Chapter 339: Returns

"This one."

Li Cheng's eyes lit up. He opened the scroll straight away and learned the skill.

At once, a strange sensation welled up in his heart. He instinctively picked up the pencil on the table, and a flood of knowledge instantly materialized in his mind.

Flip the wrist, stab the neck; strike the chest, stab the back; parry the wrist, spin and stab the back; hook the leg, stab the belly; strike the ribs, stab the throat; parry the wrist, stab the throat; strike the face, stab the eyes.

Thousands of martial techniques using a pencil as a weapon appeared clearly before his eyes.

Li Cheng was absolutely certain that even if every single one of his body enhancements were reset to zero, he could still take a pencil, kill three men in a bar, and walk out unscathed.

"It's not just the brain that loads the skill—the body itself instantly gains the corresponding muscle memory. Just like a grandmaster who's really trained for decades."

Li Cheng murmured, flexing his fingers. The pencil spun nimbly between his five fingers, fast enough to leave an afterimage.

He set the pencil down, and the muscle memory slowly faded. Picking up a folding chair, a brand-new martial mastery instantly generated.

Swing, smash, knock, block, pinch, clamp.

Li Cheng's spirits soared, his playful mood surging. He picked up in turn a stapler, a keyboard, a power strip, a vase, a desk lamp, a refrigerator door, and started showing off with them around the room.

"So this is what it feels like to be the Furniture Mall War God—feels awesome, feels powerful."

Amid the fun, Li Cheng didn't forget to dig deeper and work out the detailed information of this skill.

Besides all kinds of everyday weapons, 【A Knight Never Dies Unarmed】 also applies to supernatural gear, such as the Victory Lance and the bat-wing heavy motorcycle.

That's right—【A Knight Never Dies Unarmed】 can take effect on two, or more than two, weapons simultaneously.

He could totally ride the motorcycle cosplaying Zhao Zilong of Changshan, cutting through a sea of monsters seven times in and seven times out.

The only limits on this skill's ceiling are the user's brain capacity, the number of parallel thought threads in the brain, nerve reaction speed, and number of limbs.

"Brain capacity and parallel thought threads can be solved with the Multi-thread Brain Domain method. And the more limbs, the more weapons you can hold, the higher the skill's ceiling."

Li Cheng squinted and thought: "Ugh, does this mean I have to go buy some mechanical prosthetics, or just outright buy the hands and feet of the strong, and when a fight's coming, use 【Assembled Puppet】 to mount them directly on my body?

Some kind of Paul Bunyan, Tenshinhan, Godrick the Grafted."

The scenario mission had just ended, and the next one was still some time away, so there was no rush.

Li Cheng put the room's items back in place, went to the living room to let Huiyu know, then logged into the Killing Ground and headed to the Toy Factory.

The moment he stepped into the factory, a large spherical intelligent core floated over, and in the cadenced, emotionally rich tone of a North Korean female announcer, exclaimed: "Honorable Factory Owner! The Toy Factory welcomes your personal inspection!"

Li Cheng immediately broke out in goosebumps, and said, wincing: "Uh… can you change the tone? Hearing you talk like that, I feel like I'm about to get a third-degree burn."

"As you command."

Light flowed across the surface of the intelligent core, as if searching its database, then in the drawn-out cadence of a Republic-era announcer, it declared loudly: "In the past three days, eight hours, and forty-two minutes, the factory has integrated its resources, strictly pushed production, and made key progress on eleven toy manufacturing projects."

To stay in real-time contact, Li Cheng had specially set up an internet-connected computer with filtering software installed for the intelligent core; these weird phrases were probably things it had learned from the internet.

"Mm."

Li Cheng glanced at the product list the intelligent core presented, and did some quick mental math.

The Toy Factory took roughly 8–24 hours to manufacture one perfect-grade item, an average of 2–8 hours for rare and premium quality items, and ordinary items at one per hour.

At the factory's current operating efficiency, it could produce twenty items of various qualities each week. After deducting costs, the average net profit per item was around 200 game coins—about 17,700 a month.

If he got lucky and refined a high-quality concept, producing a perfect-grade item, the monthly income could be even higher.

"A level-20 player runs one mission, killing themselves, and only makes a few thousand game coins. This factory just casually makes some props and the income's already over ten thousand."

Li Cheng sighed: "No wonder those big organizations and guilds are going all out to buy out logistics-type players and acquire life-skill scrolls."

The most profitable business ventures in Grimy Street were all logistics-related.

Things like forging (weapons, ammo, armor), cooking (can buff supernatural beings), horticulture (growing and making magic potions), alchemy (supernatural props), appraisal, equipment disassembly and enchanting, magical beast breeding.

In a sense, the bars, nightclubs, and KTVs under Evil Science Alliance's control also count as logistics services. Their monthly revenue is basically a nuclear-powered money-printing machine.

Li Cheng closed the product list and said casually: "Report on the factory's current upgrade progress."

"Understood."

The intelligent core said softly: "The factory currently has 21,732 singularity points remaining.

Of the main sections, the Crushing Room, Refining Room, Recasting Room, and Collection Room are all level one. The Analysis Room and Design Room are level zero.

The factory's defense system and staff dormitory are level zero.

At the same time, the Collection Room stores 1 S+, 1 A, 5 B, and 12 C/D-grade concepts."

Upgrading the factory's level-zero buildings to level one costs ten to twenty thousand singularity points. All buildings must be upgraded to level one before the level-two building options unlock.

Li Cheng thought for a moment and asked: "Which part do you suggest I upgrade first?"

"That depends on your long-term and short-term plans."

The intelligent core said: "Upgrading the factory itself to level two requires fifty thousand singularity points, which we still haven't saved up.

If you urgently need supernatural items soon, you can upgrade the Analysis Room and Design Room first. If not, you can upgrade the staff dormitory first."

"Mm? Why?"

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow. "If I remember right, the factory's staff dormitory is for outside beings to live in, right? Isn't there a leak risk?"

Grimy Street had developed to this day—technologies like clones, mechanical laborers, goblin thralls, and biochemically modified beasts were already quite mature. A player could spend ten thousand game coins to buy a whole bunch of half-beast slaves wearing brainwashing collars; spend a bit more and you could even buy fully armed, properly tactically trained strong beastman mercenary squads.

Spend even more, and you could even hire things like the Undying Phalanx, the Undead Legion, the Brotherhood of Steel, SOX—cough, never mind that one.

"That's correct, but you can manufacture factory laborers yourself by arranging and combining concepts. Usually you need one B-grade Loyalty (the Collection Room happens to have one), plus a few other B-grade or lower concepts."

The intelligent core explained: "With factory laborers, you won't have to do everything yourself every time you feed materials into the Crushing Room or take them out.

Excellent laborers can also serve as designers in the Design Room, optimizing product blueprints so the final product better meets the design requirements."

Basically, no more running back and forth himself.

Li Cheng thought briefly, then nodded and agreed with the intelligent core's suggestion—running back and forth several times a day to harvest was a bit of a hassle.

Spending fifteen thousand singularity points, he upgraded the staff dormitory building from level zero to level one.

The moment the command was issued, a halo of light immediately appeared over the originally overgrown, dilapidated dormitory area.

Weeds were completely erased, broken glass was gradually repaired, rusted pipes were replaced one by one.

!

"I've reset the external architecture of the staff dormitory zone; the interior finishes are still undetermined, depending on what species, body size, and lifestyle habits your staff require."

The intelligent core said: "Humanoid beings need sleeping beds. If they're enhanced variants like beastmen, even larger toilets are needed."

"Forget humanoid beings—mechanical laborers are fine."

Li Cheng's eye twitched. The stronger a humanoid's physical constitution, the faster its metabolism, and the more time it wastes eating, drinking, and defecating.

Some super beastmen, beastmen, trolls, and ogres are pure feces-producing machines, excreting up to forty kilograms of waste per day—more than hippos.

In comparison, mechanical laborers who don't need sleep, food, drink, or waste disposal, and only require scheduled charging, are simply far more convenient.

"As you wish."

Upon hearing this, the intelligent core immediately went to the design room to draft rough blueprints, while Li Cheng personally poured various concepts into the production line's feed port.

B-grade loyalty, B-grade mechanical, B-grade numerous, C-grade hydraulic control, C-grade chip, D-grade Bluetooth, C-grade network linkage.

All concepts were poured into the feed port. The machine roared, and smoke billowed from the chimney.

Five hours later, the production line halted. The conveyor belt slowly delivered ten precisely crafted, sci-fi-styled mechanical constructs.

These mechanical units stood approximately one meter three tall, with silver-white cylindrical metal bodies and trapezoidal tracked chassis, topped with three-eyed visual sensors.

Four mechanical arms extended from their bodies, each with six axes, capable of gripping, rotating, and transporting, as well as using electric screwdrivers, welding torches, and cutters for fine industrial work.

"They look a bit like Prometheus Corporation's industrial robots."

Li Cheng silently thought. Each cylindrical machine bore a number from 001 to 010 on its chest, making them easy to distinguish.

Zzzt—

The three-eyed visual sensors on the cylindrical machines slowly lit up. The four mechanical arms swayed and shifted, supporting their bodies as they stepped off the conveyor belt.

Then, all mechanical units lined up neatly before Li Cheng, suddenly raising their right-side mechanical arms in a 45-degree salute. Their voice sensors blared in unison: "Hee! Hai!"

Wtf?!

Even with Li Cheng's vast experience, he couldn't hold it together. He stared blankly: "What the hell are these?"

Kinda... kinda cool.

"Accessing database... searching for cause."

The intelligent core fell unusually silent, then said: "Found it. The B-grade mechanical concept used in these units originated from V-2 missile components manufactured by Germany during WWII. The hydraulic control concept came from Porsche's Maus tank during WWII. The liquid fuel concept came from rocket scientist von Braun's pen."

"These factors combined caused a slight error in the mechanical units' understanding of the concept of 【loyalty】."

Fuck, Nazi all-stars?

And is this just a "slight" error?

Li Cheng listened as the cylindrical machines loudly played the German song "Erika," his eye twitching uncontrollably. "Can you make them stop? This is unbearable. Anyone hearing this would think they're heading to Poland."

"It should be possible. All units are connected to the factory's local network. I can modify their backend behavior programs via the network to quiet them down."

The intelligent core glowed like a blinding lightbulb. Minutes later, all cylindrical machines stopped looping "Erika" and lowered their raised right arms.

Before Li Cheng could breathe, all cylindrical machines raised all four mechanical arms and silently formed the inverted version of a Buddhist gesture.

Two units, 007 and 008, somehow retrieved paper and pen, and began respectfully sketching a half-portrait of Li Cheng—with the background of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Thud.

Li Cheng slapped his forehead in exasperation. "Make them quiet"—and now they're just quietly heading to Poland and France?

"The source code of these robots has permanently locked the absolute loyalty concept. Network commands can suppress abnormal behavior, but modifying the base code in the short term is impossible. The good news is these anomalies won't affect work efficiency."

The intelligent core issued several commands in succession, finally restoring the cylindrical machines to normal. They began following their programmed sequence: retrieving culturally significant artifacts from the collection room and feeding them into the pulverizer to extract concepts.

"Forget it. As long as it doesn't interfere with normal work. Watch out next time."

With no other option, Li Cheng waved his hand, telling the intelligent core to keep producing. He himself took all the goods and headed to the market street to sell them.

(End of Chapter)