Chapter 345: Return to the Far East

Looking down from a high vantage point at the rows of unawakened industrial robots neatly arranged not far before him, a satisfied smile immediately appeared on Sun Cheng's face.

These were robots recently produced by the factory, and their numbers were not small.

"Master, under your wise leadership, our production capacity has increased again recently. This is a batch of industrial robots that were just manufactured; there are one hundred and sixty-four of them in total, all here. In addition, twenty-three combat robots were manufactured and awakened at the same time, and they have currently been assigned to patrol the Canyon West District."

Fawningly following by Sun Cheng's side to introduce them to him was a new-model Decepticon, whose exterior appearance was roughly three meters tall.

Not to mention comparing him to Sun Cheng's new body, even compared to his original Frenzy Body, the Decepticon before Sun Cheng was lacking in many ways.

Although the bodies of the two did not look very different, it was obvious that the one standing next to Sun Cheng now was not a combat-type Decepticon, as his body looked much thinner and he was not equipped with many weapon systems; instead, his pair of arms appeared disproportionately thicker than his body.

And this Decepticon, named 'Dasasi', was one of the members of the original Decepticon worker squad under Atlas's leadership, and also one of his right-hand men.

Relying on this status, after Sun Cheng's new body was completed, Dasasi became one of the first three workers to receive a new body.

Hearing this, Sun Cheng turned his gaze toward Dasasi.

It was likely only a Mechanical Life faction with a deeply entrenched hierarchy like the Decepticon Legion that would use versatile technical elites like the workers as the lowliest slave labor; this was undoubtedly a serious waste of resources.

A long time ago, Sun Cheng had thought that one day, after he established a force that belonged solely to him, he would definitely use the workers—this fine steel—on the most critical blade.

Clearly, he had done it now.

Mechanical Life, just like carbon-based humans, possessed an endless desire for knowledge and Evolution. Sun Cheng actually did not do much; compared to those leaders of the Decepticon Legion, he had only slightly loosened the shackles that had shrouded the workers for millions of years.

Slowly nodding, the expression on Sun Cheng's face appeared very pleased: "Well done, Dasasi. But it is not enough; I need more industrial robots, and the same goes for combat robots!"

As for Base No. 2, judging from its scale, it almost no longer needed more robots to be invested in expansion, but this did not mean they did not need to continue production.

On the contrary, Sun Cheng now needed a large amount of this cheap labor, which cost only a million or so US dollars but could handle dozens of needs ranging from infrastructure to industrial production, and this demand was almost limitless.

As for why, it was actually not hard to explain. Although the expansion of Base No. 2 had encountered a bottleneck, and the underground base relying on the large underground karst cave could no longer be expanded further—otherwise, it might affect the mountain structure and be easily destroyed by natural disasters or high-yield Bunker-busting Missiles.

However, although the large underground karst cave could not be expanded further, it did not mean that the canyon extending for hundreds of kilometers outside and the nearby remote mountainous areas had the same problem.

Although Sun Cheng did not intend to immediately take control of Brazil, it did not mean he did not have the idea of incorporating the canyon where the base was located and the surrounding mountainous area within a radius of several hundred kilometers into his territory for expansion.

In fact, the external expansion relying on Base No. 2 had been continuing, so the demand Sun Cheng and the others had for industrial robots and combat robots responsible for fighting and guarding was far from being satisfied by a few hundred or a thousand industrial robots; the gap was truly massive.

Dasasi did not hesitate at all; as Atlas's right-hand man, he knew a thing or two about Sun Cheng's ambitions.

So he answered very straightforwardly: "Master, your command is our will. Just yesterday, we awakened another worker. In half a month at most, a new production factory can be set up. By then, our production capacity can at least double on the current basis."

Hearing this, Sun Cheng's face twitched visibly.

The so-called awakened workers were actually created by using the few fragments of the AllSpark he held to forcibly transform the robots manufactured by the base, which had no intelligence or consciousness, into Decepticons through the release of special energy radiation.

Not long ago, with the help of 'Huan', he had personally performed an experiment. The newborn Decepticon worker—Adam—was the product of that experiment. At the time, feeling extremely excited, he even gave it the profound name 'Adam' on the spot.

One must know that in Western mythology, Adam was the first human created by God and endowed with a soul.

However, the idea was good, but reality was incomparably cruel.

Although 'Huan' had recorded and saved all the experimental data from that experiment.

But when Sun Cheng was ambitiously preparing to mass-produce Mechanical Life with intelligence and reason, reality slapped him hard in the face.

Two consecutive attempts failed. The base not only lost a lot of energy and materials, but even that piece of the AllSpark fragment used as a radiation source seemed to have suffered a major blow; even after absorbing sufficient energy, it took more than half a month to barely recover.

It was also thanks to having the successful example of 'Adam' before their eyes that Sun Cheng and the others survived the subsequent blows.

Thus, a protracted tug-of-war began.

Up until now, his and 'Huan's' Awakening experiments had accumulated over twenty times, with countless energy and materials invested, and Sun Cheng had even painfully taken out two AllSpark fragments, but the results were still not optimistic.

Out of more than twenty experiments, there were only a handful of five successful cases. A success rate of less than twenty percent meant that Sun Cheng's forces had only increased by five Newborn Decepticons, while the resources Sun Cheng had invested, if used to manufacture industrial robots, would have been enough to give him another hundred-man formation.

Yet, Sun Cheng and the others had not mastered any patterns to increase the success rate of awakening Newborn Decepticons.

From this, one could tell how much his heart ached.

Fortunately, heartache was heartache.

Sun Cheng still knew the importance of a Mechanical Life that possessed intelligence and reason.

For the moment, he could only suppress his heartache and pretend not to care as he replied: "Understood. You engineers must not have any negligence in the cultivation and training of the newborn workers."

After speaking, without waiting for Dasasi to answer, Sun Cheng, whose gaze had returned to the rows of industrial robots before him, continued to instruct: "Go, prepare. Pack up this batch of industrial robots according to the standard. Also, call over thirty more combat robots; I have a use for them!"

Turning his head to look toward the northwest, blue light flickered incessantly in Sun Cheng's eyes.

According to the agreement, the personnel evacuation work for the hydroelectric station named 'Longhan', which the Chinese side agreed to transfer to him, should be almost complete, and it was time for him to set off again for that Far East country to take over this large-scale hydroelectric station that was nearing the end of construction, and at the same time complete some preliminary transactions between the two sides.