Some Intelligence, But Not Quite

It wasn't about winning through quality, but rather choosing to be Herrscher through quantity?

Although it's hard to believe, this configuration is indeed the Moth Chasers to Fire.

After all, the Moth Chasers to Fire doesn't have many formidable combatants to offer right now. Although Gray Serpent said that this Herrscher's individual strength seems weak, that's just an appearance; there might be some hidden trump card...

Perhaps only by merging and showcasing their abilities can they guarantee absolute success. Moreover, the opponent can also disguise themselves as a human, so while their conventional combat power isn't completely rendered useless, it becomes rather ineffective.

If they bloom in all directions, the current Moth Chasers to Fire will definitely be too numerous to handle.

"I need to talk to Mei about this!"

After figuring this out, Mobius immediately got up and rushed to Mei's office.

Seeing this, Liu Bai wasn't in a hurry to find Vil-V. Instead, he teleported directly to Mei's side and explained the current situation to her.

Sure enough, after Liu Bai finished speaking, Mei also realized the tricky nature of this new Herrscher.

"A full census... no, this is like stirring up trouble, a covert investigation? Too many people, and too slow..."

Mei found this very troublesome.

They only know that such a thing exists, but they can only guess at the specific information about it, which makes Mei a little confused.

"Teacher, do you have any thoughts?"

"Lure the snake out of its hole," Liu Bai said succinctly.

The tactics used by Mei in the original timeline were correct, and could even be called the only solution.

After all, the configuration of Herrscher of a Thousand is too cunning, and compared to Mobius, who speculated whether the Herrscher of a Thousand had a hive mind or a Gestalt mind, Liu Bai knew very well that the Herrscher of a Thousand were the most troublesome Gestalt mind in small-scale battles.

Both honeycomb thinking and Gestalt thinking are collective thinking methods.

The difference between the two is that the hive mind has a clear center, or leader – which can be understood as the swarm and the Queen.

Gestalt thinking, on the other hand, advocates for the equal coexistence of all thoughts. While it may not be as efficient as honeycomb thinking, the problem with this approach is that unless all of them are eliminated, eliminating any one individual will not solve the problem.

The Gestalt thinking of the Herrscher of a Thousand also implies that the possibility of a decapitation tactic does not exist.

Plus, they can self-replicate... it's really a headache for Mei.

However, upon hearing Liu Bai's suggestion to lure the snake out of its hole, Mei's expression first lit up, then she shook her head. "This method is possible, but the problem is how to lure it out? By revealing a weakness at headquarters to lure the Herrscher?"

Although everyone has now moved to Golden Courtyard, the headquarters of the Moth Chasers to Fire still exists.

If necessary, it wouldn't be a bad idea to use that place as bait.

"It's too obvious, and... that's not a suitable place as a trap; it's too easy to escape."

"If that's the case, the trap should be placed on the deserted island... but then..."

"Establish a research base on a deserted island, with research targets... God Key would be good. Place God Key or Herrscher Core inside, then recruit volunteers under the guise of a top-secret experiment, and then..."

"We deliberately let a few individuals in. Faced with a heavily guarded research base, their first thought will definitely be to gather a group of people to rob it."

Liu Bai had already been fed into her mouth, and Mei easily replenished her food.

"However, if the Herrscher of Domination chooses to leave one person behind as a backup plan..."

"I'm going to the Contract Herrscher of Domination."

Liu Bai said decisively, indicating that he was prepared for this situation.

Although based on the known situation, the Herrscher of Domination will most likely choose to launch a full-scale attack, we cannot place our hopes on the opponent's folly.

Therefore, Liu Bai decided to Herrscher of Domination the Contract.

If all the Herrscher of Domination are considered as one individual, then that's fine. If not, then Liu Bai can try to use trickery to interfere with the decision-making of the Herrscher of a Thousand.

Simply turn off the character display and switch the voice chat to private chat. With some mystical antics, there's a high probability that the compatibility of the Herrscher of a Thousand won't drop to the point of contract termination.

Mei was stunned for a moment after hearing Liu Bai's words, seemingly not expecting Liu Bai to make such a decision.

However... that is one way.

"But before that, we need to capture a Herrscher to obtain more specific information before we can discuss what to do next."

Mei nodded and added that although it was still just a rough plan, it was already complete.

The remaining rules and regulations can be filled in gradually by myself.

"Oh, right, there's also the matter of Gray Serpent. Although he provided very useful information this time, the Mechanist Cult he started is somewhat detrimental to social stability. Is it alright to let Sakura handle it?"

"Of course, no problem." Although if Liu Bai were to tell the truth, if no one intervened, Gray Serpent would probably disband the organization on its own after a while.

Mobius is observing the Gray Serpent, and the Gray Serpent is observing the human.

Let alone the current Mechanist Cult, Gray Serpent is a genuine organization that will create Honkai of worship and faith in the future.

It's all for the purpose of observing humanity and the world.

Now that it's just a small Mechanist Cult, it's easy to wipe it out. Anyway, Gray Serpent is unlikely to fail.

Liu Bai actually felt quite sorry that he had been so busy with work these days that he hadn't had time to even glance at the Gray Serpent.

However, upon further reflection, it seems that the Gray Serpent didn't really have much to do in the Previous Era; it mainly just went through cycles of building organizations and being destroyed by Sakura.

Being killed a few times by "mere" is not a big deal for Gray Serpent.

"Oh, right, remember to tell Sakura to have Gray Serpent submit a report before carrying out the killing."

"..."

Mei finally realized that if her teacher didn't want to be human, he was obviously much more like a dog than she was.

Well, after all, he's my teacher. Maybe I learned to be so cunning from him.

Mei silently shifted the blame.

"Oh, right, there's also something about the shelter... Never mind, I'll talk to you when Mobius comes over. I'm going to find Vil-V now."

"Bon Voyage."

"I teleported, I wasn't just strolling around."

"Um... so you want me to change this?"

Vil-V looked at the blueprint in her hand with a strange expression.

"Seriously, Liu Bai, you're not just here to make fun of me, are you?"

Is there a problem? Or is there something you don't understand?

"No, no, no problem, I can understand it all, after all, it's all my technology, but the problem is—I can't modify it!"

Vil-V let out a long sigh.

"You wouldn't happen to be the kind of person with exceptionally strong practical skills, would you?"

"... I don't think so. Are you saying that when you were doing group projects in college, you thought the other group members were all useless and you managed to finish it yourself?"

"Oh, I understand, group projects are practically the dregs of university life—but that's not the point!" Vil-V sighed, almost getting dragged into the same trap.

"Forget it, let's not discuss this anymore. To put it simply, your current drawing is already the simplest design from a technical standpoint. I can't simplify it, and neither can Mei."

"Then why don't you make some technological breakthroughs?"

"Don't pretend you don't know anything!" Seeing Liu Bai's shrug, Vil-V almost got so angry that her nose twisted.

You're a great scientist, how could you say something like "Give me some technological breakthroughs" so casually?

This is a technological breakthrough, not something you can do by haggling with a vegetable stall owner at the market!

Well, more importantly, Vil-V thinks that the current Honkai technology may have reached a bottleneck—which is a good point of view.

To put it bluntly, Vil-V even felt that they had maxed out their technology tree centered on Honkai Energy, meaning they had reached its peak.

Of course, this is just the pinnacle of Honkai Energy. To be honest, the Honkai Energy conversion formula that Mei came up with was truly insane.

He essentially single-handedly bridged the gap between Honkai Energy and other energy sources.

The advantage of Collapse Energy is that it's free.

It's really free.

Although high concentrations of Honkai Energy are dangerous, before Honkai eruption, the concentration of Honkai Energy is naturally extremely low. High concentrations of Honkai Energy only be observed in laboratories.

Even a very low concentration is enough; it's free, and increasing the concentration to a medium level is perfect.

This explains why the Previous Era oil and was even too lazy to develop the Americas; they had been using Honkai Energy for a long time.

However, the way it was used was considered extremely reckless and crude by modern civilization.

Okay, that's nothing. Burning too much coal can cause poisoning, touching electrical wires can electrocute you, and nuclear radiation goes without saying. We're all suffering from serious illnesses, so what's the difference? To be honest, Honkai disease 3rd is much slower to kill than radiation...

Anyway, before the Herrscher emerged in the Previous Era, everyone thought it was pretty normal, and not everyone was researching Honkai Energy; there were also people researching other energy sources.

Scientists are quite fond of "new" energy sources.

In short, there is actually an energy surplus, but many people are now resisting it due to its dangers. Mei's conversion formula makes good use of this, converting Honkai Energy almost perfectly into other basic energy sources.

The current Previous Era urgently needs "safe energy".

Although Mei has resolved this issue, she feels she has little time to apply it.

The upper limit of basic energy may be higher than they imagine.

Of course, on the bright side, perhaps it's just that their technology limits their ability to develop Honkai technology to this extent.

In short, Vil-V really couldn't modify the blueprints for Liu Bai's hibernation device; that's about the best she could do. It was only because Liu Bai came to her that Vil-V felt this was just a show-off trying to sabotage her.

"If there are no problems, we can start production directly. There are still a few military production lines that are empty. I'll allocate one or two of them to this product."

"... Why is it empty?"

"Because a few years ago, that guy Mei went crazy with overproduction and stockpiled a lot of equipment... Well, not considering the high-end equipment that can't be mass-produced at present, the amount of basic equipment... could probably arm twenty times the active army. Seriously, even that guy's fear of insufficient firepower has its limits."

"..." Liu Bai wiped non-existent sweat from his forehead.

This is absolutely outrageous! And what you're doing is a complete waste... well, in modern civilization, this kind of waste doesn't really matter.

"Liu Bai, haven't you ever wondered why the Moth Chasers to Fire has been expanding its ranks so rapidly but has never lacked equipment—and this isn't just any ordinary rifle and cannon." Vil-V spread her hands. "We've been waiting for equipment for a long time now, but unfortunately, our army has actually reached its limit."

Chapter 439 Has intelligence, but not completely.

That's the limit...

Liu Bai felt somewhat helpless about Vil-V's statement.

There's really no other way. If the military continues to expand its recruitment, social order will collapse—or to put it bluntly, if it weren't for the fact that the main energy source of the Previous Era was Honkai Energy, which was plentiful, society would have already collapsed.

Nowadays, we have enough energy and technology, so we can manage to get by even if we stumble along the way.

Moreover, the current situation is rather awkward for an army that lacks sufficient combat power—at least in the context of Honkai battles.

It's more than enough to deal with small Honkai Beast and Death Soldier, but it struggles against slightly stronger Honkai Beast, and is mostly used to stabilize the rear.

In this situation, these people are enough.

The remaining weapons... are probably more than enough. Twenty times the current quantity... the Previous Era wouldn't have survived twenty defeats, let alone two. Besides, as ordinary weapons, they can't be kept for the future.

"Forget about these weapons, as long as we have the production line, that's fine."

Liu Bai had originally planned to use the abandoned civilian production lines, but the fact that he was able to find some low-end military production lines was an unexpected bonus.

"Okay, leave this to me." Vil-V was also very serious about what Liu Bai was doing.

Two weeks later, in the Golden Courtyard conference room.

"A new Herrscher has been discovered, and we will temporarily name him the Herrscher of a Thousand." Mei displayed a chef with a ferocious expression on the big screen.

"He doesn't look strong." Kevin stared at the man on the screen with a stern face.

"But it is a genuine Herrscher," Su, who was in charge of handling the matter, explained from the side. "Although its combat power is very low, Herrscher Core was found inside its body."

"Approximately one-thousandth of the standard Herrscher."

Mei pushed up her glasses.

"Clearly, this is definitely not a benefit that Honkai has given us."

"So, it's 'a thousand'?" Eden asked thoughtfully. "Multiple Herrscher, that's quite an interesting situation, but their combat strength isn't something to fear, is it?"