Chapter 578: Cell

Fifteen days after Wu Quan and others completed the 【Dream Demon Spell】 quest.

At the edge of the main building of the toy factory, in a spacious workshop nearly three stories tall, rows of metal shelves were neatly arranged.

On the shelves were white rectangular shallow baskets made of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, a special plastic material, each containing agricultural film cultivation bags shaped like humans.

Dense, dark red mycelium, as thick as pasture grass, sprouted through the pre-punched Kong Dongs in the human-shaped cultivation bags, growing vigorously.

Inside each cultivation bag, ten cables and hoses of varying functions were inserted; metal cables were bundled with zip ties and mounted beside the metal shelves, arranged with the precision of a thirty-year veteran electrician, running down along cable trays to connect to the data processing boxes assigned to each shelf.

The plastic hoses, meanwhile, extended upward to connect to large oval IV bags.

The factory ceiling was lined with longitudinal and transverse tracks, upon which numerous industrial robotic arms moved between the shelves, either gently flipping the cultivation bags to adjust IV infusion rates in real time based on uploaded blood pressure, heart rate, and blood oxygen data;

or using wheeled harvesters with brushes to shear the surface of the human-shaped cultivation bags, cleanly harvesting mature mycelium that had not yet produced evil spirits;

or pulling out all cables and hoses, then hooking the four corners of the shallow baskets to carry the cultivation bags—having completed two or three growth cycles of mycelium and lost their utility—to the incinerator, where they were burned to ash in flames.

Most of the factory's equipment originated from automated unmanned farm greenhouses purchased on real-world online shopping platforms, plus scraps of life-support devices bought from Pinduoduo.

"There's a sense of harvest joy."

In the office high above the workshop, Li Cheng stood by the window, gazing down at the orderly automated factory, and took a sip of coffee.

A cylindrical robot servant slid into the room, holding a tablet, "Respected Yuan... Factory Master, here is the automated farm's statistical report, please review."

Fingertips swept across the tablet screen; under the Multi-Threaded Brain Domain technique, his eyes absorbed hundreds of lines at a glance.

"I understand. Well done, you may leave."

Li Cheng paused, his gaze sweeping over the cylindrical robot servant's chest badge, and with a slightly pained expression, uttered the servant's name: Feng Menglong.

That's right—as the toy factory expanded, Li Cheng had finally allowed the robot servants to name themselves rather than be called by numbers.

The news brought tears of gratitude to all robot servants; after a brief but heated discussion and exchange (involving no small amount of grappling and punching with flexible mechanical arms), the square robot servants swiftly submitted their chosen names: Li Shunchen, An Zhonggen, Kim Gu, Li Mingyun...

Among them, the name Li Shunchen was fiercely contested; when names ran out, some square robot servants resorted to bizarre names.

Such as Quan Xiaojiang, Lu Baima, Che Zhiche, Jin Zaigui...

This made Li Cheng straight-up say "666"—were they after the Peach of Immortality or planning to defect?

As for the cylindrical robot servants, it was even more outrageous—they submitted names like Rommel, Heinz, Heisenberg.

When questioned by Li Cheng, they insisted Heinz referred not to the WWII German general Heinz, but to the 19th-century German composer Georg Heinz; Heisenberg was not Werner Heisenberg, the leader of Nazi Germany's nuclear weapons program, but Heisenberg from Breaking Bad.

This scheme of deception naturally wasn't approved by Li Cheng—what nonsense, today allowing robot servants to call themselves Rommel or Manstein, tomorrow the beer bar charging station at the toy factory would have robot servants raising their arms and shouting for uniforms sewn for them.

Under Li Cheng's orders, the cylindrical robot servants reluctantly settled for using the German noble prefix "Feng" as their names: Feng Menglong, Feng Guozhang, Feng Yuxiang, Feng Gong, even one named himself Feng Timo, with the equally absurd justification that historically, France could only be saved by foreigners, dwarves, or women, and Feng Timo's "Feng" was a noble surname, possibly even better suited to lead Europe than EU Commission President von der Leyen...

Fortunately, the robot servants' primary function is operating the factory, not engaging in direct combat; otherwise, sending out a full army of Quan Xiaojiang and Feng Gong would be too abstract.

Li Cheng watched the robot servant exit the room, scratched his head, and pulled out his phone to check the player forum.

Half a month had passed since he posted the 【HOBO Survival Kit】 obtained from the last quest's loot box on the forum, explicitly requesting barter.

The good news was that, as a multi-functional epic-quality item, the HOBO kit had drawn numerous private messages asking for its price.

Excluding the spam messages begging for handouts, questioning its value, or haggling down to ten game coins, there were still legitimate guild representatives interested in bartering with Li Cheng.

However, epic-quality items were too valuable; medium and large guilds prioritized distributing them to core members, and the idle items they could offer often had glaring strengths and weaknesses. Some of the bizarre little items opened Li Cheng's eyes.

For example, the 【Phono-Graphemic Fruit】—a cherry-shaped fruit that, when consumed, materializes spoken sounds as high-speed, ultra-heavy bricks; a single shout of the seven-character mantra "Hājímǐ Nánběi Lǜdòu" could crush an opponent to death.

The cost was lack of control—sleeping snoring or burping while eating could easily crush oneself.

The cost was loss of voluntary control—snoring in sleep, or even burping while eating could crush him.

A complete set of blue headwrap, blue wide-sleeved robe, and white inner tunic bearing a portrait of Confucius; wearing them grants supernatural power proportional to one's cultural literacy, similar to the "painting as Dao" system of summoning power through art, using poetry and prose to slay enemies and break armies.

The cost is an irreversible transformation of one's personality and character toward Confucianism; if one's moral cultivation is insufficient, one easily becomes a petty, pedantic scholar who insists "the fish head must face me," "women cannot eat at the table," or even a violent, power-seeking Confucian who believes "Confucius's Kong is actually the horror god's Kong," "blood sacrifice to the learning god, skulls offered to the skull throne."

【Morning Star Cooling Slot】—a permanent chip implanted into the spine; its effect reduces cooldown time based on the number of empty skill slots.

That is, the fewer skills one equips, the faster the cooldown.

If only one skill is equipped, cooldown time can be forcibly reduced from one hour to five seconds, enabling mindless repetition: Lion Slash, Lion Slash, Lion Slash, Lion Slash—a combo that crushes opponents under relentless assault.

These items were all useful, but Li Cheng wanted offensive weapons or epic items capable of enhancing the Imperial Guard tanks, and had yet to reach an agreement with any guild representatives.

Then again, should he buy Huiyu a VR version of the BBK Learning Machine?... Heard it significantly improves learning efficiency...

Li Cheng idly thought, glanced back casually, and saw Huiyu writing her middle school math homework with one hand, gripping a cleaver in the other, sharpening it against a whetstone, muttering under her breath: "Raise one point, kill a thousand."

Li Cheng thought absentmindedly, glancing back casually, and saw Hui Yu writing out middle school math homework with one hand while gripping a cleaver, scraping it back and forth against a whetstone, muttering to himself, "Raise one point, eliminate a thousand."

Li Cheng's eye twitched; he was about to speak when a system notification chimed in his ear.

【Task trigger condition met】

【Task type: Scripted Task (Team Cooperation)】

【Task name: Living Brain Cells】

【Task Name: Living Brain Cells】