay, including foundation roads, shipbuilding sheds, berths, warehouses, lifting equipment, etc., covering an area of ​​tens of thousands of square meters.

The patrol boat under his feet was parked precisely in the innermost berth, next to which was the long pier that extended level with the rear deck.

"???"

Zhou He and Mingshi who followed him out were both stunned. The entire dock's buildings were in white, gray and blue tones, and the roads and warehouses were neatly arranged. It looked grand and majestic, and you could tell at a glance that it was a solid project.

"This was done by the Commander, meow?"

Mingshi was stunned for a moment and then blinked. She and Zhou He were the only ones at the scene. She didn't have the ability to do it, so it had to be Zhou He.

"right?"

Looking at the outrageous scene in front of him, Zhou He was a little uncertain about his answer. He thought that the dock was just a place to dock ships, how could it be so exaggerated? Only with such a platform did his port area feel like a real port area.

But this is really outrageous, right?

After finishing, he glanced at his dock interface and found that he could still perform repairs, check the status of the ship girl, and other operations through the system interface.

He was wrong. His own system was not a stubborn old thing. It was just that his vision was too narrow, so he thought the system was inflexible.

"Anyway, this is our own port area, not bad, right?"

Zhou He suppressed the shock in his heart, jumped from the deck to the dock and walked towards the shore. His eyes were fixed on the warehouse on the system interface for a few seconds, and when the question of whether to materialize popped up, he chose yes.

This time the light was not as exaggerated as that of the dock. Only on the dock platform, near the lawn, a rectangular warehouse, as high as three stories, rose from the ground in the remaining open space, with the door closed.

"Pretty standard Minato-nyan."

Akashi followed Zhou He closely and approved of his own port area: "It's more beautiful than most of the naval ports in Sakura."

"Haha, isn't that a matter of course?"

Zhou He smiled. The dock platform was built along the left side of the bay. It was so large that it directly filled the open space at the foot of the mountain on the left side of the bay, but it did not block the command area at all. It was an independent industrial area.

The platform has its own foundation, which is higher than the lawn, but the area next to the lawn is a long open space, and there is a downward staircase connected to the lawn. There is a sense of incongruity, but not much. After observation, Zhou He feels that it can be paved with cement road sold in the store, connected to the road extending from the command center, and then a row of trees can be planted on the roadside.

As for how to develop the vacant land on this platform, he still needs to think about it.

And now, he has one more thing to deal with.

Walking down the stairs to the platform, Zhou He quickly came to the familiar command center and walked to the right after leaving the door. During this time, he selected the self-selected furniture box from the warehouse and chose the luxurious restaurant with black and red tones. He browsed——

This restaurant is not small, with an area of ​​about 500 square meters including the front and back courtyards. The overall shape is square, and the style of the restaurant is more like a scaled-down manor.

Zhou He estimated that the restaurant was about ten meters away from the command center, so he walked more than twenty meters to ensure that there was a certain distance between the restaurant and the command center.

"What's wrong with this system? Others are eager to show off all their advantages, but it only shows conservative things."

After making the restaurant's front yard entrance level with the command center, Zhou He determined the placement.

The blue light appeared again, from bottom to top, including the courtyard, houses, and decorations, all turned from virtual to real. Even Zhou He, who had seen it many times, couldn't help but marvel at the magic in his heart. Such a large building would take a construction team a year or half a year to build, but the system built it for him in ten seconds.

If this world is a "testing ground", then the highest authority in this test ground must be his system, not the Siren.

"what!"

After exclaiming in amazement, Zhou He suddenly seemed to remember something and quickly approached the main entrance of the restaurant. He grabbed the door handle with both hands and pushed it inside.

The door opened smoothly without making any sound. In front of him was a luxurious hall with patterned carpets and neon lights. Even the dining table was made of fine wood. There were paintings on the wall, vases and other decorations. Zhou He called out loudly, "Is there any staff inside?"

No one said anything, which made Zhou He feel depressed. However, Mingshi, who followed him, sensed something and tugged at Zhou He's clothes, pointing to the corner of the hall. Zhou He turned his head and saw a group of yellow creatures the size of basketballs, wearing blue waiter uniforms and white chef uniforms, running out from there.

Chapter 59: Enemies on Three Sides

"What a cute creature, meow."

The Manju is a very magical creature. Although it looks like a chicken on the surface, it is not a living creature at all and has no body odor. It feels like a doll but feels like touching a cat. Zhou He and Mingshi each picked up a Manju, touched and pinched it, and were amazed.

After the experience, Akashi put the butler Manju on the ground and said, "I don't think I can eat it, meow."

Just this one sentence made the forty or so Manju that had already lined up show nervous expressions. Their black little eyes looked at the head chef Manju who was held in Zhou He's arms and kept chirping.

"Isn't this natural? These barbarians will be part of our port area in the future. I will have to write a notice later to let others pay attention to protecting these barbarians."

Zhou He said this with some disappointment as he put the head chef Manju down. Although he could understand the speech of the ship girls from various countries, he could not understand Manju's calls. It seemed that asking Manju to teach him the cooking secrets was not feasible.

However, with so many Manju managing the restaurant, there is no need to worry about the kitchen. Zhou He, who deliberately revealed his attitude through Akashi's speech, looked at the group of Manju who looked relieved, squatted down with a smile, and touched the heads of the head chef Manju and the general manager Manju: "From today on, you will work here. I think this restaurant should have your accommodation and daily necessities. You can arrange these things by yourselves. I will be responsible for supplementing the ingredients. You just need to make a list for me."

Choo Choo Choo!

The two leading chicks seemed to be swearing something, but Zhou He didn't understand. He could only face the other chicks with an awkward but polite smile, and waited until they finished calling before letting them lead the way to the kitchen.

"By the way, Akashi, you don't have to follow me all the time. The building next to us is the headquarters, and the second floor is your temporary residence. Of course, you can also go to the newly built platform and find an empty house you like to live in. It's all fine."

Before leaving, Zhou He turned around and explained the basic situation of the port area to Akashi.

He didn't have any rigid requirements for Akashi, and it was not advisable to subjectively order Akashi to engage in research and development. He should first let Akashi get familiar with the port area, and then see if this cat would get bored and tinker with some messy things on his own.

"I know, nya."

Mingshi nodded, but still followed Zhou He into the restaurant and came to the back kitchen - wherever there was a door in the store, there was a big door and a small door, and the same was true for the back kitchen. After entering the door, Zhou He saw the most modified kitchen equipment he had ever seen.

Cabinets, kitchen tables and the like are all the same height as ordinary humans, but they are equipped with stairs and even uphill driveways for the Manju to climb up. The tools for washing, cutting and cooking are fully automatic. The Manju can just take the vegetables out of the refrigerator (or cold storage for them?) and place them in the washing area, cutting area and cooking area, and then operate the equipment to complete the cooking.

By the way, seasonings and other things are delivered through a tool similar to a crane and a machine set to the precision of g units.

After observing the entire scientific kitchen, Zhou He, a master who relied on his intuition, was already sweating profusely. However, in order to ensure that his own ship girl could eat safely and happily, he spent a huge amount of ten home coins to put various vegetables, meat, rice, flour, cream, seasonings, etc. in the refrigerator, and then ordered Manju to prepare lunch for three people, ready to experience it himself first.

Compared to Zhou He who was only observing the surface, Mingshi was more interested in these small and exquisite design structures. He even leaned close to observe the inside. However, after looking at a few places, he lost interest and left the restaurant with Zhou He.

"Commander, how did you do this, meow?"

After leaving the restaurant, Zhou He spent another three home coins to connect the highway from the side of the headquarters to the restaurant. Mingshi, who was standing next to him, watched as Zhou He waved his hand and large buildings and roads took shape. There was no input but there was output, which was completely inconsistent with the law of conservation of matter.

"Well, these things are instinctive to me, just like you unfolding your ship suits."

Zhou He was already used to this kind of explanation, but he looked at Mingshi's curious eyes, smiled and touched her head with his hand: "I can't explain it clearly even if you ask me to, but Mingshi, you should know it after you have thoroughly studied the use of the magic cube energy."

"Cube Energy Meow?"

Akashi narrowed her eyes. She felt that the term sounded very familiar, as if she had heard it somewhere before.

"The construction of your Mind Cube is the military product of Cube Energy."

Zhou He knew a thing or two about Rubik's Cube energy. The original Sirens and Ship Girls all used this thing as energy. It is environmentally friendly and pollution-free, and its energy supply is even stronger than that of a nuclear reactor.

The emergence of this energy source caused the technological explosion in Azure's original world line. The reason for the destruction of the original world is not clearly stated in the game, but it is probably related to the forces behind the good man Richard who appeared in the plot.

"Are there any samples, meow?"

Mingshi's eyes were shining with a light of curiosity, but unfortunately, Zhou He had not yet collected the Rubik's Cube Energy. The Mind Cube certainly could not be given to Mingshi for research. He could only shake his head: "Wait until we capture a few more Siren combat bases, and we will definitely find a complete Rubik's Cube Energy."

Zhou He didn't know whether the Rubik's Cube energy was solid or liquid, but he knew that the Sirens must have it. Perhaps it was inside every Siren ship, or perhaps it was inside the Siren base where they were yesterday.

But there is no need to rush. There are still many unknowns in this world, and he has enough time to explore and study slowly. Steady victory is his ideal development state.

"Meow~"

Mingshi's ears drooped, and he seemed very disappointed. Zhou He smiled and said, "There are dried fish in the headquarters. Do you want some?"

"Eat meow!"

After all, cats like dried fish, and so does Akashi. He was soon tricked by Zhou He into returning to the headquarters. He ate the smoked fish that Zhou He had prepared before, and chose a room on the first floor to use as his own room.

After settling Mingshi, Zhou He went out again to investigate how to pave the road from the command center to the dock platform. Both roads would be about a hundred meters long if they were in a straight line, but they certainly couldn't be in a straight line, so he had to think about how to save money.

"commander."

The sudden call made Zhou He turn his head to look at Kursk who was walking down from the platform. He raised his chin slightly and asked, "How is this dock? Is it solid?"

"In terms of design, it is indeed your masterpiece, Commander."

Kursk is from the Northern Alliance, which used to be the big brother of Donghuang. Even though she calls herself a hunter, she has a lot of common sense in the technological age. She straddles the stairs and turns to scan the equipment, warehouses and other buildings on the platform. Her dragon-like metal tail emerges from under her white windbreaker and sweeps the ground.