Wasteland Development Diary

As spring temperatures climbed daily, by the end of the second month, wearing only a single layer of clothing felt unbearably hot when the sun was out.

Fortunately, a downpour quenched the abnormal heat a little.

However, the temperature remained stuck between 26 and 28 degrees Celsius, signaling the fierce arrival of summer.

Weather satellites had issued warnings early on.

The programming department also compared temperature data from the past 20 years, providing a simulation forecast to remind all regions of the Development Alliance that this summer would be extremely hot, and rainfall might be below average. They requested all areas to store water as early as possible, preferably by building Dead Sea canals, to ensure an adequate supply of domestic water.

The infrastructure near Emerald City was well-developed, so there were no such problems. At the beginning of the year, Gongsun Bao had specially built the third Dead Sea canal for the rice fields.

Afterward, he was invited by the Sand Sea Duke to build the fourth Dead Sea canal for Sandport, to solve the city's water and irrigation issues. Gongsun Bao further developed a supporting water purification pool there, separating drinking water from irrigation water.

Zhou Yi was most pleased that the rice planting, which the agricultural machinery brothers had begun preparing last year, had finally turned into large-scale paddy fields this spring, with patches of lush green rice seedlings looking very comfortable.

If nothing went wrong, the rice could be harvested in July and August, and they could eat the company's newly grown rice.

Zhou Yi had waited a full five years for this day.

He sighed inwardly.

Eating a mouthful of rice was even harder than dealing with Doomsday.

On this day, Zhou Yi was strolling through the rice fields.

The farmland gave him a sense of peace and tranquility, representing the achievements of the people of Sandport in transforming nature. It was also a place that Zhou Yi now liked to visit.

Red Falcon flew over in a hurry.

"Zhou, the latest news from Recursive City is that Shang Yang has completed the reorganization and integration of the Mechanical-Electrical Cities and formally established the [Legalist Front], which has promulgated the [Resource Centralized Allocation Act] through legal review."

The Legalist Front was a coalition of many who operated Mechanical-Electrical Cities based on legal principles.

In different cities, the legal principles would adjust policies and regulations, but the basic system was consistent.

Rather than calling it a special form of state, it was more like a special program ideology.

"Currently, the Legalist Front has a total of 106 Mechanical-Electrical Cities, all of which have completed the construction and installation of corresponding physical equipment."

The drone said in a serious tone, "The 32 Mechanical-Electrical Cities that have not joined have either been annexed by other forces or are independent, and all are small and medium-sized cities."

"The most important thing is the [Resource Centralized Allocation Act], which involves the resource control and allocation methods of each city, with many specific policy details."

"I have summarized it."

"This bill mainly includes five parts."

"First, unified control of the production and distribution of all industries to avoid fluctuations and uncertainties in the market economy."

"Second, control of commodity prices and workers' wages to ensure the advancement of various industries and social stability."

"Third, the establishment of a job allocation system to ensure that residents of Mechanical-Electrical Cities have stable jobs and to reduce labor waste."

"Fourth, priority for military industry and agriculture. Military industrial products will be produced on a large scale and continuously researched and developed, driving the upgrading of civilian products. Agriculture will be completely collectivized in cities to uniformly promote the production, distribution, and external dumping of agricultural products."

"Fifth, promote labor competitions in various cities, with rewards ranging from 100 light seeds to 10,000 light seeds to increase workers' production enthusiasm."

Red Falcon said with some worry, "The trial implementation of the resource bill is working well."

"Within a week of internal trials, 11 small cities with economic difficulties completed their loss mitigation, and more than 100 unemployed or unemployed Mechanical-Electrical lives returned to each city to be allocated for re-employment."

"This change is unprecedented… especially the emphasis on military industry and agriculture, which is by no means just an industrial change, but will eventually lead to further external expansion and military threats."

Zhou Yi took some time to digest this information.

Shang Yang's reform of the Mechanical-Electrical Cities, judging from these specific measures, resembled a planned economy.

However, considering the special nature of the Mechanical-Electrical Cities, where the real rulers are now the Legalist programs, it was equivalent to completely entrusting the city's operation to AI, relying on the powerful data center of the Mechanical-Electrical Cities to make decisions and take actions.

This path might be the most suitable for them.

The key development and promotion of military industry and agriculture, the former was to formally enhance their own strengths, and the latter was to supplement the shortcomings previously shown.

The war was not over, but had changed its form.

Zhou Yi couldn't help but recall the warnings of the Warlord.

——Mechanical-Electrical Cities have never been defeated.

They are easily overlooked, but they were actually the core C position of the former resistance army.

What the company defeated was just the general protocol form.

Zhou Yi asked, "What actions has the Legalist Front taken externally?"

"They have purchased seven human cities from nearby territorial lords, all of which are adjacent to Mechanical-Electrical Cities."

"Human cities?"

"Yes."

Red Falcon said, "Those cities have a lot of wasteland, which has been transformed into military factories and farms. They need land and are continuing to buy it."

Zhou Yi rubbed his chin.

The Legalist now holds hundreds of Mechanical-Electrical Cities' accumulation of light seeds, which is a genuine asset giant. Just throwing money at it is enough to buy the land they want.

In the past, the main problem was mutual restraint between cities and internal conflicts of interest. Now, they have directly switched to a planned group form, and the lethality they show will be far greater than before.

Zhou Yi said, "What is the attitude of the Celestial Kingdom?"

Red Falcon said, "There are no public measures yet. According to some photon-nano information, the Celestial Kingdom is mobilizing its defense line, increasing troops and strengthening military defenses in areas bordering Mechanical-Electrical Cities."

The Celestial Kingdom's reaction said it all.

Zhou Yi knew in his heart that a new round of challenges, or even war, was probably not far away.

The company had to step up the promotion of various industries in this final period of stability.

……

At the end of this spring, Zhou Yi still did not wait for the resurrection and return of the Land Duke.

Suspended layers had been built one after another, like giant black Ganoderma mushrooms growing from the Dead Sea, surrounding most of the Sandport area.

Bone Man Wu Yi, after repeated attempts, found a feasible way to connect them—using the Wuhu overpass.

By extending this architectural life form to the side of the suspended layer, it traveled back and forth on the suspended land above the sea, building a circular driveway suitable for vehicles to enter each suspended layer of farmland to transport crops and fertilizers.

The advantage of this was that the overpass itself had sufficient strength and stability, and could complete the connection of each suspended layer with only a light weight, without having to bother calculating complex construction.

Without waiting for the Land Duke, Zhou Yi received another good news.

"Chairman, we've made it!"

703 ran over, unable to hide his excitement, and said, "The programming department has created a ThunderCat transcoder!! We can read information from ThunderCats!"

Zhou Yi's eyes narrowed: "Confirmed?"

"Confirmed! Very accurate!"

Machine Dog immediately demonstrated this process to Zhou Yi with the Mechanical-Electrical programmers Walker and Cynogen.

They connected a wire to the copper coil of a cat house. The other end of the wire passed through a device like an adapter, which was then connected to an oscilloscope and finally to an enhanced controller.

703 raised his mechanical claw and started the cat house.

A ThunderCat darted out from it, flying back and forth along the wire, pulling out strands of electric arcs.

Machine Dog explained, "Chairman, this is our programming department's work ThunderCat, Lightning Spirit No. 2, we call it 'Biting Cat'."

"Although it likes to bite people, it doesn't hurt much, but it will cause slight electrical signal interference to our Mechanical-Electrical lives. It actually means friendship and playfulness."

It walked to the side of the Biting Cat, raised its metal front paw, and the Biting Cat crackled and zapped it with an electric arc, causing Machine Dog's body to stiffen for two seconds.

"…Like this."

After 703 recovered, he pointed to the set of equipment: "The electrical signal emitted by the Biting Cat enters the oscilloscope through the transcoder and becomes a recognizable signal waveform. Then, through a program we improved in the enhanced controller, the signals inside are parsed out."

"Walker."

The humanoid robot Walker raised the controller in his hand and turned the screen to Zhou Yi: "Chairman, please take a look."

On the glass screen, a simple cartoon lightning cat head image appeared, with a dialog box popping up on its head.

[Want to play with me? Come play, come play!]

"Then."

703 inserted his connection line into it again.

So, a new box appeared under the cat head's dialog box.

Text started popping up inside.

[Biting Cat, running back and forth.]

Then the ThunderCat began to shuttle back and forth nearby, turning into electric light.

[Biting Cat, rolling around.]

The ThunderCat immediately rolled on the ground, like a spinning ball of lightning.

[Biting Cat, return to the cat house.]

It suddenly drilled back into the miniature glass house of the power ball.

Zhou Yi looked shocked: "Has the company's program development capabilities reached this level now?"

This supporting follow-up was a bit too fast.

"Thanks to Recursive City, their data center is very powerful."

703 said happily, "The most difficult decoding, compilation, and algorithms were all done by them. We just found an idea and carried out the final physical test."

"In fact, electrical signal technology has a large amount of data left by the old humans of the God Era, as well as a large and vast program library. We obtained many usable parts from them, otherwise it would not have been so fast from scratch."

Zhou Yi nodded.

Indeed.

When it comes to the field of electricity and the use of electrical signals, people in the wasteland era still have to watch and learn carefully. Excavating the prehistoric technology of the old humans is the shortcut.

"Through the ThunderCat transcoder, we can directly chat and dialogue with ThunderCats. The transmission and reception of electrical signals are very fast, with almost no delay. Although some subtle parts may have losses and errors in transcoding and translation, the basic information transmission is no problem."

703 continued, "The ThunderCats cultivated by the Electricity Department were already above the horizontal line in intelligence. Through dialogue and chat, they grow very fast."

"They will become important partners of our various departments!"

"Once the net is established, ThunderCats will be the company's best postmen, guards, and intelligence officers!"

Zhou Yi immediately said, "Immediately produce ThunderCat transcoders, first install them in every department of the company, and… get me one too."

"Yes, Chairman!"