The Shadow Realm was a very vast place. Although it was not as exaggerated as the Vengeance Army's lair, after a long period of construction and expansion, it now had the volume of a small galaxy. Therefore, we could now place many things that needed to be properly protected in this place. For example, in a place far away from the Shadow City, there was a special base.
Although it was called a base, sometimes I would jokingly call it a morgue.
It was a very vast space, enough to accommodate several Earth-Moon systems. The area was marked by a series of limit buoys at the edge. These buoys were hundreds of kilometers away from each other, and each was only the size of a private car, but they were extremely powerful super gravitational traps. This defense network, which was not commonly seen in conventional Empire bases, usually had two functions. The first was to prevent external forces from jumping into the base under extreme circumstances, and the second was to prevent the things inside the base from rushing out without permission. These shimmering buoys formed a closed spherical grid, and within the spherical grid, a large number of huge starships were parked.
The surface of those mighty war machines glowed with a silver-gray cold metallic luster. Their silent and majestic bodies were arranged in a three-dimensional square formation in space that made people feel depressed. There was no other light on the surface except for a limited number of basic lights. Even the eternal psionic grids on the normal Empire battleships were dim, giving people the feeling that this fleet had not been activated yet. These starships came in different sizes and models, from the smallest assault ship to the largest Eternal-class mothership. It could almost be called an exhibition hall for the Empire's fleet. And in the open space between these battleships, there were many flashing space factories and comprehensive fortresses. Their mission was to produce the necessary parts for the surrounding starships and provide accommodation for the base's maintenance personnel. Other than that, this encircled spherical grid had nothing else. There was no spaceport for the production of new starships, no starship command center for the rear, and no high-speed barracks to quickly replenish the dead starship crew. These were all essential infrastructure for a normal Empire space base, but there was not a single one of them here. Because the things in this base had no use for them, it was almost impossible for these spaceships to be deployed.
In fact, not long ago, Sandora and I even began to wonder if this base still needed to exist. It took up too much of the Empire's resources, such as more than eighty logistics factories and a large number of skilled workers polishing and waxing the spaceships. At the same time, we also had to use a dozen mass-produced mainframes, more than 120 Empire technicians, and countless soldiers to guard these silent spaceships. But the result of such a huge investment was that no one could find a way to operate those spaceships.
Because strictly speaking, they were no longer a product of the Empire's technology system. They were of the same level as the old Empire's technology, but the way to operate them was completely different. Although the shape and main structure of this bunch of ridiculous iron lumps looked exactly the same as the spaceships we were using now.
"When I dragged these things out of the nebula, I thought they were completely scrapped, but Tawil said that these spaceships had no structural damage."
Sandora and I led a group of curious girls in the family into the empty bridge of the Eternal-class starship. The bridge was brightly lit, but there were no soldiers standing guard, and there was no low humming sound that should be heard in a normal starship. My voice was accompanied by the footsteps of a few people, and the sound made the passage particularly quiet.
"Although there is no structural damage, all the spaceships can't be operated at all," Sandora said in a low voice. "Their control system is like an autonomous machine, and it fell into 'death' after the collapse of the archive. To reactivate these spaceships, we either have to resurrect the autonomous control system, or simply replace all the spaceships with a new control system. The cost and time of the latter is no less than building a new spaceship."
"You don't have to be so detailed. I haven't forgotten about this."
I rubbed my forehead helplessly, feeling that Sandora might have developed a very bad impression of my usual unreliability.
Sandora shook her head and said, "I'm mainly afraid that the readers will forget …"
We were speechless.
Yes, as I said earlier, these spaceships that were stored separately and looked different from the usual fleet were actually the "war trophies" that we had dragged back from the nebula.
After the battle of the nebula, following the collapse of the Holy Church and the archive, most of the Holy Church's defense forces were destroyed by the Imperial Army and the world allied forces in the final battle. Many enemy spaceships chose to self-destruct along with the archive. Even so, with such a large number of enemy spaceships, we still found many Holy Church spaceships that hadn't been destroyed. Most of them were new warships that were still docked in the spaceport and hadn't been sent to the battlefield yet. There were also some that had just been repaired and hadn't been activated. We dragged these spaceships back as war trophies. At that time, I thought that it was a huge bonus.
Later, it turned out that it was fate that had messed with me.
These shiny and beautiful spaceships couldn't be activated at all. Their control system was an autonomous organization that the Holy Church's defense forces had developed during the process of self-evolution. The code of these things had been completely erased along with the collapse of the archive. Tawil had tried all sorts of methods to make these autonomous spaceships be controlled as easily as the normal starships of the Empire. Her greatest achievement was to successfully activate the thrusters of two starships. However, she had failed to find where the brakes were — she still hadn't found them until now.
Bubble had tried to connect her data to these autonomous spaceships to understand how they 'thought', but her attempt had ended in failure. The child's mother froze for a full ten seconds, which almost scared me to death. When she recovered, the first thing she did was to suggest shopping outside, which almost scared me to death. Fortunately, she recovered in the end. Thank God Glass Scum had released Diablo 3 in time.
Therefore, after several failed attempts, and Sandora and I couldn't see any benefits from continuing to study these autonomous spaceships, we stopped reactivating these metal lumps and left them here to wait for mushroom farming. It wasn't that the entire Empire's research power couldn't activate these things, but it was just not worth it. Although there were quite a number of these Holy Church's spaceships, compared to the amount of research capital we had to invest in them, it was still not enough. After all, these were things that could be mass-produced. At worst, I could just listen to Shallow Shallow and melt them down to sell steel plates …
In the end, they were all left here.
But today, these spaceships were about to be reborn and receive a new life. In Tawil's original words, the second half of her sentence was: Theoretically speaking.
"It has been seven days since the transformation. If everything goes smoothly …"
Sandora said softly, before opening the final gate before us.
The majestic Eternal Command Hall appeared before us.
"Today is the day these spaceships will be activated."
We stood at the edge of the officer's platform and looked down at the rotunda.
The Eternal-level command hall that we usually saw was always brightly lit, just like the floor of a stock exchange. All sorts of control terminals flashed and beeped, and battleship commanders bustled around in an orderly manner. However, the command hall in front of us was still shrouded in darkness. Only a limited amount of basic light was emitted from the crystal clusters high above, making the entire hall indistinctly resemble Anweina's house. What was more noteworthy was its main control area. The area that should have a large number of control terminals was completely bare, with only a few strange projection devices displaying warning boxes that there was no signal input. There were no seats reserved for operators at all.
This was an autonomous spaceship that could not be operated by anyone, and no one had been able to activate it until now. It was not surprising that such a Command Hall would appear.
However, we stood solemnly and even a little nervously on the officer's platform, looking at the dark and empty battleship control center in front of us. Everyone's expression was as serious as it could be. Even Qian Qian was nervously grabbing my arm, looking as if she didn't even dare to breathe loudly. Of course, she might have just imitated the people around her when they suddenly quietened down. That girl never had the concept of seriousness.
Everyone was waiting for a miracle.
"External link completed. Estimated activation in fifteen seconds — at least in theory."
Tawil's mass projection appeared on the officer's platform out of thin air, her image trembling slightly as she looked at our surroundings. "Please forgive me for speaking out of turn, but this experiment might not be safe. Your Majesties and Commanders, if you enter the ship recklessly …"
"Just do your job. You have reminded us many times to do our duty." Sandora smiled, interrupting Tawil's last exhortation. "I want to see it with my own eyes. Prepare to activate it."
"Your will."
Tawil nodded, her mass projection vanishing into thin air.
The faint sound of energy flow appeared in the air almost as soon as she vanished. I could hear a low rumble from deep within the ship, and the energy readings around us were slowly rising. It was a slow process, but it was getting faster as time passed.
Everyone realized that the activation of the ancient ship had begun, and held their breaths as they stared at the still dark and silent Command Hall.
Time ticked by, and the only response we got was darkness and silence. The various noises from deep within the ship had reached the threshold of normal activation, which meant that the ship's energy modules and main engine had finished warming up. However, the Command Hall that should have been lit up with a giant holographic projection remained dark, and that made Sandora frown.
I looked at the time. It had been almost thirty seconds since the activation.
However, just as everyone thought that the experiment had failed, a ray of light suddenly appeared in the Command Hall.
It was the holographic projection device in the middle of the hall. Just as we were about to give up and announce the failure of the experiment, it suddenly flashed. Even though there wasn't any meaningful image popping up, its activation seemed to have become a signal. Very quickly, all the devices in the hall lit up one after another, as though there was a control system supplying them with energy. The huge command hall was quickly activated according to the functional areas. The key energy hubs beeped in the hall due to the rapid charging of energy. Everyone's disappointed expression, which had yet to be replaced, was now trying their best to adjust to a state of ecstasy.
"It's … it's a success!" Even the usually calm elder sister couldn't help but get excited. She wore an unconcealable smile on her face, just like when she was in a good mood when she was young. She hugged me and rubbed my cheeks forcefully. I clenched my fists tightly, and Jingle rolled her eyes in my palm. Then, she charged out, tearing and biting. Icetis whistled loudly, and Liliana obediently took out two hundred bucks and stuffed it into Lin Xue's hand. "You win. I really shouldn't have made such a bet with you."
Only Sandora maintained her rare composure. She coughed loudly to calm us down. Then, she said in a deep voice, "It only means that the autonomous module of the spaceship is under control, but … we can't be sure if the one controlling it is …"
"Can't we just ask?" I smiled and patted Sandora's shoulder. I knew that she was actually holding onto a huge hope, but she was worried about the gains and losses at this moment. She didn't dare to confirm it herself, so I took a step forward and shouted, "PL-15, squeak if you're awake!"
Right after I said that, the entire command hall started to reverberate with a heart-stirring 100 decibels broadcast, "Zhi — — Emperor Chen Jun, may I ask if this is a common phrase in the Heaven Region that you rule over?"
I was speechless.
The others were stunned for a few seconds at first, but then they reacted one after another. They started rolling on the ground, grinding their claws on the railings, hugging their stomachs, and taking out their notebooks to record the dark history of a certain Emperor. I looked at Sandora in exasperation. "Why didn't I know that it was so practical? Congratulations, you really succeeded this time."
Yes, it really succeeded!
It was a crazy idea. After seven days and seven nights of research and demonstration, and today's' activation ', which was more daunting than dangerous, finally ushered in success. The revenge army would be reborn on a gigantic fleet.
This was PL-15's plan. It combined the wills of countless outstanding Imperial Army officers to come up with this genius and risky plan, which was to imitate Gaia's method and entrust the souls of the Revenge Army to the weapons of the Empire.
The success rate of this plan was the highest that we could think of so far. Tawil immediately put her life on the line (in fact, every time she started a research project, I felt that she was putting her life on the line). In the end, she discovered that we really had a fleet of spaceships that could take on such a heavy responsibility, which was the Templar Guard spaceship with an extremely complex and bionic structure. The mutated autonomous system installed on these spaceships could bear the mutated souls of the Revenge Army, and the latter was also the most likely person to be able to control these spaceships through symbiosis.
And so, this miraculous fleet began to form today: a brand new Revenge Fleet.
Sandora's face was radiant with a bright red glow. I don't know if it was because of the success of the experiment or because she was simply trying to hold back her laughter. She took a deep breath to calm herself down. With a bright smile on her face, she turned to the command hall that was starting to operate without anyone operating it. Now, the control terminals and information ports were already in working mode. Every projection screen was rapidly updating the data of the battleship or the current adjustment conclusion of the battleship. The giant holographic projection in the center of the hall was still a white grid. Sandora looked at the grid and said in a low voice, "PL-15, you can use the holographic projection of the battleship to display your image. Although it's not a body, it's still better than a grid."
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," a deep voice echoed. "I can't carry out your order. I haven't completely familiarized myself with this set of autonomous codes. I'm afraid it will take some time before I can completely control all the equipment here."
"Don't worry about it." Sandora replied. Her gaze swept across the pile of automated machines in the hall. "How do you feel now? What are you doing? "
"I'm trying to update the logical structure of this spaceship. It uses a logic method that isn't very efficient. Obviously, the excess accumulated during the self-evolution process wasn't cleared in time. After completing the data update of these logical structures, the synchronization rate between me and this spaceship may increase to more than 90%. As for the feeling … I'm sorry, Your Majesty, I'm afraid I can't describe it for now. It's a strange feeling to be one with a spaceship. It's not a body, but I can feel my soul extending to every inch of it. Every engine, every pipe, and every sealed gate is a part of my body. It's not easy to control such a complicated body, especially when it doesn't have conventional perception abilities. I now have to rely on a set of information disturbance devices to determine my position in space. When I move forward, I need to activate twenty-six sets of thrusters in sequence. The spaceship's main cannon is on a circuit that's difficult to control directly with my mind. This is also a problem. I need the help of some technicians from the Empire, or other assistants who can help modify the spaceship. I need to make it more in line with the operating habits of a soul. I'm afraid it's the same for other spaceships. Of course, the situation for smaller spaceships might be better. "
Sandora listened attentively to the other party's report. She recorded them one by one and forwarded them to the researchers waiting outside. I opened my Dimensional Pocket and took out a multi-functional mechanical creature the size of a vacuum cleaner that floated in the air.
"This is what Gaia asked me to pass to you. There's a lot more. She said you guys should be able to use it."
"What's this?" PL-15 asked in surprise. "It looks like a mechanical worker used to maintain the pipes, but it's been modified?"
"It's indeed something modified." I rubbed my nose. The restless automaton in front of me seemed to have some basic intelligence. Without any orders, it began to crawl around the military officer's platform, looking for mechanical equipment that was unfamiliar to it. Every time it found a piece of equipment, it would scan it and analyze it. It seemed to be comparing it with something similar in the public database. However, it probably couldn't get anything out of it. This was an autonomous spaceship left behind by the Templar Guards. Its entire set of control-related equipment was mutated and not recorded in the public database. "This automaton was personally designed by Gaia. Gaia, the technology that you guys used to modify your soul was what she experienced. She's in a similar situation now, but her soul is residing on a planet, while you guys have become the souls of a spaceship. Gaia has created countless of these automatons. They work together with her to maintain the city. Now, with a slight change in the program, these automatons can help you maintain this spaceship. After all, although the future Vengeance spaceship doesn't need a controller, it still needs a logistics team. These little automatons can be registered as part of the spaceship's components in the spaceship's construction registry. Then, you guys can directly control them with your will. They're definitely more flexible than any logistics personnel. "
PL-15 immediately expressed great interest in this new automaton. It seemed that these little automatons that Gaia usually created to help and relieve boredom really needed to be mass-produced from today onwards.
We didn't stay on this new Vengeance spaceship for too long. PL-15 needed time to get used to its new 'body'. This huge spaceship that was going to be unmanned didn't have any rooms for the passengers. So, after confirming that everything was normal and the other spaceships were 'activated' according to plan, we left this spaceship that already had a soul.
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