“Father, you’re joking again.” Mei took Li Mu’s words as nothing more than a jest.
Building a city on the surface of the sea was not without precedent; it was certainly achievable with current technology.
The problem was, if they were to actually build a city in the area her father had circled, how much money, manpower, and resources would it take?
Most importantly, even if it were successfully built, how could they ensure it would thrive?
“Mei, I’m not joking.” Seeing the serious expression on Li Mu’s face, Mei realized that her father probably did intend to build this so-called St.
Freya Academy City Cluster.
Mei subconsciously wanted to persuade Li Mu to abandon this unrealistic idea, but she stopped herself just as the words were about to leave her lips.
Yes, the project sounded utterly impractical, like the ravings of a madman.
But was it truly impossible for her father?
Mei thought about her father’s transformation over this period.
He had truly reformed himself from a drunkard and a gambler.
He had actually fulfilled his own seemingly impossible promise, building a massive corporation and naming it after his own daughter.
He had become a good father that his daughter could be proud of, as if he had become a completely different person.
Recalling everything she had experienced recently, Mei felt as if she were in a different world, lost in a beautiful, intoxicating dream.
In the end, Mei said nothing.
She didn’t even ask her father why he wanted to do this.
She simply nodded.
“I believe you, Father.” “Whether you can do it or not…
I believe you.” Belief is enough.
Believing in her father requires no reason, just like the miracles he has brought her.
In response to Mei’s trust, Li Mu replied, “It’s not a matter of ‘can’.
It’s that we must.” Li Mu did not tell Mei the rest.
If they failed, the entire population of Nagazora City, and perhaps even the entire East Asian region, would be sent to the heavens by the Great Honkai Eruption.
In the script he had written, Nagazora City was destined to be the stage for a controllable Great Honkai Eruption.
And he planned to “de-urbanize” the city, completely emptying it of all people.
Of course, not a Pol Pot-style de-urbanization.
His plan was to build a new city off the coast of Nagazora, naming it the St.
Freya Academy City, to serve as the stage for the next phase of his script.
Once it was built, he would move all the residents of Nagazora City to the newly established St.
Freya Academy City Cluster, using them to form its foundational population.
At that point, he would trigger the Great Honkai Eruption in the empty Nagazora City, completing the [Escape from Nagazora] check-in.
Not only would the residents of Nagazora City survive the disaster, but they would also be able to immediately contribute to the operation of the St.
Freya Academy City Cluster, gaining better jobs, higher wages, and more benefits.
Li Mu truly couldn’t imagine anyone who would object to such a perfect win-win solution.
Of course, the plan was set, but its execution was certainly a problem.
Even though the technology of this era had developed tremendously, raising a city from the sea was no easy task.
Even with sufficient funding, building a city of this scale would likely take decades.
But the one thing Li Mu lacked most was time.
There was at most one year left until the Third Great Honkai Eruption.
This meant he had to build the St.
Freya Academy City Cluster and relocate the residents of Nagazora within a single year.
Therefore, to meet the deadline, conventional construction methods were out of the question.
Fortunately for Li Mu, who had access to future Fire Moth technology, he had an unconventional path he could take.
In the future era where Honkai disasters were frequent, the Fire Moth led humanity in a technological race against the Honkai that could only be described as a bloody marathon.
Coupled with Honkai energy, an almost omnipotent power source, the late Previous Era saw an explosion of various black technologies.
Among these, naturally, was the technology for building wonders.
The New Atlantis base on the moon and the Sea of Abyss City at the bottom of the Pacific, both built by the Fire Moth in its later stages, were far more difficult to construct than a mere offshore city cluster.
The engineering mechs Li Mu had acquired were just a small part of that technology.
Much of it couldn’t even be realized yet and only existed in theory due to the collapse of the late Previous Era’s industrial system.
But now, it was not too late.
These technologies finally had a stage on which to shine.
Mei, of course, had no idea what was going through Li Mu’s mind.
However, since her father had finalized the plan, as his daughter, she naturally had to contribute.
“Father, I will work hard to learn about business management.” Hearing Mei’s words, Li Mu looked at the purple-haired girl clutching a book and saw that it was indeed a treatise on management.
“Mei, why are you studying this?” Mei looked at Li Mu strangely.
“To help you manage the company, of course.” To this, Li Mu shook his head.
“Mei, you don’t need to learn these things.” “But Father, I want to help too…” Mei said, a little crestfallen.
“Mei, I think you may have misunderstood me.” Li Mu took several books from the office bookshelf and handed them to Mei.
“Having you manage a company would be a great waste of your talent.” Mei looked at the books Li Mu placed on the table and saw that they were a set of books on programming.
Mei looked up, her eyes filled with confusion.
“I want you to learn programming and design an artificial intelligence that can assist the engineering mechs with their construction work.” Li Mu knew how ridiculous he sounded, asking someone who had never touched programming before to write an A.I.
after reading just a few books.
But “ridiculous” only applied to ordinary people.
For an absolute genius like Mei, who possessed a god-given talent, it was a different concept entirely.
After hearing Li Mu’s request, Mei picked up one of the books from the table, flipped through it, and said, “I have never been exposed to programming before.
It will be a bit difficult to learn from scratch.
I’m afraid it will take a considerable amount of time to meet your requirements, Father.” “Don’t force yourself.
Just take your time.” This wasn’t just to comfort Mei.
The system shop also sold corresponding A.I.s.
Li Mu’s main reason for having Mei write the code was to see if she could create a certain character.
Hearing Li Mu’s words, Mei felt extremely guilty.
“Father, it might take me a week to learn programming.
To complete the construction of the artificial intelligence, I’m afraid it might take…
a whole month.” “…” Looking at the shy and apologetic Mei, he felt that the joys and sorrows of mortals and geniuses truly were not meant to be shared.
“Never mind…
you, uh, do your best!” However, after flipping through the book for a while, Mei discovered something strange.
“Huh…
the author of these books is…
MEI?” Seeing the author’s name on the cover, Mei was very surprised.
“It’s the same name as mine.
What a coincidence.” “Yes, what a coincidence.” Li Mu certainly wasn’t going to tell Mei that these were programming books written by her future self.
As the creator of the super A.I.
Prometheus, she was, in a sense, a god in the field of programming.
And his purpose in having Mei learn programming was, naturally, to see if she could create Prometheus.
Although Prometheus didn’t have a major role in the early stages, she might be able to take on Bronya’s role.
Li Mu had tried to find Bronya’s counterpart in this era, but unfortunately, he hadn’t found her yet.
He had a theory, but he needed to confirm it with Mobius.
However, that matter wasn’t urgent.
He had something else to do.
He looked at his system panel.
[Mission: Witness Raiden Ryoma’s imprisonment for economic fraud.
Reward: 300 Crystals, 1x A-Rank Stigmata Option Box] [Mission Status: Incomplete] Now that MEI Corp was established, and he had his Kiana and Raiden Mei, the script could continue to move forward.
Yes, next up was a classic play from the world of Honkai: the imprisonment of Raiden Ryoma.
“Ryoma has been picking bananas in Africa for two months now.” “After such a harsh beating from life, he should have turned over a new leaf…
right?” —o—