If not, the loss would be huge, amounting to a complete waste of world coordinates and time.
Wen Jing then focused his attention on the control panel: "Evolution is still possible. It seems to be outside the scope of physical attributes, or rather, this pollution doesn't restrict the control panel."
The panel's strength has always been very high, as evidenced by both its initial evolution of Compulsive Eating to get rid of the red mushroom illusion and its later creation of the Spacetime Amber.
A thought struck her: could she spend Skill Points to evolve a trait that resisted this pollution?
500 wasn't enough, 1000 wasn't enough... I gritted my teeth and kept increasing the amount until I reached 6000, but it still wasn't enough!
"No."
Wen Jing decisively stopped trying.
She currently has over 10,000 Skill Points, which she can't possibly spend entirely on this resistance-type ability. In the end, the gains from devouring the entire Factory World might not even outweigh the benefits. It would be better to save them for evolving her splitting ability and continuing to create new, movable Clone.
"Perhaps my evolutionary approach is flawed, just like how evolving illusion resistance was very expensive, while evolving Compulsive Eating was very cheap."
"This time is different from last time. I know too little about this kind of knowledge that touches on the 'rules,' so I can't evolve in a targeted way."
Of course, there is another way, which is to 'commit suicide' and then split from the Devouring Clone, which will most likely get rid of this influence.
But Wen Jing would definitely not do this unless there was absolutely no other way.
Losing two Clone will severely damage her recently recovered mental attributes, not to mention that her Strongest Clone contains the most of her attribute resources. Losing it means that most of her efforts during this period will be in vain.
"Therefore, there's no point in trying to conquer other ruins right now. We need to focus on conquering this world. Even if we can't devour its core, we must find a solution!"
However, she suspects that the impact of such rules would likely require the collapse of the world to be disrupted.
Having previously realized the challenges of this world, Wen Jing had been prepared to temporarily give up. Now that she had set a goal, she immediately shifted her focus from learning alien technology to strategizing the destruction of the civilization's ruins.
Ten minutes have passed, and the Strongest Clone has re-entered the Factory World.
"Da, da, da..."
As soon as she returned to this ancient ruin, a series of sounds came from the assembly line above her head, and a large number of mechanical insects fell to the ground like raindrops.
"Just like in the Chess Game World, where your pieces lose loyalty after a while, production here hasn't stopped just because I left."
Hundreds of new enemies were created in the area that was activated while she was away, and the old enemies that existed before she left did not disappear either, but also surged in from the surrounding area.
"Whoosh!"
Wen Jing blasted apart the foremost mechanical insect body and noticed that this newly produced batch of enemies was slightly different from the previous ones.
The materials and strength have improved since she left, even if the improvement is small, it is still an improvement.
Upon closer inspection of the stamped markings on them, the model number had changed to [X-1.4.1].
"Upgraded..."
Before her return to the material universe, she had been testing the waters with restraint, and the latest batch of enemies had already iterated to [X-1.4]. In her absence, they had even undergone another self-renewal.
"If I don't come to this world for a long time, will it keep getting stronger?"
It was only because Wen Jing's situation was special that he discovered this in time. If they had really followed the original plan to "let it go" for a period of time, who knows how the enemy inside would have developed by the time they came back.
In the past, no matter how strong the enemy was, their strength was fixed; here, however, they grow stronger.
Moreover, it's not just that they level up after being killed, as we already knew, but they also level up over time, and the number of levels increases... It's simply unsolvable!
"No, it can't really be unsolvable."
The moment her emotions rose, Wen Jing Calmness down.
This is just an industrial-era relic; there are even more advanced information-era relics. If high-level relics were generally unsolvable, they would have long since become legendary dead ends, and no information would have survived.
The information Xie Ming explained to her back then required summarizing a certain amount of intelligence, and even if it wasn't much, it would still be in the plural.
Moreover, having devoured so many civilization relics, she has more experience in this area than some veteran Awakened have been awakened for over fifty years, and thus possesses her own unique perspective.
Every remnant of a civilization has its own unique rules for existence, and within those rules lies the corresponding method to decipher them.
"Um?"
Suddenly, Wen Jing noticed that after she killed [X-1.4.1] with her Energy-Shaping Weapon, the newly produced [X-1.4.2] was not a further enhanced version, but rather [X-1.5.1], which, under the [X-1.4.1] standard, now possessed resistance to energy weapons.
Meanwhile, the original [X-1.4.1] is still in production.
A thought suddenly struck her, and she caught a fleeting inspiration.
The reason I didn't notice last time was because there were few enemies, and they were wiped out in one attack.
This time, the number of enemies has surged, and in addition to the devouring consciousness, three other consciousnesses have been added to the mix, making their thinking even sharper.
This time, Wen Jing didn't kill the newly spawned [X-1.5.1], but instead used Wind Blade to kill several [X-1.4.1].
Immediately following, among the new enemies falling from the sky, there was [X-1.6.1], which had its Wind Blade resistance enhanced based on [X-1.4.1].
This is another new model, but it lacks resistance to Energy-Shaping Weapon.
After thinking for a moment, she used another combat technique to kill all the remaining [X-1.4.1], and then fought in the swarm of mechanical insects while observing the newly appearing enemies.
The new combat skill resistance [X-1.7.1] was introduced, but the initial version [X-1.4.1] was no longer produced.
At the same time, Wen Jing also discovered that [X-1.5.1], which he had not attacked, had automatically been enhanced, and all of its models had changed to [X-1.5.2]...
Through these deliberate attempts, Wen Jing summarized a series of rules about this Factory World.
First, all production lines are bound by rules, making them impervious to external attacks and unable to prevent the emergence of new enemies.
Secondly, as long as she kills an enemy of a certain type, regardless of the number, her abilities will be recorded, and the production line will then manufacture new types specifically designed for that type.
Third, if all existing enemies of a certain type are killed, that type of enemy will no longer appear; conversely, if a new type appears but none of them are killed, that type will become significantly stronger over time.
Fourth, if only a portion of a certain model is destroyed, while a new model is created, the original model will still be produced. The more of a certain model is destroyed, the faster it will be created.
As the pattern was identified, Wen Jing's thinking became increasingly clear.
When she first discovered that enemies in this world would evolve upon being killed, she realized that she couldn't simply crush them with overwhelming force, as that would be handing over combat power to the enemy.
From the moment she entered this world, she became a template for creation; even if she did nothing, she would still cultivate enemies.
So, given that we'll inevitably create enemies anyway, and we know that focusing on 'quality' won't work, what about focusing on 'quantity'?
This mechanical swarm, which also possesses unlimited evolutionary potential, differs from her primarily in that, aside from their different evolutionary paths, they are 'unable to synchronize'.
She only has four Clone; whatever new trait she gains, all her Clone will also gain it.
The mechanical swarms are infinite in number, but only the newly born batches are the strongest.
Therefore, by changing our way of thinking, we can see that the Factory World actually has a classic economic system that produces enemies according to Wen Jing's 'consumption'—that is, the way and number of enemies killed—without any forward-looking prediction.
The ways to crash this system have already been written in history books from a previous life.
"Let me see if this 'infinite evolution' is truly infinite."
Since external attacks are ineffective, let's try to break it down from the inside.
Wen Jing is preparing to create a massive inflationary crisis that will burst the assembly lines of the entire Factory World!
Chapter 189
Having decided on the tactics, Wen Jing's compound eyes locked onto the densest swarm of insects on the battlefield.
The next step is to create an 'economic bubble'.
She moved swiftly, ignoring the nearest [X-1.7.1], and instead dashed to the flank, prioritizing [X-1.5.3].
This model was created after the initial version [X-1.4.1] was attacked using Energy-Shaping Weapon. Because she deliberately tested the rules of this world, she never attacked this model of mechanical insectoids, and as a result, they directly iterated on themselves.
Moreover, both existing individuals and newly produced individuals continue to improve upon their original resistance.
Her current goal is to cause the production chain to collapse, which means she can't allow the Factory World to continue upgrading in terms of quality; instead, she needs to force it to run a massive number of cumbersome production lines.
In other words, Wen Jing cannot ignore each new model that is created here; he must attack it at least once with a new ability to prevent it from continuously upgrading.
If she had known this earlier, [X-1.4] wouldn't have become [X-1.4.1]. The extra third digit is proof of the Factory World's self-evolution; for any creature killed by some new method, the model number changes to the second digit.
"Click click click..."
The unprecedented attack caused a series of metallic cracking sounds to echo from the surrounding mechanical swarm.
Wen Jing used ordinary Frost Vein Silk, releasing a regional low-temperature cold wave.
She deliberately suppressed the power of the cold wave, causing it to condense into conspicuous frost flowers only at the joint contact points of the closest mechanical insects. However, it precisely hit the weak points in the mechanical insects' structure, directly rendering them immobile and rendering them unusable on the spot.
Ultimately, the mechanical swarms manufactured in the Factory World are imitations of Wen Jing's Wilderness Body.
And she herself knows herself best.
What is the current strength of her exoskeleton? It's incomparable to ordinary metals. The little bit of forging she did in the Chess Game World back then directly 'tricked' her into giving her Skill Points.
The pulsating sound of the production line changed slightly, and among the next batch of insects falling, [X-1.8.3] appeared, its exoskeleton covered with a matte antifreeze coating.