The Legendary Mechanic

One Unique Talent for a hundred Awakening Points, this cost was certainly high. However, at least it gave him a clear path. Han Xiao did not trust his luck at all. If he only relied on his luck, he probably would not have a wisp of a Unique Talent even in a hundred years.

He had a guess that the way of customizing would be probably the same as how he created his own Race Talent back when he advanced into Beyond Grade A, by selecting his preferences then randomizing from those given conditions. The Unique Talent obtained after fusing would only have a brief structure. He would need to spend more Awakening Points to activate it.

Potential Points turning into Awakening Points after all class knowledges were at max level was probably the same with other Mechanics such as Manison.

The difference was, unlike him, Manison and the others could not freely choose what to use the Awakening Points on.

Therefore, since the other Mechanics could not decide where to use the Awakening Points, they were probably random. He guessed it would probably feel like a sudden flash of insight for them.

Although the cost is quite high, at least it's a stable way to obtain Unique Talents.

Han Xiao was quite content. He had been eyeing this for many years, and now he had finally seen some hope.

However, the quality-price ratio of it was still uncertain. A hundred Attribute Points was equivalent to ten thousand Free Attribute Points, and his Intellect right now was not even thirty thousand despite it being his highest attribute. If he used all those Awakening Points on Free Attribute Points, it would be a huge improvement for him. He would only not make a loss if he were to get a Molding Talent level Unique Talent.

However, since it would be a Unique Talent, its effects would probably be decent. After all, its effects had to match how difficult it was to obtain it.

The Great Mechanic Han still remembered Sorokin's Unique Talent [Swindler—Sorokin], which gave him a direct twenty-percent bonus just on his Intellect and Mystery attributes, along with a bonus seventy-five percent Esper Ability strength and four levels to all his abilities. It was extremely powerful.

Old Man Manison's [Virtual Technology Innovation—Manison] gave him a 1.75-times multiplier on his Virtual Technology abilities, on top of his 'Indestructible Mechanic Empire' technology.

Both of these were at the Molding Talent level.

You never know until you try it. Although it's quite costly, I'll still have to get one and see how it is.

He had just leveled up more than a hundred blueprint abilities and spent all the Potential Points, so his current EXP inventory was not enough to get him another hundred Awakening Points.

Alas, Awakening Points… what a suitable name. Here comes another bottomless pit for EXP. Let's just think about it after my Promotion…

Han Xiao shook his head. His main goal of maxing the level of all his class knowledges was that one extra God's Trait Transformation Point during Promotion.

Now that he had completed that achievement, the Promotion at level 340 became his top priority again.

Other than these changes, the interface also mentioned that he had obtained another Ability Fragment of [The First Sanctum].

The Great Mechanic Han had already found a pattern. Whenever he overcame a certain threshold of the Mechanic class, he would receive a [The First Sanctum] fragment.

The first piece came from when he activated God's Trait Transformation, the second came from the first Universal Treasure he built, the third came from the fifth stage of his main class' God's Trait Transformation, and this was the fourth.

I can't wait to see how many fragments it takes to make it whole. Better not tell me it's a hundred.

Overall, he was very satisfied with the bonuses that came with maxing the level of all his class knowledges. It had given him a new path to grow. This was the biggest difference between him and the other Beyond Grade As—his growth path was crystal clear.

At the same time, with [Great Machinery Sage], he had more confidence in challenging Manison.

Last time, I lost in the virtual world; this time, I've got to fight him in the real world.

Han Xiao was looking forward to it with high morale.

This mindset could be simply explained as: "Stopped, the rain has; stopped, the wind has; now I think, I can do it again!"

Du du du!

While Han Xiao was getting familiar with the changes in his body, someone knocked on his door. Harrison walked in.

Over the past few months, Han Xiao had upheld his belief of not wasting any resource and did not let Harrison get away with doing nothing. Even though this guy was still guilty, Han Xiao did not mind and gave him a job as his temporary secretary.

Other than to find Harrison something to do, this was also because he wanted to have him around so that benefitting from his Luck Glow would be more convenient.

However, only from the results, not only did he not benefit from it, he even somewhat neutralized it.

Of course, the Great Mechanic Han would not admit this. He strongly believed that it was just that Harrison's Luck Glow did not have a good quality.

Feidin's Luck Glow still turned out to be the best. It remained unaffected no matter how much of a burden he was.

Seeing that Harrison had walked in, Han Xiao closed the interface and asked casually, "Anything to report?"

"Your Excellency Black Star, the dynasty fleet has told me to tell you that they're going to temporarily leave your team and go back to their usual groupings to execute other missions."

"What happened?" Han Xiao asked curiously.

"The captain has told me that this is a mission the dynasty upper echelons gave. Something has happened with a Star System civilization, and it's not suitable for you to deal with."

"What are the details?"

"I brought the information regarding the incident. Please take a look."

Harrison took out a set of data and displayed it on the virtual screen.

Han Xiao quickly looked through and understood.

In the past few months, the various civilizations of the Ancient Star Desert had come to understand the big picture and cooperated fully with the three Universal Civilizations' operations on the surface, not causing any problems like the black market once did.

However, when the three Universal Civilizations announced that the antivirus was complete, there seemed to be civilizations that felt that the pandemic was already under control and there would no longer be any dire consequences, so they started to stir things up.

There were three Star System Civilizations who were involved—the Tiger Race, the White Hair Race, and the Ferians. They were not transporting the virus but instead were suspected of using the virus to attack their enemies.

The Tiger Race and the Ferians were in the same Star System. Their territories were right beside one another. They were old rivals and often had conflicts with each other. The White Hair Race was in another Star System nearby, next to the Tiger Race but not the Ferians. Their relationship with the Tiger Race was relatively distant.

This was what the situation was roughly about. Not long ago, a machinery rebellion occurred on one of the important administrative planets of the Tiger Race. Those machines were infected by the Virtual Mutiny Virus, and because they had been disconnected from the network for too long, the trigger condition for the virus was met, and these machines were modified by the virus to hurt life forms.

The virus outbreak was only limited to this group of machinery. They were not large in number, and they could not connect to the internet either, so the other nodes of that planet were not affected. Therefore, the guards of the planet easily annihilated this group of machines. However, there were still civilian casualties.

After an investigation, a rather believable cause of this disaster surfaced on the network—that this group of machines were used by the Tiger Race to study the Virtual Mutiny Virus, and they accidentally lost control of them, which led to this disaster.

After this message got out, the Tiger Race civilians were in an uproar. Public opinion went out of control, and they all turned on their regime. The impact kept getting bigger.

The Tiger Race hastily said that this was just a rumor, that they did not study the virus at all. They said that these machines were hidden on the planet by an unknown force, who had calculated the day for the virus to attack to deliberately frame the regime and damage their credibility.

The civilians who were enraged felt this was nothing but excuses, so the Tiger Race had no choice but to request the three Universal Civilizations to judge it.

From the private report Han Xiao received, the Tiger Race explained to the three Universal Civilizations that this might be a conspiracy of the Ferians or the White Hair Race. The Tiger Race claimed that not only did both of those suspects want to frame them, but at the same time, the real culprit wanted to make the other suspect get the blame and stir up conflict between the Tiger Race and them, while they sat on the sidelines and benefited from it.

Both the White Hair Race and the Ferians had motives, but the Tiger Race was not completely trustworthy either. Hence, the three Universal Civilizations sent people over to investigate. Currently, the situation was still quite blurry.

The Star System Civilizations were protected by the Peace Treaty, so the dynasty did not let Han Xiao interfere with it. In this respect, the three Universal Civilizations did not allow any other organizations other than them to be the bullies.

The black market became obedient after what I did, but now the civilizations have started to cause trouble, I see…

Han Xiao frowned. Although this was not his responsibility, he still felt that something was not right.

He understood that the Ancient Star Desert being in lockdown had put the various local civilizations on alert, especially the Super Star Cluster Civilizations. The three bullies had lost their credibility during such crises long ago, so these civilizations had definitely prepared for the worst and gathered leverage. However, this was not helpful to the big picture at all.

I'll still have to deal with the virus as soon as possible. It can't wait. I shall use Bold Explorer one more time.

Han Xiao left the room and entered the warehouse.

Walking into the room, he saw the triangular device that had once stored the Virtual Mutiny Virus technology lying there immediately.

The dynasty had studied it but come up with no results. Seeing that Black Star had asked for it, they allowed Han Xiao to keep it with him.

Lately, as long as [Bold Explorer] was off cooldown, Han Xiao would use it on this triangular device.

Sadly, he had only seen a ton of scattered images; none were of any value. He had only found out part of the virus' origin at most.

The machinery civilization he saw from the first time he used Bold Explorer was the creators of the Virtual Mutiny Virus. This was indeed a weapon. The very purpose of building it in the first place was to use it on the unknown civilization that used the Planetary Obliteration weapon to annihilate this machinery civilization.

The program of the virus was set to killing life forms, and the machinery civilization was clearly not in range. It was like a high-level war weapon that dealt no damage to their kind.

This machinery civilization, or more of an intelligent civilization, was the same as an artificial intelligence civilization. All of its citizens were artificial intelligence lives, only more advanced.

These machines roaming the streets were all shells carrying intelligent lives. They were basically their carriers for walking in the real world. They designed their shells themselves, so there were hardly any two machines that looked the same.

Through using [Bold Explorer] time after time, Han Xiao had found out about some special language and symbols of this artificial intelligence civilization. However, after cross-referencing it, there were no related records in the three Universal Civilizations' database at all.

Either this artificial intelligence civilization was too ancient and even the three Universal Civilizations did not know about it, or it was an advanced civilization in the unexplored universe.

No matter which it was, it proved the fact that the source of the Virtual Mutiny Virus was a materialization phenomenon brought by an information state disturbance. Basically, it was a 'mirage' that interfered with reality.

Hope I can see something useful this time.

Han Xiao had Harrison beside him. He took a deep breath and prayed in his head to be blessed by the Luck Glow before placing his hand on the cold surface of the triangular device.

Buzz!

The next moment, the scene in his sights changed. He had come to a bright lab.

He looked up, and his eyes constricted with surprise.

In the middle of the room was the triangular device that was still not closed, showing the safe within it. Beside it was a group of mechanical lives who looked like researchers. They were operating their mechanical arms carefully and placing an almost transparent light-blue sphere of electrical sparks inside the device.

Is this when the Virtual Mutiny Virus was first created? Finally!

Han Xiao suppressed his joy and carefully observed this light blue sphere of electrical sparks. Tiny strings of electrical sparks swam in the air like a powerful electromagnetic field.

… This is the virus core?

Shouldn't it be a bunch of virtual data? Why is it a mass of electromagnetic energy?

Han Xiao was confused.

A monotonous electrical voice suddenly sounded. A mechanical life researcher by the side moved the camera to aim at him and said, "Experiment introduction: The Domino Virus, able to infect the quantum network and rewrite the fundamental logic of artificial intelligences. The current program is to kill all organic life forms.

"Raw material: One thousand mutated artificial intelligence lives with individual consciousness wiped, leaving only data structure and computing power. After 165 failures, the Domino Virus was successfully created. The virus' initial state has extremely high stealth, infiltrative, and infective abilities.

"Virus core: Pre-designed program with no individual consciousness. As the control center, it follows the logic given and controls the Domino Virus, monitoring the infection progress and activating the virus at a suitable time. It also has the ability to self-evolve. When the opponent has invented a targeted firewall, the virus core will automatically analyze the data and find the flaw with its strong computing power, continuously updating and enhancing the viruses to carry out a new round of infection.

"Remarks: From the second-generation virus onward, all viruses are active by default. Once infected, they will immediately rewrite the target's logic without an incubation period.

"Also, the virus core uses a lot of technology such as Virtual Soul, Bio-electricity Simulation, Electromagnetic Field Reformation, and so on. It has two forms. It can either exist as a virtual soul that lives in the quantum network or leave the quantum network at any terminal and enter the material world as an electromagnetic field life form.

"As the fundamental virus core is a virtual soul, when in the electromagnetic field state, it can infiltrate the quantum network at any time without coming into contact with any nodes. Due to this ability, the virus core has an extremely high escaping and hiding ability, as well as mobility.

"If used properly, one Domino Virus can shatter the majority of armed forces of a galactic civilization, causing the target's technology to regress many generations. Due to its extreme power, it requires caution when used. Currently, the Domino Virus is sealed up. Without authority, do not use…"

Han Xiao's eyes slowly widened.

He felt that his fragile mind had received ten thousand points of damage.

If not because he saw all this through [Bold Explorer], no one in the entire universe would have known the truth of the Virtual Mutiny Virus!

I'm the only one who knows all this now. Everyone else still has no idea!

At this time, a thought appeared in his mind.

Something's going to go wrong!

The three Universal Civilizations' plan isn't going to work!

This thing is tougher to deal with than we thought!