141: Chapter 141 The Ascension Plan

The buzzing sound of high-frequency particle oscillation slowly lowered in pitch, finally falling into dead silence.

The dim blue light in the eye sockets of the twelve Cyber Iron Corpses shifted from intense to a dull standby state.

The high-energy micro-batteries within their chest cavities steadily output basic heat, while at the gashes cut into their bodies by sharp claws, the dark green mutated wood marrow slowly squirmed like plant roots, pulling and stitching the rolled-back refined iron and flesh together again.

A massacre drew to a close.

On the 4th Floor Above Ground, in this vast biochemical laboratory hall, there was no longer a single living thing left standing.

Hundreds of massive glass cylinders lay shattered across the floor. Thick, green nutrient solution flowed slowly along the drainage channels on the floor, dripping onto the sewage pipe grid below, emitting a monotonous "tick, tick" sound.

Tiny, dim blue fluorescent spores floated in the air.

The charred, acrid smell of machine oil—characteristic of the Wasteland's heavy industry—mingled with the pungent odor of formalin preservative, forcibly overpowering the stench of rotting flesh from the corpses littering the ground.

Gu Shen carried the thunder pattern gold-slaying blade, stepping over the viscous liquid mixed with shards of glass, his footsteps steady.

His shadow shoes did not splash a single drop of water in the sewage.

He stopped before an Aberration that had been severed at the waist.

In life, this monster had been a burly giant, its right side entirely replaced by rusted mechanical tracks and gears.

Gu Shen felt no disgust. He crouched down, flipped his wrist, and the gold-severing saber's blade—sharp enough to cut through iron like mud—sliced precisely into the connection point between the monster's occiput and its mechanical prosthetic.

Without using any magic power, relying purely on the Major Achievement of the Thunder Bone in his Bone Refining Art and his micro-level tremendous strength, the blade acted like the most precise scalpel, prying open the hard skull.

Accompanied by the tooth-aching sound of bone being stripped away, the monster's cranial structure was exposed to the air.

Gu Shen lowered his eyelids slightly, scrutinizing it with a cold gaze.

The greyish-white brain matter had long since withered, replaced by hair-thin red copper wires. These wires penetrated the cerebral cortex, tightly entangled with the monster's spinal nerves, while the other ends connected to the crude micro-motor in its chest cavity.

"Using metal wires to replace human meridians, and using electrical power to stimulate neurons to replace the circulation of Spiritual Qi."

Gu Shen extended a finger and pinched a copper wire stained with black blood. With a slight exertion of force from his fingertip, the copper wire crumbled into powder.

"Cultivators in the Great Yu Cultivation World focus on drawing Spiritual Qi into the body to cleanse the marrow and wash the hair. Yet, the pioneers of this Wasteland, in the desperate situation where Spiritual Qi was severed, actually attempted to forcibly piece together a type of 'Artificial Dao Body' that does not rely on Spiritual Qi, using steel and gears."

Gu Shen stood up and casually shook the filth and blood from his long saber onto the ground.

This insane line of thought was akin to the "Corpse Stitching and Puppet Refining" of the Cultivation World's Demonic Path Sects. However, the methods of this Wasteland were more thorough; they were not refining dead objects, but were attempting to continue their lineage on living people.

Unfortunately, they failed, creating a group of mindless biochemical beasts.

Gu Shen's gaze swept over the chaos and landed at the deepest part of the hall.

There, a circular central console stood. Behind the console was a surveillance wall composed of dozens of massive black crystal screens, all covered in thick dust.

Gu Shen walked over.

The twelve Cyber Iron Corpses walked with heavy steps, spontaneously spreading out at his sides to protect him in a fan formation.

Upon reaching the console, Gu Shen did not use his blade to forcibly hack open the locked iron cabinets as he had done when exploring ruins in the past.

He knew very well that hidden within this pile of dust-covered electronic instruments were things far more precious than thunder magnetic fine sand—the knowledge and data left behind by the Wasteland civilization.

"Time to work."

Gu Shen tapped his collar.

The black iron clasp clicked and popped open, and the small mechanical reconnaissance spider quickly crawled down his arm, landing on the operation panel covered in blood and dust.

"Master, the physical isolation of this main control equipment is quite thorough. Without an external power supply, the internal motherboard should have been dormant for hundreds of years."

Crab's voice was transmitted into Gu Shen's ears via bone conduction; it contained no nonsense and was entirely professional.

The mechanical spider's eight mechanical legs firmly gripped the gaps in the operation panel. The red and blue alternating detection eye on its head emitted a high-frequency cutting beam, precisely cutting a square piece out of a special steel plate on the console's surface.

A probe extended into it.

"Found the physical maintenance interface. Master, lend me some power."

Gu Shen stepped forward and pressed his finger onto the micro-battery slot on the mechanical spider's back. Dark cyan magic power transformed into a thread of the purest thrust, helping it stabilize the output.

"Zzzzt—"

A data probe, several times thinner than a human hair, ejected from the mechanical spider's abdomen and plunged deep into the dust-covered interface.

Using Crab as a relay station, the pure nuclear energy from the micro-battery was converted into low-voltage direct current and slowly injected into this massive machine that had been asleep for who knows how many years.

Hum.

A low, buzzing sound of electric current echoed through the empty hall.

The black crystal screens, covered in thick dust, lit up one after another with dim green fluorescence, as if waking from a long hibernation.

Dust fell away in droves.

The light from the screens cast an alternating brightness and shadow on Gu Shen's stern face.

"Blue data stream, cutting in."

From the mechanical spider's abdomen, substance-like blue light spots spread crazily along the physical lines. It was as if a giant blue spiderweb was rapidly covering every corner of the motherboard along the gaps in the console.

"Master, the underlying encryption logic of the firewall is very outdated. I am bypassing the biological verification to forcibly read the local cache logs."

Crab's electronic voice carried an extreme sense of coldness in its data processing.

The green fluorescence on the large screens began to flicker frantically, and rows of square characters that Gu Shen could not understand poured down like a waterfall.

Gu Shen stood with his hands behind his back, watching the screens quietly.

Although he could not read the characters, he could sense that every line of code spat out by this machine carried the ultimate struggle of this Wasteland civilization on the eve of its destruction.

"Cultivators follow the Heavenly Dao, yet become the sustenance harvested by the Heavenly Dao."

"These Wasteland Mortals have no Heavenly Dao to follow, so they attempted to encase themselves in steel."

The trace of restlessness in Gu Shen's heart, born from his Perfection in cultivation, settled completely at this moment. He vaguely felt that the path to break the "Foundation Establishment dead end of the Great Yu Cultivation World" that he had been searching for so bitterly lay behind these flickering screens.

"Decryption complete."

Crab's voice carried a trace of imperceptible tremor.

The waterfall of code on the screens stopped scrolling. The image flashed, and a tattered, yellowed electronic blueprint was projected into the air of the hall.

"Master, this is not merely a biochemical laboratory."

Crab zoomed in on the core area of the blueprint, "This is the… God-making workshop, where they attempted to use radiation and metal to replace their frail bodies and mass-produce 'New Humans'."

Deep within Gu Shen's eyes, a blazing fire of ambition ignited.