Heading to Tucson

Sun Cheng idly swung a brand-new iPhone 5 in his hand, bored out of his mind.

Barricade had vanished. Two days ago, he'd left Sun Cheng with the words, "Wait here for me," then disappeared who knew where.

That boss had patted his ass and taken off, leaving Sun Cheng completely screwed.

Sun Cheng helplessly glanced at the heaps of filthy garbage around him. He was currently staying in a large scrap recycling yard on the outskirts of Washington. Though he couldn't smell anything, no one surrounded by piles of junk over ten meters high would be in a good mood.

He was starting to regret how rashly he'd returned to this world.

Two days. A full two days.

After suffering a few setbacks in reality, Sun Cheng had acted on impulse that day and chosen to enter this world again, simply to confirm whether he truly possessed the ability to travel to a parallel world.

Thinking back on it now, he really had been muddleheaded that day.

He'd thought that, having traveled back and forth once already, he should be able to return to the real world again with ease.

But now, Sun Cheng wanted nothing more than to slap the version of himself who'd had that thought.

He'd screwed up!

The moment Barricade left, Sun Cheng, who had gone to great lengths to get rid of him, immediately prepared to return to the real world now that the nuisance was gone.

But only then did he realize he had overlooked the most important issue: he had no idea how to enter that spherical space at all!

This was awkward!

Even now, Sun Cheng hadn't figured out how he had entered that spherical space back at the research center.

In fact, he was equally clueless as to why he had been able to enter the spherical space in the real world. He only vaguely felt that certain conditions might need to be met.

For the time being, he had no way to return to the real world, and he didn't dare wander around recklessly. After all, he didn't have Barricade's combat power. He was worried that, with his skinny arms and legs, if the government of the country he was currently in—the United States—discovered him, they might dispatch a huge force to capture him, then dismantle him into parts to study the composition of mechanical life.

With nothing to do and only able to sneak around the nearby area late at night, he had simply been too idle. Over the past two days, he'd taken the time to seriously study his [Core] and body, and had actually discovered a function that the Decepticons seemingly didn't value, yet was incredibly overpowered—enhancement!

Perhaps because the Decepticons were mechanical lifeforms, they were naturally capable of enhancing electronic devices.

In fact, Sun Cheng had already used it that night when he invaded the Internet.

The hardware of the IBM computer he had temporarily requisitioned wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't particularly impressive either.

Although, after the invasion function was activated, the [Core] inside Sun Cheng—the [Spy Template]—took over all data processing and downloading, he still needed that IBM computer as the entry point for the invasion, so he had temporarily enhanced it.

Strictly speaking, however, that enhancement hadn't been a true enhancement. Sun Cheng had merely temporarily assimilated that IBM with his body, turning it into part of himself for a short period and granting its specifications an unimaginable boost.

Once he canceled this temporary enhancement, it would revert to its original state, and it didn't consume much of his energy.

The enhancement function Sun Cheng had discovered, on the other hand, improved an electronic device by consuming the energy, or even the life-source power, within a Decepticon. Not only were its effects permanent, but the degree of improvement was also unimaginable.

For example, Sun Cheng was currently enhancing the only electronic device he had on hand—the iPhone 5 that had somehow traveled through worlds with him.

Barely visible blue fluorescence flowed through his finger, which had already deformed and inserted itself into the phone's port, thoroughly scanning the device.

At the same time, the [Core] in his mind continuously issued prompts to Sun Cheng.

Processor has reached enhancement limit...
Screen has reached enhancement limit...
Camera has reached enhancement limit...
Battery can be enhanced again...
Memory storage card can be enhanced again. Consume 1 point of energy to enhance this electronic device?

"Enhance!"

The moment he gave the command, Sun Cheng immediately felt a hollow sensation rise within him. Having experienced this feeling several times over the past two days, he naturally knew it was because the energy stored in his [Core] had been permanently depleted.

Decepticons and humans actually shared quite a few similarities. For example, humans had hearts and brains, while they had [Cores].

To Decepticons, energy was what blood was to humans.

A slight regret was that humans could continuously produce blood through red bone marrow, but Decepticons could not. The amount of energy stored in the [Core] each Decepticon was equipped with at birth determined both their status and their life.

For instance, a lowest-ranking Decepticon spy like Frenzy had roughly 750 points of energy stored in his [Core]. By Earth's time, Frenzy consumed about 1 point of energy every five days, giving him a theoretical lifespan of around 3,750 days—just over ten years.

Of course, that was only a theoretical calculation. Take the Internet invasion from a few nights ago: it had consumed 4 points of energy in barely over ten minutes. This showed that a low-level spy like him was nothing more than bottom-tier cannon fodder to the Decepticon Corps.

Fortunately, the energy in a [Core] was not impossible to replenish.

From Frenzy's memory data, Sun Cheng learned that they would be rewarded with energy to make up for their consumption if they rendered meritorious service to the Decepticons. That was one reason he was willing to waste energy enhancing his phone.

Still, it was a little unfortunate that Sun Cheng had been unable to find any information related to the advancement of low-level Decepticons. It seemed that, for this mechanical race, their future status was determined the moment they were born.

That was not good news!

The energy within his body continued flowing into the phone without end. Using the data-monitoring function of the [Spy Template] to sense the changes in the phone in his hand, blue light flickered in Sun Cheng's eyes.

It was incredible!

When his family had bought him this phone, it had been a top-tier model, but it was still an old model from three or four years ago. Falling behind in terms of functionality had been unavoidable.

Yet after enhancing this phone, which had somehow traveled through worlds with him, several times over the past two days, the performance of its A6 processor had increased nearly eightfold. The performance of this dual-core processor had practically been pushed to its limit, while the screen and camera had also received considerable upgrades.

But that wasn't what surprised Sun Cheng the most. What he found truly unbelievable was that the original lithium battery, which had only a little over one thousand milliamp-hours of capacity, had likely increased its capacity by more than twenty times after several enhancements.

The most insane part was the phone's memory card. Its original 64 GB of storage had now expanded by nearly forty-eight times. It was utterly ridiculous!

These discoveries temporarily absorbed Sun Cheng's boundless energy.

Because he had no additional reference material, he simply began studying himself instead. As it turned out, Sun Cheng discovered that Decepticons, as mechanical lifeforms, truly possessed unimaginably advanced technology in energy and memory-storage chips.

He set the matter of energy aside for the moment. After all, it wasn't his field, and Sun Cheng only had a superficial understanding of it.

As for memory-storage chips, he at least knew a little due to his background in microelectronics, so he wasn't completely at a loss.

Over the past few days, as he repeatedly studied his current body, Sun Cheng discovered that he was equipped with two storage chips. One was built into the [Spy Template] and could store an astonishing amount of information—converted according to human data units, it held nearly 440 EB.

The other was located elsewhere in his head, outside the [Core]. It was a storage chip used to hold the data he had infiltrated and stolen. Though its capacity fell far short of the memory chip's, it still held nearly 165 PB.

Even the memory storage chips equipped by the lowest-ranking Decepticon spies were powerful enough to leave one speechless. After learning this, Sun Cheng hardly dared imagine just how advanced this mechanical race's technology had become in this regard.

After spending most of the day finally completing the iPhone 5's full enhancement, before he could even test its new functions, he keenly caught the sound of barking dogs.

Just as he was about to climb onto the pile of scrap to check the situation, Sun Cheng suddenly froze. His [Core] had received an audio message. "Come out. It's me!"

That familiar voice belonged to none other than Barricade, who had vanished for two days.

Although he was very curious where the guy had gone after disappearing for so long, he did not dare voice the question at all.

He immediately took the phone with him, quickly left his hiding place, and followed Barricade's signal to a corner of the scrapyard.

There, a black-and-white Ford Mustang police car was quietly parked, its front passenger door wide open.

In the driver's seat, the middle-aged white man projected by Barricade stared coldly at Sun Cheng as he climbed into the passenger seat. When Sun Cheng looked up at him, the man forced out a smile, stiff and unnatural.

"Let's go. Someone important wants to see you!"

Sun Cheng paused. He wanted to ask who it was, but worried that Barricade would not tell him. After hesitating for a moment, he finally asked, "Where are we going now?"

"Tucson!"