Chapter 171 Tower

Chen Ming had a general understanding of the situation of the mechanical race before.

However, he did not have many ways to download these research reports on the mechanical race at will, and these things all cost money.

At that time, compared to spending money to buy these reports, Chen Ming might as well spend the money on himself and his spaceship.

Until now, he can browse these things that he can use now without restrictions.

Soon, Chen Ming basically determined the role of the city that Qu Guang had discovered.

It can only be said that he was a little bit nervous when he analyzed the results through the image.

According to the contents of several research reports.

The city discovered by Qu Guang was a stronghold used by the civilization that created the mechanical race to occupy this barren star field, which is equivalent to an outpost on the border.

No, it’s not even an outpost. They just put a flag here to indicate that they have been here.

The current location of the empire is a place that people did not look down on in their heyday, so there are so many mechanical races left here.

As for the mechanical races that are fighting with Yuhui and the Empire, they are the mechanical races left after the destruction of that civilization, which have developed and spread again.

All the research reports on the mechanical races in Chen Ming's hand cannot avoid the destroyed civilization.

So Chen Ming now has a basic understanding of the situation of the mechanical race and another destroyed civilization.

Almost everything that should be known is known. Even if you don't want to waste too much energy to learn, at least you have some basic understanding.

However, the Empire is not doing in-depth research on that civilization at present.

It's not that they don't study it, but the productivity of this civilization before its destruction can be said to have reached its peak.

Their heyday is a level that humans today can't even touch.

I want to study it, and after studying it for a long time, I found that the results of the research are just a little bit of fur.

So now, even if Chen Ming knows that this city is just a flag used for marking, he must go and see it. There is a certain possibility that there are relics of another civilization on it.

After confirming these situations.

Chen Ming commanded three cruisers to set off.

The jump begins.

In a blink of an eye, Chen Ming arrived at the predetermined location, the edge of the galaxy where the planet of the mechanical race existed.

For safety reasons, Chen Ming did not continue to drive the three cruisers in.

Instead, he stopped directly on the spot and asked the Supreme Point to shut down all unnecessary and redundant devices.

Almost all the energy of the entire ship was used to fully supply the galaxy scanning array composed of a large galaxy-level scanning core and a long-range high-precision sensor located in the front of the Supreme Point.

By adjusting a specific detection frequency, the scanned object can be locked on metal and mechanical creations.

Especially for materials such as Baiyun Steel that are particularly common in the mechanical race, as long as they can be locked, the results returned by the detection will definitely be clearer.

After the high-power scan lasted for about ten minutes.

The galaxy scanning array was shut down.

The results of the scan appeared in Chen Ming's hands.

There were many detailed data in the scan result report that Chen Ming could not understand, but these were not important. He was currently learning from a guide left by the designer of the Supreme Point.

So far, he has learned a part of it. At least he can understand the results of the targeted scan he just conducted.

There is no problem inside the entire galaxy. It is basically the same as the rough investigation by Qu Guang before.

The mechanical race exists only on the planet where the mechanical race was discovered before.

They are only on that planet and there is no sign of expansion.

Although there are minerals and metals on other planets, there are only these things, nothing of particular value.

As for the planet where the mechanical race exists, it can be seen from the actual scan results of the highest point just now.

The mechanical race on it is not distributed throughout the planet, but all concentrated in a mechanical race city located about 30 degrees north of the equator.

Because this habitable planet itself has no deflection angle, and the location of its habitable zone is closer to the star that is larger than the sun relative to the earth.

Therefore, the climate of the entire planet will be relatively hot, and basically there will be no changes. The environment of the mechanical race city should be somewhat similar to the tropical rainforest.

The last time Qu Guang came here, he saw a jungle with dense green vegetation.

There is also a mechanical city that is almost trapped in the jungle.

Combined with what the highest point has just scanned, this city is exposed to the natural environment, and there are very few active mechanical people in the area that can be scanned by the scanner.

Chen Ming feels that the mechanical people here may be dormant, and their development seems to have stagnated. They may not have moved for hundreds or thousands of years.

However, the highest point is a large-scale scan from a long distance, so the result may not be very accurate.

We still have to go closer to confirm it.

But at least one thing is certain, that is, Chen Ming did not detect any signal of large-scale activities on the planet.

This should explain a lot of things.

Chen Ming slightly adjusted the positions of the three spacecraft.

Let the Brilliant Class with the strongest firepower and mobility be in front, and the Supreme Point and Defender in the back, and gradually approach the planet of the mechanical race in a triangle.

Although the Supreme Point did not scan the existence of mechanical warships in space just now, the necessary precautions must not be missed.

As the spacecraft gradually approached, Chen Ming's mind was still repeating the content of the research on the mechanical race that he had just seen.

According to the research and investigation of some research institutes within the empire.

There is a big difference between the individuals of the mechanical race and the afterglow that looks similar at first glance.

The most obvious point is that the afterglow is a separate individual like humans, while the mechanical race is more like a hive mind.

All mechanical bodies are sub-individuals, with only basic consciousness, and they are more like a part of the collective.

Of course, the few mechanical races that Chen Ming had contacted were obviously independent and had a high probability of being disconnected from the collective.

The city of the mechanical race that it was going to contact now was most likely an independent group of mechanical races.

However, for all mechanical races, their hatred for humans was almost engraved in their logic and could not be changed.

So Chen Ming did not expect to have direct contact with them.

If contact really occurred, it must be in battle.

The three cruisers quickly approached a relatively safe distance, and then stopped directly, without directly entering the planet's orbit.

The main reason was that Chen Ming was worried that there might be mechanical race warning or defense satellites in the orbit.

So it was better to let the highest point scan first.

Such a distance was enough to ensure a safe distance for the highest point to conduct a high-power scan.

After the ship stopped, Chen Ming directly started the galaxy scanning array of the highest point again.

Not long after.

A steel city surrounded by jungle and integrated with the jungle appeared in front of him.

The last time Qu Guang came close to the planet, he only saw some mechanical tribes outside. He simply recorded the characteristics of the city and evacuated directly without much investigation.

This time Chen Ming came in person and saw the city clearly.

At the same time, he also completely understood what the demise of civilization meant.

Only when he actually saw this rusty city that could collapse at any time, the wild vegetation that broke the tops of countless buildings, and the mechanical tribes that were paralyzed everywhere.

Chen Ming knew the meaning of the four words "civilization demise".

Chen Ming didn't look at the city scene for a long time, because he had to go down later.

Chen Ming now had to pay more attention to the things in the orbit around the star.

The scanning array just scanned the existence of a satellite in orbit, but it was confirmed that the satellite had stopped working and was already in ruins.

At the same time, there were no weapons or warning equipment around.

So Chen Ming directly asked the defender to go over and easily recovered the satellite and put it in the warehouse.

The appearance of the satellite appeared clearly in front of Chen Ming through the internal monitoring of the defender.

The outer shell made of white cloud steel material has not changed much in space, but the internal circuit has been completely aged and can no longer operate.

The time the satellite has existed in space is too long to be determined, but it must have been a long time.

And because of the aging of the circuit, the signal receiving and sending functions have been completely damaged, and the records stored inside can no longer be viewed.

Even if Chen Ming has the ability to repair, he can only repair the signal receiving and sending functions at most, and the internal storage records cannot be restored.

This satellite now seems to be a scrap metal that can only be recycled.

Or, Chen Ming can also study the manufacturing process of the communication equipment inside.

There is no need to learn technology. Chen Ming knows that the empire's superluminal communication technology is learned from the heritage of these civilizations.

It's just that the satellite is so broken that he doesn't expect to research anything.

In short, Chen Ming can now confirm that there is no defense set up on the outer layer of this planet.

Just go down directly.

Of course, Chen Ming did not go down himself, nor did he let the cruiser go down.

It was too dangerous for him to go down himself. The cruiser would consume too much energy to enter the atmosphere, and it would be too conspicuous.

So Chen Ming directly used the landing craft on the Defender to launch a small robot equipped with a gamma core into the planet's atmosphere.

The fire generated by the landing craft when it rubbed against the atmosphere might attract the mechanical race, so Chen Ming deliberately let the landing craft land at a relatively far distance.

And in this process, the highest point in the orbit continued to maintain a detailed observation of the city.

However, Chen Ming's deliberate precautions seemed meaningless.

As long as the mechanical race is not blind, they will definitely see the fire falling from space, but they don't care at all, and they didn't come to investigate.

The sporadic mechanical race that the scanning array can see is still active. None of them cares about Chen Ming's landing craft.

This scene made Chen Ming, who originally intended to prevent the mechanical race from attacking, spend some time to get the landing craft close to the mechanical race's city again and put down the small robot.

The small robot moved swiftly and lurked close to the city with vegetation, arrived at the edge of the city, and stayed at a certain distance from the security devices on the edge of the city.

Before entering the city completely, Chen Ming once again clearly felt that this was a dead place.

There was no sound except the occasional sound of mechanical parts.

This is a habitable planet, and a habitable planet in the tropical zone.

The vegetation is dense and the species of organisms are rich, but it is extremely quiet around the mechanical city.

Even the sound of insects can't be heard, at most the sound of wind blowing through the vegetation and the friction of leaves can be heard.

The same situation is probably true inside the city.

This scene made Chen Ming, who had just left the relatively popular pirate space station not long ago, feel physically uncomfortable.

Fortunately, he didn't need to go in person.

After observing for a while, the small robot easily passed through the paralyzed security devices on the edge of the city.

And through the scanning equipment installed by Chen Ming on it, the location of most of the basic security monitoring inside the city was confirmed.

At this point, Chen Ming also understood why the empire had so much technological growth during the pioneering period.

Obviously, it was learned from the ruins of another civilization.

These surveillances, similar to the surveillance that Chen Ming often sees, are evidence.

The small robot confirmed the many damaged surveillance blind spots and successfully entered the city.

And after entering the city.

Chen Ming became more and more certain that this was a dead place.

Not only almost all the mechanical races visible to the naked eye have lost their performance as mechanical life forms, and are rigidly dormant in place.

And at the level of data networks, only a small amount of electronic signals are propagating throughout the city.

The density of electronic signals here may not even be comparable to the mining space station where Chen Ming once worked.

Of course, Chen Ming is referring to the mining space station that is still in operation.

A space station with a diameter of only two or three kilometers is completely incomparable to this city in terms of scale.

But in terms of signal density, it has surpassed the city, and the situation in the city is undoubtedly very bad.

At this time, Chen Ming's robot scanned a signal with the most frequent fluctuations.

It was emitted from a device that continuously sent information to satellites in space at the top of a high tower in the center of the city.

It's just that the satellite corresponding to the city in orbit has been damaged, and now it is on Chen Ming's defender, and the continuous sending of signals will not have any response.

Chen Ming tried to capture the content of the signal.

But unfortunately, Chen Ming had no way to decipher these contents, so he could only record the information itself.

Then let the robot continue to move.

This scene of decay in the city, no, it should be said that it has already decayed and there is nothing good to see.

Still have to let the robot follow the hidden corners between the countless collapsed buildings and prepare to go to the core of the city.

That tall tower.

In addition to continuously sending signals to the satellite, the tower itself seems to be an energy tower.

Relying on microwave power, it provides electricity for the entire city to operate.

Either this tower is the core of the city, or the buildings around the tower are the core of the city.

In short, Chen Ming must go there.

In the process of approaching the center of the city, Chen Ming finally saw a mechanical family that was not dormant but still active.

Like the maintenance mechanical family that Chen Ming had seen before, it has several mechanical arms, and it is a mechanical family that performs auxiliary work at a glance.

It is constantly cleaning the vegetation covering various buildings and even walking roads.

But it is obvious that it is the only mechanical family cleaning, and its efficiency is almost zero compared to the entire city.

But this mechanical family seems to be unaware and continues to work in vain.

Chen Ming took a few glances and continued to let the robot move forward.

Before he could confirm whether the mechanical race here was as aggressive as those he had seen before, he still could not take the initiative to contact the mechanical race.

On the way to the city center, Chen Ming also found many fallen mechanical races in the gaps between many buildings covered with vegetation.

At first glance, it looked just like the fallen mechanical races that could be seen everywhere on the road outside.

However, Chen Ming took a closer look and found that this fallen mechanical family was different from the other mechanical families.

There was no sign of electrical signal activity on the mechanical family that fell in the gap between the collapsed buildings.

It was completely different from the mechanical family next to it that was still working and barely maintaining the operation of the city.

It was even different from the dormant mechanical families outside the city.

It was not dormant, but dead.

It lost the consciousness of the sub-individual and its own existence.

So...

Chen Ming controlled the small robot to remove the gamma core installed inside.

It connected the internal circuit of this mechanical family, which was the same model as the combat mechanical family that Chen Ming had seen before.

Its body was slender, and the whole body was similar to a mantis, but it had a roughly human shape.

The left arm was a mechanical arm that imitated the structure of a human arm, and their right arm was replaced by an electromagnetic javelin that Chen Ming was familiar with.

At the beginning, Chen Ming directly used the Iron Ore and relied on the weight of the spacecraft to forcibly crush and kill those mechanical families.

But now he no longer needs to use this method.

Soon, the gamma core successfully connected to the inside of the mechanical family and successfully controlled its...corpse.

And its name also appeared in front of Chen Ming.

[Standard Mechanical Body of the Mechanical Family·Quiet Mantis (Damaged)]

On the more detailed panel that was pulled down, Chen Ming could also see more detailed data, such as the status of different parts of the mechanical family.

For example, the status of its mechanical arms and weapons were displayed in detail on the panel.

However, these were not important, only a few special lines of content made him pay more attention.

One of the lines was [Individual Consciousness: Death].

Another line was [Available Operations: Repair/Renovation/Disassembly] at the bottom of the panel.

And the line that Chen Ming cared about most was the content of the three components on the mechanical family, which was similar to the [Important Equipment] column on the spacecraft panel.

[Standard Core Chip (Damaged)][Standard Secondary Core (Damaged)][Nano-level Maintenance Mechanical Body (3%)]

Like all the damaged mechanical equipment Chen Ming had ever come into contact with, these can all be repaired as long as there are materials.

But would repairing a mechanical body lead to the resurrection of its dead individuals? And would it lead to the resurrection of the surrounding mechanical races who had not yet noticed the small robots lurking in and suddenly surrounded them?

As soon as this question came to Chen Ming's mind, he immediately denied it.

Let's not talk about whether it is reliable to resurrect a mechanical life just by repairing its parts.

Let's just say that his psychic power can make the mechanical body controlled by him under his control for the rest of his life, and it can be repaired directly.

Chen Ming activated his psychic power, and with the slight consumption of mental power and the small reduction of materials.

The entire Jing Mantis was successfully repaired.

But Chen Ming's psychic power only repaired its worn armor on the outside, the aging circuits on the inside, as well as the chip and secondary core.

Its [Nano-level Maintenance Mechanical Body (3%)] column did not change.

It is just like fuel. Chen Ming must find a way to make it himself before he can replenish it.

But the manufacturing of fuel and the manufacturing of nano-scale robots are not in the same dimension.

So Chen Ming chose to ignore it for the time being.

He looked at the line of consciousness on Jing Mantis's panel.

It was the same as what he thought.

The consciousness of the mechanical race was still in death and had not been restored by the repair of the chip and the secondary core.

Chen Ming knew that the consciousness of Yu Hui's individual was a piece of data in the core, but he didn't know what kind of existence the consciousness of the mechanical race was.

He had no way to revive a mechanical life.

Chen Ming shook his head slightly, relying on his control over Jing Mantis, trying to read the contents of its chip.

But the result was a failure.

Although Chen Ming successfully extracted the internal data, he could not understand the contents at all.

Just like his previous attempt to read other mechanical race chips, and just like the situation that the entire empire has not yet been able to decipher the language and data of the mechanical race.

As a relic of another civilization, the mechanical race is indeed very special.

Chen Ming thought about it and asked Chaofan, who was already installed at the highest point, "How is your research on the mechanical race going?"

"I am not responsible for the research of the mechanical race. I am generally responsible for the design and manufacture of ships. You brought me out of the giant dock before, so you should know it, right?"

"It is clear, but I just want to ask. I can only ask you about research now."

"Well, I don't know much. I only know that it is very difficult for us to conduct in-depth research on the mechanical race."

"The mechanical race has extreme hatred for us just like they do for you. We cannot communicate, so we can only conduct research through captives, but there has been no breakthrough so far."

"We can only distribute the extra chips to extract the computing data flow inside the chips and increase our improvement speed."

Chen Ming nodded, indicating that he understood.

It's a pity that I didn't get any valuable information.

And there's nothing valuable on this mechanical body.

At most, the design of the Jing Mantis's mechanical body can be recorded. Next time Chen Ming lacks a combat mechanical body, he can just use this template.

In fact, Chen Ming had recorded a video when he disassembled the mechanical families he killed.

But Chen Ming had not experienced half a year of learning at that time. The rough disassembly technology made Chen Ming shake his head when he saw it now. He could only watch the video.

It's only now that he got the real Jing Mantis that Chen Ming has the meaning to learn and replicate it.

Of course, it's not possible now.

At the scene, Chen Ming still let the body of the mechanical family that he had controlled stay in place to prevent being discovered.

At the same time, he asked the small robot to take back the gamma core and continue to go deeper.

After about an hour, the robot passed through the city that was becoming more and more decayed as it went deeper.

Finally arrived in front of the tall tower in the center of the city.