“What?! Brain of a mechanical titan? Where do I even find such a thing? Dungeon World?” Jin was a little surprised and asked the System for more information.
“No, You’ll have to get it from another World.” System answered. Immediately Jin started to have some bad premonitions.
“Wait, please don’t tell me we have to go to the Mecha World.” Jin sighed as he was sure that that would be exactly the case. As he shared his memories with the Another Jin who done face to (Panda) face trading with various worlds, he also shared their dislike about that particular world.
This was more or less impossible because those from the Mecha World were all a bunch of calculative heartless sons of beetches. He had a difficult time selling that one piece of Gearbox to one of the buyers. Eventually, they finally reached an agreement at the point that they would receive the money for it and also buy that piece of satellite junk he used for the Goblin World.
However, the buyer almost backed away at last moment from the deal stating that their ‘Papa’ disapproved of the sales when it saw Jin being a fully organic form. Thankfully, Kiyu managed to make the buyer stay for the transaction, but she had to work harder than usual to achieve the desired results because it was a part cyborg and part organic monster.
Thankfully Kraft did lend a hand at the request of his ‘child’ and used his hacking abilities that enabled Kiyu to momentarily overwrite the logical circuits in the buyer. If not for Kiyu and Kraft combination, Jin probably would not be able to purchase the satellite for the observation in the Goblin World.
“Unfortunately, Yes. The Mecha World. System had been buying parts from the Mecha World behind the scenes to upgrade its capacity. That is also where the money went User had earned so far. Without upgrades from them, the System will not be able to keep up with future progress.” The System stated.
“Ehhhhhhhhhh?!!! I thought the System had always been omnipotent that it did not need hardware upgrades or anything of those sorts!” Jin stood up and was extremely surprised when he heard the details from the System.
“Does that mean that you are also ever growing and evolving?” Jin asked as it seemed like this was the first time the System had openly acknowledged its weakness to Jin.
“Indeed, however, the use of time reversal for…ex User Ming had forced System to drastically deplete its own resources, cripple its finances and obliterated the hardware. Without current User’s aid, the System would have been stuck at 3.4% capacity of its original powers in the best case scenario. The more likely scenario would have been for the capacity to deteriorate even further.” The System acknowledged Jin’s business saving maintaining its existence.
“No wonder, you always need money in return for any favour…” Jin said to himself. “Then what’s your current threshold you are at?”
“At the moment, 12.8% of System’s peak powers.” The System replied.
“What? So when Ming had you at 100%, that time reversal killed your resources that much?” Jin asked.
“Negative. At the time ex User Ming had received the System, the maximum capacity peaked at 25.9%. It had been depleting ever since the start of the System. There were only two instances where the System received growth in its powers. During the period when Panda Lord Zhou Lin was revived and current User.” The System stated.
Jin now started to realise why the System had been merciless back when he first started out. It should be because of multiple reasons. First of all, it was dying.
Not only was it dying since the very start but because of his Grandpa’s actions, the System had been as this close to Death as ever before. Though it acted logically in most instances, Jin would not have been surprised if it somewhat blamed Jin, who had been unaware of it all and did not conform to what the System needed at the time.
This, in turn, should have lead to the second reason, making it desperate at the very least use the last of its powers to achieve the ancestors’ desire to defeat the twelve Zodiac families. Finding it unlikely that the weak and naive Jin would be able to achieve its goal, the System had even gone to the length of somewhat brainwashing Jin in hopes of making him kill live subjects in the Dungeon World so that it could regain its powers to finish its objective in the future.
However, with Jin’s current bout of hard work and effort, the System was finally able to regain a portion of its original power, allowing it to put its revenge mission on hold. But should Jin manage to let the System restore all of its original powers, revenge was considered as a petty issue in its eyes.
“So what is this mechanical brain thingy? What’s the estimated amount of your original powers that it can restore?”
“Conservatively numbers state that it can increase System’s computative capabilities by an additional 5%. The brain, as stated has to come from a living Mechanical Titan. System has been following the state of the Mecha World for quite some time since System was on the lookout for discounts on their products whenever possible.” The System replied, and Jin placed his palm at his forehead. He knew that the System’s spendthrift attitude knew no bounds. But even when it comes to upgrading its own self?
Unbelievable.
“…System will send the info to Yun. You can get more details from her.” Suddenly the System had decided not to say what had happened in the Mecha World and delegated Yun to do the job instead.
“Why her? Can’t you just tell me straight in the face?” Jin asked, but there was no response from the System at all.
“Because our venerated ancestors always need to save their…face when it comes to things that they had messed up. It could have put all the blame solely on you, but the System unanimously decided that it’s both their fault and yours.” Yun suddenly appeared from a portal as she held onto a stack of papers to read.
“Why? …What? I don’t understand? I just wanted to know if the large dungeon was possible or not as I had planned. If not, I was thinking about using separate dungeon instances instead. For example, the military bases in one particular instance and they can be connected with other dungeon instances as if to simulate one large dungeon instance instead.” Jin was confused until the System suddenly responded to the particular proposal.
“That idea is feasible. System had underestimated User, assuming User wished to be able to do that in one go. In that case, the Mechanical Brain to increase the System capabilities is of utmost importance to get the Extensive Dungeon Instance up.” The System stated quickly as if it did not proofread of what it spoke.
“… System, if you wanted me to get you something, you could have just as… erm, I meant you could have issued a Mission for me… If that is the case, I have another idea to correspond with what Yang Ling had requested, but now you made me feel worried that I should know about this ‘mistake the System and I made collectively’.” Jin said with a troubled face.
“Sigh, let’s hear your idea first. Then we can talk about the trouble thats brewing behind the scenes. Else, you might not be able to think straight afterwards.” Yun suggested as she sat down beside Jin.
No matter how she looked at him, most of the time, he still seemed like a little kid that just wanted attention. Every now and then he had moments when he resembled an independent young man. Something deep inside her wanted Jin to stay the way as he is, but at the same time, she also hoped that he would mature a little faster.
Thankfully, all these business negotiations with Xiong Da, Hou Fei, Ke Loong made him a bit more adult than he first started. He was getting there, but Yun knew sometimes, he would just release his tantrums at the System or his bellators.
“Ah, alright then. I was thinking of this. Why not do the same as with the Goblin World? We have two tasks to handle, and if we combine them, it will sort itself out. Why not provoke the Demon Rats and attack our mock city setup? Then we will let the police and military clear them up. Given the nature of the Demon Rats, it’s unlikely for them to show mercy against our forces.” Jin described it excitedly.
“This way, we can cut their forces by a huge margin and proceed to attack their territories and exterminate the rest region by region. I was also thinking of making the cultivators to join in as well, like the events we made.” Jin suggested and Kraft entered nodding his head.
“You know you can count on me, whenever you try to put together something as entertainingly crazy as this. However, have you considered how we lure the Demon Rats in en masse? They will find out something is up when they enter into a portal. Not to mention they can U-turn back and return to their homeworld if they sense it’s a trap.” Kraft tried to point out the weak points of the plan.
“True… that’s assuming we are letting them run along the mock cities with the portal opening along the roads of the cities. But what if we make them rain down the mock cities instead? It will scare the police and kill some Demon Rats as well as making the situation extremely difficult for the police response team to handle.” Jin put forward another of his idea.
“Okay, that solves the U-turn problem then what about the lure?” Kraft asked although he had an inkling what the lure would be. Unfortunately, Jin did not.
“Using Farm Demons like Keyrin. Those demons that Gold suggested for Jin to hunt for their parts are apparently all Elder Demons that lived for hundreds of years. His apprentice Grey once told me that those Elder Demons managed to fend the rats off their territory and killing hundreds of them in the process. ” Zeru entered into the picture of discussion.
“Because beneath their homes are rich sources of Litoride that are used to power their Steam Tech,” Zeru explained, and Jin was absolutely clueless what he was talking about. “Hmph, when you are having your fun in the WunderPanda, a number of things happened. Gold will give you a debriefing later, they just clashed with the Farm Rats at Keyrin’s home territory and emerged victoriously. As ordered, they made sure no rat was left alive.”
“And the System regrets to inform User that the Demon Rats cannot be captured.” The System told Jin how the Demon Rats were reincarnated into raw materials which made Jin laugh bitterly at the information.
“Oh my god…but I guess, this plan is still feasible? Such a shame about us not getting thousands of Demon Rats, otherwise…” Jin asked the bellators around him. However, only the System replied back.
“It would potentially be more immersive if User manages to get the mechanical brain first for the military and police forces. However, should the planned military exercises need to be expedited, the System approved of User’s alternate plan.” The System stated, and both Bellators nodded their head.
“Alright, sorry to break the happy bubble but there still is the issue that the System… was unable to tell Jin (personally).” Yun intervened and told the rest if they wish to stay to hear the things, she would not mind a single bit.
“Since funding the goblin war was not cheap and we lacked the funds, Jin decided to sell the prototype Gearbox to various worlds at ultra high prices but also in limited quantities. Because of the System ‘s bias choice of trading in the Mecha World’s market, it had not vetted the buyer before selling the product… even though our dear System was always careful in the past.” Yun started to address the issue to Jin while not wasting the opportunity to get some jabs into the System.
“In defence, the System did vet the –”
“System Shhh! You allowed me to say it on your behalf, so keep quiet.” Yun placed her index finger at her mouth to indicate the System to shut the hell up before she cleared her throat and continued on.
“The System did not vet the buyer sufficiently thorough because of the lack of multithread capacity to process the entire vetting procedure while they were in the midst of preparing for the war.” Yun had decided to give the System a chance to come clean itself.
“However, that lead to a successful deal, which now indirectly caused a great threat to the Mecha World. According to black market information brokers, the buyer was from an elitist cult group which used the prototype as a sample to build an enlarged version of it for their Mecha frames. So even if we destroy the original prototype with our failsafe method, it would be useless.”
“Please don’t tell me that that prototype leads to the productions of robots like Gomdem. And instead of saving the world, they are destroying it?” Jin said it out loud, and Yun shrugged a right shoulder while nodding her head.
“That’s more or less the gist of it. World Domination… as per usual.” Yun replied.
“Hahahahah! So, you are saying our dear little master’s sale had inadvertently caused chaos to their world? Oh boy. Jin you shall be remembered in the future as the ancestor who has sold weapons starting an intergalactic war…” Kraft laughed so badly at the situation at hand.
“At this rate, we might as well call ourselves the Protectors of the Galaxy or World, going everywhere to solve each and different world’s problem. And they all originate from this tiny little shop on Earth. Oh, the irony of a fantasy light novel.” Kraft couldn’t help but add more salt to injury as he continued to chuckle at the absurdity at it.
“Are they..erm the Mecha World in very much in trouble?” Jin did feel a little guilty when Yun laid it out that way. She was right, he could not think straight after hearing the news.
“At the moment not really. But don’t blame yourself too much over it. It was bound to happen for their world sooner or later, according to predictive analysis. We just kinda…erm accelerated the process for the bad guys. Also, unlike the worlds you been to, Earth’s time move roughly three times faster than theirs…if it brings you any consolation that you actually have more time in your hands.” Yun tried her best to comfort Jin, hoping he would not blame himself too much.
“In my opinion, you had done well in past cases. The Goblin sons were a fateful coincidence that leads us to protect the balance in the Goblin World. ” Zeru also consoled Jin.
“And if we did not remove Gold from the equation in the Farming World, the fate of that Farming World might have been sealed. We would not be able to procure any more luxury food products from their world’s market.” He added on while patting on his disciple’s shoulder.
“Now I am beginning to feel letting Niu Lang creating that Supa Robot Wars was a blessing in disguise.” Jin sighed.
“He would say it’s the Heavens that ordained it. Good luck pal.” Kraft patted on Jin’s shoulders and left Jin to his own devices for now.
