Chapter 1115 A Brand New Chapter

Although the strange psionic storm within the X Star Cluster showed no signs of calming down, the drone swarm's movement in this region was unaffected.

Summoned by an urgent call, batch after batch of drones entered this mysterious and ancient star cluster. Starting from the "fault line" of space-time discontinuity all the way to the Forerunner homeworld where Hao Ren and his team were temporarily staying, the drone swarm began constructing countless large and small bunkers and factories in this vast expanse of cosmic void, and they were already taking shape.

Barren asteroid belts were secured with anchoring devices to form pedestals. Spaceports and connecting pipelines were built between the asteroids. Massive space structures gradually took shape in the darkness. Drones shuttled back and forth day and night. Factories, nests, antenna arrays... these things rapidly grew and spread like swarms of insects in the galaxy. The first batch of newly produced drones had already flown off the production line,投入ing themselves into the next round of expansion missions.

With such a terrifyingly efficient expansion machine rumbling into operation, the construction on the Forerunner homeworld soon received ample "labor" support and entered a substantial construction phase with great fanfare.

Around the great rift valley near the outpost, the drone swarm had completed the initial terrain modification. The scorched earth ruins were further cleared. Bomb craters and smaller fissures were covered with silvery-white alloy. The rift valley itself was further reinforced with metal cladding. At the edge of the almost completely alloyed rift valley, several enormous temporary towers jutted out of the ground at an angle. Around the towers were giant cables that had just been fixed in place. These cables, more than two meters in diameter, had one end neatly arranged on the open ground outside the rift valley, waiting to be connected to the data center. The other end snaked its way into the rift valley, following the cliffs downward, as if it could lead directly into the heart of the planet.

A large number of engineering drones switched to atmospheric work mode, flying back and forth between these cables and the surrounding equipment, busily testing the connection status of these lines with the First Born's original nervous system, and submitting the line numbers for the first connection test that could be carried out this afternoon to the data center.

The data center was not far away – three hundred-meter-high hexagonal prism buildings were distributed in an equilateral triangle on the edge of the rift valley. These buildings had beautiful silvery-white shells, and their appearance was full of a technological feel. Some cables had already been fused with the connection ports on the base of the buildings.

This was just the above-ground project – deep underground, there was an even more astonishing construction site.

Because the surface was only building an integrated data processing center, the entire central nervous system of the First Born was being replaced deep underground. The cables on the surface actually extended all the way to the depths of the earth, passing through the crust and most of the mantle, and finally reaching the First Born's deep nerve ganglia. In order to ensure the safety and stability of the entire system, Hao Ren simply ordered the excision of all nerve tissue of the First Born that had been poisoned by the crystal, and replaced it all with artificial structures. Now, tens of thousands of drones were busy in the cavities and fault zones between the core and the mantle, connecting those artificial nerve bundles with the First Born's biological tissue, and building secondary data processing devices to stabilize the entire system at special connection points.

The scale of each of those devices was no less than that of a fortress city buried underground.

Just as Hao Ren said, the situation of the First Born on this planet was much more tragic than that of Purgatory's. For a critically ill patient whose nervous system was about to rot, performing surgery on him was almost like piercing through the entire planet.

"Gung" crept stealthily to a tower near the construction site. After finding a flat surface, she breathed a sigh of relief, took Dou Dou out of her bag, and carefully placed her on top of her head: "Look, from here you can see the whole~ rift~ valley! Don't you think it looks like a dried fish?"

Dou Dou patted Gung's head with her tail: "I don't know, but Dad said you're not allowed to run around!"

"I'm not running around, meow!" Gung put her hands on her hips, "Big Idiot Cat only said not to run past that fence (energy barrier), and didn't say not to come here. If you snitch, I won't bring you to play next time."

Dou Dou patted her tail twice, but didn't say anything else. Gung took out a stack of white paper and several colored pens from her small bag. She spread the paper on the ground, then grabbed the pens with a handful and began to scribble crookedly.

"What are you doing?" Dou Dou asked curiously, craning her head.

Gung explained while painting clumsily: "This is called a diary! Silly Big Cat said that keeping a diary is a good habit, it can make you very smart, and then you can go to college. There's fish to eat in the college cafeteria, but I feel like writing is too troublesome, drawing is easier."

She seemed to be in a good mood, curling her tail into various arcs while scribbling – Hao Ren had put a lot of effort into teaching this cat to read and write, but now it seemed that it was indeed ineffective. This one's love for scribbling clearly exceeded that of writing.

Gung's good mood didn't last long, because she soon discovered that all the new white paper in the lower left corner was neatly missing a corner, and you could clearly see dense teeth marks on that corner.

"Meow! You ate my diary!" The cat girl's back arched, and her tail stood straight up behind her. She grabbed Dou Dou from her head and placed her in front of her "diary": "Look, there are your teeth marks!"

"I thought this was the food you prepared for me..." Dou Dou stuck out her tongue, "And you put me and them together, how could I resist..."

The cat girl completely rejected Dou Dou's statement, and didn't realize that putting Dou Dou and the paper in the same bag from the beginning was destined to have such a result. She just stubbornly shook her head: "No, no, you have to pay me for my diary."

"But this is just blank paper, you haven't even finished the first drawing yet!"

"Then this is also my diary!"

"How can I compensate you? I can't spit it out."

"Then... can you let me bite you?"

"No."

"Licking is also okay, meow!"

"Still no, it's disgusting."

……

Lily's ears twitched, and she looked up at the distance with some doubt: "I always feel like I heard Gung and Dou Dou's voices just now..."

Hao Ren looked in the direction of the husky girl's gaze, but only saw a tower standing in the corner of the base, facing the construction site of the "remote thinking array" from afar. He shook his head: "I didn't hear anything anyway."

Then he turned his head back and looked at n-6 and n-4 standing in front of him.

Behind the two Forerunners stood the group of action team members that n-4 had brought, as well as several unfamiliar faces.

These unfamiliar faces had come to the base earlier that morning on the Giant Tortoise Rock Platform. They were originally stationed at the Lunar Base, but now, the instructions left by the Mainframe before it left had made these Forerunners members of the "management team" of the newly reborn Forerunner civilization.

It was said that they were preparing to imitate the records of humans in history and establish an organization called the "Tribunal" to manage their own race.

Hao Ren looked at these people. What he saw was a group of young "children" who were still somewhat at a loss – although every Forerunner had the appearance of an adult and the necessary mind and knowledge from the moment they stepped off the production line, their actual age was almost no one could be over fifteen years old. N-4, who had served for eleven years, could be considered an experienced elder in this group. The average age of these new officials who had just arrived from the Lunar Base was actually only this age.

The Forerunners' knowledge could be directly downloaded from the Great Library, but they also had complex logic circuits and simulated neural networks, which meant that they still needed some life experience to shape their personality and experience. Just like n-4 and n-6, who had the same basic database, had grown into two completely different individuals due to the different length of their service. This was the embodiment of learning and evolutionary ability.

However, the long war meant that very few Forerunners could live long enough. So when the Mainframe suddenly left, what it left behind was such an overly "young" race. Even n-4, who was only eleven years old, had become a member of the management team.

Today, n-4's compatriots were here to take her back to the moon to assume this position.

N-6 was also leaving together. Although her experience was not enough to assume the responsibilities of a manager, she was the first Forerunner to run the "Final Code" and gain freedom. She had also been改造ed with alien technology and therefore had a more excellent hardware foundation and room for growth. Therefore, she would also be absorbed as a member of the Tribunal.

Hao Ren looked into n-4's eyes: "How is it? Do you have confidence in the new job that is coming?"

"This is my responsibility," n-4's answer was completely in her style, "I will do my best."

"Frankly speaking, we do have many problems to face," said a Forerunner who came here from the moon. He was a short-haired man and seemed to have a relatively cheerful and talkative personality, so he took the initiative to talk to Hao Ren, "The Mainframe has left, and this is the first time we need to decide everything ourselves. Although our logic circuits already have programs in this regard, no one knows if we can really handle everything well."

"You will face a huge transformation," said Izhaks, who had experience in managing an entire empire, "The war will end, and your energy must be transferred to other aspects – production transformation, reallocation of resources and productivity, you may even need to change the social structure to adapt to the role of an independent civilization. And in the near future, you will even have to come back here and rebuild your homeworld, which is something you have never done before."

Vivian nodded slightly: "Your creator has left an entire civilization to you, and its content is not just fighting."

"Rebuilding the homeworld..." The young Forerunner turned to look into the distance. What he saw first was this incredible alien base, but his gaze did not linger on those magnificent buildings at all, but fell directly into the distance, on those verdant mountains and lush forests.

Forerunners were a silicon-based race, but their creator was born in this infinitely vibrant carbon-based environment, so they would definitely protect the vitality of this planet, and even extend this vitality to other planets they might visit in the future. And how to survive and develop in a vibrant world, this was a completely new topic for the Forerunners who had survived on the cold and desolate moon for thousands of years.

But this topic made them look forward to it.

Hao Ren said: "We will soon complete the改造 of the First Born – that is, the planet devourer. His thinking organs have been destroyed and replaced, and a gentle will will take over this dead body. By then, you can officially return to the homeworld without worrying about being attacked."

A small number of individuals coming to the planet's surface in a way that does not provoke hostility will not cause the tentacles to attack, but if the Forerunners all return to the homeworld from the moon, it will inevitably trigger the "conditioned reflex" of those tentacles. Therefore, before Hao Ren finishes his work, the robot ladies and robot little brothers on the moon will have to wait for a while.

Of course, they don't have to wait too long: since there is no need to build a mind center, the drone swarms will be able to complete the replacement of the entire artificial neural network in a few days, and that huge wireless transceiver device can also be completed at the same time. When Zhuom's will extends over, the moon wanderers can go home. .

"All the Forerunners know about you," said the young Forerunner, "We hope to express our gratitude – although any gratitude may not be comparable to everything you have done for us."

"There's no need for gratitude, this is also my job," Hao Ren waved his hand, "If you really want to thank me... then live well, this is the greatest thank you to us, and it is also the greatest gratitude to your creator."

(Thanks to Yin Ke for the million reward =.= Big guy, big guy, thank you big guy...)