113: Chapter 114 The Garbage Collector's Golden Time

When the civilization forge interface expanded, Li Cang felt much like he was opening a toolbox that had been gathering dust for six months; you clearly knew there wouldn't be anything good inside, yet the moment your hand reached in to rummage, you couldn't help but feel a spark of anticipation—what if? What if a forgotten treasure was hidden in a corner?

What if, my ass.

His card library had so few items that they couldn't even fill half the screen when spread across the interface. On the left were the unit cards, on the right were the plug-in slots, and in the middle was the assembly table; the content density of these three areas combined was roughly equivalent to someone else's recycle bin.

He started by looking at the unit cards.

Thunder Warrior Legion, main force, T2 energy level, tags are Heavy Infantry, Frenzy, Rend, and genetic collapse. This card was his lifeblood and also his greatest source of consumption.

The genetic collapse tag meant that maintenance fees were being burned every single day; if he didn't pay, the warriors would start to rot from the inside out—first the organs, then the bones, and finally the nervous system. It was an extremely gruesome way to die.

First Legion Dark Ravens Assault Squad, elite unit, proto-gene-seed plus crude power armor, positioned for infiltration and assault. Their numbers were small, but their individual combat quality was a notch higher than regular Thunder Warriors. The problem was that this card's slots were already full, leaving no room for modification.

Hero unit Arik Taranis, unique card, possesses a hero trait slot. Theoretically, it could be equipped with an Artifact or a Fate Skill, but he currently had nothing worthy of being slotted there. Leaving this slot empty was like buying a top-of-the-line phone case for a basic phone—a pure waste.

That was all.

He looked toward the plug-in slots. This side was slightly more varied, containing various fragments accumulated during the deduction of the Unification War. Arranged by quality, most were basic white and green items, with a few blue ones and not a single purple one.

He flipped through them one by one, his mind running two parallel tracks: one was "can these things be combined into something new," and the other was "what is the opponent most likely to use against me in PVP."

He had no answer for the second track because he didn't know who his opponent was, but some things could be predicted; most players in the PVP matchmaking pool during the Competition Phase followed the Template Style.

The unit configurations of the Template Style followed fixed patterns: a high-armor front line plus long-range firepower plus utility buffs. This "three-axe combo" was incredibly stable and also incredibly boring.

What he needed to target wasn't a specific opponent, but the universal logic of this three-axe combo.

High-armor front line.

His Thunder Warriors had the Rend tag, and their chain weapons were effective against light armor, but what if the opponent used heavy armor units? Using Rend against heavy armor was like scratching a tank with your fingernails; theoretically, you might leave a mark, but in practice, it was utterly meaningless.

He needed a means to break through heavy armor.

He searched through the plug-in slots and found nothing.

There were no armor-piercing plug-ins. Such things didn't just drop randomly in the deduction; your civilization actually had to have encountered heavy armor enemies in its history and devised a solution to condense the corresponding plug-in.

And so far in the Unification War, most of the enemies his Thunder Warriors had encountered were at the level of wasteland barbarians and Sun Warriors. Their armor strength was, at best, low-to-mid tier, which wasn't enough to catalyze true armor-piercing technology.

Fine then.

He scrolled to the bottom of the plug-in slots, and as he looked at the last few basic green plug-ins, the "combination" track in his mind suddenly sparked.

Engineering Demolition Technology, a green plug-in, condensed when Imperial Engineers dismantled wasteland warlord bunkers during the deduction. Its tag effect provides extra damage against fixed buildings and fortifications—a typical siege plug-in, basically useless in a head-on PVP clash.

Frenzied Gland Overload, a green plug-in, sourced from a historical slice where Thunder Warriors' gene glands overclocked under extreme pressure. Its tag effect significantly increases strength and speed for a short duration, but the probability of genetic collapse doubles after the battle ends.

Two pieces of green junk.

One for buildings, one for desperate measures.

He stared at these two plug-ins for about ten seconds, his fingers tapping on the armrest three times: the first tap heavy, the second light, and the third the heaviest.

Then he dragged Engineering Demolition Technology onto the assembly table and dragged Frenzied Gland Overload next to it.

Finally, he placed a copy of the Thunder Warrior Legion card in the center of the assembly table.

The system popped up a prompt: "Compatibility conflict detected. Engineering Demolition Technology is designed for stationary targets, which logically deviates from the mobile combat positioning of infantry cards. Force load?"

He clicked Force.

A second prompt: "Frenzied Gland Overload carries a stacking risk with the existing Frenzy tag. Under a double frenzy state, units may lose tactical discipline. Confirm?"

He clicked Force again.

The Thunder Warrior card on the assembly table flashed twice, and the tag column updated.

Heavy Infantry, Frenzy, Rend, genetic collapse, Engineering Demolition, Overload.

Six tags, two of which were negative.

He looked at the card, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.

It was true that Engineering Demolition was meant for stationary buildings, but what was the underlying logic of this tag? It was "applying concentrated destructive force to high-strength structural materials." Building walls were high-strength structural materials.

The armor plates of heavy units were also high-strength structural materials. The tag didn't care if you were wearing armor or were a concrete wall; it only recognized material strength.

This wasn't the standard usage; the standard usage was to blow up bunkers, but who said it couldn't be used to blow up people?

The price was that after Overload stacked with Frenzy, the Thunder Warriors would become a pack of lunatics who only knew how to charge. Their tactical discipline would drop to zero, and you wouldn't be able to command them to perform any precise tactical maneuvers; they would simply pounce on the nearest enemy and tear them, armor and all, into shreds.

Or be torn into shreds themselves.

It was a fifty-fifty shot.

No, it wasn't fifty-fifty, because the opponent wouldn't know his Thunder Warriors were equipped with Overload. They would assess his unit strength based on a conventional T2 heavy infantry. When Overload triggered, his troops would suddenly jump from T2 to a burst power near T3; this discrepancy was his winning move.

But it could only be used once. After Overload ended, the probability of genetic collapse doubled; half of the survivors might suffer organ failure within 72 hours post-battle.

A one-time ultimate move.

He saved this modified card as Plan A, then opened a slot for Plan B next to it, placing the original, unmodified Thunder Warriors inside.

During the PVP deployment phase, he could choose which plan to bring onto the field. He didn't need to decide now, but both options had to be ready. He would decide based on who the opponent was when the time came.

Plan A was the gambler's option. If the opponent was strong, he'd use this; either you die or I die.

Plan B was the steady option. If the opponent was weak, he'd use this; there was no need to scrap his own troops for a scrub.

He did a rough calculation of the expected consumption and casualty rates for both plans. The post-battle maintenance cost for Plan A was four times that of Plan B. If he used Plan A and won but the casualties were too high, he might win the match but lose the economy, with his GP dropping straight to zero.

That was the risk of being a gambler: winning didn't guarantee a profit, but losing was a guaranteed disaster.

He saved the calculation results, closed the assembly table, leaned back into his chair, and tilted his neck to face the ceiling. His eyes weren't closed, but he wasn't looking at anything; his mind was running in the background, sorting through the combinations of scenarios for Plan A and Plan B.

Opponent has high armor and low mobility: use A. Overload and rush the front to blow up the armor. The Thunder Warriors' speed advantage would be amplified under Overload to a degree the opponent couldn't possibly react to.

Opponent has high mobility and low armor: use B. Standard tactics; the Rend tag would be enough, no need to waste Overload.

Balanced opponent: depends on the map. If the map favors melee assaults, use A; if it favors kiting and attrition, use B.

Three situations, three responses. He ran a simulation for each in his head—a crude simulation, without specific data, only a logical framework, but the framework was clear.

Just as he was preparing to organize these into a document for archiving, another notification popped up in the top right corner of the screen.

Adeptus Mechanicus.

It wasn't a full report, but another temporary update. He clicked it, and the Tech-Priest's phrasing had three more words than the last one.

Recommend personal meeting.

The Tech-Priest wanted a personal meeting with him. People from the Adeptus Mechanicus never made such requests; they would rather compress all information into a dry technical document than waste time on low-efficiency verbal communication, unless they had discovered something that was difficult to describe clearly in a document.

Or something they didn't want to leave a written record of.

He stared at the words "Recommend personal meeting," his fingers tapping the armrest three more times.