Industrial Cthulhu doesn't believe in the end times.

Chapter 166 "Is there any water?"

While extraordinary individuals from all over the world were converging on Xinfu, Su Xun was staying in the research area.

However, in reality, this research zone has now been moved. As Xinfu has taken in many people from the coastal areas and established a large-scale, populous base city, the original Taimeng base research zone has also moved to the core area of ​​this base city. Today, although many people still habitually refer to it as the research zone, it has actually been renamed Xinfu Research Institute.

Of course, not all of them were moved here. The Taimon base is located in the mountainous suburbs. The original research area was mainly used for relatively dangerous research such as animal and plant experiments and weapons testing. More test fields and firing ranges were opened up around it, and the scale of the breeding farm was expanded.

Xu Huan, who is in charge of many studies at the Institute of Botany, is currently in Xinfu City with Su Xun. In addition to participating in the upcoming Summit of Extraordinary Individuals, he is also involved in a research achievement that is about to be completed in the institute.

Before them stood a massive machine containing numerous complex pipes, wiring, and various devices that might seem incomprehensible to outsiders.

Among these mechanical structures, there are also many lush green vines and leaves, making it difficult to discern their specific purpose at first glance.

Many researchers and engineers went back and forth between these devices to debug them. Su Xun and Xu Huan also occasionally stepped forward to participate. After a long time, everyone gathered in front of a rather complicated control panel.

"Not easy."

One person exclaimed, "This thing must be incredibly difficult to make; I wonder how effective it will be?"

"What else can it do? In terms of computing power, it's probably far inferior to those old relics in the computing center. After all, it's the first generation. We didn't build it just to see how it performs."

“That’s right.” Su Xun agreed with the researcher’s statement: “This brings us to that classic saying: What use is a newborn baby? We’re creating this thing just to explore the possibilities of developing psionic computers.”

Yes, the enormous machine before them was essentially a computing device… or not entirely; it was quite different from a traditional computer.

Because Su Xun and the others stuffed the potato that had already reached the fourth level inside.

In other words, this thing is a wet-component computer.

At the third tier, this potato already possessed the intelligence to communicate with others, but its intelligence level was far inferior to that of other mutated beasts of the same tier, making it useless. It wasn't until the fourth tier that it finally saw a significant improvement.

Although its level is only average, after all, this thing doesn't have a dedicated thinking organ.

The way mutated plants think is very different from that of mutated beasts and humans. They can be said to see the world from a different perspective, which makes their thoughts difficult to understand. In addition, their environmental needs are also vastly different, which has led to many wars.

In Su Xun's previous life, at its worst, these ubiquitous mutated plants had launched a massive catastrophe that nearly destroyed the world, and the root cause lay in this.

Therefore, beyond the computing power of this device, perhaps more importantly, it allows them to explore a more efficient and universal solution for communicating with plants, thus enabling them to gain a deeper understanding of these mutated plants.

If they can ultimately make good use of the thought processes of these mutated plants, they may be able to unleash unimaginable power.

While pondering, the final settings were completed, and Su Xun asked, "How is the equipment status?"

"Team One is ready!"

"Group Two is ready!"

The manufacturing and design process of this equipment involved people from various fields. To facilitate management and communication, they were divided into different groups, and each group reported their findings one by one.

"Old Xu, how about you over here?"

Although Su Xun could communicate with the potato inside using his own special ability, he was still not as familiar with it as Xu Huan, who had personally nurtured it.

"Is it a little nervous?" Xu Huan stepped forward and exchanged a few words with it, finally saying, "No problem, we can begin."

"Okay, Engineer Chen, load the spiritual energy crystals." "Understood."

The engineer who was called out took out a separate box, solemnly opened it, and inside the box were neatly arranged several rows of crystals that emitted a faint green color.

These crystals were obtained by the legion during this period of hunting various high-level mutated plants, and can be considered as special resources for this equipment.

It's worth mentioning that the members of the Hunter's Guild lived up to their name as hunters, playing a significant role in the process; nearly half of the crystals here were obtained by them from various places.

The engineer surnamed Chen took out several pieces and filled them one by one into the pre-reserved grooves of the equipment. Soon, the many silver lines that were scattered throughout the equipment lit up with fluorescence.

Those alloy materials made of metallic silver that have been treated in a certain way are now jokingly referred to by engineers as mithril. They have excellent properties for conducting spiritual energy. From the initial point of understanding, this alloy has now been applied in many fields.

This has led to gold and silver, precious metals that were abandoned by many in the early stages of the cataclysm, now becoming the equivalent of currency in transactions among survivor groups, second only to spirit crystals in status as hard currency.

It takes some time for the equipment to start up, and they can already see the branches and leaves entwined around the equipment swaying rhythmically.

One engineer exclaimed, "Crystallization releases spiritual energy, mithril transmits spiritual energy, and potatoes store spiritual energy—it's truly a genius design."

This idea wasn't first proposed by Su Xun, but rather by a researcher in the research area. Su Xun wasn't involved in the discussion at the time; he was just listening to their exchange.

"However... in reality, this framework is still constructed based on our research methods from the civilized era, and it should be more concise and efficient."

"That's true. Extraordinary creations should follow a different logic, but we're still in the early stages of exploration. Let's create them first."

"If it can be commercialized and sold to the public in the future, will the instruction manual also need to clearly state that it is forbidden to steal server data?"

This remark drew laughter from the group around, while someone else argued seriously, "Actually, it should be CPU."

"Ugh, I always feel like putting a potato in there is just...worried about something going wrong."

“There’s really no need to worry about that. The mutated plants themselves are much more robust than these external devices.” Xu Huan said this first, and then added, “However… using fourth-tier plants as wet components for these machines is obviously not suitable for widespread use. In the future, we will need to find other ways to reduce the requirements for wet components as much as possible.”

"It's not impossible to do."

Su Xun pondered for a moment, then, seeing the machine begin to operate, said, "Let's discuss it again in the future. It seems to have been successful?"

The researchers and engineers all beamed with joy: "It's operating normally right now, so there shouldn't be any problems!"

As they were talking, a slightly old-fashioned printer started working; it was currently the only external output device for this machine.

"The first interaction between a programmer and a computer in the civilized era was a greeting: 'Hello world.' What will this potato say to us?"

Everyone watched with great anticipation as the printed paper slowly emerged.

"Hello,"

"Is there water?"

"???" Everyone looked at each other in confusion, and finally someone burst out laughing.

(End of this chapter)