Although Jin now possessed advanced Golems and competent soldiers at his disposal, he did not think of discounting standard military defences. This was primarily because the first few hundred metres of the entrances were restricted. He was not able to fill it with clay statues and it sort of bothered him to the point of mild paranoia.
Moloch explained to him that it was an open ground designated by the Dungeon Cave itself for the invading armies to assemble. Because of this, it prompted the dungeon supplier that he might potentially lose the element of surprise of getting the clay statues to attack on sight against any invading armies.
The Dungeon Core had affirmed that the few hundred metres of the entrance were not under its jurisdiction which the System had no way to tweak the rules of the Dungeon Core. Therefore it was unable to allow Jin and his minions to place any personal property in the open area.
Even if they do, the ground would naturally corrode anything that was in its path, as if Lady Gaia of the Dungeon World did not allow any defilement of her land. Hence, Jin decided to be more assertive in his surprise tactics should King Baal invades.
The dungeon supplier had ordered the goblins to transport the artilleries he used in the Goblin World to the Dungeon World. Those WW2 artilleries would be reused to aimed at the direction of the open area, which was at least three hundred metres wide.
As for the next couple hundred of metres that bordered the ‘restricted’ zone, it was massively cramped with the clay statues, waiting to pounce on the disarrayed army when the artillery bombardment begins. Flak guns were also brought into the Dungeon World to counter King Baal’s air forces which Moloch described it as one of the most offensive superior troops in his disposal.
However, the Minotaur Lord had seen how those flak guns worked, and those wyvern riders would definitely be of no match towards Jin’s air defences, a scene Moloch was personally dying to see.
Other than that, Qiu Yue did not wait too long to get the approval from Jin for the goblins to create the M4 Sherman Tanks. Regrettably, most of the engineers Qiu Yue had contracted were already busy with either the construction of the city or the production of the golems.
So, she had decided to outsource it to the goblins and orcs in the Goblin World. The adventurer’s guild manager, Zhi Nu had placed an urgent job notice for any adventurers willing to earn a quick buck to come forth. Since Qiu Yue had provided Zhi Nu with a standard stack of contracts which, when filled up, the manager would be able to reveal the details and open a portal for them to enter a restricted factory zone to begin work immediately.
A few of the experienced engineers on site would teach them how to assemble the final parts of the tank which an abundance of manpower, brute strength and to a certain degree of precision.
Of course, the System had provided the necessary tools and machinery to lessen the workload of these temporary workers, so the assembly was not the main issue. It was the quality checklist that needed to be cleared and subsequent logistics after the tank assembly.
The transportation of spare parts like caterpillar tracks, armour plating and other components into various outposts required manpower, and that was where the adventurers came into play. And as the Orc adventurers assisted in doing the manual labour of transporting, the goblins were assigned with less strenuous tasks such as filling ammunition and stock taking. (The humans did a combination of both.)
Manufacturing of the ammunition was simple for the System to do, but the filling of the ammo clips required time and energy to be wasted. Although the process could be automated, it needed more investment in advanced machinery which the System felt it was a waste of money at this point in time. Thus, those goblin adventurers with deft hands were suitable for such jobs.
The pay was good for the adventurers, and it was extremely beneficial for the System too. The conversion for the dungeon dollar to the Goblin World’s coins was like exchanging British pounds to a currency of a poorly developed country.
The System was saving a lot of money by using manual labour instead of the use of automation. In addition, many if not all of the adventurers hardly complained since the completion their daily tasks came with a free meal cooked by the Penguins.
Those who wished to earn more money would be allowed to sign a separate contract and help with the construction, but those contracts did not guarantee them any additional benefits other than monetary compensation, unlike the goblins which Qiu Yue had first contracted. (Fortunately, their contracts did cover them for death and injuries, which was why a number signed up without hesitation.)
With a fresh workforce, the Dungeon City Fortress was moving to completion even faster than before. Most of the defences were on par to a minimum standard, and Jin decided to text Hou Fei if he was missing anything else.
Though Hou Fei was a Panda Remnant which could be ordered at any time by Jin, the Astral Panda cultivator still felt a certain level of respect should be given. That was why he requested Hou Fei to come within the next week or so to have a final inspection and if there were any loopholes that needed to be filled.
Else, the only thing left in the Dungeon City agenda was the Pand-Atlantis. A series of high rise Condominiums were constructed within the Domes 1 and 2 as shown the hologram layout along with the assortment of amenities planned.
Unlike Qiu Yue who loved the complex and intricate layout of the Glass Dome 1, Jin was nauseated by it. He remembered why he did not choose civil engineering back when he was in university.
However, he did recognise how much effort Qiu Yue had put in. The details were slightly minute, but each of them had its own purpose as well as why it was placed that particular way.
Through the few years Qiu Yue was in the urban redevelopment programme during her stint, she had access to different building layouts as well as the basic stuff like the roads and piping systems. Thus before she officially quit, she did something similar to Ayse where she stole data from Ministry with the help of Kraft.
Unfortunately, Kraft did not have Foxy back then, but the data security system was so elementary that a piece of customised spyware was sufficient. All she needed was time to transfer the data into the thumb drive.
Similar to Foxy, Kraft’s customised spyware left no traces behind nor signs of intrusion, so no one ever suspected her anything. Still, Kraft was also blessed that he now had Foxy when he wanted to conduct counter espionage against Sea Mesh.
The System noted that the data collection from Sea Mesh was somewhat faster and more frequent, indicating that the database was robust but not as groundbreaking as the secret servers the Chinese Military Intelligence used.
And unlike the Chinese Military intelligence incident, Kraft did not programme the second Foxy to terminate and instead, allow it to continue to stay in the shadows to comb for new data while it learned how to counter the latest security patches.
It was an evolving computer virus which Kraft eventually hope that it could potentially blackout their entire servers if there was a need to.
As for Qiu Yue, the stolen Ministry database gave her a plethora of information which she used the Sub System to sieve out the most optimal plans. She then fused and combined the most functional layouts together to create her dream version of Pand-Atlantis.
It was fortunate that even high rise building blueprint designs were in the stolen data, and that was when Qiu Yue recalled a law was made during her early days interning in the Ministry.
With that introduction of the new law, every construction company ought to send a copy sample of the housing plans. Be it existing housings or future confirmed bids, everything must be given to the Ministry of Urban Development as a record. This new law occurred in response to a major accident where an entire row of high rise apartments collapsed because of inferior construction materials. (The Triad Clan responsible for the company was severely reprimanded.)
So in order to hold future construction companies responsible, the Chinese government implemented the new law, resulting in thousands of housing plans to be upload into their database.
The number of overtime hours spent just to upload and index the data was a complete waste of time in Qiu Yue’s opinion. Yet now, because of the hard work she had done previously when she was an intern, Qiu Yue had access to the most comprehensible database of housing blueprints the country had.
Naturally, the Sub System did pick and choose the best housing plans to best fit the Pand-Atlantis layout which subsequently Qiu Yue spent nights perfecting the formulae. That was partially why she was grateful for Moloch for taking over the command of the city’s construction.
Contrary to the time when she was a salaried worker, Qiu Yue was now able to create the dream district she had ever wanted. All those flaws in the Shenzhen districts due to old infrastructure, budget constraints or management disapprovals were no longer an issue when working for Jin.
Well, there were budget limitations, but Qiu Yue refused to acknowledge it, which indirectly cause Jin to suffer from the shortage of money to build the Tree Mall.
Yet Jin and Qiu Yue did not know about this. They each believed that the shop was not earning enough. Only the System knew about everything and decided to keep its silence. But hey! Everything seemed to work out just fine. 🙂
