Acceleration

Gao Gong first had Ironhide take him to the quartermaster's warehouse, then drove himself to the repair site to fix the vehicle.

After only ten days of hunting wars, the things discarded and damaged the most were not the mechanical hunters, but the vehicles.

Gao Gong entered the quartermaster's warehouse once again.

This time, however, his arrival attracted no one's attention. The people here came and went in a hurry. During wartime, everyone was exceptionally busy.

This was clearly not a place where gamblers came.

Gao Gong also felt more at ease. He called over a service robot and handed it the list of materials he had prepared on the way. The sheer quantity even triggered the robot's "double confirmation."

"May I ask if you want one of each of these?"

"Yes."

The robot used facial recognition directly, and with a quick swipe, nearly thirty thousand contribution points vanished.

That amount was almost two-thirds of the contribution points Gao Gong had earned from assassinating various C-rank radiation beasts.

With what remained, Gao Gong directly bought various types of ammunition, including more than a dozen enhanced radiation syringes.

The radiation syringes from the quartermaster's warehouse were far more effective than those from the black market.

At least they had no side effects.

A considerable portion of the black-market radiation syringes were watered-down products from Little Finger.

Just as he was getting bored, a furious big orange cat suddenly leaped up and clawed at Gao Gong.

That jumping power was clearly the result of enhancement.

Gao Gong tilted his head slightly while grabbing the back of its neck—the scruff that controlled its fate.

"Did you get a new skin? Don't get so worked up. Isn't your Mars Edge known for a customer satisfaction rate infinitely close to one hundred percent? Why are you attacking customers?" Gao Gong said with a laugh.

"Only those who use our weapons qualify as our customers, you swindler!" the big orange cat said furiously.

"Don't get so worked up. Your family's weapons have so many problems—biological viruses, cyberpsychosis, and the like. How can they be used without a thorough adjustment?"

"Nonsense, n-nonsense! Our weapons don't have any such problems." The big orange cat's eyes flickered.

At this point in time, Mars Edge had not yet won a Mother City-level outsourcing project, so it naturally did not act as arrogantly as it would in the future.

Selling faulty weapons during wartime and then being exposed—if this was reported, this big orange cat would probably truly be sacrificed for the greater good.

"Don't worry. It's just a minor problem," Gao Gong said lazily. "I'll fix it later. I'll definitely use it."

With its "scruff" pinched, the big orange cat spoke with outward ferocity but inward weakness. "You should understand that your weapon was lent to you for free. It's guaranteed in both quality and quantity, without the slightest problem. You need to learn gratitude."

"Yes, yes, gratitude. Gratitude."

Gao Gong suddenly had an idea. In the future, Mars Edge would hire a large number of players for human experiments, obtaining enough experimental data to lay the foundation for its future rise.

Since he knew this fact, could he get involved? The players needed weapons in large quantities and at affordable prices, while Mars Edge needed enough human experimental data.

There would be no middleman taking a cut.

But now that he was here, wasn't there a middleman after all?

"By the way, do you accept large-volume weapon preorders?"

"Large-volume weapon preorders? You?" A trace of contempt flashed through the big orange cat's eyes.

No matter how one looked at it, Mars Edge was a new-style major corporation with business spread across several machine cities. Naturally, it looked down on a nobody from the radiation zone.

"Of course I'm not the only one. In fact, I have many companions, and they all need weapons. I can provide a large order."

"A large order? You? Ahem—"

The big orange cat raised its head, intending to mock Gao Gong for overestimating himself. But it happened to meet his half-smiling gaze and immediately realized that he was holding its weakness. It coughed dryly and changed its tone.

"It's not impossible. However, you need to bring over the experimental data first. Otherwise, with nothing but words, it won't be easy for me to apply to my superiors."

"Sure."

Gao Gong agreed lightly, then slowly stroked the cat. His fingers gathered, kneaded, brushed, and picked in succession, rubbing the big orange cat until its face was filled with bliss and it meowed incessantly. This human doesn't look like much, but his massage technique is genuinely excellent.

Only after Gao Gong received the materials and left did the big orange cat come back to its senses from the pleasurable sensation. It let out a lingering meow, stared at the doorway with its narrow cat eyes for a long while, and finally sighed mournfully.

She had originally been human, as well as an internal employee of Mars Edge. Because she had failed to complete her sales quota, she had been internally punished, transformed into a cat, and exiled to the remote frontier of the Iron Sand Desert.

If she failed to complete her assignment this time, the next punitive modification would probably arrive soon.

She had become a cat this time. What would she become next? It couldn't be a mouse, could it?

Or a cockroach?

At the thought, the big orange cat shuddered. She absolutely did not want to end up like those colleagues at the bottom of the KPI rankings, transformed into an electronic cockroach and dumped into the sewers.

She had to work hard! She had to strive! She had to devote her entire life to the company!

The next day, the rankings near the top of the electronic leaderboard changed again.

The Symbiosis Squad knocked out the Gasoline Worshippers and the Fireweed Squad, taking a place in the top three.

The Marauder Squad fell another spot, dropping to eighth.

The Gray-Eyed Cultists rose one place, entering sixth.

Miyamoto Sanzang relied on his steady boss hunting to enter seventh.

As for the final two places, Gao Gong was nowhere to be seen.

Countless gamblers were dumbfounded. They had thought that the old fellow Miyamoto would be the first to falter—after all, youth had its advantages. But who would have expected Gao Gong, young as he was, to plummet so disastrously?

Meanwhile, inside a private room at the Rose Gasoline Bar,

Black Rose stared coldly at Little Finger, making his neck shrink.

"At a time like this, you incited him to throw a match?"

Little Finger forced a smile. "Sister Rose, well, making a profit is still making a profit. Besides, he agreed to it himself. We only went ahead because he was confident he could turn things around—"

"Even if he can't hold out in the end, doesn't he still have us? We can step in at the end and help him cheat."

Black Rose took a deep breath and said coldly, "Then do you know that five of the top ten teams now have sponsors behind them, and three have already begun secretly farming points?"

"Can you guarantee that our cheating methods are definitely better than theirs?"

Little Finger was dumbfounded. "That can't be. There are battlefield recorders and drones, and specialists inspect the corpses afterward. How could anyone cheat under those conditions? Does he think they're us?"

As if he had thought of something, Little Finger's expression changed. "Are you saying the Cloud Nobles have sent people here too? Aren't those parasites always indulging in pleasure and drunken revelry in the sky?"

"The Skeleton Society formed by the new-style corporations is becoming increasingly aggressive, the rebel forces are growing stronger, and the three major intelligences of the Mother City are cold and ruthless. Even those idiots know they need to leave themselves a way out. This web of interests in the Iron Sand Desert is someone's way out."

When Little Finger heard Sister Rose mention the rebels, he inexplicably relaxed. He was just about to speak when his eyes bulged.

Black Rose's high heel suddenly lifted and then drove viciously into the sofa in front of Little Finger's crotch. The sharp heel pierced the leather, stopping only a hair's breadth from a certain vital part.

A cold wind suddenly rose. Just a little closer, and he would have been changing into "Mr. Tree, Type Three."

"Don't cause trouble while I'm handling matters!" Black Rose said in a frigid tone.

Little Finger knew that Black Rose was truly angry this time. His expression was no longer lecherous as he asked seriously, "Rose, do you think that kid is one of us?"

"What do you mean?"

"I always thought he was just a little wolfhound you raised, but I've changed my mind. You know, once, when that kid delivered bugs to me, I happened to glance at his eyes. Do you know who he reminded me of?"

Little Finger said each word distinctly. "You! You before the bionic modifications!"

Black Rose froze for a moment, suddenly at a loss for words.

"Equally ambitious, equally passionate, and most importantly, equally unwilling to surrender."

"Do you think that you, who were hunted back then, would have bowed your head to some man?"

Black Rose sat down again. Her mind returned to that torrential rain in the Free Shore. It was as though the sky itself had collapsed, while the raindrops pierced her bleeding skin like little knives...

After a long while, Black Rose finally spoke. "What is that kid doing now?"

"Not sure, but I do know he's definitely causing trouble." Little Finger secretly breathed a sigh of relief and shrugged. "That kid borrowed my operating table again."

The next day, the battered off-road vehicle, booty obtained from the battle with the Knight Order, went back into service. Gao Gong sat on the vehicle's body and glanced at the rearview mirror.

In its reflection, one "cactus" after another drilled out of the asphalt. They looked like rocks with strange patterns on the outside, while their unfolded bodies resembled a combination of giant Venus flytraps and cacti.

Their thick, dense, petrified outer leaves wrapped their radiation energy perfectly. Once they bloomed to hunt, they could create a radiation energy field covering a "10*10" area while spraying poisonous mist that caused dizziness, weakness, poisoning, and other effects.

The formerly empty, arid ground now looked like a desert undergoing "afforestation." Cacti and other unfamiliar radiation plants rose from the earth one after another.

Gao Gong's heart grew heavy. It had been less than ten days, yet this desert had already begun to turn "green."

More importantly, this place was not far from Automobile City—only twenty or thirty li away.

The reproductive ability of the "radiation zone" was truly terrifying.

Even though all the mechanical hunters had gone into action these past few days, slaughtering frantically, the number of radiation beasts did not seem to have decreased much.

That was not because radiation beasts could not be killed. Rather, once a radiation zone took shape, it became a massive maternity ward.

If the Knight Order really is behind this disturbance, then is this the Knight Order's purpose?

To cultivate a suitable battlefield for the great battle in the future.

At this rate, an "assault on the city" was only a matter of time.

A look of determination flashed through Gao Gong's eyes. This trip to Scavenger City had to end with the Cable Tribe being dealt with.

The enemy was accelerating. He had to accelerate as well.