System Rewards That Cost More Than They Were Worth

"Host, please prepare for impact. We may have to make an emergency landing. But there's good news: our final landing site is in a desert, so the probability of crashing is nearly zero!"

All right! After circling through the air for over ten minutes, Starscream ultimately had no choice but to make an emergency landing in a desert—a vast, uninhabited desert.

Boom!

It was a highly undignified landing, practically a nose-dive straight into the ground. It did not suit his image as the Decepticons' air force commander in the slightest, but at least Starscream was safe for the time being.

"Bzzzt, bzzzt!"

"Crackle, crackle!"

"Host, congratulations on completing the mission of covering the Autobots' mass evacuation. The system is now unlocking 50% of its functions for you. Your Impersonator Skill can now receive a comprehensive upgrade and enter the Mimicry state. The following is detailed information regarding this state..."

All right! This had been a mission that brought nothing but losses. Even though the Ever-Changing Steel System had unlocked 50% of its functions for Starscream and provided him with a new skill, what use was that? Starscream had now arrived in a completely unfamiliar star system, and his body was severely damaged. Other than lying in this boundless desert and repairing himself, he had basically lost all other ability to act.

In a sense, Starscream was currently nothing more than a pile of scrap metal—at most, a glowing pile of scrap metal, since his aircraft signal lights could still function.

With nothing else to do, Starscream opened the Ever-Changing Steel System to examine this so-called Mimicry function, the mission reward he had practically traded half his life for.

It turned out that the previous Impersonator Skill merely allowed him to initially disguise himself as the target's outward form. This new Mimicry state, however, could make Starscream increasingly similar to whatever he imitated. To a certain extent, it could even allow transformations across species.

Simply put, Starscream could now be like Sixshot. Not only could he imitate ordinary civilian or military machinery, but he could also transform into beasts. Transformers capable of doing that were exceedingly rare, whether among the Autobots or the Decepticons!

But on this utterly unfamiliar planet called Starvation, what use was such a perfect transformation skill? Moreover, according to Starscream's preliminary satellite scan, although there were some low-level civilizations on this planet, he had found no trace of either Autobots or Decepticons. In other words, neither the Autobots fleeing for their lives nor the Decepticon pursuers had chosen this place as their final destination. Starscream was very likely the first Transformer tourist to visit this place...

"All right, mighty System. How long until all the damage to my body is repaired? I really don't know how I got so unlucky as to land on such a primitive civilized planet. Do we have enough energy left? Should we explore the area? But I doubt there's any energy on this planet that I can directly use, right?"

Starscream was utterly depressed. If he could not leave this strange planet, then returning to Cybertron might become a distant impossibility.

He should never have been tempted by the system into completing that final 10% of the mission. He also had no idea whether Sixshot had been taken out!

"Dear Host, because your body has sustained extremely severe damage, we estimate that repairs will take more than half a month. Fortunately, because we shut down the system in time, your energy reserves can probably last another two months. Although this planet's civilization is primitive, certain regions of the planet are showing high-tech energy readings. Perhaps they are traces left behind by some interstellar exploration team!"

All right, there was finally some good news. It seemed this planet called Starvation was not entirely devoid of traces of extraterrestrial advanced technology.

Hopefully, the advanced alien civilizations that had once stayed on this planet had left behind some ruins. It would be best if there were chargers or energy refill valves or something. Otherwise, Starscream's days were going to be far too difficult...

However, while Starscream was busy with these little grumblings, he had no idea that the two empires on this planet he considered so primitive were undertaking a shared major operation. They were sending out sizeable forces of soldiers and religious personnel to conduct a carpet search of the place where the "celestial anomaly" they had witnessed had fallen, hoping to find this gift from beyond the heavens.

The difference was that the great emperor in the west regarded Starscream as a gift bestowed upon him by heaven, a symbol of the War God's glory; while the emperor in the east saw Starscream's arrival as an ominous sign and intended to send people to destroy it.

Of course, among those who had witnessed Starscream's fall were also the eyes of various smaller factions. Every one of them wanted to obtain this object from beyond the heavens. Thus, a storm of searching centered on Starscream quietly took shape across the planet. If Starscream, the person at the heart of it all, had known, what would he have thought?

"Damn it! Of all the places Optimus Prime could have chosen for an emergency landing, he had to make this backward planet one of the alternatives. Now I have to stay in this dump for months. I'd better just go back to Cybertron and be a Decepticon!"

In truth, everyone had their own choices. The Autobots had now become an outlier in this world, and who knew when they might be completely wiped out by the Decepticons? And given Optimus Prime's character, he would never reveal Starscream's true identity. So even if Starscream completely returned to being the Decepticons' aerial commander, he would not encounter any trouble.

What Starscream did not know was that, over the coming centuries, he would experience a completely unforeseeable journey on this planet called Starvation. The advanced technology on Starscream's body would also have an immeasurable impact on the advancement of human civilization on this planet.

Perhaps this was the arrangement of fate! Some people said that gods existed in the universe, but in truth, gods were merely lifeforms more advanced than ordinary people. In a sense, to ancient humans who knew nothing, both the Decepticons and the Autobots were super beings capable of reaching the heavens and burrowing into the earth. Perhaps before long, countless believers would come and raise Starscream up as a lofty god as well!