Stars, Players and Immortals

Chapter 28: [Anomaly Specimen: Engineered Gear]

Although he had many thoughts, Zhang Qiming only spent less than half a minute thinking about them before he began to communicate with Saint Sophia about the next course of action.

"Let's put the cleanup list aside for now and start with the infiltration list and the recruitment list."

"Your Skyward side will also use its own resources to help you complete the targets on the list as soon as possible; especially the recruitment list, I am confident that I can bring the people on the list into the Mars Revolution line in a short period of time."

Saint Sophia didn't show much surprise. She had already witnessed the Skywards' incredible abilities during this time, so she simply replied with a single sentence.

"Understood, I'll speed things up on my end too."

That's enough. Now that the direction has been set, it's time for everyone to get started.

Soon, the secret conversation ended quietly, and the terminal returned to silence.

Zhang Qiming withdrew his hand from the table, leaned back in his chair, and paused for a moment, mentally reviewing the next sequence.

He now needs to complete the infiltration list and the recruitment list. He plans to complete the recruitment list himself, but before that, he needs to go to Kaul's place first.

Firstly, we need to inform the mechanical sage about the current situation and the committee's progress, letting him know where the Skyward has progressed to. Secondly, Zhang Nanhai needs to continue advancing along the infiltration list, and he needs Kaul's help behind the scenes. Although the old man has a bad temper, he loves to help others. Many young men from poor families in the military received his assistance during their student days, and now it's time for them to repay that kindness.

Finally, he was looking for a suitable transitional weapon, and he happened to have a [Smart Assault Rifle Blueprint: White Night Eagle] on hand.

He needed Kaul's help to build the gun, since this mechanical sage was a master craftsman and a module craftsman who had already completed his second job advancement.

When it comes to mature production lines, military-grade technology, and prototyping capabilities, there are very few people on the entire planet Mars who can truly surpass him.

With that thought in mind, Zhang Qiming didn't delay any longer. He got up, changed his clothes, and then left Sailor Valley.

……

……

The polar ice cap, on the edge of the Northwest Frontier.

This place is quite far from the main development zone. The surface is a white ice field polished by the cold wind and a cluster of low metal buildings. In the distance are remnants of old facilities half-buried in the snow and ice. Occasionally, you can see a few energy collection towers and weather masts that are still dimly lit, like needles stuck in the white wasteland.

Apart from a few pioneering teams, resource exploration stations, and environmental maintenance groups that occasionally appear, most of the time, this place is as quiet as a dead corner completely forgotten by Mars itself.

And Caul's secret hideout is located here.

On the surface, it was just an abandoned cryogenic materials testing station in the Northwest Development Zone.

Zhang Qiming went around to the back and stopped in front of an old-fashioned radiator that was half-buried in the snow. He raised his hand and knocked a few times, and an iris recognition device appeared. He then aimed his eyes at the device.

[Certification Successful]

Disarmament—

A moment later, the iron gate trembled slightly, and a deep mechanical clicking sound came from behind. The hidden door slid open inward, revealing a downward-sloping passage.

He followed the passage downhill.

Soon, the space in front of us opened up.

It was an underground engineering base buried under the polar ice cap.

Above are overhead rails and robotic arms, while on both sides are rows of modular manufacturing tables, prosthetic processing bays, and parts printing arrays. Deep inside, large assembly line equipment is still running at low speed, with status lights flashing on and off, making the entire space cold, hard, and quiet.

This is where Skyward's true hematopoietic cells are located.

The development framework for Chiseiro, the prototype chassis of the Sky Destroyer Type I, and many key components of early armed mobile ship bases were all initially built here.

Upon entering the stronghold, Zhang Qiming quickly spotted Belissau Caul.

Or to be more precise, he saw the remote-controlled avatar that Kaul had left on Mars.

Kaul's engineered clone was standing in front of a large assembly table. His main body was a slender and tall metal shell with a ring of slowly rotating cold light lenses embedded in his chest and abdomen, and seven or eight mechanical arms of different lengths extending from his back.

Some of the robotic arms have welding torches at their ends, some have clamps, some have calibration probes, and two thinner auxiliary arms are simultaneously disassembling a set of prosthetic skeletons. The movements are so fast that they almost leave afterimages, making it look like a steel octopus lying on the workstation.

Kaul's main body is still on the Jingwei, the armed mobile ship base of the Sky Destroyer; what remains here is only an avatar of his.

At this moment, the mechanical clone had its back to Zhang Qiming. Several mechanical arms were welding and assembling at the same time. Without even turning its head, its voice slowly drifted over.

"Hey, our Skyward leader is back."

"You seem to be doing quite well lately. First you caused the Cardinal's attack in St. John's Square, then you orchestrated the Makarov assassination. If you weren't on Mars News lately, I'd say the Mars Joint Broadcast would lose half its viewership."

Zhang Qiming seemed not to hear the old man's teasing, casually dragged a metal chair over from the side, sat down, and said to Kaul:

"Old man, are the Jingwei and Tianqu Type I both alright?"

Mechanic Caul then turned halfway around. His metallic face, devoid of features and consisting only of a row of observation lenses, gleamed coldly under the light, yet his tone was extremely arrogant.

"With me here, there won't be any problems."

As he spoke, a robotic arm behind him casually snapped a still-steaming part into the assembly slot on the worktable with a crisp snapping sound.

Zhang Qiming then smiled and teased:

"Oh right, with the gears of engineering, most engineering problems in the world are not problems at all."

Upon hearing Zhang Qiming mention engineering gears, Kaul's movements slowed for a moment, then he stopped and said in a solemn tone:

"To be honest, if it weren't for the engineering gears, I would never have cooperated with you when you first came to me."

"A mere brat, barely out of his mind, talks about overthrowing the church, unifying Mars, and conquering Terra, and even wants me to join his organization to change the future..."

"At that time, I had only one thought: Mars is completely finished."

"Under the evil rule of the church, even little kids who haven't been fitted with prosthetics are starting to get infected with cybernetic psychosis and are going crazy everywhere."

Zhang Qiming: "I remember you were even planning to pay for me to go to the Cyber ​​Mental Health Center in Sailor Valley... um, that place is quite expensive."

Old Cole replied, "If you'd like, I can take you there right now."

After retorting to Zhang Qiming, he continued:

"I know perfectly well how much of the credit for Tianqu's progress to where it is today, how much of the success of Zhishilang, and the successful construction of Jingwei and Tianqu Type I is due to my own efforts and how much to the contributions of engineering."

"After all, there are some areas that cannot be filled by technology alone, nor by production lines alone. Those are no longer design problems, but gaps in the manufacturing process."

"Without engineering gears, those gaps would just have to remain."

At this point, Kaul couldn't help but feel a surge of longing—the longing of a mechanical engineer for creating industrial miracles.

"Young man, do you have any other specimens similar to this?" the old man couldn't help but ask Zhang Qiming.

Zhang Qiming spread his hands, making a gesture as if his hands were empty.

"There really aren't any left, at least not right now."

As he spoke, he leaned back in his chair, his tone casual yet revealing an undisguised ambition.

"However, things will be hard to say in the future. Once Mars and Terra are truly unified, I will do my best to build the Natural History Hub, which can detect anomalous specimens."

"At that time, Holy Terra will use the Natural History Hub to contain all unusual specimens within its sight."

In Stellaris, there exists something that gives major civilizations a headache: the so-called anomaly.

For example, the gear virus that once broke out on Mars can be classified as an anomaly. Such anomalies cannot be explained by science or common sense. Their existence is like declaring to the world that common sense does not exist!

Abnormal manifestations are varied and bizarre, but if you really look deeper, many abnormalities will eventually leave behind a "core".

That core is also known as the abnormal specimen.

These so-called anomalous specimens are neither ordinary collectibles nor ancient relics; they are more like things that have leaked out from the cracks in the rules of reality—some resemble objects, some resemble fragments, and some even resemble clumps of concepts that should not exist in the universe at all.

You can encounter it, record it, and use it temporarily, but it is very difficult to fully explain it using existing science.

Different civilizations have different names for these things; some regard them as miracles, some call them loopholes, and some simply classify them as cosmic lesions.

Later, more and more civilizations discovered that although these things were strange, they were not entirely without rules. As long as the operating rules of the anomalous specimens were followed and a containment method was found, they could be used in return.

Thus, the major civilizations gradually developed a system specifically for detecting, containing, and utilizing them.

The Natural History Pivot is a product of this system.

It is both a device and a system.

On a smaller scale, the Natural History Hub can detect, locate, preserve, and analyze specimens; on a larger scale, the Natural History Hub itself is a comprehensive manifestation of a civilization's ability to recognize and control anomalies.

The stronger the civilization, the wider the scope of the Museum of Nature, and the more specimens it can locate, contain, and utilize.

Later on, some top civilizations even went so far as to build facilities, adjust policies, and even re-plan their technological paths around the specimens.

In the Homeworld timeline, Terra and Mars each have a specimen buried there.

Well... strictly speaking, there are actually two Mars.

These two items are actually a bit of a hellish joke.

Because in the timeline where Zhang Qiming lived in his previous life, after the failed rebellion, Saint Sophia was ultimately turned into a "living specimen" by the Martian Church.

The Saint Sophia who is still alive and standing on the altar of the church is actually only half a specimen.

The wind-up virus within her, the almost abnormal connection between her and Ares, and her very existence all clearly transcend the conventional definition of "human."

Back when Zhang Qiming first arrived on Mars, he relied on his experience and memories as a player from his previous life to find another Martian anomaly specimen besides St. Sophia—the [Engineering Gear].

It was a metal gear with a diameter of about 7.4 centimeters.

Existing physical detection methods have been unable to fully define its material, and can only provide some fragmented and contradictory results: iron, titanium, tungsten, platinum, ceramic composites, carbon nanolattices, degenerate metals, and even some unknown traces of superdimensional topological structures.

It's like cramming a bunch of materials that shouldn't exist at all into the same thing.

The strangest thing is not just the materials.

It is supposed to have thirty-two teeth, but those who really look at it will often give a completely different answer.

Some people say they only saw seven teeth, while others insist that the surface is covered with countless teeth, and the highest recorded number is 4,096.

Even high-precision cameras produce inconsistent results. The same gear will show different outlines and number of teeth depending on the angle, time, and equipment used.

But these strange phenomena are nothing compared to its true value.

The most terrifying ability of an engineering gear is that if you put it inside a machine that is missing a critical component and is therefore not functioning, it will automatically become the "theoretically needed component" for that machine and restore its operation.

Whether it's a steam engine, a SA frame, or even a ship propulsion array and Type III strong artificial intelligence, as long as the target device can still be conceptually called a "machine," and what it lacks happens to be the core component that would break the entire machine down, then an engineering gear can replace that core component.

When Caul first saw the engineering gears, the shock he felt was beyond words.

He had seen too much in his life, but precisely because he had seen too much, he was even more aware that this thing in front of him should not exist at all.

For a moment, this wise old man even had a very dangerous thought.

It's hard for a true craftsman not to be tempted when he sees something like this.

A sage who has been suppressed by the church for so many years and has witnessed countless technologies locked away in warehouses could hardly remain unmoved when he sees a creation that completely disregards the principles of engineering.

At that time, Zhang Qiming was very young, even excessively young.

At that time, he hadn't fully grown tall, his shoulders looked thin, and his face still had a youthful air that hadn't completely faded.

He stood before the old man and said to him:

"With this, we can do many things that were previously impossible."

"The earth beneath our feet is vast, but in the grand scheme of the universe, it is actually ridiculously small; the power struggles that humanity faces are equally ridiculous."

"Humanity should not be bound by the gravity of this planet forever. The outside world is so vast, and humanity is so insignificant. Since we are so insignificant, we should do something more meaningful."

"The engineering gear is not the end, it's just the beginning—so, do you want to cling to this gear, continuing to hide in the shadows of the church as a marginalized sage, or do you want to use it to change the world?"

The boy just looked at him, the light in his eyes like the morning star just rising at the edge of a wasteland, still young, still innocent...

In those eyes, Kaul saw an almost scorching brightness, like fire falling into an icy sea, like wind sweeping across mountains, like someone standing in the long night before fate unfolds, seeing the dawn at the end of the stars first.

It was at that moment that something inside Kaul was ignited, and the initial dangerous thought that had risen in his eyes gradually dissipated.

After a long while, he whispered something.

"...You little brat, you've got quite the nerve."

……

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