“So I actually had a cheat code on my side this whole time?!!”
Saito sat at the desk, staring at the tech-aesthetic blue light-screen hovering in front of him, his expression thoroughly rattled.
“‘Integrated Industries System’ — that sounds like one of those slow-burn tech-development-genre golden-finger cheats…”
Muttering this to himself in a low voice, Saito continued studying the blue light-screen in front of him.
[Name: Saito]
[Current Region: Locked]
[Regional Development Level: 0]
[Protocol Cores: 0/1]
[Industry Points: 1]
[Industry Plan: Basic Industry Plan (pending unlock)]
The lines of information appeared one after another in front of Saito’s eyes.
Sure enough, this really was a system leaning hard toward the tech-construction-and-development genre — completely unlike the sort of system he’d imagined right after his transmigration, the kind where you dumped points into a deep-blue stat board and then proceeded to one-shot the heavens and one-shot the earth.
Still — when it came to cheat codes, having one was definitely better than not having one.
Rather than sit there feeling vaguely let down, he might as well research how to make proper use of the system in front of him.
Beyond the basic stat panel he’d just looked over, there were only two cursor-options left on the system menu.
One of them was a map — and when Saito opened it, he discovered that every location he’d previously explored was clearly displayed on it.
This was clearly going to provide an enormous boost to his future expeditions.
And as for the other cursor-option besides the map — well, it turned out to be…
“‘Feedback Submission’???”
A capital-letter ‘BAFFLED’ was plastered across Saito’s face.
He reflexively tapped his way into it, and found that the light-screen in front of him had transformed into an input field — and along the top of that input field, there ran a line of small print.
[Should you encounter any difficulties, bugs, or areas requiring improvement during your use of the system, please submit feedback through this channel.
If you have any desired new system modules in mind, those may also be proposed; suggestions will be adopted at our discretion.]
“…Pretty user-friendly there, I guess?”
Saito put his palm to his forehead, speechless.
Wasn’t this system just a touch too different from what he’d imagined?
Out of pure curiosity about the Feedback Submission module, Saito immediately scribbled down a dense barrage of OP power-fantasy abilities — sky-rending, earth-piercing, that whole genre — and then experimentally hit submit.
To his surprise, the other side actually came back with a response — and fast.
[System busy.
Please try again later!]
Saito refused to take that lying down and tried a few more times — at which point the other end seemed to be getting just a little impatient.
[I already TOLD you the system is BUSY.
The instant that line appeared, Saito even thought he heard a faint sound coming from behind him.
He reflexively turned to look — only to find the black-haired girl still lying soundly asleep on the bed.
“Sorry, my bad.”
Out of pure caution, Saito very quickly opted to apologize.
A person had to maintain proper reverence toward their own golden-finger cheat code — if it actually decided to retaliate, that would not be good.
[Thank you for your suggestion.
Have a pleasant experience using the system.]
“Let’s just keep researching, then.”
Saito’s drowsiness had pretty much vanished by now.
He reopened the panel he’d first seen, and selected the option to unlock the Basic Industry Plan.
[Unlocking the Basic Industry Plan will consume Industry Points x1]
[Yes / No]
Saito decisively selected Yes.
[Basic Industry Plan unlocked]
Accompanied by a wash of faint blue light, a tech tree materialized across the light-screen.
Almost every option on it was grayed out — except for one single entry, which glowed with the light of activation.
[Protocol Core]
This was the apex of the entire tech tree — every other branch and sector beneath it extended downward and outward from this very point.
Clearly, this was the most critical core of the entire system.
Protocol Core — the central installation of the Integrated Industries System; serves simultaneously as logistics hub, energy core, and protocol-management facility; the absolute heart of the Integrated Industries System’s operation.
Such was the broad-strokes description offered by the tech tree.
“It’s the main base, then.
That, I get.”
Saito nodded.
He might not have been a gacha-mobile-gamer himself, but he’d played plenty of other titles — he had at least a passing familiarity with RTS games like Red Alert and StarCraft, so it didn’t take him long to figure out what this Protocol Core represented.
He opened up the Protocol Core option, and beneath it, two more sub-options lit up: one was the Protocol Core Airdrop; the other was Sub-Core Deployment.
The latter required the support of an already-deployed Protocol Core in order to function, so for the moment he didn’t need to give it any thought.
The former, then, was what he ought to be focusing on right now.
You had to plant the main base down first before development could really begin — a simple enough principle.
Only, the requirements for performing this Protocol Core Airdrop were what genuinely gave him pause.
Saito had just done a quick test: a fingernail-sized piece of refined Originium provided 5 units’ worth.
If he were to follow his previous method of pure scavenging-luck out in the mining areas, then God-only-knew which year-of-the-monkey he’d manage to amass these 500 units of Originium.
But as if predestined by heaven itself, the Administrator’s arrival had solved this very problem for him.
With the half-production-line she’d repaired now operational, Saito estimated that it would take him no more than half a month at most to gather up the 500 units of Originium the Protocol Core Airdrop required.
At that thought, Saito couldn’t help glancing back at the soundly-sleeping black-haired girl behind him once again — the joy in his eyes utterly impossible to disguise.
Furthermore — if he wanted to deploy the Protocol Core, there was still one more thing he absolutely had to do.
Outside the Dijiang’s Infirmary
By this point, several days had passed since Perlica’s collapse.
The very first thing Director Perlica had done upon waking was to completely seal off the chamber where the Protocol Singularity had been stored, and then sit down one-on-one with every single person who’d entered that room on the day in question, to ensure that news of the Administrator’s disappearance would not be leaked.
Luckily, at the time, the attention of most of the operators had been focused entirely on her, and the overwhelming majority of them had no idea what the giant Originium-stone inside that chamber actually did — so the situation hadn’t ended up developing in the worst possible direction.
“Perlica — how’s your physical recovery coming along?”
“Just a touch of overwork — nothing serious.
Thank you for your concern.”
Perlica sat on the hospital bed, her expression downcast.
A pale-green-haired Feline girl held out a freshly-peeled apple to her, then let out a small sigh at the sight of Perlica’s despondent appearance.
“You’re still so young — don’t go wearing such a long face.”
“I’ve brought you a piece of good news and a piece of bad news.
Which would you like to hear first?”
“Please — just say it straight.”
Perlica took a light bite out of the apple in her hand.
The crisp, full-bodied flesh of it burst open against her tongue, carrying with it a faint, mellow fragrance of fruit — but not even that small thread of sweetness was able to wash away the gloom inside her chest.
“The good news is — just moments ago, we managed to pick up a signal source of unknown origin transmitting data to the Dijiang.”
Perlica listened intently — and the next thing the Feline girl said made it utterly impossible for her to keep sitting still.
“The signal suffered severe degradation during transmission, but what can be confirmed is this — the source of that transmission must have come from a Protocol Synchronizer.”
“Has one of our operators run into danger?”
The Feline girl slowly shook her head.
“I made immediate contact with every single operator currently wearing a Synchronizer — and confirmed that none of them was the one who sent the message.”
The pair of ears atop Perlica’s head gave a small twitch.
She seemed to realize something — and the eyes that had previously been dim once more lit up with light.
“That’s right.
That message was sent by the Administrator.”