Chapter Summaries

After taking control of Nightless City’s mechanical superbrain, Gao Gong forced Old Pava to hand over Hong Corporation’s biological data and learned of ancient experiment ruins that could guide his next stage of development. He then left for Daisila’s underground factory, where he recognized the beginnings of a Tier 2 Biological Hunter profession.

• Gao Gong took Xiao Yu to reunite with Xiao Jie while Doan, Naga, and Bai raided Hong Corporation for its hidden data.
• Gao Gong used the mechanical superbrain to overpower Naga’s intrusion and confronted Old Pava in the data layer, demanding genetic data in exchange for Hong Corporation records.
• Old Pava revealed that Hong Bing had brought him half of the data from an ancient alliance project to create biological soldiers, then helped extract Hong Corporation’s stored research.
• Gao Gong acquired three pieces of professional knowledge and biological blueprints, identified the Synthetic Gene Chain, and warned Old Pava that he could target the orbital defenses.
• Old Pava assigned Xiao Jie to learn the group’s specialties, while Xiao Yu asked to help people in danger and Gao Gong dropped her toward the city.
• Gao Gong visited Daisila’s underground factory and identified her genetic spiders and humanoid spiders as the basis for a Tier 2 Biological Hunter profession.

Highginer used the spoils from the Hong family, the Deep Web Weavers, and the Steelclaw Gang to strengthen himself and plan new research and military forces. After learning that Black Rose had become Electronic Grid’s CEO, he tried to contact her, while she traveled toward the City That Never Sleeps with Aramaki.

• Highginer consumed the Hong company’s entire stock of Five Blessings Drug, raising his five attributes to a total of forty-four.
• Highginer reviewed the Deep Web Weavers’ genetic data and the Steelclaw Gang’s Mechanical Clawman blueprints, then planned to build a mechanical legion with Director Du.
• Highginer confirmed that Doctor Rong and Dong Gang had safely brought their work to Fuqing Island and ordered them to preserve Mr. D, the third-generation Steelclaw, and Fifth-Generation Miller.
• Collision, Tong, and their companion demanded that Highginer fulfill his promise, and he discovered that Black Rose had become Electronic Grid’s new CEO.
• Highginer called Black Rose’s office, identified himself as her former pet, and asked the AI to tell Aramaki that his subordinates wanted to see him.
• Black Rose spoke with Aramaki aboard an aircraft bound for the City That Never Sleeps and discussed meeting Highginer.

Six months after their separation, Du Zhaodi reunited with Engineer Gao and explored the Mechanical Nexus, where she obtained its blueprints. Engineer Gao then began restoring the original Mecha Generation with Chairman Wu’s help, but Alyssa intervened to take them away; meanwhile, Black Rose and Aramaki arrived in Sleepless City.

• Du Zhaodi reunited with Engineer Gao and used her authority over machinery to help dismantle and study the Mechanical Nexus.
• Engineer Gao brought Du Zhaodi to the Nexus’s core, where Chairman Wu revealed more than three hundred blueprints for its components.
• Engineer Gao entered the solid-state processing module and used his miniature virtual realm to stabilize the failing original Mecha Generation.
• Engineer Gao explained that Mecha Generation could be reborn by reconstructing her body with cyberspace’s underlying code and transformed the Aiai prototype into data.
• Alyssa’s enormous data hand seized Engineer Gao, Chairman Wu, and Mecha Generation and took them away.
• Black Rose and Aramaki arrived in Sleepless City unseen, noted the strange pheromones, and set out to find Black Rose’s people before pursuing their business.

High Artisan discovered that Gaokesi was the Ninth Honka Entity and learned that the Mother Cities and conceptual entities had been secretly seeking vessels to contain honka. Alisa proposed that she and High Artisan cooperate, leaving him to decide how to respond.

• Alisa brought High Artisan to a hidden hospital and showed him the sleeping Gaokesi, whose body carried honka energy.
• High Artisan recognized Gaokesi as the network-bionics result and completed a quest after learning she was another personality of Gao Yuanyuan.
• Alisa explained that Gaokesi had infiltrated Virus Database No. 0 in the Fortress to help revive her, and that the Fortress had tried to stop her.
• Alisa revealed that Gaokesi was the Ninth Honka Entity and said the conceptual entities and Mother Cities had concealed their efforts to create vessels for honka.
• High Artisan learned that the experiment aimed to offer honka to higher civilizations for immense rewards, while his historical-line change reached 10 percent and granted him one use of Civilization Correction Power.
• Alisa asked High Artisan, whom she recognized as a fellow seeker of honka, to cooperate with her.

Gao Gong explored how to use Civilization Correction and secured Alisa’s help gathering Honkai energy information in exchange for collecting carriers in reality. He used a corporate legacy and repeated knowledge synthesis to obtain a universal chip-making machine and, after several failures, the Superbrain Enhancement System blueprint.

• Gao Gong considered Civilization Correction a powerful way to reset an enemy’s technological branch and agreed to Alisa’s exchange of information and Honkai energy carriers.
• Gao Gong opened the corporate legacy, received out-of-print EVA discs from Hugh Lowry’s assets, and then selected a level-two Universal Chip Manufacturing Machine.
• Gao Gong split his Mechanical Composite, Virtual Personality, and Mechanical Brain knowledge chains into component fields and tried to synthesize an advanced blueprint.
• After three failures, Gao Gong successfully researched the level-ten electronic neural blueprint, the Superbrain Enhancement System.

Gao Gong fought a powerful super AI that attacked him through Nightless City’s virtual systems, then recognized Black Rose’s collapse energy as she intervened. Afterward, Black Rose confronted him about his girlfriend while he massaged her shoulders.

• Gao Gong discovered that a super AI had hacked the city’s residents and used War Hacker and System Manipulation to destroy its auxiliary system sub-bodies.
• Gao Gong reshaped Nightless City’s virtual layer into a Möbius strip, but the super AI pulled him back into reality and attacked his biological systems.
• Gao Gong countered by manipulating the bodies of nearby pedestrians, then recognized the collapse energy destroying his biological energy and stopped resisting.
• Black Rose intervened, and Huang Juan left the hotel room as a bionic waitress delivered Black Rose’s unusual meal.
• After Black Rose finished eating, she asked Gao Gong about his girlfriend while he massaged her shoulders.

Gao Gong traded valuable technology and information to win Black Rose’s favor, then oversaw the dismantling of the Continental Plate Impactor and bid farewell to the Ghost in the Shell unit. Daisy brought him an invitation revealing that the Skull and Bones Society had approved his preliminary review and assigned Bandai to conduct the final review.

• Gao Gong offered Black Rose morality chip and general-purpose chip manufacturing technology, then told her how to combat the Electronic Brain Project.
• Gao Gong appeared at the Virtual Tower ruins after the Continental Plate Impactor had been dismantled and loaded onto a fleet for transport to Du Gao Technology’s research bases.
• Tong, Chappie, and Collision Engine said goodbye to Gao Gong, while Tong warned him against becoming expendable in a cyber test site.
• Daisy returned in her Deep Web Weaver form, reported that she had arranged the Deep Web Weaver’s withdrawal, and gave Gao Gong an invitation found in Virtual United’s most secure safe.
• Gao Gong read that the Skull and Bones Society had approved his preliminary review, with Mace Sharpness as the preliminary reviewer and Bandai of Fairy Tale Toyland handling the final review.

Gao Gong left Nightless City for Fuqing Island, where he and Black Rose began pursuing the Bionic Human Completion Project. The chapter ended with them preparing to persuade the Electronic Grid board to mass-produce the Brain Domain Enhancement System by improving company performance.

• Gao Gong moved Nightless City's corporate technology to his territories, and the Mechanical Hunters faction advanced to Tier 2.
• Gao Gong and Black Rose departed Nightless City, while Xiao Yu spoke with Xiao Yuanshan about the city's future and Director Du stayed behind to study the Mechanical Nexus.
• Gao Gong confronted Aramaki on Fuqing Island, and Black Rose revealed that she had recovered part of her original body, an evolutionary bionic-human shell containing honkai energy.
• Gao Gong outlined the Bionic Human Completion Project, a plan to enhance bionic humans and make Black Rose their absolute leader.
• Gao Gong, Black Rose, and Aramaki entered a laboratory where D, a vice chairman of one of the Six Great bionic-human companies, was held, and began planning to boost company performance to persuade the Electronic Grid board.

Gao Gong watched the uproar over Sister Rose’s decision to push Electronic Grid into chip technology, then received an Artificial Neural Network knowledge chain from her and considered fusing it with three other chains. He faced a steep experience cost but had enough faction resources to pursue the gamble.

• Dr. J explained on Bird Morgans’s show why Electronic Grid’s bionic humans saw Sister Rose’s chip strategy as a threat to their evolution and identity.
• Gao Gong watched reports condemn Sister Rose, who declared that dissatisfied bionic models would receive a factory reset or be removed from the company’s path.
• Gao Gong decided the Brain Domain Enhancement System was reliable and believed Sister Rose planned to attack Pure White Shell using secrets from Mr. D’s brain.
• Gao Gong claimed Sister Rose’s gift, a Level Two Civilization Artificial Neural Network knowledge chain, and dismantled it into eight max-level professional skills.
• Gao Gong considered fusing Virtual Personality, Mechanical Brain Technology, Mechanical Composite, and Artificial Neural Network for 24 million experience points.

Gao Gong completed several high-level artificial intelligence and planetary engineering blueprints and began planning to fuse them into a civilization structure before pausing to meet Director Du and discuss the next mission. Meanwhile, players returned to a transformed Night City and learned that they would travel aboard the Hope through the new Rail City as conductors facing the Dark.

• Gao Gong synthesized the Small Intelligent Machine Base and Remote Backup Center blueprints, then explained how accumulated knowledge and upgraded blueprints could push civilization development beyond normal limits.
• Gao Gong obtained the Universal Machine Consciousness blueprint, which could produce onboard AI for large combat machines, and the Riverbed Modification Machine blueprint for planetary terrain work.
• Gao Gong planned to model and fuse the four blueprints into a civilization structure, but stopped when Director Du and the main force arrived to discuss the coming Seventeenth Corporate War.
• Players who had died in the nightmare mission logged back in and found that Night City had been transformed by enormous mechanical pipes into Rail City.
• The Hope invited a surprised player aboard, and Gao Gong welcomed the players as conductors who would work together to defeat the pursuing Dark and reach their destination.

Gao Gong brought Yao Xue and Jack K into Du Gao Technology and discussed the company’s plans with Du Zhaodi and Gao Yuanyuan before his departure. Du Gao Technology decided to join the World Corporate War, and Gao Gong proposed approaching the Sacred Brain Group through Qiao Hong and the Dark Maiden.

• Yao Xue and Jack K joined Gao Gong’s faction, and Gao Gong assigned them to help establish Du Gao Technology’s Corporate Security Department.
• Yao Xue pledged to recruit other armed-clan talents and hand over her clan’s intelligence network.
• Gao Gong discovered that Du Zhaodi had sold 200,000 sets of powered armor and saw her studying the Universal Machine Consciousness blueprint.
• Gao Yuanyuan offered to help Du Zhaodi research Imperial technologies and stayed behind while Gao Gong prepared to leave.
• Du Zhaodi confirmed Du Gao Technology would participate in the World Corporate War, and she and Gao Yuanyuan agreed not to work with androids.
• Gao Gong suggested approaching the Sacred Brain Group through Qiao Hong, who cared for the future executive officer known as the Dark Maiden.

The Senior Engineer completed preparations for his departure, including installing three alien bloodlines and setting goals to advance his secondary professions. He left Fuqing Island to deal with the Knight Order, while players' strange experimental experiences revealed the opportunities and dangers of the Cyber Test Field.

• The Senior Engineer used Fuqing Island's expanded computing power and translated alien genes, preparing to implant the Blue-Blooded and carbon-based fluid life alongside the fiber-cluster lifeform.
• The Senior Engineer triggered promotion quests for his Radiation Division and War Hacker professions and decided to pursue three professional knowledge chains before leaving Rift Planet.
• The Senior Engineer read forum posts about players being taken over, trapped in experiments, or pulled into dangerous quests, and recognized them as part of the Cyber Test Field's main storyline.
• The Senior Engineer chose dealing with the Knight Order as his reason for leaving and suspected its hidden leader, the ancient AI War, carried collapse energy.
• Three days later, the Senior Engineer completed his modifications and departed, while Du Zhaodi and Gao Yuanyuan prepared to get to work.

Trilobite searched the seafloor for an intelligent Oceanfolk bloodline to complete his class-change quest, but discovered the Knight Order capturing Oceanfolk and was caught in the attack. Elsewhere, High Engineer confronted an A-rank sea serpent and transformed into Complete Form after overwhelming it in battle.

• Trilobite destroyed the Knight Order’s Biological Detectors and used a conch to call for the mixed-blood Oceanfolk girl who had helped him find her tribe.
• The girl arrived and warned Trilobite to flee as a bronze slave-catching machine trapped Oceanfolk in its grid.
• A strange humanoid figure triggered an underwater nuclear eruption and emerged as a huge A-rank sea serpent.
• High Engineer attacked the sea serpent with energy spears, particle disruption, and mechanical strikes, cutting away much of its health.
• The sea serpent detonated three sections of its body to escape High Engineer’s radiation field, but High Engineer transformed into Complete Form and left it in despair.

Gao Gong absorbed the ancient giant sea serpent, assessed his strength, and met the Brain in a Vat, who asked him to help evolve the radiated beasts she controlled into oceanic species. He accepted the Heaven-grade chain quest “The Rise of the Radiated Species.”

• Gao Gong absorbed the ancient giant sea serpent’s genes, gained the Snake God Eyes talent, and drove off the sea serpents that had gathered around their fallen king.
• Gao Gong recalled killing the Mechanical Giant Kun and a Cthulhu-like monster, then concluded that his complete form was comparable to an S-rank radiated beast.
• Gao Gong entered the wild Brain in a Vat’s biological city, where he met the Brain in a Vat in the form of a petite woman.
• The Brain in a Vat said that War had tried to recruit her and warned Gao Gong that War’s Honkai energy was more domineering and ancient.
• The Brain in a Vat began transforming her biological city for underwater life, and Gao Gong realized she wanted to evolve the tens of millions of radiated beasts under her control into oceanic species.
• Gao Gong received the Heaven-grade chain quest “The Rise of the Radiated Species.”

Gao Gong investigated the Sea People's directed mutation to advance the Heaven-level mission, while the Trilobite and Pandora fled a rampaging Tribal Guard and sought the Sea People's temple. After the Mechanical Hunters became a second-tier faction and gained new upgrades, Gao Gong found the Trilobite on the faction map and realized his rescue mission could help complete both their objectives.

• Gao Gong accepted the Heaven-level chain mission to evolve the organs of radiated species and learned that the Sea People and their Cloudwing Beast might hold the key to directed mutation.
• The Trilobite and Pandora escaped a Vessel Beast, then headed for the Sea People's temple while planning to unite the branch tribes and pursue the mission to rescue the Sea People.
• Sun Hong led more than one thousand biological hunters into the jungle on a special underwater mission for the Mechanical Hunters.
• Gao Gong's Mechanical Hunters became a second-tier faction, and he strengthened the Mechanical Clawman with a flight module and received a Machine-Control Ring and modification packs.
• Gao Gong opened the Faction Map near the Eye of the Ocean, found the Trilobite, and realized the Trilobite's rescue mission could serve both his class-change mission and the Brain in a Vat's evolution mission.

The Trilobite learned that the Eye of the Ocean had ambushed the mixed-blood Oceanfolk and later fought alongside them when their home came under attack. Charkin rescued him and helped drive the attackers back, though the battle left the mixed-blood survivors in grim spirits.

• The Trilobite watched the mixed-blood leaders argue while considering their slim chances against the stronger Pureblood Oceanfolk.
• The leaders received news that the Eye of the Ocean had slaughtered their negotiating party, killing more than a thousand elites and severely injuring Charkin.
• Pandora told the Trilobite that the elders had decided to leave, and he agreed to accompany the Oceanfolk during their migration.
• The Eye of the Ocean and modified humans attacked the underwater settlement, and the Trilobite fought to protect the mixed-blood Oceanfolk.
• Charkin rescued the wounded Trilobite and led a counterattack that drove the enemies away.
• The mixed-blood survivors treated the Trilobite's wounds while mourning their losses.

Trilobite sought reinforcements as the Knights' Order attacked the Oceanfolk settlement, but the Wisdom Tree awakened and chose him, unleashing power across the battlefield. The chapter ended with the half-blood Oceanfolk empowered, the purebloods weakened, and hunters arriving from above.

• Charkin asked Trilobite to help the Oceanfolk resist the Knights' Order, and Trilobite agreed to try while calling for reinforcements.
• Pandora explained that Charkin had earned his status and surname by taming the Sea King Beast after receiving the Wisdom Tree's blessing.
• Gao Gong and Little Woman worked to repair the Wisdom Tree, which was actually a gene ecology beast, while Gao Gong planned to confront Kermos, an S-rank radiation beast.
• The Knights' Order launched a fierce attack with Cloudwing Knights, Flesh-Machine Knights, and hooded infiltrators, while Trilobite received no response from the main base.
• Trilobite heard the Wisdom Tree calling him and touched its trunk, causing its light to dissolve enemies and Kermos's phantom to appear.
• The Wisdom Tree empowered the half-blood Oceanfolk and drained the purebloods' strength, as a message from the bearded hunter arrived and hunters fell into the battlefield.

High Engineer revived the half-blood ocean people's Sacred Trees while uncovering the Knight Order's effort to turn Kormos into an S-rank biological computer. He reached the Eye of the Ocean, where the transformation was underway.

• Mechanical Hunters arrived and turned the battle against the Knight Order, whose leaders used a black conch to withdraw the Soul Reapers.
• Trilobite was mistaken for the Mechanical Hunters' captain, then fainted as the Tree of Wisdom transformed him into a half-blood ocean person and the ocean people hailed him as a holy son.
• High Engineer used the Virtual Realm to destroy electronic leeches and deduced that Kormos was building a biological local area network with the help of the Knight Order.
• High Engineer revived a dilapidated Sacred Tree bearing the Bluewater Technologies logo and continued restoring Trees of Wisdom to help disrupt the biological network.
• Inside the Eye of the Ocean, a female Knight Order standard-bearer pressured a computer-like Kormos to complete its system reinstallation and become an S-rank life-form.
• High Engineer arrived at the Eye of the Ocean and sensed the aura of a large biological computer.

Gao Gong hacked into Kermos’s biological computer, recovered data revealing Blue Water Technology’s history and the origins of the ocean people, and learned why Kermos wanted the technology. After Kermos detected him, it opened all three of its biological systems to him.

• Gao Gong invaded a biological computer and killed electronic leeches with Snake God Eyes to pass its biological barriers.
• Gao Gong endured the system’s self-evolution defenses, entered its digestive-system recycle bin, and recovered deleted data.
• Gao Gong learned that Blue Water Technology had made clones for the Machine-Split Star coalition, later researched mutants, and eventually gave rise to the Biological Mutation Society.
• Gao Gong discovered that Kermos was an undersea worm formed from first-generation ocean-person experiments and planned to use the hybrid ocean people as its system programs.
• Kermos sensed Gao Gong through their connection as S-rank radiation beasts, then unexpectedly opened all three biological systems to him.

The Black Standard-Bearer entered Kermos’s biological network to fight an intruder, unaware that Gao Gong had joined forces with Kermos and trapped her in a fake digestive system. Her attempt to repair the collapsing network overwhelmed her biological computer and ended in a total crash.

• An alarm alerted the Ocean Humans and Knights’ Order scientists that someone had infiltrated Kermos’s digestive system, so the Black Standard-Bearer went to investigate.
• The Black Standard-Bearer used biological computing to drive the intruder toward the recycle bin and summoned a gigantic electronic leech to destroy it.
• Gao Gong revealed himself outside the fake digestive system and offered Kermos a way to cooperate, which Kermos accepted.
• The Black Standard-Bearer’s attack collapsed the fake system, and she poured her computing power into repairing it.
• The Black Standard-Bearer’s brain discs overloaded and disintegrated one after another until her biological computer crashed.