Refitting the Sea Wolf

It was late at night by the time Nie Yun rendezvoused with the Sea Wolf and returned to his base.

Regardless of the massive waves the night's events might stir up in the outside world, it no longer had much to do with Nie Yun.

Once the Mechanical Insects returned, they immediately began to continue devouring the Chengjiang. Countless new Mechanical Insects were born and then thrown back into the consumption process, their efficiency snowballing and constantly improving.

Nie Yun then began to review his harvest from the night.

No guns, no cannons, the enemy provides them for us!

As soon as the battle ended tonight, Nie Yun had swept the battlefield, packing up all the valuable firearms, equipment, and the mercenaries' speedboat to bring back.

Although this group of Annam mercenaries had been defeated in a miserable and inexplicable fashion, their weapons were quite sophisticated; they could be considered a rather elite team in the mercenary world.

Unfortunately, they could only blame their bad luck.

Now, having digested these weapons and equipment, Nie Yun could be said to have traded his bird guns for cannons.

With silver light flowing and gathering like sand into a tower, a pile of military hardware appeared before Nie Yun's eyes, including AK assault rifles, rocket launchers, grenades, and more.

"Tsk tsk, if I went into the arms business, I'd make a fortune! Foxconn and the like are total trash compared to the Mechanical Insects! I suppose I can now be considered the most powerful foundry in the world, right?"

In addition to weapons, there were walkie-talkies, signal jamming equipment, and a military laptop, further enriching Nie Yun's tactical options.

He also used the military chips from the computer to complete a chip modification for his sailor robot, performing a military-grade upgrade that increased its reaction speed by 10% and reduced energy consumption by 5%.

Even more valuable was the vast amount of tactical application data, precision maps, and military knowledge contained within the military laptop. They completely broadened Nie Yun's horizons and completed his preliminary accumulation of military technology.

At the very least, he wouldn't be confused about what a trajectory was anymore. Someone who only finished elementary school really can't afford to be ignorant!

The richer knowledge also made him realize that the potential of the Mechanical Insects went far beyond what he currently saw!

His development of the Mechanical Insects was still insufficient! His imagination needed to be even wilder!

And the prerequisite for all of this was energy! Raw materials! Countless samples!

For the time that followed, Nie Yun didn't go anywhere, focusing all his efforts on commanding the Mechanical Insects to increase their population.

At the same time, Nie Yun built hundreds of energy collection devices on the island, almost covering the entire landmass.

During the day, solar panels collected solar energy, and at night, these panels transformed into wind energy collection towers, completely solving the problem of insufficient energy.

This island had become his backyard, and Nie Yun naturally made thorough preparations for camouflage.

From the outside, apart from the unusually dense vegetation, there was absolutely nothing abnormal about the island. No one would ever guess that beneath the camouflage lay functional buildings that were busy working non-stop.

Because of the abundant raw materials and energy, it took Nie Yun only two short days to devour the more than two-thousand-ton Chengjiang, which increased the number of Mechanical Insects by a full ten times—a true population explosion.

At the same time, to facilitate the counting of the Mechanical Insects, Nie Yun defined their current quantity!

Because the Mechanical Insects were far too tiny, using a count would result in an astronomical figure, so Nie Yun simply adopted a weight-based counting method.

One thousand tons! This was the approximate scale of the Mechanical Insects at present.

With the current scale of the Mechanical Insects, it was enough for Nie Yun to completely mechanize the Sea Wolf.

Because he had sufficient manpower, this project didn't take much time. In just half a day, Nie Yun had obtained a silver-glittering medieval sailing ship of the line!

"Tsk tsk! This style... 'Tuhao Gold' or whatever, this is just too ostentatious!"

Then, Nie Yun began to carry out drastic modifications to the Sea Wolf.

First, remove the masts!

The Sea Wolf officially transitioned from sail power to hybrid oil-electric power, driven by three large propellers.

What? You want to talk about design rationality? Nie Yun declared that such things were completely unnecessary!

As long as it fits, it's rational!

Nie Yun's ship design philosophy was just that simple and brutal!

Secondly, the Sea Wolf underwent a full sealing process, with the bottom hold converted into a ballast tank!

When necessary, seawater could be injected into the ballast tank to achieve submersion. In other words, the Sea Wolf was now a dual-purpose vessel capable of underwater navigation!

This was one of the ideas Nie Yun had come up with over the past two days!

The principle of a submarine is actually very simple; the biggest technical challenge is how to ensure the submarine's airtightness, and this was absolutely no problem at all for the Mechanical Insects.

Then, Nie Yun moved the aft castle from the rear to the middle-rear of the Sea Wolf to serve as the bridge, which also functioned as the captain's quarters and Nie Yun's living space.

Finally, the interior of the Sea Wolf was filled with a large amount of modern weaponry by Nie Yun. Aside from the fifty-one cannons remaining in their original positions, the deck was now crowded with dense arrays of rockets.

In Nie Yun's words, this could moonlight as a missile boat; although the range was a bit short, it made up for it with sheer volume!

As an aside, with the relevant ammunition data from that military laptop, and by dismantling the internal fillings of rockets, grenades, and C4, Nie Yun was now able to manufacture smokeless powder using substances like sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal, and the potency even saw a certain degree of improvement.

To put it bluntly, as long as there were enough raw materials, he could drown his enemies in countless rounds of ammunition, which was a zero-cost endeavor for him.

By the time all the modifications were finished, the Sea Wolf was unrecognizable: a medieval-style hull, a streamlined bridge, modern propeller propulsion, and an internal weapon system as dazzling as a military museum.

This ship, filled with an abstract style, made one wonder how it could even float on the sea surface—it was nothing short of a miracle.

"Uh, although it looks a bit awkward, I'm a pragmatist. Please don't mind details like aesthetics, yeah! That's it!" Nie Yun's forehead was sweating slightly.

"At least I don't have to worry if the ship sinks!" he added in his heart.

Mechanical Insects: "..."