The exhausted Cable Tribe finally arrived at HighGong's secret base—the Old Metal Recycling Station—after three days and nights of nonstop migration and countless dangers.
The tribe members who still had energy were rummaging through the junk heaps, looking for suitable steel bars to put up shelters and build temporary homes of their own.
The strong and sturdy Fatty Xiang hauled daily necessities from his home over and over again.
Some tribe members had originally been wary of the giant, but under his enthusiastic help, they gradually let down their guard.
Quite a few young women approached him with flushed faces. They had a great deal of goodwill toward this strong yet nonaggressive little giant.
In the Iron Sand Desert, where crises lurked everywhere, people's aesthetic preferences had always leaned toward the big, sturdy, and strong. Aside from lacking brains, Fatty Xiang had it all.
"Brother Xiang, you've got such a great physique. Have you been training since you were little? What kind of girls do you like?"
Women in the desert had always been bold. After only a few words, they revealed their true intentions.
Fatty Xiang rubbed the back of his head and recalled the scenes he had seen in the virtual machine. In his honest voice, he said, "I like women who aren't wearing clothes."
"What a coincidence. I also like men who aren't wearing clothes. Hehe, we should exchange pointers sometime."
"Sure."
Elsewhere, Squinty Iron was squatting in front of a huge pot, glaring jealously at Fatty Xiang, who was surrounded by a crowd of young girls. He stirred the ladle hard and shouted:
"Food's ready! Come over and line up!"
Feeding and taking care of nearly two hundred people was definitely a huge problem. Never mind anything else—even nutritional paste alone would require an astronomical amount.
Fortunately, Iron Skin, the former middleman, knew how to boil nutritional paste into porridge. He cooked three huge pots before finally allowing the starving tribe members to fill their bellies, barely.
Elsewhere, HighGong and Huang Yuanli were discussing the tribe's future.
Staying here was only a temporary measure. Never mind anything else—although this place was well hidden, it was quite close to the center of the oasis. HighGong alone naturally had nothing to fear, but with so many people, there was a risk of exposure.
These people were all unregistered residents. The moment they were discovered, they would be expelled without exception.
"Going to the scavenger settlement? No!" HighGong rejected Huang Yuanli's suggestion.
"Why? We're scavengers too. Can they really drive us away?"
"That's not what I mean." HighGong shook his head and pointed at the war recorder. This thing refreshed the battle situation every day.
"More and more new radiation zones are appearing, and the intensity of the war is also rising. In my opinion, sooner or later, the leaders of the radiation beasts will reach an agreement and attack the oasis."
"When that happens, the outermost scavenger settlements will be the first to be abandoned," HighGong said meaningfully. "Do you still want to go there?"
Huang Yuanli's face paled.
Seeing that the little woman had been frightened, HighGong shook his head and said, "Putting that aside, it's truly beyond my expectations that your tribe managed to survive."
He looked toward an area that had been deliberately isolated. Eight juvenile Reapers were swaying their heads there, gazing greedily at the "food" nearby.
Whenever they tried to sneak out, Huang Yuanli would charge over without hesitation and curse out the monsters, each of which stood nearly two meters tall.
Even though she was less than a third of their height.
Her short legs would even leap up to kick their knees.
Strangely enough, whenever those monsters saw the little woman, they acted like sons seeing their mother. One by one, they shrank back with their heads lowered, showing none of a Reaper's usual temperament.
HighGong occasionally came over to look around as well. Relying on the aura of a "humanoid Reaper," he had finally managed to keep them contained.
In their stupid minds, their "mother" had found them a father.
Although this father looked somewhat strange, he gave off the strongest aura of their kind.
They had recognized him as their father at first sight.
Who knew when they might gain a brother?
Seeing the little woman circle the group of monsters while holding a basin of nutritional porridge and a pile of metal scraps, feeding them like dogs, HighGong rubbed his chin and felt inexplicably amused.
A moment later, Huang Yuanli came over carrying an empty plastic basin—metal basins would not do, since they would be chewed to pieces.
When she saw HighGong's strange look, her face immediately flushed. She planted her hands on her hips and snapped:
"What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen anyone keep pets?"
HighGong's tongue was as sharp as ever. "I never thought that big head would help you. Looks like the brain toilet wasn't made for nothing."
Huang Yuanli flew into a rage.
The most important reason the Cable Tribe had lost fewer than ten people was that the Brain in the Vat had taken action.
Its method had been simple and brutal: it had forcibly brainwashed them with a psychic storm, changing the Reapers' "perceptions" on the spot.
After their perceptions had been transformed, Huang Yuanli became their "mother."
A new little-girl queen had therefore been born.
As if remembering something, Huang Yuanli said worriedly, "Given these fellows' appetites, I'm afraid the first thing they'll finish eating will be the metal scrap here. What will we do when there's no food left?"
HighGong was speechless as well. This place was the Mechanical Hunters' headquarters. They couldn't possibly let the creatures out to hunt; they would be beaten to death by a mob.
"We'll take it one step at a time. Maybe when the time comes, the problem won't be a problem anymore."
HighGong's words sounded irresponsible, but a vague plan was already taking shape in his mind.
"Right, what is the Brain in the Vat doing now?"
"Not sure. It seems to have become a super-giant mechanical biobeast and is leading its people through the desert."
"Pan-consciousness entities" were extremely troublesome. It wasn't that they were particularly strong, but that if one wasn't careful, they would spread like locusts.
This kind of "proliferation" could even sweep across the intelligent species of an entire planet.
As the lowest-level pan-consciousness entity, the Brain in the Vat was not especially powerful, but if it expanded recklessly, the number of creatures under its command would soon approach that of a Beast King tribe.
HighGong rubbed his chin. Perhaps this was an opportunity too.
The reason the later Beast God Soldiers were so difficult to deal with—and why even several deployments of mechanical legions had failed to wipe them out completely—was that the entire desert had become their radiation zone. Their eyes and ears were everywhere.
The Brain in the Vat might be a good opportunity to drive a wedge into them.
HighGong thought it over, then told Huang Yuanli an address and asked her to find a way to notify the Brain in the Vat.
If it wanted to recover its strength faster, it should go there.
"What is it? Why are you being so mysterious? Old Copper Mountain, No. 314—where is that?"
"An abandoned mine in the south. Just tell it that. I guarantee it will bring you benefits and no harm."
On the surface, Old Copper Mountain was an abandoned mine. In secret, however, it was an unmanned factory where the Knight Order manufactured Beast God Soldiers.
Based on the plot's progression, the Beast God Soldiers had already entered mass production at this point in time.
These level-20 flesh-and-machine soldiers, which had not yet been implanted with the "Knight Template," were indeed a great tonic for the Brain in the Vat.
As for unmanned factories of this kind, he knew of several more.
"All right, I'll leave this place to you. Don't bother me unless there's something important."
"As if I want to look for you!"
Huang Yuanli spat several times at HighGong's back.
HighGong's former "deluxe metal shack" had already been given to Huang Yuanli as the new tribal chief's residence.
As for himself, along with the pile of manufacturing equipment he had purchased earlier, he moved into a nearby abandoned building.
That building was now also the base of HighGong's team.
The moment he entered the building, the two human-headed dogs enthusiastically came over to welcome him.
The two mechanical dogs had undergone another upgrade. It was easy to see that a special groove had appeared on each of their backs. Alongside the wires, living flesh writhed within it.
The flesh cut from the "Reaper Queen" had a special vitality. This vitality allowed it to be transplanted onto mechanical bodies and form a symbiotic system with their energy sources.
The result of the transplant was that the human-headed dogs gained 100 health and an additional cybernetic interface.
Of course, although the transplant surgery seemed simple, it was actually extremely difficult.
It was so difficult that even HighGong could only assist. The actual modifications were performed by Professor Han.
Aside from invasive neural modification, Professor Han's mind contained at least three max-level professional skills.
More importantly, he possessed extensive experience in biological experiments.
That was the most useful thing of all.
HighGong went up to the second floor and entered a meeting room that had been cleaned thoroughly.
The moment he stepped inside, a thick smell of blood washed over him.
On the operating table lay a corpse roughly two and a half meters tall.
Professor Han, dressed in white with a mask over his face, was dismembering it.
It was clear that although he was not a cybernetic doctor, he could still operate this surgical table.
On another table sat sterile culture boxes of various sizes. Inside them were the organs of the Reaper Queen.
Professor Han would use his professional judgment to determine whether the organs had strong biological rejection and whether they could be transplanted to form a symbiosis.
HighGong's gaze fell on a claw. The metal claw seemed to be "alive" and was opening and closing inside the glass box.
"How is it?" HighGong asked.
Professor Han said nothing. He simply handed over a sheet of paper.
The paper recorded the corpse's various large and small components, divided into three categories: discarded organs, transplantable organs, and modifiable systems.
The discarded organs definitely could not be transplanted.
Of the latter two categories, the modifiable systems were more difficult to handle than the transplantable organs.
HighGong found a chair and sat down, his fingers tapping unconsciously against the armrest.
According to the paper, there were five transplantable organs: blade limbs, biological armor, electronic tentacles, a subcutaneous blood pump, and sensory knees.
There were three modifiable systems: the circulatory system, the reproductive system, and the digestive system.
When HighGong raised his head, he saw Professor Han looking at him with a complicated expression.
"You don't seem to hate me."
Over the past two days, apart from HighGong, even the carefree Huang Yuanli had worn a complicated expression whenever she saw Professor Han.
The others avoided him whenever possible.
After all, no wall was completely impervious to wind. More or less, people had learned of Professor Han's plan.
He had put several hundred living people inside his own head.
Who wouldn't be afraid of that?
By the standards of the pre-civilization era, he was the very model of a mad scientist.
Professor Han was not surprised by this. What surprised him was HighGong's attitude.