Information Gathering

Pssh...!

A burst of white smoke hissed from the game pod's pressure seal, and the hatch slowly opened.

Li Si slowly got his stiff body moving. After working his shoulders and legs for a while, he finally stepped out of the pod.

After clearing up his thoughts in class, he'd rushed home after school, shut himself in his bedroom, and logged out. His goal was clear: look up examples of robot designs and information on battery technology.

But he wasn't in a hurry to start searching. Instead, he went outside and wandered for a while before finding a restaurant and sitting down.

He'd spent a whole month without logging out to move his body. He felt like he was starting to rust.

The nutrient solution in the game pod could supply all the nutrients a person needed, but the hunger was very real. It was like being hooked up to an IV drip: it could keep you alive, but it couldn't fill your stomach.

Without digesting food for a long time, his stomach and intestines would atrophy. If this went on much longer, his body might give out before he ever unlocked the achievement exchange system.

"Ah... that hit the spot!"

Li Si wolfed down the food on a table full of dishes and let out a satisfied sigh. Leaning against the table, he didn't feel like moving at all.

"Your stir-fry still hits the spot, Old Man Zhang. It's been ages since I had some."

Keeping up the fine tradition of having a cigarette after a meal, Li Si lounged around for a long while before heading to the counter to pay. He also held up a finger to the wrinkled-faced owner.

"If you want to eat here, why not come by more often? Where've you been lately? Haven't seen hide nor hair of you."

Old Man Zhang cheerfully counted the bills, then pulled out some change and handed it to Li Si.

"Just keeping busy. I'll make sure to come by more often when I have time!"

Li Si took the change and exchanged a few casual words with him. Then, without wasting any more time, he went straight home and searched for the materials he needed on his computer.

<Classic Mechanical Structures: An Illustrated Guide>

Optimizing and Modifying Robotic Arms

<An Introduction to the Rational Distribution of Electricity>

<DIY with Xiao Bai—How to Make an Upgraded Lithium Battery>

An Analysis of Graphene Battery Structures

With a quick search, Li Si found and downloaded article after article and book after book that seemed useful. Quite a few even included video tutorials.

Humanoid robots hadn't advanced very far in the real world, but industrial and civilian robots were coming along nicely. Robots for transporting and handling goods, for instance, had already become widespread.

As for military robots, he hadn't seen many in use yet. It wasn't that they couldn't be made; they just weren't cost-effective.

Robots and powered exoskeletons seemed impressive and high-tech, but they cost far more to produce than conventional weapons.

The money spent on one War Machine could be better used to build more planes and tanks, improve soldiers' pay and benefits, recruit more troops, or make more guns.

After all, labor was the cheapest resource in society. Give a person a gun and some training, and they were ready to fight.

On an Earth without supernatural powers, a gun was scarcely less effective than a robot. If a robot could take someone down, a single bullet could do the same.

Reliability was another issue. On a battlefield, the most powerful option wasn't necessarily the best. Weapons needed to be reliable and adaptable enough to handle the chaos of combat. The more complex something was, the more likely it was to break down. That was simply unavoidable.

As far as Li Si knew, it would be several more years before the real world adopted robots and powered exoskeletons for military use. That would only happen because Earth OL had brought forth so many players with overwhelming individual combat power, leaving the authorities with little choice.

Of course, that wasn't something he needed to worry about. For now, all he had to do was design a robot of his own to deal with the various monsters that would soon start appearing in the game.

After downloading a mountain of materials, Li Si opened a forum thread and uploaded them all at once. He planned to log into the game and read them at his leisure. With the boosts to intelligence and knowledge there, he'd learn much faster than by rote memorization in the real world.

Besides, all the materials were readily available, and the forum let users restrict access. He could set the thread so only he could view it, so there was no need to worry about causing trouble.

He climbed back into the game pod, and the scene shifted to the familiar bedroom.

Li Si opened the forum and browsed the materials he'd uploaded while comparing them against his ideas and sketching on a notebook.

The biggest challenge in designing a robot like a Transformer wasn't its structure, but its transformation mechanism. Making sure all the parts worked properly while allowing the whole machine to shift through complex forms was no easy task.

But it was a problem he had to solve. He was designing the robot for self-defense and as a regular fighting force. He couldn't exactly walk around with a robot in tow—that would draw far too much attention.

A Transformer that could freely switch between a car and a robot was clearly the best way to solve that problem.

In fact, if he had a choice, he'd rather have some loyal subordinates and a supply of guns. But he didn't have the resources for that, and ordinary people could hardly stand up to giant monsters like Lizard and Hulk.

But back to the point.

The transformation mechanisms in the Transformers movies could serve as a reference. Of course, he wasn't foolish enough to imitate the pure visual effects, with parts flying everywhere. But the way the various parts of the car were arranged after transformation could be a very useful guide.

As he scribbled away, he sketched out a design with an appearance modeled on Bumblebee from Transformers.

That was only the exterior, of course. He'd have to design the internal structure and exact dimensions from scratch. He didn't have the movie's high-tech trick of making a car bigger by stacking its parts on top of one another.

Li Si planned to design it in stages. First, he'd settle on the general appearance, then work out the transformation mechanism. Once he'd figured out how each section transformed, he'd refine the design and fill in the details of each part.

The night passed quickly as he concentrated on his ideas. Exhausted, Li Si didn't even know when he'd fallen asleep.

The next morning, his month-old routine woke him early as usual. But he was so tired that he stayed in bed for a few rare extra minutes before finally dragging himself up.

After washing up, the first thing he did wasn't head to school. Instead, he went straight to the electronics mall and bought a high-performance laptop to replace the outdated computer that had come with the system.

The previous night had taught him that he couldn't design a transformation mechanism by imagining and simulating it in his head—not with his current intelligence, anyway. He decided to use software to build a 3D model so he could get a clearer picture.