Chapter 147: Monitoring the Planet, Discovery (Part 2)

[Your design blueprint 'Special Signal Conversion Device' has passed the system rating and been archived in the blueprint library.]

[Based on the rating of this blueprint, you have obtained 299 expertise points.]

—

"Finally finished."

Jiang Chen couldn't help but let out a long breath.

To solve the special 'magnetic field suppression' on Planet Viska, Jiang Chen had spent a full half-year and more.

The majority of that time was spent studying the principles behind this eerie 'magnetic field suppression.'

After more than five months of painstaking effort, Jiang Chen finally figured out that due to the unique environment of Planet Viska, the universe's primal energy here had undergone a slight mutation, producing a certain 'adsorption effect' on almost all forms of energy.

Consequently, electromagnetic waves, psychic fluctuations, and other signals incapable of resisting this 'adsorption effect' would be completely absorbed by the universe's primal energy permeating the planet's surface once they exceeded a certain range, resulting in receiving equipment on the other end failing to pick up any signals at all.

The solution was actually quite simple: transform the signals into a form that the planet's primal energy could not absorb.

For instance, injecting a small amount of similarly modified primal energy into the transmitted signals to counteract this 'adsorption effect' would solve the problem perfectly.

The difficulty was not particularly high.

The final designed product turned out to be merely a Tier 2 blueprint, which, according to classifications in the universe, was equivalent to Class B technology—a mere stellar-grade gadget.

The manufacturing cost was also very low. Converted into currency within the universe, it was worth only a few million Black Dragon dollars, an amount almost negligible given Jiang Chen's current wealth.

"Jarvis, take this device for testing. If there are no issues, start mass production immediately and install it on all signal-transmitting and receiving equipment." Jiang Chen transmitted the blueprint directly to Jarvis, ordering it to upgrade the mechanical legion and other units.

"Understood, Master." Jarvis immediately reported a schedule: "Trial production is expected to be completed within 1.6 hours, followed by testing. Testing is expected to be completed within 2 hours. If large-scale production is confirmed, preliminary preparations will take 22 hours."

"Proceed according to that plan."

Jiang Chen stretched lazily and said, "I'm going to sleep for a bit. Wake me up when the testing is done and tell me the results. If this thing works, the next step will be to monitor the entire planet and then hunt down those immortal gods within the Ancestral God Cult."

"Understood, Master." Jarvis replied respectfully.

Two-plus hours later, Jiang Chen received Jarvis's report: the test was a complete success.

Satellites equipped with the [Special Signal Conversion Device] were operating entirely normally, monitoring the entire planet and successfully transmitting signals back to the centralized control system operated by Jarvis.

Having confirmed this, Jiang Chen immediately ordered Jarvis to mass-produce monitoring satellites, incorporating the entirety of Planet Viska into the monitoring network.

Aside from improving the monitoring system and gathering intelligence on the planet, this was also a test to see whether 'King-class Immortals' existed on Planet Viska.

Jiang Chen had already verified that the special magnetic field suppression on this planet was also effective against the perception of cultivators.

However, the stronger a cultivator's strength, the weaker the suppression effect.

Given Planet Viska's mass, rotational speed, and other parameters, the optimal satellite orbit was approximately three million kilometers from the surface.

At this distance, under the planet's magnetic field suppression, an ordinary immortal's perception would fail to detect the existence of the satellites.

Yet a King-class Immortal would be just barely able to perceive them.

After launching the satellites into orbit, by observing the reactions of the 'Ancestral God Cult,' one could judge to a certain extent whether there were hidden King-class Immortals on Planet Viska.

If not, everything would be smooth sailing, and Jiang Chen would continue pushing forward with his plan.

If King-class Immortals did exist, Jiang Chen would wisely abandon the plan to assault the Ancestral God Cult headquarters and the Ancestral God Tombs, instead ambushing a few solitary immortals and divine children, seizing a few 'Blood God Fruits,' and immediately making a run for it.

With the technology and techniques mastered by Jiang Chen, combined with the massive amount of processing equipment within his world ring, manufacturing satellites posed zero difficulty.

Following half a year of mining, the various materials Jiang Chen had accumulated in his hands were more than sufficient.

In just a few days, hundreds of thousands of satellites equipped with various detection instruments were manufactured and sent into 'low orbit' via spacecraft.

There was no help for it; given the sheer scale of Planet Viska, the distance of a 'synchronous orbit' was simply too far, placing much higher demands on the detection equipment.

A low orbit three million kilometers from the surface turned out to be the optimal choice.

To save time, Jiang Chen even made a personal trip, using his world ring to transport hundreds of thousands of satellites up in one go.

Otherwise, relying solely on spacecraft would have required at least a few thousand trips to get all the satellites into orbit.

Hundreds of thousands of satellites could barely cover the skies of Planet Viska all-weather and without blind spots, bringing the entire planet into the monitoring system.

Although relying solely on satellite monitoring did not yield fully comprehensive and polished information, it was already enough for Jiang Chen to gather a vast amount of intelligence.

Inside the hastily constructed base, as the satellite signals connected, the large screens rapidly displayed dense clusters of multicolored light points.

Each of these light points represented a different meaning.

Among them, the light points representing 'immortal-god-level energy reactions' numbered over a hundred.

"Master, the total number of immortal gods currently monitored is 133, all of them indigenous humans, with no ferocious beasts." Jarvis quickly reported the compiled data to Jiang Chen: "Among them, the number of immortals inside 'Ancestral God City' is the highest, totaling 51. Next is the 'Ancestral God Tombs,' with 35 immortals. In all other regions, no place has more than five immortals. Solitary immortal gods who are alone and separated from other immortal gods by more than a million kilometers number 24 in total, and their locations have been marked on the map."

"133 immortal gods?" Jiang Chen raised an eyebrow.

This number was nearly a third higher than the intelligence Jiang Chen had previously obtained from the memories of the five world lords.

Those 'clustered' immortal gods could be ignored for the time being, but the 24 solitary immortal gods could certainly be considered as potential hunting targets.

Every time an immortal god was killed, as long as the majority of the corpse could be preserved and carefully designed, it would yield at least an immortal-level combat power.

If the design scheme was sophisticated enough to reach the level of the Void Dragon Mecha, its combat power might even surpass its standard when alive.

If all 24 of these solitary immortal gods could be successfully hunted down and crafted into 'immortal mechas,' Jiang Chen would even dare to storm the Ancestral God Tombs guarded by over thirty immortals.

"In addition, there are 84 immortal-level energy reactions, but with no traces of life signals. They are suspected to be the corpses of fallen immortals. 82 of them are in the 'Ancestral God Tombs,' while the other two are in different locations and have already been marked on the map."

Jarvis marked two more locations on the map.

"Oh? Two suspected immortal god corpses, and they're not in the Ancestral God Tombs?" Jiang Chen immediately looked at the newly marked locations on the map.

Among the three continents, Jiang Chen's base was located in the 'Abandoned Land.'

The other two slightly larger continents—the largest was named the 'God-Granted Land,' where the Ancestral God Cult's lair, 'Ancestral God City,' was situated.

The final continent was called the 'Land of Eternal Sleep' by the natives.

The 'Ancestral God Tombs,' where the corpses of 82 fallen immortal gods were buried, were located right on this 'Land of Eternal Sleep.'

As for the locations of the two suspected immortal god corpses marked by Jarvis that were not buried in the Ancestral God Tombs, one was on the edge of the 'God-Granted Land.'

The other was located in the mid-western region of the 'Land of Eternal Sleep,' not far from the 'Ancestral God Tombs,' less than a billion kilometers away.

On the scale of Planet Viska, a billion kilometers was indeed not a distant distance.

"Dispatch two squads first to check if they are indeed the corpses of immortal gods. If they are, bring them back," Jiang Chen instructed. "Send two transport ships and two combat squads."

The charm of the legion style of warfare certainly did not lie solely in head-on battles with massive army assemblies.

When necessary, a large number of small squads could also be detached to execute various missions.

Naturally, the greatest fear for purely mechanical units operating outside was high-level intelligence forcibly launching cyber intrusions to seize control of the mechanical units.

However, on Planet Viska, which extremely rejected technology, there was no need to worry about this problem.

"Would a combat squad configuration of four fighters paired with twelve mechas be acceptable?" Jarvis confirmed. "Among them, four mechas will carry auxiliary modules, and eight mechas will engage in close-combat fighting."

Jiang Chen nodded and said, "That's fine, proceed with that. In addition, prepare the [Arbiters]. In case the situation goes wrong, trigger the warp summon to protect them."

The cost of a combat squad was not low.

In the event of encountering an unmanageable enemy, the warp summon of the [Arbiters] was one of the means to minimize losses to the greatest extent possible.

"Field teams are ready, departing immediately. Team One's target is 'Land of Eternal Sleep coordinates xxxxx,' estimated arrival in 78 hours. Team Two's target is 'God-Granted Land coordinates xxxx,' estimated arrival in 29 hours."

As Jarvis reported, inside the base, two transport ships soared into the sky, transforming into two streaks of light as they flew off in different directions.

If those two places truly harbored two corpses of immortal gods outside the sight of the 'Ancestral God Cult,' that would be an absolute windfall.

—

Jiang Chen already possessed a considerable number of engineering machinery under his command, and coupled with the fact that this technology was not technically demanding and had low production costs,

over the past half-year, while mining mineral veins, he had simultaneously produced new engineering machinery to expand production capacity.

Accumulated up to now, Jiang Chen had amassed a rather substantial amount of resources in his hands.

If he could acquire a few corpses of immortal gods, combined with the resources at hand, it would allow the overall combat power of the mechanical legion to step up a small tier.

At least based on the resources Jiang Chen currently had, as long as there were enough immortal god corpses, he could retrofit at least twenty 'immortal mechas' capable of reaching immortal combat power.

"Jarvis, leave the intelligence analysis to you. I'll add a task for you: based on the intelligence obtained from satellite monitoring, analyze the probability that if we expand on a large scale and accelerate resource mining, it would attract the attention of the Ancestral God Cult."

Jiang Chen instructed.

After a moment of thought, he added, "No need to rush to a conclusion; gather sufficient intelligence first before conducting the analysis."

"Understood, Master," Jarvis immediately replied. "The task has been added to the second priority."

The first priority was naturally exploring those two coordinates of 'suspected immortal god remains.'

"Pity that satellite monitoring cannot monitor the conversations of everyone on the entire planet. The camera angles are also fixed looking straight down. We can only indirectly deduce intelligence through methods such as detecting energy intensity and life signals..."

A thought flashed through Jiang Chen's mind.

However, Jiang Chen didn't dwell on it too much.

Compared to the natives of Planet Viska, Jiang Chen already held an immense advantage in terms of intelligence.

Wanting to advance the monitoring system further wasn't impossible.

However, compressing the cost to an acceptable range was something Jiang Chen's current technology couldn't achieve just yet.

The current level of monitoring was already sufficient, at least for the mission on Planet Viska.

—

A few days later, the two exploration squads returned, bringing back two corpses of immortal gods.

Both corpses were indigenous humans, though of different races.

One was a giant over thirty meters tall, while the other was a race similar in stature to Earth humans, with a height of only 1.75 meters.

The former could certainly be retrofitted into a mecha, but the latter's physique was so small that probably even the Goblin race couldn't find a pilot to drive it; it could only be retrofitted into a puppet.

Judging from the images captured by satellite monitoring, the Ancestral God Cult showed no particular reaction, looking as if they hadn't noticed any abnormalities.

Through the observations of the past few days, Jiang Chen and Jarvis unanimously deduced that the probability of 'King-class Immortals' existing among the natives of Planet Viska was very low.

The reason, naturally, was that all those satellites were flying nicely in the sky without being inexplicably attacked and destroyed.

Of course, the possibility of a King-class Immortal hiding in the shadows, discovering the existence of the satellites, but choosing not to strike in order to avoid exposing their own strength could not be entirely ruled out.

That possibility did exist.

Jiang Chen was no omniscient being either; he could only deduce and analyze based on existing intelligence, and then use the most probable scenario among the many possibilities as a baseline to formulate contingency plans.

Naturally, for a situation like 'uncertainty regarding whether a King-class Immortal exists,' an erroneous judgment could potentially endanger one's own safety, so multiple layers of preparation had to be made.

If no King-class beings existed, then naturally it would be happy sailing to plunder the resources of Planet Viska.

Yet should a King-class Immortal appear, Jiang Chen also had to ensure he possessed the capability to safely evacuate at any moment.

However, whether there were hidden immortal gods on Planet Viska was no longer the matter Jiang Chen cared about most.

The most crucial task right now was to modify the immortal god corpses brought back by the two exploration squads to elevate the combat power of the mechanical legion!

(End of this chapter)