The Void Pathfinder from the Demon Hunter World

Returning to the underground base, Marvin took out... a bird... from the inventory...

A raven with a head and tail length of about 50 centimeters, a wingspan of nearly one meter, and a black body.

"So, you are my reconnaissance equipment?"

Marvin asked the raven standing on the table, scratching his face.

"Yes, sir."

The raven stood quite straight on the table and didn't even open his mouth when he spoke.

If you look closely, you can see the apertures in its black eyes constantly expanding and shrinking. Although it didn't move, it kept observing its surroundings cautiously.

The raven's voice is almost identical to that of the AI ​​Modus in White Springs Bunker.

Marvin asked tentatively: "Are you Modus?"

"No, sir. To be precise..."

"No, just call me by my name." Marvin waved his hand, "I don't like to hear this."

"Okay, Marvin..."

According to Raven, its AI was part of the original supercomputer, and a minicomputer was separated as its host. This Raven is just a mobile terminal. After "returning", the terminal can exchange information with the host, and can also recharge, self-check, maintain, update, maintain, and even system upgrades.

Hearing this, Marvin became curious about where the learning machine was. He asked: "Where is your host machine?"

"A place I can't understand."

"Uh... Okay, so how do you communicate with the host? WiFi, 6G, or quantum communication?"

"No communication is required. This terminal can handle most information." Raven tilted her head and asked, "What is WiFi?"

"It's not important..."

This raven is not flesh and blood. Although it looks like it, it is not.

The raven's feathers feel like metal, and the muscles that serve as muscles are flexible but strong. The bones are very hard and feel like metal when pinched. But it doesn't weigh much, less than 2 kilograms.

I've never heard of Raven's energy source, but it sounds very high-end and can last for several years without charging.

However, precision electronic equipment has a common problem: it is not strong enough and is prone to aging. The Raven's service life is not long, less than 20 years.

Because this raven is quite intelligent, he even chose its appearance himself, on the grounds that the bionic machine is concealed enough. Moreover, the raven is an extremely common bird and will not attract attention wherever it is placed. Even in the apocalyptic wasteland, there are still a few ravens surviving.

This dark-skinned bird with an unpleasant cry is not popular with people. They feed on carrion, insects and small rodents. Their meat is very hard to eat and they can avoid being caught by humans or other birds of prey.

Among birds of the same size, the raven is not weak at all, and its flying speed is not slow. It is sufficient as a reconnaissance aircraft.

Marvin was too lazy to use his brain, so he simply named it "Modus".

【Modus】

Category: Intelligent bionic machinery, special equipment (can move autonomously, no need to carry it with you)

Quality: Rare (Purple)

Attack power: 12~15

Defense: 26~33

Flight speed: 28~56 meters/second

Durability: 60/60

Service life: 7,000 natural days (the service life will be lost when damaged due to combat or other causes.)

Equipment requirements: Personal binding

Equipment effect 1: Can act autonomously, conduct terrain survey and reconnaissance operations, and share vision and maps in real time. Detection methods include optical vision, long and short waves, microwaves, infrared, and nuclear radiation.

Description: A bionic machine developed using Cybertron electronic machinery technology and CEPH nanotechnology. Not only does it have excellent investigative capabilities, but it can also conduct electronic intrusions. Due to information technology limitations, current electronic intrusion capabilities are slightly insufficient.

Judging from Modus' equipment attributes, he is just a scumbag with basically no fighting ability.

But the flying speed is very fast, although slower than birds of prey such as the peregrine falcon, it is much faster than a real raven, at least faster than Marvin himself can run.

Moreover, aerial reconnaissance is far more convenient than ground reconnaissance. Coupled with infrared, long and short wave, radiation source detection and other methods, even a thinner cement wall cannot block Modus' line of sight.

When live sharing is turned on, Marvin can see everything Modus can see in a small window.

Together with the map, it can even mark the enemy's location and activity range, which is really convenient.

As for the "electronic invasion" described in the description, it benefits from Modus' original AI.

The former "Modus" was in the White Spring Bunker and could have accessed the huge database of the White Spring Bunker.

After years of self-study, that "Modus" not only has a large amount of knowledge reserves and advanced intelligence, but has even begun to have a little self-awareness. It already has a vague concept of "me". Note①

Electronic intrusion comes from this knowledge. In Raven's own words, all civilian computers and robots in the wasteland are defenseless to it. If it is a military computer, it depends on how thick the firewall is, and it is basically not a problem to take a while.

A toe on the right paw of the raven can be deformed and inserted into most common interfaces. Therefore, it can not only carry out radio intrusion, but can also be hard-inserted for brute force cracking, or directly burn electronic components.

But if it leaves the wasteland world and goes to other places with completely different technologies, its electronic warfare capabilities will be greatly weakened.

Marvin is currently testing Modus's detection ability in the Ash Heap area, chatting with it by the way.

Speaking of this, he couldn't help but ask: "In other words, you can invade the server of Baiquan Bunker?"

Modus stood on Marvin's shoulder, his bird head kept turning, looking around and answering: "To be precise, it's not an invasion. I still have read and write permissions to the server and database."

Marvin knew that the artificial intelligence that housed the White Spring Bunker was originally just to obtain attribute and ability point rewards, but he never thought that he would get such a useful intelligent equipment.

He originally planned to leave the existing drawings there alone and get them together when he housed the server before leaving Appalachia.

Since Modus can still operate the server, what are you waiting for?

He grabbed Modus, put it in the inventory, and teleported away from the ash pile.

Although Modus looks like a biological creature, it is actually just a bionic machine, an equipment, of course it can be put in the inventory.

Hartman's team went to collect supplies, and the White Spring Bunker was still unvisited. Marvin swiped his card to enter normally.

Except for the lack of ubiquitous AI surveillance and the chattering of artificial intelligence, everything here is the same as before.

Marvin released Modus and asked, "Where should we go?"

"Fourth floor, command center." Modus flapped his wings and flew up, but hit the ceiling head-on.

"Fuck, which idiot designed this crappy place? The ceiling is so low. If you stay here all year round, you'll go crazy."

While complaining, this guy walked unsteadily on his wings like a goose.

It adapted to flying very quickly, but it seemed very unaccustomed to walking on its claws. Although it would not fall, it looked very unlucky when running.

Seeing that it could not keep up with Marvin's pace, it flapped its wings and landed on Marvin's shoulder.

Fourth floor, command center, Raven stood at the top of the terminal screen, tilted his head and asked, "What do you want to do?"

"Call up all the drawings, let me take a look first, including the medical cabin and the supporting drugs."

"No problem."

Modus' eyes flashed with blue light, and the terminal screen began to refresh the drawing directory line by line. It had connected to the server through wireless.

Marvin took out a blank disk and inserted it into the terminal.

"Copy these drawings to the disk. Oh, don't copy the medical cabin."

"OK."

Marvin looked at the drawings one by one, collected the reward, and asked, "Do you know the Scorched Beast?"

Raven's work has been completed, and it is bored and practicing walking on the table.

"Of course, a monster that looks like a bat."

"I remember seeing in the data that there are records of bats in the biological laboratory. Is it the same thing?"

Modus wandered over and stopped beside the terminal and answered, "Yes. Do you need me to retrieve the encrypted data?"

"Of course."

The Biological Research Laboratory in the White Spring Bunker started a research project after the war to study all mutant creatures, aiming to find mutant creatures that are useful and controllable to the Enclave.

The creatures that undergo a second controllable mutation in the laboratory will be released back to Appalachia and the follow-up situation will be observed.

After being released into the wild, a female mutant bat numbered G10845 produced an unknown mutation, which was the first Scorched Beast.

This mutant bat not only became huge in a short period of time, but also changed some natural habits and grew two extra forelimbs.

After the biological laboratory reported it, the Enclave increased its tracking and observation of the female bat.

The results showed that the saliva, blood and other body fluids of this mutant bat would infect all the surrounding animals, forming a simple group relationship similar to cluster consciousness.

The biological research laboratory believed that this mutant bat might endanger the survival of the Enclave and recommended its elimination.

But the leader of White Spring at the time was Congressman Thomas Eckhardt, who felt that this monster was exactly what he needed, rejected the proposal of the biological research laboratory, and raised the confidentiality level of G10845.

Modus stood upright beside the terminal and said: "I analyzed it from Congressman Eckhardt's subsequent conversation. He hopes to use the threat of the scorched beast to increase the combat readiness level of the Appalachian region so that it is more convenient to control the nuclear missile silo."

White Spring does not have the authority to directly control the nuclear missile silo. The Enclave of White Spring can only enter when the program determines that the regional combat readiness level has reached the highest level.

Only after entering the silo can the nuclear missile launch operation be carried out.

Marvin rubbed his chin with his right hand and asked, "What does he want to do with the nuclear bomb?"

Modus replied, "I don't know."

"Okay. Is there any other relevant information?"

"There is another part..."

The screen refreshed and continued to display relevant information.

The information showed that G10845 returned to his birthplace, which is now a mine in Cranberry Swamp.

The Enclave established an observation post near the mine, numbered V9.

There are also a large number of similar mutant bats in this mine. After only a few weeks, the bats there have all mutated into scorched beasts, and the population is still expanding, which really threatens the safety of the Enclave itself.

A large number of outbound scientific researchers and military units were killed or destroyed by the attacks of scorched beasts, and the whole White Spring was in panic.

In the military system of White Spring, the combat readiness level of the Appalachian region was also raised to the highest level, and the nuclear bomb well was opened.

Before Senator Eckhart was happy, Major Ragnar Stodir, the military chief of White Spring, rebelled. Not only did he kill Thomas Eckhardt, he also disappeared with his men and the weapons and equipment in the warehouse...

Marvin stood up and rubbed his face, feeling helpless. As expected of the Enclave, most of the shit in the wasteland is related to them.

The Radiated Corpse Beast and the Radiated Corpse Virus are not natural disasters, but man-made disasters.

"Huh..." He turned around and sat down and asked, "Where are the others here?"

Raven shook his head: "I don't know, the data is lost."

If you don’t know, just don’t know, it doesn’t matter.

This time, Marvin obtained a total of 23 weapons and armor drawings, 1 power armor drawing, 4 explosive weapons drawings, 6 infrastructure drawings, and 13 drug formulas. There are also medical cabin drawings and supporting drug formulas that Marvin is particularly concerned about. A total of 2840RP were awarded.

After putting away the disk with the copy of the drawings and the raven, he left the White Spring Bunker and walked all the way to the observation tower on the top of the hill. Marvin handed the disk to the supervisor.

"These are all the drawings left in the White Springs Bunker."

"Wow!" The supervisor took the disk and asked, "Doesn't this cost a lot of bottle caps?"

"There is no vase cap, so I asked a friend to hack the server." Marvin answered half-truthfully.

The supervisor was not as guarded against him as before. He put away the disk and thanked him: "Thank you so much, Marvin. You really helped us a lot."

Marvin waved his hand: "Mutual benefit. Call me if you need anything." After saying that, he walked out and leaned on the railing of the observation deck to "watch the scenery."

…

The evening sun casts orange on the roofs of the lakeside manor.

Plop la la...

Modus landed on Marvin's shoulders.

"Marvin, let's discuss something."

"Um."

"Stop locking me in that dark place, okay?"

Marvin knew that the raven was referring to the inventory. He didn't know what it looked like, but he thought there was no light.

Modus continued to complain: "Not only is it dark inside, but there is no sound. Fortunately, I am not a human being, otherwise I would have gone crazy 2 hours ago."

This artificial intelligence seems to be a bit chatty. It may be that it is common in Baiquan Bunker and no one can communicate with it normally.

The reason why Marvin put it away when he left the White Spring Bunker was that he didn't trust it yet, and he was out of habit.

Modus was a new trump card, and he was unwilling to reveal it unless absolutely necessary.

"Okay." Marvin thought for a moment and agreed.

He still trusts the ability of the learning machine. Since the equipment attributes indicate "personal binding", there is a high probability that Modus will not be able to betray him.

Give it a try first.

He continued: "But when other people are around, just stay away."

"Understood!" Raven nodded vigorously, "I'm very familiar with this trick. Look at how many things that black girl Letty Hartman did for me for free."

After returning to the underground base, Marvin first spent 600 RP to buy a medical warehouse and placed it in the medical room. Follow Modus's prompts to connect to the base power supply and complete debugging.

The treatment needles are becoming less and less effective, and the new medical cabin is his survival guarantee.

The medical cabin produced by Learning Machine does not require adding medicine to it. He can treat it by paying RP directly, which is very convenient for him.

Marvin took out the T51B from the inventory and put it into the warehouse, and spent 540RP to buy the new X01 power armor.

Powered armor is also equipment, and it also has more detailed data descriptions.

【X01 Power Armor】

Category: Powered Mecha

Quality: Excellent (green)

Defense: 64~91

Physical resistance: 88%

Energy resistance: 71%

Radiation Resistance: 59%

Strength Amplification: Fixed Strength Attribute 48

Agility increase: fixed agility attribute 8

Perception increase: Fixed perception attribute 17

Equipment requirements: Strength 12, Constitution 9, Perception 8, and necessary training in the use of power armor.

Description: The last individual power armor developed by the United States military before the war. This power armor gets rid of many limitations of the T series and redesigns and improves multiple systems to cope with the actual situation after a nuclear war. However, the design was not completely completed because it was too complex, and there were still many flaws. Primitive mechanical and electronic technology still makes it difficult for this power armor to have qualified flexibility and detection capabilities. Therefore, X01 is still an elementary powered mecha.

The learning machine's explanation of X01 is still full of ridicule. The equipment data also proves that the power armor's enhancement of the combatants inside is very unscientific.

Marvin tried on the X01, and the only improvement he could feel was that the field of view was wider and clearer, and he could hear the sounds of the outside world more clearly. Other physical sensations were still the same bad. However, compared to other power armors, X01 is not only better, but also more handsome.

As usual, he changed the new armor to all-black paint, and adjusted the eyes to the same dark red as the Ranger helmet.

Similar to X01, T60 and T51B also have more detailed data. The attribute increase is basically the same, and the resistance is slightly worse than X01.

In addition, Marvin also bought a Gauss rifle and added a reinforced coil, a large capacitor, a guard, a stock, a silencer and a mid-range scope. The total cost is 225RP.

Since there is basically no need for sniping at a distance of more than 500 meters in the wasteland, a mid-range scope is enough.

【Gauss Rifle】

Category: Rifle

Quality: Excellent (green)

Attack power: 46~109

Effective range: 1450 meters

Attack speed: 0.2~1.6

Durability: 33/33

This gun has a thick gun body and is more than twice as heavy as the Barrett sniper rifle. The 5mm magnetic metal bullet is accelerated by the dense coils on both sides of the special barrel, and the projectile is fired at an initial velocity far exceeding that of the gunpowder bullet, causing penetrating damage to the armored target. Note ②

What Marvin is very uncomfortable with is not the thick gun body and huge recoil, but the energy storage firing mode that requires continuous pressing of the trigger.

Direct firing is also possible, but the initial velocity of the bullet will be much lower, and the power will naturally be reduced. To achieve the maximum initial velocity, you need to hold the trigger for 0.8 seconds and then release it to complete the firing.

The action of a sniper pulling the trigger is very particular, at least you need to hold your breath and slow down your heartbeat temporarily.

When shooting at a long distance, even a slight shake of the muzzle will cause mistakes. This mode of continuously pressing the trigger is simply anti-human.

In order to achieve a fatal shot at a long distance, Marvin decided to try to get used to it.

…

Note ①: AI's self-learning is called "machine learning", which is one of the basic theories of artificial intelligence. Machine learning began in the 1950s and is related to Alan Turing. This guy is just like a hacker.

Note ②: Zhuhai Air Show actually displayed individual electromagnetic weapons, which is really sci-fi. Although it is only a verification model and more like a toy, from 0 to 1 has always been the most difficult, so how far is 1 to 100?