Chapter 537: Treasure

"What's wrong?" Li Cheng put away the Book of Plague Impurity, stepped out of the sterile room, and took the tablet from a cube robot; the screen displayed a rotatable 3D map.

The intelligent core explained, "You previously instructed us to survey the terrain around the toy factory. Using automated drones, we've now mapped part of it. Let it explain to you."

The factory's current defense system is Level One, capable of handling most threats wandering the wasteland. But such a large target still risks attracting transcendent beings—or even players.

The best approach, naturally, is to prevent problems before they arise.

"Respect↓ed Fa↑ctory↑ Mas↑ter"

The cube robot, dressed in full camouflage military uniform, spoke in a rhythmic cadence that instantly sent Li Cheng back to Anhui—his jaw clenched tight.

"I said stop, stop."

Li Cheng waved his hand frantically, grimacing: "Can you not use that Li Chunji tone? If I hear another word, I'll get third-degree burns."

"Understood."

The cube servant nodded quickly, then spoke again—still full of emotion, but now inexplicably in French: "On this solemn day, I am filled with joy, tears in my eyes, reporting to you, my glorious Factory Master, radiant as the sun, the progress of our endeavor."

Li Cheng was stunned. The dramatic tone he could accept—but French?

The intelligent core, sensing his confusion, silently projected an old video: a black man in a suit, standing on Changbai Mountain, gesturing wildly and reciting poetry in French.

Black man. Changbai Mountain. Reciting poetry. These words seemed unrelated, yet Caoxian had indeed held the "Great Commemoration of the White Head Mountain Hero" in 2017, inviting dozens of international friends from Denmark, Australia, Nigeria, Russia, and others.

At the event, this black man—Abdoulaye Diallo, a Guinean poet and president of the Guinean Subject Literature Research Association—recited his original poem, "The Glory of Changbai Mountain," praising three suns.

His presence completely overshadowed all other speakers from other nations.

One can only say: African elder artists, the peninsula doesn't create myths—this is their domain.

Li Cheng sighed inwardly. Since his name truly was "Ri Cheng," he gritted his teeth and endured the report.

The toy factory currently has two types of servants: cylindrical and cubic. Neither was designed for combat; they're adequate for patrolling the wasteland in armored vehicles, but utterly incapable of entering the killing field or mapping terrain.

So they took another path: first driving a pickup truck dozens of kilometers from the factory, then launching large drones equipped with fiber-optic cables, flying them another hundred kilometers out.

These large drones carry over two hundred kilograms. First, they deploy a high-power base station with its own battery and extended functions; once the station is built, the drones fly back and forth along preset routes.

Where there's light, they drop solar panels; where there's wind, they drop wind turbines; where there's water, they drop tidal generators—all to continuously power the base station.

Once built, the station not only provides wireless signals and charging for the drones, but also serves as a launchpad, enabling various drone models to relay like checkers, building more stations and expanding the exploration boundary to map the 3D terrain.

All the toy factory needs to do is continuously supply drones and modular construction materials.

During Li Cheng's absence, the servants had expanded their exploration range to over a thousand kilometers in diameter.

Except for certain dangerous zones—such as areas with wandering transcendent beings, gravity anomalies, vacuum, electromagnetic shielding, or terrain barriers—the majority of the map has been surveyed.

Even the hardest-to-reach areas had been photographed from high altitude.

"Looks a bit like a giant ant colony."

Li Cheng rotated the screen with three fingers. The toy factory sat at the center of the ant colony structure; within the explored range, they had found three teleport phone booths.

"The mechanism of outdoor teleport phone booths is that you must first locate the booth and discover the specific complex code pasted on the handset to teleport accurately."

The total number of phone booths in the killing field is incalculable; only a tiny fraction are widely used by players. Most remain dormant."

The intelligent core explained: "Based on observations over this period, these three phone booths have never been used, and no codes for them appear on the Summoner Forum."

"For safety, we've installed hidden motion-sensing cameras around each booth. If anyone teleports, we immediately transmit photos and trigger a self-destruct sequence to destroy all nearby base stations and drones."

"To prevent them from tracing back to the toy factory. Is this acceptable?"

"Fine. Very thoughtful."

Li Cheng had no objections—he wasn't some demon capable of cold-blooded slaughter, wiping out every player who stumbled into the area.

At most, he'd capture them, electrocute their brains, and implant false memories: say, they'd accidentally been injured, rescued by a kind elf boy or girl from the killing field's native species, fallen in love, married—and then their lover was casually incinerated by an automated golem deployed by the Zhong Lou Guild.

Let the Zhong Lou bear it. Let the Zhong Lou carry it.

You've got this. Smile.

"There's one more thing."

The intelligent core said: "Regarding the pattern you brought back, I have an immature hypothesis."

The so-called pattern was the only unexplained symbol on the bronze door from the 【Reset to Zero】 quest—a single dot emitting over fifty rays.

"I've reviewed and synthesized information from player forums and found that the endpoint coordinates of over ten of these rays closely match the publicly known coordinates of hidden zones held by major guilds, and other special locations recorded by players."

The intelligent core projected a 3D image. Li Cheng froze, then instantly understood: "The distances between the ray endpoint coordinates match the relative distances between the known special locations on the forum?"

The intelligent core projected a 3D image; Li Cheng froze for a moment, then instantly realized, "The distance between the endpoints of the rays matches the relative distances between known special locations on the forum?"

The intelligent core nodded slightly, "After repeatedly comparing video images with supercomputers, we found subtle differences in the carving depth of each ray."

The deeper the carving, the larger the scale ratio."

The deepest ray's scale is 1 meter to 3.69 light-minutes. The next level is 61.8% of the previous. And so on."

The deepest ray's scale is one meter to 3.69 light-minutes. The next level's scale is 61.8% of the previous one. And so on.

Li Cheng's mind stirred. Mathematics was the universal language of the cosmos. Even if the creator—Optimus Prime or astronaut Will—didn't know Earth's definitions of seconds, light-seconds, or light-minutes, he could still convey information using the same mathematical rules.

"Combining all this, the ray pattern is likely a map, using over fifty special locations and hidden zones as coordinates, pointing toward the center of the rays."

The intelligent core continued: "Even ignoring the possibility of treasure at the ray's center, the value of this map—revealing the coordinates of these special locations—is immeasurable."

Indeed, Cai Anjie's possession of just a half-hidden zone had already triggered open and covert struggles between the Zhong Lou Guild and the Special Affairs Bureau.

A complete hidden zone far surpasses any epic or legendary artifact.

Li Cheng took a deep breath, calming his mind. Optimus Prime had been dead for tens of thousands of years—long enough for oceans to become mulberry fields. Moreover, the killing field itself undergoes "continental drift"; the map's coordinates may no longer be reliable.

He asked gravely: "How far is the center point of the rays from Lujie?"

"Not far—4.7 light-minutes."

Uh. 4.7 light-minutes—on an astronomical scale, that's extremely close. But it's still farther than Earth to Mars, roughly 220 times the distance between Earth and the Moon.

Uh, 4.7 light-minutes—on an astronomical scale, that's indeed extremely, extremely close—but the problem is it's already farther than the distance between Earth and Mars, roughly two hundred and twenty times the Earth-Moon distance.

"The nearest teleport phone booth is in the jurisdiction of the GRU's Superpsychology Department in Russia, approximately 1.947 light-minutes from the destination."

"The nearest transmission booth is in the territory under the jurisdiction of the GRU Psychotronics Department in Russia, approximately 1.947 light-minutes from the destination."

That is 91 times the Earth-Moon distance, roughly 35 million kilometers; reaching it directly is fraught with difficulty.

"I understand. Go ahead and attend to your duties."

Li Cheng frowned deeply, dismissed the intelligent core and the cube robot, tears streaming down its face as it bounced in place, then pulled out one of the audio messages left behind by the astronaut Will and pressed play.

"I am not the complete Optimus Prime—only a fragment of his essential essence, lacking all his memories. But I vaguely recall that, in life, he buried something important at a specific coordinate. As a token of gratitude, go find it. If you want it, you may have it all."

Who's that, Pirate King Gol D. Roger?

Li Cheng slapped his forehead, sighed, and called Gray Rain back to the real world, muttering under his breath about the distant, unreachable treasure, "3502.34, 3502.34."

"You've seen that too, Li Cheng?" Gray Rain, hearing the numbers, nodded in unexpected agreement. "Dong Zhuo and Lu Bu really were a tragic couple in these chaotic times."

??? Take your tragic couple and go eat a big portion somewhere.