Technology System

[You have successfully integrated the imperial faction: Waste Mine Society]

After finishing his speech, Gu Hang opened the system interface and saw this new notification.

Integration, really?

In the system's judgment, a small place like the Waste Mine Society was also considered a faction?

He looked further down.

[Current Favor 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, but Gu Hang pursed his lips, not particularly satisfied. The Waste Mine Society's population was insufficient and its productivity was weak. In contrast, his temporary camp, though built from scratch, at least had over three thousand people.

Of course, both sides still had significant room for development. He believed that once productivity and prosperity increased, the monthly Favor income would also see a substantial rise.

But based on Gu Hang's current understanding, relying on fixed monthly income would at best only cover his basic needs.

If he wanted to get rich quick, he had to go to war.

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

Having wiped out the main force of the Prisoner-Dead and harvested 19 Favor points, he had tasted the sweetness of a small windfall. After finishing the work at the Waste Mine Society, he dispatched Yan Fangxu again, ordering the captain to take half of the elite Marines and a company of Servitor infantry to follow the prisoners' confessions and attack the lair of the Prisoner-Dead bandits.

That should be an easy battle. The main force of the Prisoner-Dead had already been annihilated outside the Waste Mine Society; those left in the camp were mostly the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled.

After all, even bandits had families.

There was no need to worry too much about the few remaining bandits; they probably numbered no more than thirty or fifty in total, and it was hard to say how many guns they could even scrape together. The troops Yan Fangxu brought were more than enough to wipe them out completely.

He hoped Yan Fangxu could rescue as many surviving Waste Mine Society captives as possible, though if that proved impossible, he couldn't force it.

Additionally, Gu Hang was looking forward to the harvest of Favor points. Although he knew the enemies were weak and the Favor yield wouldn't be high, it should still be better than just waiting for the fixed monthly income, right?

Thinking this, he continued to look down.

As it turned out, an even bigger surprise was in store.

He noticed that the system had quietly introduced a new feature.

Below [Heroes] and [Unit Cards], a new option sat quietly.

[Technology].

Gu Hang's mood was far from calm.

He had previously felt that this system was a War-Maniac System, not only because winning battles yielded many points, but also because of the system's functions.

Whether it was personal leveling or military training upgrades, everything seemed to be in preparation for war.

It looked like a cyclical system where the more you fought, the stronger you became, and the stronger you were, the more you could fight; farming was merely a secondary aspect.

But he hadn't expected that the system's functions hadn't been fully opened to him.

Were there other new features to come?

And what conditions would be required to unlock those new features?

He had no way of knowing.

There would be plenty of time to delve into that later; what Gu Hang wanted to see most right now was this [Technology] feature and how exactly it worked.

Opening it, the system interface displayed a sky full of stars, only each star was dim, waiting for him to light them up.

Looking closely, these dark stars seemed to be connected in a complex, intricate pattern, each varying in size, with every star seemingly representing a specific technology.

[You may invest Favor points to unlock a random technology. The success rate and the level of the technology unlocked increase with the amount of points invested. The lowest tier costs 10 points per unlock, the second tier costs 100 points, and the third tier costs 1000 points...]

So it was a gacha, a lottery mechanism?

It wouldn't be a scam, would it?

Gu Hang had some psychological trauma regarding these kinds of gacha mechanics.

But there was no other way.

He currently had only eleven Favor points on hand; one pull at the lowest standard would wipe him out. Based on his understanding of similar mechanics, a single pull at the lowest tier usually didn't yield good results.

But the key was that if he didn't spend them here, he had nowhere else to use those ten points!

As for heroes, he was currently level 2 and stuck on experience, so even with Favor points, he couldn't level up. For unit training, upgrading from non-rated to T5 cost 1 Favor point per 100 men; T5 to T4 cost 1 point per 10 men; and T4 to T3 cost 1 point per person.

His Servitor battalion was currently T5, and hardware limitations prevented further upgrades. The elite Marines could be upgraded, but upgrading only 11 people to T3 wouldn't be very meaningful, and since it was only training, without equipment upgrades, their overall strength wouldn't reach the required level.

Thinking about it this way, if he didn't want to let his Favor points sit and rot, pulling for technology was truly his only choice.

Since that was the case, he would pull.

He hoped his luck wasn't terrible.

Following his intent, ten Favor points quietly slipped away, and in their place, one of the dim stars in the sky lit up.

[Basic Technology: Alloy Plasteel]

[A research product of the Imperial Mechanicus, it is a qualified multi-purpose material smelted from a base of iron combined with various minerals. Depending on the formula, it possesses different properties. It can be used for soldier bulletproof plates, construction materials, vehicle armor, spaceship components...]

As expected, it was just the most basic technology, and one focused on raw materials at that.

But after understanding it in more detail, Gu Hang's mouth fell open:

"I've struck gold!"

Alloy Plasteel itself is not a particularly rare material, and the performance gap caused by different ratios and manufacturing processes is absurdly large. The best Plasteel can be used as core material for precision instruments, while poor Plasteel can only serve as construction material.

If it only provided the process, the formula, and the blueprints, it wouldn't be that useful. Given the destitute state of Gu Hang's current subordinates, they lacked the conditions to implement such processes and blueprints.

But... what the system provided was a nanny-style feeding.

The unlocking of one technology granted three things:

First, the theory, the process, and the design blueprints. With these, as long as there were sufficient technical personnel and an industrial foundation, the technology could be directly applied on a large scale to build factories.

This wasn't unusual, but what was unusual were the next two items: Black Box Fabricators.

"Black box" is a descriptive term, referring to equipment whose internal operations are unknown to anyone. One only needs to input the most primitive raw materials to directly produce the finished product.

And there were two such Black Box Fabricators, each different. The first was the Finished Product Black Box; one only needed to input iron ore and materials in any ratio, and the black box would directly output the highest-quality Alloy Plasteel.

The second was the Mother Machine Black Box, which also only required basic materials to produce the smelting furnaces needed to manufacture qualified Alloy Plasteel.

This was incredible. Looking at the two machines he could manifest at any time, along with the wealth of knowledge in his mind, Gu Hang realized just how powerful the Technology System was.

The food was being fed directly into his mouth.

Gu Hang really didn't have any technology or technical talent under his command, but with these things, even a group of baboons could probably set up an Alloy Plasteel production line.

Ten points of Grace—what a massive profit!

"What War-Maniac System? I declare that this is the most awesome Farming System!"