Jiang Qi was a little stunned.
He was certain that what he had connected was not a mouse, a keyboard, or a game controller, but a top-tier combat android from Tiangong...
So a top-tier combat android like this could just be hooked up to an ordinary civilian tablet, and then casually install its own driver?
Was that really how this was supposed to work?
Jiang Qi turned his gaze back to the ruined humanoid before him. In the Appraisal window, the line marked Operational Status still read:
[Currently Running]
Jiang Qi fell into thought.
If he remembered correctly, unlike the combat androids at Deadwood Town's mech club—which all had to be manually remote-controlled by humans—these top-tier tactical humanoids were supposed to have AI cores of their own, weren't they?
Could it be that Glaxia had installed it for him on purpose?
It was not impossible. Considering how terrible her condition was, she might well have activated some kind of emergency self-preservation protocol.
No matter what, being able to connect was a good thing.
He could worry about the specifics later.
The instant the program finished installing, Jiang Qi tapped it open.
This time, the loading process took much longer than before. At one point, Jiang Qi even had the faint impression that the tablet was getting hot.
He waited a full two or three minutes. Just when he was beginning to suspect the device had frozen, the software finally finished launching.
The moment it opened, a massive red warning filled the screen. The glare was so bright it painted Jiang Qi's face the color of Lord Guan.
Warning: Core energy critically insufficient. Current unit has entered emergency hibernation state.
Remaining maintainable duration under current conditions: 15 days, 14 hours, 28 minutes, 41 seconds...
Attention: If energy is completely depleted, irreversible destructive damage will be inflicted upon the Active Intelligent Core. Please recharge the energy core as soon as possible.
Core charging method...
Looking at the warning, the attached file, and the stream of fault alerts constantly refreshing along the side of the interface, Jiang Qi felt something strange.
Even though the thing in front of him was only a machine, he could somehow sense its powerful will to survive.
"Active Intelligent Core? And if the energy runs out completely, it'll suffer irreversible damage?" Jiang Qi stared at those two lines, thoughtful.
A machine that couldn't stop running?
For some reason, Jiang Qi thought of the MRI machines in hospitals.
No, that obviously was not the same thing...
"Energy, huh..." Jiang Qi shifted his attention from the software interface to the Appraisal screen.
Before long, he found the relevant information regarding Glaxia's power supply system.
As a top-tier tactical humanoid, Glaxia's power setup was extremely complex. Rather than placing the energy core in a single dedicated location, her body had large and small energy-storage and supply cores distributed throughout.
The advantages of that design were obvious. With multiple cores, even if some were destroyed or malfunctioned, the overall system would continue to operate. It avoided the usual game logic where a giant machine has one single energy core, and once that gets blown up, the whole thing is finished.
But Glaxia's condition was simply too awful.
Nearly every energy core in her entire body had been destroyed. Of the few remaining secondary cores and auxiliary power cores, almost all were already exhausted. As for the largest main energy core that had once sat in her chest—it was simply gone.
At present, only a single secondary energy core in her head still retained a little under half its stored energy, barely sustaining the machine's most minimal level of operation.
If things stayed as they were, the remaining energy would be enough to keep the unit running for about half a month.
But only to maintain the status quo.
The AI core clearly could not be activated. From the sound of it, that thing was an absolute power hog, which meant Jiang Qi had no way to communicate with her AI.
Energy weapons were obviously unusable as well.
In other words, in its current condition, this machine was nothing more than a piece of scrap metal waiting to die.
"Most of the body's destroyed. There are still two secondary energy cores and several auxiliary ones in the arm, but they're all dead. The core in the head must be the last safeguard..." Jiang Qi stroked his chin as he studied the appraisal data.
Replacing the smaller cores would require dismantling the machine, but Jiang Qi's equipment and technical skill clearly weren't up to that.
In that case...
His gaze fell on the hollow cavity in Glaxia's chest, the place where the main energy core had originally been mounted.
There were plenty of burn marks and damaged sections inside, but the overall structure was still more or less intact.
That seemed to be the best option for now.
If he repaired that area enough to make it operational, and then provided a compatible main energy core, it should allow her AI to start functioning again.
The compatible core models, relevant technical data, and drivers were all provided in the software.
Of course, under normal circumstances, getting those energy cores out here in the Wasteland was not entirely impossible...
But the difficulty level...
Even White-Claw Crow probably would not be able to pull it off.
For Jiang Qi, though, it was not completely out of reach.
An energy core sounded like some lofty piece of advanced technology, but stripped down to basics, it was really just a high-end battery.
Tiangong's manufacturing technology was indeed advanced, but the main form of energy they used was still electricity. Different types of advanced energy cores might store energy in different ways, but in the end they all converted it into electrical power before outputting it.
And if they were all just batteries, then in theory, he could synthesize his way from low-grade ones up to higher-grade ones, step by step.
Of course, saying that was one thing.
In reality, Jiang Qi's Synthesis ability was not truly limitless.
It had two main restrictions.
The first was Jiang Qi's own understanding.
The second was the number of times an item could undergo repeated synthesis.
First, understanding.
When the ability activated, it needed some guidance from Jiang Qi's cognition. He did not need to know the result's material composition and internal structure in exhaustive detail, but he did need at least a basic grasp of what he was aiming for.
At the bare minimum, he needed a reasonably plausible mental model of the result.
Otherwise, the synthesis would fail.
As for repeated synthesis...
That part was more complicated.
Jiang Qi had tested it many times and eventually concluded that it was related, to some extent, to his own understanding, the nature of the object being synthesized, and the number of source items used in each synthesis.
To summarize simply, when synthesizing common junk items, if he used three-at-a-time every round, he could usually repeat the process three or four times at most.
But if he used five-at-a-time, the number of repeat syntheses dropped to only two or three.
And if he was synthesizing more advanced items, the number of possible repeated syntheses fell even further.
"The original configuration was probably the highest-grade energy core made specifically for a Yunting prototype unit," Jiang Qi murmured as he looked over the data provided by the software.
Even with Synthesis, he doubted he could make something like that.
Fortunately, among the compatible models, there were also some lower-spec options. If he could get hold of some common low-grade energy cores and perform two rounds of five-into-one synthesis, that should just barely meet the minimum requirement.
"Twenty-five low-grade energy cores, huh..." Jiang Qi scratched his head.
Honestly, that would not be easy.
Among the commonly found materials on the garbage mountain, low-grade energy cores were considered fairly valuable—about on par with small alloy ingots.
If a scavenger found even one, it could equal a full week's worth of ordinary earnings.
Should he synthesize some advanced alloy ingots and use those to buy the cores?
Hmm...
Not ideal.
He had already taken out two alloy ingots earlier. If he kept producing more now, it would be far too conspicuous.
And besides, a scavenger suddenly starting to bulk-buy low-grade energy cores would be difficult to explain in the first place.
So...
Did this really mean...
He was going to have to dig through the garbage mountain himself and find them one by one?
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 120)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 100)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 100)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter89)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter86)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter63)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter75)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 53
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 57
From Junkman to Wasteland 35
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