Chapter 598: 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 sat white rectangular shallow baskets made of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, a special plastic material, each containing human-shaped agricultural film cultivation bags.

Dense, dark red mycelium, like pasture grass, sprouted through pre-punched holes 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 aligned along the metal shelves in the neat layout of a thirty-year veteran electrician, running down guide rails 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 crisscrossing tracks, and numerous industrial robotic arms moved along them between the shelves, 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 shave the surface of the human-shaped cultivation bags, cleanly harvesting mature mycelium that had not yet produced malevolent 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 online from real-world platforms, supplemented with scraps of life-support devices bought on 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-line brain domain technique, his eyes absorbed hundreds of lines at a glance.

“I understand. Well done. Dismissed.”

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

Yes, as the toy factory expanded, Li Cheng had finally allowed the robot servants to choose their own names instead of being referred to by numbers.

The news brought tears of gratitude to all the robot servants; after a brief but heated exchange of opinions (including some using flexible mechanical arms to scratch and punch each other), the square robot servants quickly 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 choices.

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

Li Cheng could only mutter “666”—were they aiming for the Peach of Immortality or planning to defect to North Korea?

As for the cylindrical robot servants, it was even more outrageous: their submitted names were all things 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 program, but Heisenberg from Breaking Bad.

This scheme to deceive the master was naturally denied by Li Cheng—what nonsense, today allowing robot servants to call themselves Rommel and Manstein, tomorrow the beer bar charging station in the toy factory would have robots raising their arms and shouting for uniforms to be sewn for them.

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

Fortunately, the robot servants’ primary function was running the factory, not direct combat; otherwise, sending out a full army of Quan Xiaojiang and von Gong would be too abstract.

Li Cheng watched the robot servant leave, 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 his last quest’s loot box on the forum, specifying barter-only trades.

The good news was that the Hobo Kit, as a multi-functional Epic-quality item, had drawn numerous private messages from accounts inquiring about its price.

Excluding those begging for handouts, questioning its value, or haggling down to ten game coins, several legitimate guild representatives had expressed interest in bartering with Li Cheng.

But 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 odd little items opened Li Cheng’s eyes.

For example, the [Phono-Grapheme Fruit]—a cherry-shaped fruit that, when consumed, materializes spoken sounds as high-speed flying super-heavy bricks; a single shout of the seven-character mantra “Hakimi Nanbei Lüdou” could crush an opponent to death.

The cost: no voluntary control—sleeping snoring or even burping during meals could easily crush oneself.

[Confucian Robes and Headgear]

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 into the Dao” system where poetry, prose, and verse are used to slay enemies and break armies.

The cost: one’s personality and character irreversibly shift toward Confucianism; if one’s moral cultivation is insufficient, one easily becomes a petty, Furu scholar who insists “the fish head must face me” or “women cannot eat at the table,” or even a violent, blood-ritual Confucian who believes “the Confucius in Confucius is actually Khorne’s Khorne” and “sacrifice blood to the god of learning, offer skulls to the skull throne.”

[Morning Star Cooling Slot]—a permanent chip implanted into the spine; its effect reduces cooldown times 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 any agreement with guild representatives.

Then again, should he buy Huiyu a VR version of the Bubugao learning tablet? Tingshuonawanyiernengxianzhutigaoxuexixiaolv ...

Li Cheng idly wondered, glanced back casually, and saw Huiyu writing middle-school math homework with one hand while holding a cleaver, sharpening it on a whetstone, muttering, “Improve one point, kill a thousand.”

...You don’t mean “kill a thousand” literally, do you?!

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

【Quest trigger condition met】

【Quest type: Scripted Quest (Team Cooperation）】

【Quest name: Living Brain Cells】

【Task Name: Living Brain Cells】