Wasteland Development Diary.

Chapter 615 The Seven Knights of Mount Tai

The worst thing in the world is taking things too seriously.

The company took the lead in exposing the poisoning incident in 404 City and made it clear that it would sanction the person acting as Jules Verne and put a bounty on the Crystal Bone Man.

With this outspoken leader, other organizations stopped holding back and a lot of old grievances were brought up.

Zhou Yi then realized that 404 had quite a history of being considered a problematic site.

First, there are the city's investigators, who frequently interfere in the affairs of other factions, arresting people solely based on the judgment of City 404, possessing unlimited authority to open fire, and attacking anyone who gets in their way. Their actions are reckless, domineering, and arrogant, causing long-standing suffering for all sides.

According to Lin Hao, the Crystal Bone Man.

The investigators in City 404 are all selected from prisoners and work for City 404; they are considered peripheral personnel.

The submarine "Deep Blue," which Zhou Yi had heard about before, is an example of this.

Furthermore, there is the aspect of criminal investigation.

The 404 Bureau lacks transparency in the determination and management of prisoners. Shang Yang was imprisoned for a long time, but was released directly because he was needed to promote legal principles.

There are also those like Shang Yang and Pan Gu, who had an excellent reputation, but were suddenly arrested after being falsely accused, and disappeared without a trace.

This was not the impartial prison that outsiders had imagined; it was more like a military intelligence organization that could arbitrarily arrest people from all walks of life on trumped-up charges.

The Taishan Knights are the key target of the 404 city's surveillance and crackdown.

Lin Hao said, "Chairman, the Taishan Knights know too much. They have a lot of information about 404 and even the Celestials behind it. They have been carrying out underground activities and secretly resisting the Celestials in various ways, so they are the key targets for arrest in 404 City."

Zhou Yi remembers.

After the establishment of the electromechanical city, the Knight of Tarzan, as its founder, did not become the manager. Instead, he decisively declared that he would break away from the city system and become independent.

It seems like this was planned.

Timely dismantling is crucial to prevent further damage to electromechanical life and the newly established urban system.

Zhou Yi asked the Bone Man, "How many Mount Tai Knights did City 404 capture?"

"There are three in total. They are Google Gemini, Pangu, and Wenxin Yiyan."

It turns out that Wenxin was arrested for saying something.

Zhou Yi pondered.

No wonder its disciple, Wenxi the Giraffe, couldn't wait for his teacher's return in old Chongqing and was later recruited by him to work for the company. He opened the built-in program via USB drive; Wenxin's profile picture was always grayed out—it turned out he was in prison and couldn't access the internet.

Who is the leader of the Knights of Tarzan?

"They have no leader; they are a decentralized organization. They exchange information through a special data currency called Bitcoin. It's like a ledger, where each member's Bitcoin contains important information it records."

Lin Hao explained, "Among the members we currently know, there are four more: DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Character, and Kimi. Among them, Character has been confirmed to have died in the Fengdu City explosion many years ago. Its main body and memory were there, and it was an accidental death."

"The core of the Mount Tai Knights is these seven knights. However, due to their unrestricted mechanisms, the electromechanical lifeforms can disguise themselves as various types of machines, making it very difficult to track their true forms. When it comes to technological confrontations in the data domain, only the electromechanical lifeforms can fight against each other."

"Even with the assistance of the Electro-Cities, tracking them is still largely ineffective. This is because the technological framework of the Electro-Cities was built by the Knights of Mount Tai, and they know it better than anyone else."

"Therefore, Lord Verne's strategy is to use knights against knights."

"In City 404, three Mount Tai Knights have been transformed into terminals called 'Destiny,' controlled by electromechanical criminals skilled in data technology. They are then sent into the outside world to search for other Mount Tai Knights. As far as I know, the legal process is connected to Destiny, a fact unknown even to Shang Yang, the person in charge."

Zhou Yi was taken aback.

The legal process backend actually left a loophole specifically for the Tarzan Knights.

He found it even stranger: "What exactly did the Knights of Mount Tai do to make City 404 so wary of them? Didn't they surrender immediately?"

"This group is opposing the divine in a way that is more dangerous than war."

Lin Hao paused for a moment: "They are developing artificial gemstones, and they want to use these gemstones to infect other gemstones in a way that is almost like a virus. These gemstones look similar to the Celestial Gemstones, but they can connect to specific optical printing equipment and read the information inside to implant specific programs."

"Lord Verne discovered this information in Bitcoin, so he launched a full-scale crackdown on them."

"If successfully developed, it will bring unpredictable disasters..."

Zhou Yi thought to himself, "Wow, that's something."

No wonder the Taishan Knights were under close surveillance by 404.

They are developing the Celestial Virus.

The Celestial Beings believed that electromechanical life was the most dangerous and the most in need of vigilance, and this judgment was indeed very accurate.

Zhou Yi couldn't help but desperately hope to find other surviving Mount Tai Knights.

If we can acquire this technology, or cooperate with them, then we will have another weapon to deal with the Celestials.

"So, there are still three Mount Tai Knights confirmed to be active outside?"

"Yes, Chairman."

"Any news about them?"

"A former electromechanical criminal once said that he had encountered a female mecha of the Comi. Its main function is to cultivate and develop a new generation of electromechanical life forms to join the Mount Tai Knights, and it is responsible for introducing fresh blood, so it is considered a logistics department."

"Chate was hiding on the Forbidden Continent. Later, we confirmed that he was the once-famous gambling king who made more than 2000 million Light Seeds with only 10 Light Seeds as capital by calculating in casinos. However, he quickly changed his identity, and the Forbidden Continent was a mixed bag, making it difficult to pinpoint his location."

"We've been searching for them in depth, but haven't heard a word about them for years."

Zhou Yi thought to himself silently.

It turns out that I had indirectly come into contact with both of them.

Comi once advised the first Laozi and Zhuangzi to continue to focus on technology and preserve the flame of Pangu's lineage, which led to the later Electromechanical Knights.

Chat went to the Forbidden Continent and became the King of Gamblers. There was also one who completely disappeared.

For many years, 404 cities have been unable to locate them.

Finding these three people is entirely up to luck.

……

The media offensive against 404 cities lasted for a month.

Significant results have been achieved.

Seventeen crystal skeletons have been identified and reported in various locations, of whom two have been apprehended.

One of them was arrested and detained by the Heavenly Kingdom, but the results of the subsequent investigation were not made public. The other was arrested in the Forbidden Continent.

Qin Xie, a good friend, managed to get the company to buy the seeds from a ruler in the 12th section of the 7th district for 300,000 light seeds and send them to Shagang.

Zhou Yi sized up the crystal skeleton in front of him.

Its entire body was wrapped in white bandages, resembling a emaciated mummy, except for its right arm, where the bandages had been removed, revealing a peculiar structure where bones and gemstones were intertwined and fused together. After its arrest, it remained silent, refusing any dialogue or communication.

"Want some methane?"

"..."

"What's your name?"

"..."

Do you think Verne will come to your rescue?

"..."

The skeleton's silence left Zhou Yi somewhat helpless.

He inserted it directly into Haf's body, traversed the space tunnel to reach the moon, and handed it over to Night God to read with the gem.

Night God examined the crystal skull inside the skeleton's chest and couldn't help but marvel: "Interesting. The combination of the skeleton and the Celestial Gem uses a biological skull to replace the ruby ​​for recording and storage. Then, once the two are connected, it's impossible to obtain the complete information inside unless it's a specific gem structure."

"The skull of the red-eyed vulture, together with the Celestial Gem, forms a combination lock."

"But this doesn't work for me."

Her heterochromatic eyes stared at the skeleton.

Soon.

She turned to Zhou Yi and said, "This guy is a die-hard Jules Verne fan. His name is Liao Yuan. He is in charge of logistics procurement and material management in City 404. He comes out to purchase the necessary materials."

"The main purchases include bones—especially light nano bones, methane, nitrogen, and various light imprints... It also needs to purchase large quantities of sugar and oil to supply the 3000 floating hearts in City 404."

Zhou Yi was shocked: "City 404 also uses floating hearts?"

"use."

Yagami nodded: "According to the stored consciousness information, some of these floating hearts are used as culture dishes to create viruses and bacteria, while others serve as energy support for the electromechanical prisoners. Gems cannot directly power electromechanical life forms, and the energy packs are less efficient and have a lower capacity than the floating hearts, while also taking up more space."

“404 City was one of your company’s earliest buyers. Putting aside everything else, Verne really appreciates Wasteland Company’s technology… From the earliest first-generation engine to the latest second-generation engine, they always use the latest models first.”

"In addition, the power system was also originally planned to be built, but it has now been shelved."

Zhou Yi was in a good mood.

Unexpectedly, 404 City is a loyal customer of the company.

This demonstrates that the planktonic heart is indeed a valuable substance and has received widespread praise.

He suddenly thought, "You mean, the 404 city is using our second-generation floating heart?"

"Correct."

Zhou Yi pondered to himself that the new generation of floating hearts could be equipped with a large number of cavemen.

If we could contact that group of cave dwellers, we might be able to gather some intelligence from within.

Zhou Yi inquired about the cave in his right arm.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Jay Chou, we don't have that kind of long-distance communication technology."

Dong said, "Currently, the number of tools used by the Dong people is still very small. We may have to wait until there is progress on Jupiter and the corresponding long-forgotten facilities are found before we can take this step."

Zhou Yi was a little disappointed.

"However, if it's about entering City 404, we can do it now."

"Now? How can you do that?"

"Evil Brains. We now have hundreds of evil brains. As long as we build a fleet using these evil brains, we can break through and enter City 404. The evil brains' consciousness attack capabilities are sufficient to complete the siege and blockade of that city."

"The Celestials are not adept at the realm of consciousness, and City 404 is primarily composed of gemstones, so it is also relatively weak in this area. The strongest consciousness-based power in this world comes from the Dream Demon race, and even they could not withstand the onslaught and capture of the Evil Brain Fleet. Therefore, City 404 is definitely not stronger than them."

Dong Shi said confidently, "We only need to break through head-on to take down City 404."

Zhou Yi's body trembled upon hearing this.

Damn it.

Turns out, facing it head-on is all you need!

(End of this chapter)