The Gates Family's Crisis

A conversation with Fa Te revealed to Gu Ding the true situation the Gates Family was currently facing.

Fa Te's parents and elders did not participate in the project negotiations, not because of illness, but because of poisoning. It was a strange, chronic toxin that Fa Te had consulted with many doctors and pharmacists, but none of them could help. A few days ago, Fa Te's parents and elders had fallen into a coma, and in desperation, they could only follow a doctor's advice to temporarily freeze them at low temperatures to slow the spread of the toxin.

As for why Fa Te wasn't poisoned, he himself didn't know the reason.

With all his family elders frozen out, all the projects fell on Fa Te's shoulders. He had to attend several meetings every day for the past few days, and the pressure was driving him to the brink of collapse. What frustrated him most was that several partners on major projects were demanding his father's intervention before they would continue negotiations, and some, having apparently heard some inside information, were even threatening to withdraw from the partnership.

After telling Gu Ding and the others about these things over the communicator, although the problem wasn't solved, Fa Te felt a little better.

After hearing about these events, Gu Ding and the others decided to visit the Fa Te family to help Fa Te with whatever they could. "Sea Emperor, do you know what kind of toxin Fa Te described?" Gu Ding hoped the Sea Emperor could provide an antidote, which would resolve most of the Gates Family's crisis.

"Based on his description, I have several guesses, but we need to go to the site for a detailed examination to find out exactly what kind of toxin it is."

"Have you found any leads on what happened to the Gates Family this time?" Gu Ding then asked.

"I don't have many leads, because these families have very high access to SkyNet, and I can't obtain a lot of information without alerting SkyNet. I can only collect fragmented information through other channels and then piece it together, and much of this information may not be true. It's very likely that someone fabricated it." The Sea Emperor was also somewhat troubled by this matter. "However, I am certain that this matter is definitely related to the Koch Family, and I suspect that it's not just the Koller family, but also the Filler Family may be involved."

"The Filler Family, the world's richest family?!" Gu Ding exclaimed in surprise.

"That's right. The reason I say this is because the Gates Family has been directly competing with the Koch Family in over a dozen of their recent projects. Besides that, the biggest competitor for their two massive acquisition projects is the Filler Family. According to Fa Te, the Filler Family has been putting pressure on him lately, seemingly knowing what's going on, but they're not as overtly aggressive as the Koch Family." "I'll figure out the antidote. At our current travel speed, we can reach Gates Star, where Fa Te is, in two days. The examination should be completed in a day at most. Then, all that's left is to prepare the antidote. Hopefully, there's an existing antidote formula for that toxin, otherwise it will be very troublesome."

As Sea Emperor was speaking, a strange energy fluctuation came from the cabin, from the room where Robert was.

"Robert has successfully fused all the materials and broken through to the High-rank God!" The Sea Emperor's voice carried a hint of surprise.

A moment later, everyone gathered in Robert's room.

"You've reached the High-rank God?" Liliath was the first to ask. She had been cultivating in Robert's domain these past few days, but she had just been ejected from the domain and then felt this fluctuation.

"Yes," Robert said with a human-like smile. He was much smaller than before and was now about the same height as Gu Ding.

To everyone's astonishment, Robert grew a layer of human skin and clothes on his body, transforming into the appearance of a young human woman—a remarkably beautiful one at that. She looked to be in her early twenties, tall and slender, with waist-length black hair, amber eyes, and a high, straight nose that gave her face a strikingly defined profile, like a mixed-race child born from the Near Ancient Era East-West fusion of Deep Sea Star.

Her aura was so perfectly disguised that she resembled High-rank God, making it impossible to tell that she was Mechanical Race.

"How is it?" Robert asked with a smile, her voice now sweet and feminine.

"There's nothing wrong with it on the surface, but your smile is a bit stiff. Practice in front of the mirror a bit more and it should be fine." Dokter circled Robert, nodded, rested his chin on his hand, and then asked, "How did you transform into a woman?"

"Because I am female." Robert's words surprised everyone present.

"Do the Mechanical Race also have males and females?" Dokter couldn't help but ask, a question that also piqued the interest of the others, who all looked at Robert.

"Yes, gender is determined at birth. Male Mechanical Race prefer yang energy, while female Mechanical Race prefer yin energy. In other aspects, there is not much difference; all functions are the same," Robert explained.

Liliath's gaze fell on Robert's chest, then she puffed out her cheeks and turned her head to the side. She was a little annoyed because there was another woman with big breasts in the team, and this time the new one was a mature woman.

Robert scratched his head. "It feels so strange to suddenly become a woman..."

"Then I'll go back to my original form." Robert hadn't expected this to cause trouble for everyone.

"Let's just forget about it. Everyone'll get used to it eventually," Gu Ding finally spoke up. He sensed that Robert's personality seemed to have changed this time. "Robert, you must have become much stronger after this promotion, right?"

"Yes, as my rank has increased, my memories are slowly awakening, and some previously sealed abilities and personality traits are beginning to surface," Robert nodded. "Now my domain time acceleration has increased thirtyfold. My manufacturing capabilities have also greatly improved; I can now craft all Three-Star Divine Object, as well as all regular Four-Star Divine Object. Furthermore, my weapon system has been upgraded, and my close-combat abilities have awakened. My cultivation level is now equivalent to Five-Star High-rank God, and my Combat Strength in normal conditions can reach the level of a five-star Peak-rank God. Besides these major changes, there are some minor changes..."

"So strong!"

Gu Ding and his team couldn't help but exclaim in amazement that the upgraded Robert had become significantly stronger, and could even be considered the strongest Combat Strength of Gu Ding Team. This made Bigge and his team even more eager to become stronger.

"I used to work with the Mechanical Race, where my main job was design, and secondarily manufacturing, not combat. True combat-oriented Mechanical Race members can easily fight across two major tiers, and some powerful ones can even cross three major tiers." Robert didn't think his Combat Strength was particularly great.

"Let's go into your domain and cultivate." Liliath was devastated and decided to vent her anger through cultivation. Having obtained a new inheritance and weapon, she also planned to seize the time to improve her Combat Strength. Although she was not weak, she was basically at the bottom among combatants.

Of course, Miko and Blue were not counted as combatants.

Miko's cultivation level has reached the Eleventh Order gene body. His cultivation has been very smooth, and due to sufficient resources, his cultivation speed is also quite terrifying.

As for Blue, he's still in his infancy and doesn't have the aura of Devouring Beast at all. He's more like a chubby, round Totoro, only with blue fur. All he does every day is eat and sleep, and occasionally he'll act cute.

Spurred on by Robert, Bigge and his companions once again ventured into Robert's territory.

This time, Gu Ding did not go in to cultivate. Instead, he activated the virtual system of Medicine King Valley in his room and stepped into it once again.

The various virtual systems of SkyNet cannot be activated within the domain. Even with the Sea Emperor present, it's impossible.

Having not logged in for months, Gu Ding had accumulated a considerable amount of free potion materials. He had already reached the level of A-Rank Pharmacist, and had mastered all the common A-grade potions. After collecting materials for several more difficult A-grade potions, Gu Ding began to refine them again. The reason for refining them was to regain his feel for potion making. Half a day passed quickly, and after refining more than twenty potions, Gu Ding finally regained his feel for it.

After obtaining some S-level potion materials from Ma Dike, Gu Ding learned from Ma Dike that his senior sister Pa Ma had also been promoted to S-Rank Pharmacist two months prior. He then asked Pa Ma for some more S-level potion materials before beginning to attempt the refining of S-level potions.

An afternoon passed, and Gu Ding had only mastered the refining of three potions. He was not satisfied with this speed. What he didn't know was that it usually takes hundreds of practice sessions and at least ten to twenty days for an average person to master the refining of a single potion.

When the spaceship arrived at Gates Star, Gu Ding had mastered nineteen types of potions, the result of two days of non-stop work. He had completed about half of the S-level conventional potions.

After the spaceship landed, Gu Ding and the rest of the team also broke out of their respective cultivation states and boarded the aircraft arranged by the Gates Family, flying all the way to the Gates Family mansion.