Chapter 170: Revelation

Like the 【Holographic Bone Corridor】, the 【Automated 3D Warehouse】 also has a second form.

It can expand from a palm-sized container toy into a small shipping container.

After opening the container's door, a built-in space appears, measuring 100 meters long, 75 meters wide, and 25 meters high—medium warehouse scale.

Li Cheng stood at the warehouse's center, wearing a construction hard hat he'd somehow acquired, scribbling on paper with a pen, occasionally tapping his calculator.

"Clack-clack-clack-clack—"

Beside him, Hui Yu covered her mouth with her palm and let out a Tarzan-like roar, echoing through the vast space. Seeing Li Cheng's serious expression, she asked curiously, "What are you drawing?"

"Space layout plan."

Li Cheng replied offhandedly, "To level up as an Odd Mechanic, you must disassemble and reassemble items, create inventions, and constantly hone your craft.

Buying small magical items is only the first step—you'll need to stockpile a huge volume of goods afterward."

"Pressure presses, flat forging machines, air hammers, bench drills, gas furnaces, stackers, forklifts, gantry cranes, CNC machines, 3D printers, diesel generators, air circulation and purification systems, fire suppression systems, wastewater treatment systems."

Even with the all-powerful Lujie intermediary who sells affordable, high-quality equipment, it still costs a lot of money.

Seeing Li Cheng lost in thought, Hui Yu's little brain whirred, snatched the calculator, and started tapping, saying as she did, "This space is so big—why not rent it out for housing?

At 50 square meters per room, one floor can fit 150 rooms. With three-meter ceilings, you can stack eight floors—that's 1,200 rooms total.

Place the container in the city center's most accessible location; charge 3,000 game coins per month for a 50-square-meter unit with kitchen and bathroom, collect one month's rent upfront plus three months' deposit plus intermediary fee—you'll recoup over a thousand game coins in one go."

"Pfft."

Li Cheng nearly spat out his cola, giving Hui Yu a strange look that said, "Hey, kid, you're actually a genius," and asked, "You're turning this into a pigeon coop? Where'd you even get all this?"

"My phone," Hui Yu said matter-of-factly, pulling out her phone filled with rental, loan, and browser game ads.

"Stop scrolling through all that nonsense."

Li Cheng rubbed his temples and took back the calculator—thankfully, Hui Yu hadn't seen Hong Kong rental ads, where 10-square-meter apartments are the ultimate anti-human design.

As for Hui Yu's idea of becoming a landlord and making money—forget it. First, the Special Affairs Bureau won't allow it; second, Li Cheng still has some integrity; third, he finds it annoying.

Leaving the 【Automated 3D Warehouse】 with Hui Yu, Li Cheng immediately ordered through the Lujie intermediary to purchase goods and equipment.

Money makes the devil push the mill; three days later, all equipment arrived, and the warehouse was preliminarily transformed into a workshop.

Relying on the workshop, Li Cheng began with forging cold weapons and armor, gradually replicating along the path of matchlock guns, flintlock guns, muzzle-loading cannons, rifled cannons, then shifted to manufacturing steam engines and internal combustion engines.

Most were handcrafted by him; a small portion were completed by Prometheus Corporation's automated industrial robotic arms and Mage's Hand.

Mage's Hand is a zero-level spell an Odd Mechanic can master: a ghostly, semi-transparent floating palm, capable of lifting at most 4.5 kilograms.

Since the skill was so useful, Li Cheng quickly used it to do homework, cook, sweep, mop, handle chores, and simultaneously train his spellcasting ability to raise his Qi value cap.

His current player panel reads:

【Dead Man's Gambit · Master Pi Fu】

【Lv12, XP 560/1200】

【Strength: 10】

【Agility: 10】

【Intelligence: 10】

【Constitution: 10】 (New Human: 1) (Commoner's Fury: 1)

【Perception: 8】

【Charisma: 5】 (Barbecue Enthusiast: -1)

【Equipment Slot: Assembled Doll, Odd Mechanic's Credential, Holographic Bone Corridor, Bat Hook Gun, 170 Straight Blade, Nuclear Lighter, Thunder Horn ×1】

【Inventory: Death-Seeking Notebook, Automated 3D Warehouse, Insect Lord's Divine Corruption Crystal, Akili Toy Factory Key ×3, Wound-Stop Gel ×5, Ten-Eye Communication Earpiece, Emergency Escape Card, Electronic Pet Egg, Mini Life Potion ×1, Shark-Type Single Soldier Exoskeleton, Bat-Wing Weight Armored Motorcycle, Avenger Machine Cannon, Drone, Erotic Dao Robe】

【Skill Slot: Mist Concealment, Multi-Threaded Brain Domain Method, Experience Roleplay Method, Instant Thunder, Familiar Swap, Death Curse Torrent (Temporary), Bloodlust Rage (Temporary), Cut Bleed (Temporary), Wing Glide (Temporary), Misleading Slander (Temporary), Small Gravitational Energy Sphere (Temporary), Summoning Art: Paper Crane (Temporary)】

【Game Currency: 1053】

【Qi Value: 480】

【Sanity: 390】 (Barbecue Enthusiast: 120) (Helicopter Destroyer: 30)

Just as Li Cheng thought this was another ordinary Friday night, a sudden stirring deep within him caused his hand tightening the steam engine's screw to slow.

In the warehouse's corner, Hui Yu, who had been secretly playing on her phone at the desk, heard the screwing stop and quickly shoved her phone into her textbook, pretending to continue homework.

When Li Cheng passed by her, she leaned forward curiously and asked, "What's up? A mission?"

"Yes and no."

Li Cheng frowned slightly, opened his computer, and logged into the player forum.

As expected, the forum refreshed with new threads at a dizzying speed.

Titles were all 【Here it comes! Here it comes! It's here!】, or 【Killing Urge Is Rising】, or simply a string of exclamation marks.

Roughly every six months, the Killing Ground undergoes some change.

European players call it a Major Event, American players call it a Shock Point, religious believers call it the Moment of Revelation, gaming enthusiasts call it a Season Update, and the Special Affairs Bureau's official term is 【Tremor】.

During this period, the Killing Ground assigns all players routine missions, all taking place within physical Killing Grounds.

Mission formats and contents vary wildly: solo, team-based, requiring the hunting of specific experiments, or demanding exploration of certain areas.

The only two certainties are that mission difficulty scales with player strength, and rewards are extremely generous.

After a brief delay, the forum's chat board began filling with advertisement posts.

Small loans, equipment rentals, personal safety insurance, firearm modifications, lone-wolf temporary squads.

Even nightclub ads appeared, inviting players to splurge before missions—everything 20% off.

The forum moderation group, Whale Song Organization, rushed online and efficiently deleted countless ads.

But soon, paid trolls learned to adapt, using seemingly legitimate titles.

Such as 【Major Event Approaching—What Gear Should New Players Buy to Boost Combat Power Fastest?】

【Classic Mission Case Studies from the Past Four Revelation Moments—Inside Are Real Tips, Request Admin to Pin】

【One Hundred Taboos of the Killing Ground, 99% of Players Don't Know】,

After clicking in, the content at the start was still fairly proper, but halfway through it suddenly pivoted to an ad, recommending players go spend money at some shop on Back-Alley Street — really made you want to curse out loud.

Business is war; by now there were probably merchants doing the opposite — not advertising their own shops, but frantically buying water armies and posting garbage threads for their competitors' shops, so the player base would grow disgusted with those places.

Li Cheng scrolled the forum for a while with a sweating-soybean emoji, and finally waited until an official pinned post written in large, bold red font appeared.

【The Global Paranormal Alliance will hold a press conference at 12 noon London time, jointly with the official organizations of all nations and major guilds, at the center of Back-Alley Street in the Killing Ground. All Summoned are sincerely invited to attend and watch.】

Twelve noon London time — about ten minutes from now.

Li Cheng released Mage Hand, shut off the workshop's main power, called Grey Rain to leave the three-dimensional warehouse, and logged into the Killing Ground to head for Back-Alley Street.

Back-Alley Street was neither big nor small, and the streets were packed with players in outlandish outfits.

Fortunately Li Cheng and Grey Rain had arrived early; they found an open patch in the front courtyard of the Special Affairs Bureau headquarters building and quickly set up a lifeguard-style observation chair over two meters tall — that's right, ever since obtaining the 【Automated Three-Dimensional Warehouse】, a high-capacity spatial item, Li Cheng had stuffed a huge pile of miscellaneous junk inside it.