Technology System

[You have successfully allied with the Imperial faction: the Waste Mine Society]

After finishing his speech, Gu Hang opened the system interface again and saw the new message.

So even a tiny place like this could count as a faction, according to the system?

He looked further down.

[Current Grace Points: 11]

[Total territory income: 6/Terra month]

[Governor's Temporary Camp: 5/Terra month]

[Waste Mine Society: 1/Terra month]

His total monthly income had increased by one point. Gu Hang pursed his lips, not particularly satisfied. The Waste Mine Society didn't have enough people, nor was its productivity very high. By comparison, although his temporary camp had been built from absolutely nothing, it had at least three thousand people.

Of course, both sides still had plenty of room to develop. He was confident that once productivity and prosperity improved, his monthly Grace income would rise considerably.

But based on what Gu Hang knew so far, relying on fixed monthly income would only ever provide a basic safety net.

If he wanted to get rich, he'd have to wage war.

What kind of Grace System was this? It was a War-Maniac System!

After wiping out the main force of the Prisoner-Dead and gaining 19 Grace Points, he'd enjoyed a little windfall and gotten a taste for it. Once he'd finished dealing with the Waste Mine Society, he sent Yan Fangxu out with half the elite Marines and a Servitor infantry company to attack the Prisoner-Dead bandits' lair, following the prisoners' testimony.

It should be an easy battle. The Prisoner-Dead's main force had already been wiped out outside the Waste Mine Society, and most of those left at their camp were the old, weak, and sick.

After all, bandits had families too.

There shouldn't be much to worry about from the few bandits left behind. There were probably only thirty or fifty of them altogether, and they might not even have enough guns to go around. The troops Yan Fangxu had taken with him were more than enough to wipe them out.

Gu Hang hoped Yan Fangxu would rescue as many of the Waste Mine Society's surviving captives as possible. If he couldn't, there was nothing to be done.

What Gu Hang looked forward to even more was the Grace Point reward. He knew the enemy was weak, so the reward wouldn't be much, but surely it would be better than waiting for his fixed monthly income?

As he thought this, he continued looking through the interface.

And then came an even bigger surprise.

A new function had quietly appeared in the system.

Below [Hero] and [Troop Token], a new option sat there.

[Technology]

Gu Hang's heart began to race.

He'd previously thought the system was a War-Maniac System not only because it awarded a lot of points for winning battles, but also because of its functions.

Whether it was leveling up personally or training and upgrading his troops, everything was geared toward preparing for war.

It seemed to be a cycle of getting stronger by fighting, then being able to fight even more because you were stronger, with farming as a secondary concern.

But he hadn't realized that the system's functions hadn't all been unlocked for him.

Could there be more new functions later on?

And what would it take to unlock them?

He had no way of knowing.

He'd have plenty of time to investigate later. Right now, all Gu Hang wanted to see was what this [Technology] function was all about.

When he opened it, the system interface displayed a sky full of stars. Every star was dim, waiting for him to light it up.

Looking closely, he saw that the dark stars seemed to be connected to one another in a complex web. They also varied in size, and each one seemed to represent a specific technology.

[Grace Points can be invested to unlock one random technology. The probability of success and the level of technology unlocked increase with the number of points invested. The minimum investment is 10 points for one attempt, the second tier is 100 points for one attempt, and the third tier is 1,000 points for one attempt...]

So it was a gacha, a lottery?

Could it be a scam?

Gu Hang had some baggage when it came to this kind of draw.

But he didn't have any other options.

He only had eleven Grace Points on hand, and one draw at the minimum rate would use them up. Based on his experience with similar systems, a bare-minimum pull like this usually didn't turn out well.

But if he didn't spend them here, he had nowhere to use those ten Grace Points anyway!

As for Heroes, he was level 2 and stuck waiting for experience. Even if he had Grace Points, he couldn't level up. For troop training, upgrading from unranked to T5 cost 1 Grace Point per 100 soldiers; upgrading from T5 to T4 cost 1 point per 10 soldiers; and upgrading from T4 to T3 cost 1 point per soldier.

His Servitor battalion was currently T5, and its hardware limitations meant it couldn't be upgraded. The elite Marines could be upgraded, but raising just eleven of them to T3 wouldn't mean much. Besides, that would only improve their training. Without better equipment, their overall combat strength still wouldn't be enough.

Thinking it over, if he didn't want his Grace Points to gather dust, drawing a technology was truly his only option right now.

In that case, he'd go for it.

He hoped he wouldn't have terrible luck.

At his command, ten Grace Points quietly vanished. In their place, one of the countless dim stars lit up.

[Basic Technology: Alloy Plasteel]

[A research product of the Adeptus Mechanicus, this is a versatile, reliable material. It is made by smelting steel with various minerals. Its properties vary according to the formula used. It can be used for soldiers' armor plates, building materials, vehicle armor, spacecraft components...]

It was indeed an utterly basic technology, and one that dealt with raw materials.

But after looking more closely, Gu Hang's mouth fell open.

"Now that's a real score!"

Alloy Plasteel wasn't especially rare, and its properties varied enormously depending on its composition and manufacturing process. The best Plasteel could be used for core components in precision instruments, while the worst could only serve as building material.

If the system had only given him the process, formula, and blueprints, they wouldn't have been all that useful. In his current, utterly impoverished circumstances, he had no way to put them to use.

But...the system practically spoon-fed him everything.

Unlocking a technology gave him three things:

First came the theory, manufacturing process, and design blueprints. With those, all he needed was enough scientific talent and an industrial base to apply the technology on a large scale and build a factory.

That was nothing special. The remarkable part was the other two items: Black Box Fabricators.

"Black box" was a figurative term for a device whose inner workings no one could understand. All you had to do was feed in the most basic raw materials, and it would produce finished goods directly.

There were two such Black Box Fabricators, each different. The first was the Finished Product Black Box. Feed it iron ore and materials in any proportions, and it could directly produce the highest-quality Alloy Plasteel.

The second was the Mother Machine Black Box. It also only needed the most basic materials, and it could produce the smelting furnaces needed to manufacture high-quality Alloy Plasteel.

Now that was incredible. Looking at the two machines he could materialize at any time and the knowledge filling his mind, Gu Hang realized just how powerful the Technology System was.

It practically put the food right in his mouth.

Gu Hang didn't have any technical experts or scientists under his command, but with this thing, even a troop of baboons could probably set up an Alloy Plasteel production line.

Ten Grace Points. What a deal!

"What War-Maniac System? I declare this the greatest Farming System ever!"