Wasteland Development Diary

Zhou Yi listened, a little puzzled: "The Mechanical Knight Order has officially settled on Plastic Island?"

"You misunderstood. It's that the residents here chose to become knights. There are 57 publicly identified Mechanical Knights on Plastic Island, and there are others who don't want to reveal their knight status. According to the data center's estimation, the total number of knights may have reached 80."

The loudspeaker on the Lin Chi announced: "More than two-thirds of the residents propose that the Municipal Department be maintained by the Mechanical Knights."

"The advantages of this are obvious. The Mechanical Knights use the [Key] to remove program constraints, allowing them to develop various types of new tools and use data tools without any restrictions. They can also provide more solutions when dealing with various challenges and problems."

"Legal programs are precisely lacking in this area."

"However, everyone also recognizes that in process management, city data analysis, external market dynamics, and resident needs collection, legality is superior and reliable, far exceeding the previous general agreement."

"So the residents voted to withdraw from the Legal Faction, but retained the localization of the legal program and revised the city's regulations. Legality will assist the Mechanical Knights of the Municipal Department to continue operating and maintaining the entire city."

Zhou Yi felt a little dazed.

He didn't expect that on Plastic Island, two factions that were originally mutually exclusive had actually become teammates in a joint government... Mechanical cities may not be good at innovation, but they definitely have a knack for permutations and combinations.

While pondering, Zhou Yi said, "What is the core reason for this fundamental change?"

The mechanical cities' emphasis on data is unwavering.

"This mainly includes increasing military spending, building underground cities and shelters, and registering for the Star Hub Mars project."

"Plastic Island needs to increase its minimum public expenditure by 15% to improve the city's defense and security construction, build enough drones and escape ships, and new data communication equipment."

"We are a small city, so we can just build shelters. But even so, according to construction standards, we need to build fortifications with reinforced concrete more than 100 meters underground, which must be able to accommodate our 300 residents and resist Class A strong radiation and energy shocks. The cost will not be less than 100,000 light seeds."

"For the Mars project, each city needs to match 1% of the number of residents as quota. Plastic Island needs to pay for 3 places, which is equivalent to paying 4,500 light seeds. There will also be follow-up support, such as building satellite signal towers to directly connect with the Star Hub matrix satellites."

"The satellite signal tower needs to be equipped with Star Hub light imprints, which can only be purchased from Star Hub, which is another expense. The total actual expenditure of the Mars project is 10,000 light seeds."

"In this dry and rainless summer, Plastic Island's various expenses are already higher than in the same period of previous years, and adding such a high burden has already stretched us thin."

The Lin Chi's voice was a little heavy: "Even with these additional high expenditures, the security problem cannot be solved."

"Before we withdrew from the Legal Faction, according to the data center's calculation, the simulation war game showed that the Legal Faction's winning rate was 50.13%, and this number is still declining."

"On the other hand, the support rate for residents in various places to break away from the Legal Faction is 9.17%, that is, 9% of all mechanical residents believe that they should break away from the Legal Program."

"Increasing so many expenses but failing to ensure security means that this series of investments is an invalid unilateral consumption."

"Moreover, Plastic Island is closer to Sandport than Clockwork City. If the war between the Legal Faction and the Company starts—no matter which side initiates it, we will be the first to be strategically attacked and destroyed."

"Therefore, everyone unanimously decided to break away from the Legal Faction and choose the Mechanical Knights to manage the city. This will save unnecessary additional expenses, without having to increase military spending and build shelters, and we can continue to live as long as we pay the waste company's patent fees."

"Mr. Zhou, I don't know if our understanding is correct?"

Zhou Yi listened silently.

It seems that the Legal Faction is indeed under great pressure after I bombed Clockwork City.

Objectively speaking, the decision they made was not wrong.

Increasing defense forces, building underground shelters, and setting up the Mars project as an alternative transfer site are all precautionary measures in the face of high-intensity war.

But it's still the same old problem.

Mechanical cities are not completely integrated in terms of interests. Large cities have more than enough economic capacity to do these things, but small cities already have difficulty surviving, and high pressure easily leads to mounting debts. No matter how coordinated and integrated, the cities themselves still have to pay for construction and transformation.

Large cities, no matter how rich, will not directly help other small cities. City residents will not agree.

Whether it is the era of the General Agreement or the current Legal Faction.

Mechanical cities are just large factories of different scales, or production-oriented enterprises.

Various thoughts flashed through Zhou Yi's mind, and he said, "Our previous strategic strikes were just armed rights protection and did not interfere in the internal affairs of mechanical cities."

"But since Plastic Island has broken away from the Legal Faction and is not bound by legality, our trade exchanges will not be hindered, which is a good thing."

"Sandport has a large demand for plastic and rubber. Although Plastic Island produces recycled plastic and rubber, it is cheap and reliable in quality, which is just right for the general public."

He continued, "Airships, floating hearts, and electric cat equipment all need this wear-resistant and lightweight material. It seems that we can have a lot of room for cooperation in the future."

The Lin Chi was overjoyed: "Don't worry, the plastic we produce is definitely the best on the market."

"I believe that. The production standards of mechanical cities have always been very high."

Zhou Yi smiled and said, "I just didn't expect that you also joined the Mechanical Knight Order. Now that the official business is over, let's talk about personal matters. How did you join?"

The Lin Chi's electronic eye flashed: "It was also by chance. When Storage City was destroyed, I had nowhere to go, and no place was recruiting my profession. Fortunately, I accidentally encountered an adventure team composed of several mechanical lives."

"Adventure team?"

Zhou Yi was a little surprised: "Mechanical lives have such groups?"

"Yes. In fact, this group was born even earlier than mechanical cities. They accept employment everywhere, complete tasks to earn bounties, and are bounty hunters among mechanical lives. Some are also registered in the Bounty Knight Order. In recent years, due to the economic downturn, the number of teams has increased."

The Lin Chi said: "I joined the adventure team at the time, mainly doing reconnaissance and exploration. Later, I discovered that they were all Mechanical Knights and had installed the [Key]."

"They came from Plastic Island and built a [Family]. The team's main business is to find old human cities at the bottom of the Dead Sea, search for a large amount of plastic manufactured in the Age of Gods, transport these materials back to the island for recycling, and take on tasks along the way to earn some extra money."

After listening, Zhou Yi said: "I see. Red Falcon and you will talk in detail about the specific cooperation details."

"Okay, Mr. Zhou."

...

Red Falcon and the Lin Chi flew out, and the two old friends began further negotiation on cooperation issues.

Zhou Yi then called 703.

Hearing that the Mechanical Knights had become city administrators on Plastic Island, the robot dog was also a little dazed: "This... I just found out about this too. Such a thing actually happened."

Zhou Yi's face was unhappy: "You are at least the master of the Knight Order, one of the two highest leaders in name, and I have to tell you about the Knight Order? What are you doing?"

"Please listen to my explanation..."

703 said helplessly: "The Mechanical Knights have always been a very loose group, not a group with strict systems and organizations. It's more like a technical idea. As long as everyone has the same ideas, they can join."

"I focus on the development of the technical field, and I focus on the living conditions of individual mechanical lives."

"There is no one who specifically manages all the knights..."

"Chairman, this is not the Mechanical Knights entering the city's ruling class, but more and more mechanical residents choosing to become Mechanical Knights."

The robot dog squatted on the ground, its electronic eye brightness suddenly increased, appearing somewhat excited: "We have been continuously developing and updating [Key], [Family] and [Breath]."

"[Family] has added [Clan] in addition to "father and son" and "bloodline". This is a further group connection based on bloodline and father-son relationships."

"Yinshang Company and Shenwei Company have both developed the clan leader as the highest decision maker of the family, and we are also following everyone's needs."

"The clan is a data blood relationship established around the same clan leader. The biggest difference from the past is that the clan has its own exclusive clan language, clan rules, and mutual assistance principles."

"In this way, the city is no longer the basic organizational unit of mechanical life, but has become more of a bloodline clan. Even without a fixed settlement, it can still maintain cohesion and group collaboration."

As soon as it said this, Zhou Yi remembered that the Lin Chi had just said that the number of mechanical adventure teams had increased, which should also be due to the promotion of the family program.

"Currently, only [Breath] has a higher threshold."

703 said: "According to repeated test experience, the effect of the electric driver configuring breath is the best, which can continuously trigger the overload state [Inspiration Explosion] at a certain frequency. However, this requires an electric cat partner and supporting power infrastructure. Therefore, the number of mechanical lives using breath is still relatively small."

"So far, it is mainly the mechanical professionals of the Development Alliance who are gradually completing the configuration."

"However, as the electric cat configuration becomes popular, the number of electric drivers will also steadily increase, and then the role of breath will be reflected, which can bring creative associations and break common sense ideas."

Zhou Yi nodded: "The development of new things takes time, don't worry."

"Actually... the role of [Breath] has already been demonstrated."

The robot dog said: "Dr. Da Vinci has been using [Breath] to develop the mud tree civilization's life-extending flower in the past two years, and after becoming an electric driver, its progress has accelerated a lot."

Zhou Yi remembered.

Before, he and Niger went together to find the second black thorn in this world, found the life-extending flower that ate the mud tree scientist, and handed it over to Da Vinci for research after bringing it back.

It's been a long time since I asked about this.

703 continued: "At first, Dr. Da Vinci wanted to extract some organ cells of the mud tree people from the roots of the life-extending flower and conduct biological analysis and medical research."

"But this did not yield any results. Because these cells are very different from the cells collected from Niger. After leaving the host, the life-extending flower lost its assimilation effect and returned to its original plant state."

"With the help of inspiration explosion, Dr. Da Vinci used many other unconventional methods."

"Finally, it changed to a completely new perspective, treating the life-extending flower itself as a special semi-civilized plant, and conducted cultivation and multiple tests on it."

"After repeated tests, the life-extending flower bore fruit under the careful cultivation of Dr. Da Vinci."

703 paused: "That fruit can be produced sustainably and transplanted for medical use. It has already been used in some high-risk surgeries."

Zhou Yi was stunned.

Life-extending flowers can bear fruit and be transplanted for a long time...

That is to say.

Artificial organs have broken through???