It was a chip.
It didn't look like a high-tech product.
Instead, it resembled the most primitive, roughest piece of black stone.
Its surface was pitted and uneven, devoid of any luster.
It simply hovered silently at the center of the shattered Rubik's Cube.
There were no earth-shattering energy fluctuations.
Nor was there the countdown from earlier that had nearly scared the life out of them.
It was as quiet as a common piece of gravel found by the roadside.
"Is this…"
"what that unlucky Raptor fought to the death to protect?"
Qin Yu gasped for breath, wiping the blood and grime from his face with his hand.
He could hardly believe it.
After all that effort, nearly losing his life in the process.
And this was it?
"Boss…"
Elena moved closer beside him.
She clutched her still-bleeding arm, her expression filled with suspicion.
"This thing looks less valuable than my broken MP3 player."
"Don't be fooled by appearances."
Qin Yu took a deep breath.
Although his eyes couldn't discern anything special,
the passive perception of his "Daily Lottery System" was going haywire.
The feeling was like a wolf that had starved for three days catching the scent of premium Wagyu beef.
Every cell in his body was screaming.
Desire.
Greed.
"Whether it's something good or not, we'll know once we touch it."
Qin Yu hesitated no longer.
Though his hands were covered in blood, with flesh torn and exposed,
he steadily reached out and grabbed the hovering black "stone."
Cold.
The moment it touched his palm,
an indescribable chill shot from his hand straight to the top of his head.
Immediately after,
the familiar, icy, yet never-disappointing voice of the system
exploded in his mind.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, host! You have obtained a special item!]
[Analyzing… Analysis failed… Forcing rule extraction…]
[Extraction successful!]
[Item Name: Mechanical Era · Logic Core (Damaged)]
[Current Rating: Half-Step Rule-Class (Surpasses SSS-grade, touches the underlying logic of the world)]
[Item Description: This is the legacy of the previous mechanical civilization, the pinnacle of their technological tree. It possesses no offensive power, but it has the ability to "bestow."]
[Function Description: Domination and Evolution.]
[Unique Trait: Can forcibly upgrade all electronic systems, fire control systems, and power systems of a designated vehicle/base to the theoretical limit of the current version.]
[Note: This item is a one-time consumable.]
[Use immediately?]
Qin Yu's hand trembled.
He almost dropped the broken stone.
Half-Step Rule-Class?
Upgrade to the theoretical limit?
What the hell did that mean?
It meant that as long as it was a machine, even a tractor,
plugging this thing in could transform it into Optimus Prime!
"We've hit the jackpot…"
Qin Yu muttered to himself.
The corners of his mouth uncontrollably curled upward,
even tugging at the wounds on his face, making him grimace in pain.
But he didn't care at all.
This round, he had profited immensely!
"Qin Yu? Say something!"
"What did you get?"
Li Ruobing's anxious voice came through the communicator.
The dead silence of the past few dozen seconds had nearly given her a heart attack.
"Ruo Bing."
Qin Yu's voice trembled.
That was the expression of excitement pushed to its extreme.
"Get ready."
"Our 'President' is about to be reborn."
After speaking.
Qin Yu did not hesitate in the slightest.
Even though this was an underground armory hundreds of meters deep.
Even though the surroundings were filled with scrap metal and wreckage.
Using system items never required considering the occasion.
"System!"
"Lock target: post-apocalyptic vehicle 'President'!"
"Use it now!"
Qin Yu silently chanted in his heart.
The black "pebble" in his hand instantly transformed into a stream of light.
It did not fly toward the sky.
Instead, it directly burrowed into Qin Yu's wrist.
That was the data interface connecting the Battle Armor to the 'President's' main control computer.
"Hum—!!"
The next second.
An invisible wave, centered there, instantly penetrated the thick rock layers.
Reaching the 'President' docked by the underground river.
"Zzzz—"
Inside the cockpit.
All screens instantly went dark.
Immediately after.
They lit up with blinding blue light.
Countless data streams cascaded across the screens like waterfalls.
Li Ruobing was dazzled by the sudden intense light, unable to keep her eyes open.
"What's happening?!"
"Alert! Alert! Unknown data stream overwriting underlying protocols!"
"Firewall has collapsed... no! Firewall is being restructured!"
"Loading S-Level Fire Control Module..."
"Loading SS-Level Power Circulation System..."
"Loading SSS-Level Intelligent Assistance Logic..."
A rapid series of notification tones came too fast to comprehend.
The hull began to vibrate.
Not the vibration of an explosion.
But the vibration of growth.
"Crack, crack, crack—"
The originally somewhat mottled deck visibly became smooth and dense.
That was the rearrangement of metal molecules.
The anti-aircraft machine guns on both sides of the ship's hull automatically extended their barrels, their calibers thickening.
The originally black gun bodies now displayed a layer of deep blue energy circuits.
Even the main cannon that had just performed a great feat.
Was now undergoing drastic changes.
The turret base automatically expanded, the heat dissipation grills multiplied threefold.
The entire cannon body was filled with a violent beauty.
And in Qin Yu's field of vision.
The system prompts were practically flooding the screen.
[Ding! Vehicle 'President' upgrade successful!]
Too powerful.
This wasn't just an upgrade.
This was practically turning a Wuling Hongguang into a planet-destroying starship on the spot!
"Qin Yu!!"
Over the communicator, Li Ruobing's voice was so excited it had changed pitch.
"What on earth did you do?!"
"Radar display range has expanded tenfold!"
"Main cannon charging time reduced by 80%!"
"And... and I feel like this ship has 'come alive,' its AI response speed is terrifyingly fast!"
Qin Yu listened to Li Ruobing's shrieks.
Leaning against a discarded machine tool, he smiled like a two-hundred-pound child.
" procedure, no need to praise."
"This is our foundation for surviving in the wasteland."
Although Elena couldn't hear the specific system prompts.
Seeing Qin Yu's "smug" expression.
She also guessed he must have obtained something incredible.
"Boss."
Elena said while bandaging her wounds simply, rolling her eyes.
"Since we've struck it rich."
"Shouldn't we get out of here?"
"This place is eerie, I keep feeling like something is watching us."
A woman's intuition.
Is often frighteningly accurate.
Qin Yu's smile vanished.
Indeed.
With the item obtained, he didn't want to stay in this damned place a second longer.
"Ruo Bing, bring the ship over."
"Take us home."
Qin Yu spoke into his earpiece.
However.
This time.
There was no crisp response from Li Ruobing in the earpiece.
Only deathly silence.
"Zzz... zzz..."
Occasionally interspersed with a few harsh bursts of static.
"Ruo Bing?"
Qin Yu frowned.
He reached up and tapped the communicator hanging on his ear.
"Li Ruobing? Respond if you can hear me."
No sound.
It was as if the communication line had been cut with a single snip.
An extremely ominous premonition instantly enveloped his heart.
The elation from just moments ago felt like it had been doused by a bucket of ice water.
"What's wrong?"
Elena noticed the change in Qin Yu's expression.
She immediately became alert, raising her micro-submachine gun and backing against Qin Yu.
"Communications are down."
Qin Yu's voice turned cold.
"It was fine just now."
"The moment the upgrade completed."
"It cut off."
"Could it be signal interference?" Elena guessed. "After all, that upgrade just now was quite a disturbance."
"No."
Qin Yu shook his head.
He quickly opened the System Panel before him.
That pale blue Light Barrier only visible to players.
He clicked on the [Regional Chat Channel].
That was the absolute authority granted to players by the system.
As long as a person was alive, even at ten thousand meters deep in the ocean, they could still boast in the public channel.
This was a rule.
But now.
Qin Yu's finger froze mid-air.
That chat box, originally bustling with hundreds of messages scrolling by every second.
At this moment.
Was entirely gray.
A line of glaring, panic-inducing red text stretched across the center of the chat box.
[Warning: Current region is under "Absolute Lockdown" status.]
[All external connections have been severed.]
[Reason: Unknown Rule Interference.]
"Damn."
Qin Yu cursed.
Even the system's public channel was blocked?
What level of power was this?
"Crunch—BOOM—!!"
Before the two could react.
A dull, massive roar.
Came from the direction they had entered.
That was the location of the underground workshop entrance.
The ground trembled.
Dust rained down from above.
"That's..."
Elena whipped her head around, her face instantly turning deathly pale.
Through the dim emergency lighting.
They could vaguely see.
A few hundred meters away.
That massive alloy gate they had blown open, connecting the underground river and the workshop.
Was slowly descending.
It was a solid Explosion-Resistant Door at least three meters thick.
With an unstoppable momentum.
It slammed heavily onto the ground.
"BOOM!!"
The last sliver of light.
Vanished.
The entire underground workshop plunged into complete darkness.
Only the occasional electrical sparks jumping from the wreckage of the Raptor Mecha still flickered.
"The door is closed."
Elena's voice was bone-dry.
She tightened her grip on her gun in the darkness.
Though she knew, against a gate of that level, bullets were no different from tickling.
"This is a trap."
Qin Yu stood in the darkness.
His eyes were frighteningly cold.
He finally understood why that Rubik's Cube was so difficult to solve.
He also finally understood why the Third Tyrannosaurus had desperately overloaded its core.
It wasn't for self-destruction.
It was to buy time.
To allow this damned Armory system to complete its final loop.
"That stone."
Qin Yu glanced at his still-bleeding palm.
"Is the bait."
"And the trigger."
"As long as I took the core, used it."
"The final defense protocol of this Armory will activate."
These old schemers from the previous era.
Even in death, they're still plotting against those who come after.
"Luring people in just to kill them."
"Really something you'd do."
Qin Yu sneered coldly.
"Bzzz—"
Right at that moment.
In the dark workshop.
A red light suddenly lit up.
Not the kind of red light used for illumination.
But a thick, blood-like crimson alarm glow.
Immediately after.
A second one.
A third one.
Hundreds of red emergency lights lit up one by one along the workshop walls.
Illuminating this graveyard of wreckage.
Making it look like hell itself.
An emotionless, even slightly stuttering electronic synthesized sound.
Echoed through the empty workshop.
"Detected... core missing..."
"Detected... intruder survival..."
"Initiating... Final Purge Protocol..."
"Protocol codename: Catch in a Jar."
"All exits have been welded shut."
"Air circulation system... deactivated."
"In ten minutes... initiating High-Temperature Sterilization Program."
"Wishing you... a pleasant death."
The voice cut off abruptly.
Leaving only the lingering words "pleasant death" echoing in their ears.
"The air circulation is off?"
Elena immediately felt a sense of suffocation.
Though oxygen deprivation wouldn't set in that quickly.
It was a psychological despair.
Even worse was that "High-Temperature Sterilization."
This place was completely sealed.
If the temperature rose, the two of them would be like meat on a hot plate.
"Boss..."
Elena's voice carried a slight tremble.
"It seems like..."
"We really can't get out."
The doors are sealed.
Communications are cut.
Even the system has abandoned us.
This is a dead-end trap.
Qin Yu didn't speak.
He stood under the blood-red light, looking down at the now-pried-open empty shell of the Rubik's Cube.
Then glanced at the tightly shut gate in the distance.
Despair?
A little.
But in his life, Qin Yu hated nothing more than being forced to accept fate.
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