Mission: Four Gate Expansion (Update)

The leaders of the Clockwork Nation has put their trust in you to safely transport ships full of villagers that will set up new towns on the three other remaining gates of the clockwork scrapyard. The dangers they face would be rogue robots and possibly a new human hybrid race with clockwork.

Success requirements: Successful settling

North Gate: No

East Gate: Yes

West Gate: Yes

Difficulty: D++

Failure: All villagers die, You die.

Reward: ???

Already nine days flew by since the dungeon was finally beat.

We packed what we could, the robot eggs were essential, we bred the animals and left many behind. They were evolving a lot and a new breed appeared for smaller animals after I showed them the electric engine.

We left the Shepard behind to guard them. Brock was now the size of a small island and the elves insisted on making flora on top of him but he denied and so did I.

I will allow only when I gather my own villagers and brock is bigger.

I have already picked up the North gates pioneer group and with the advanced report from Delta who looked through the eyes of the clockworks I sent and prepared accordingly.

The North gate is situated about several kilometers from the ocean. The area is rocky but sand exists. Visible monsters account for Mutant crabs, scrap slugs, slugs that make a shell from wreckage.

Dungeon density in this region is scarce. Even in the scrapyard their are few. I would probably credit that to the fact that this area has much less scraps. If I compare the entirety of the scrapyard to a mountain range then the area near North gate would be a hilly area. Far too little scrap to interest the monster robots.

Now what I needed to prepare were filters. Water and air, lots of them. The main reason is because the huge amount of water is perfect to make several lakes for the Undine and this area is really windy so the Sylph will like this area as well.

To breed them I need clean water so I don't go making monsters. Besides that I spend a long time with the others trying to figure out how we will gain some ground into the ocean.

The place is a cesspool filled not only with oil from wreaks but radiation from something.

With representatives of each race gathered we talked about the area together. It was a construction job involving them and this was a bit larger being in a humid zone like this.

The elves and Undines suggested the regular path they used. Cause flora to grow and find the springs in the area. I understood their ideas. The springs would inevitably start pushing a bit of the polluted water outwards weakening the nearby monsters but this would turn them aggressive.

The monsters here were somewhere along the lines of level 170-200. My crew has reached between 105-112. The constant killing in the dungeon did help a lot until we got used to it. Crappy game system making the exp lower just cause we got used to the monster. Though experience can add to being life experience who knows. Several times I felt my exp jumped when I am studying or building robots and tech.

I think this will be the first area we will need to start relying on the clockwork animals. The main reason for this is what I discovered.

The robot dino eggs are strangely sophisticated. They are like factories that build the creature until it's fully grown. To know if it would work I studied its systems trying to figure out the structure and got about halfway through it before it became impossible to change more.

Not that I didn't have the skill, though it might have contributed, but because I stripped the egg bare in using my skill to break down the schematic.

I followed the process physically and found it was actually impossible after a point. The reason was that several areas were densely packed and had a cover over it. Scans didn't show anything but a block of iron but I didn't bite.

Since skill didn't cut it I went with force. Pulling out the welder I shifted its power to cutting. It had a high drain but it didn't matter, I had installed a Core battery like I did in Nova so I had a large reserve.

I cut around the corner of the block until it was out then I took it to my desk and then began to cut into the corner.

It took a really long time to melt itr and then I found what it. A central cpu for the egg that was lacking before. In truth a quick glance I could see this was what would become the motherboard of the dino. In other words the boss made these and not the actual robot.

What came next interested me. Removing the cpu and replacing the box for a core and pulling a core motherboard with the info for a wolf I built the egg up again and to my surprise the egg worked. Feeding the egg metal it took around ninety kilos of iron twenty of copper resulted in the wolf hatching.

It was adolescent size and looked at me like all the others, passively.

Still the structure looked the same with only the unnecessary need to carry the offspring.

This could be really useful for pack animals, rodents and avian. Things like boars and bulls wouldn't fit well because they migrate a lot and they would leave behind the offspring. Also the parent needs to feed the eggs and I doubt it would be efficient in the long run when the scrapyard has no more scrap.

Now, I check on the birthing process for the wolf I made and like I expected the egg has been added and it seems they would be dropped at about the size of a hand ball. From the size comparison I would say that the amount of materials needed for the pup to finish growing would be about 1/10 of the adolescent.

It was a good improvement and would make it easier for the clockwork animals so I go and take several other animals that would work with this and make them birth one of them with this method. It took a little over 2 hours to get one born for each race in every type of animal from small ones to large. Bulls and large creatures that migrate herds weren’t given this since it would be left behind.

As I said it's been nine days so with only one more day to go we would arrive at the gate and even now we can tell the difference in the landscape. First there are lots of contaminated springs and though not much there are swamps with lots of disgusting looking dead trees that grew moss instead of leaves.

During these nine days I finally got to making flying drones. This is important since I can now scout places from up above so I send down several scouts into these swamps.

Well calling it swamps isn't right, the conditions for making it a swamp is here but something vital lacks.

First the ground is hard and packed but moist from the large number of springs. The trees looked dead and rotten and most were small and they were sparse.

I had seen that swamps or muddy forests had animals that used the mud to cool down while bugs were born using the moist muddy ground to hatch its eggs.

In other words this area needed something akin to wild boars then return the vitality to the land.

Well it was something to think about but it would need to wait until the basics of the town is built.

To that point as soon as we reach the gate we send out scouts.

I had made some rogue class robots with stealth tech and send them down.

Unlike the dino's the monsters are organic here but in lesser number. Large crustaceans that make shells from scrap, snails as well. Mostly swamp life. I can very well see the plant life becoming savage when we revive the land but that won’t change much for clockwork since we are machines.

Well for the time being we send down the fighters, me and rabbit nova included.

Oh right, my main crew levels were as followed…

Me 112

Nova 109

Bulk 110

Victor 111

Blaze 105

Ena 104

Greer 105

Annabeth 105

Just to make it clear the monsters here are 60-90 levels ahead of us but they a few have very clear weaknesses.

In particular the “Junkyard Slug” and “Scrap Shell Snail”. I’m sure you all can own what I’m talking about right. Both of these reside within the scrapyard while the Scrap Seashell Crab lived by the shore and came to the scrapyard, whose gate was destroyed and left open passage, to make new shells that can aid them underwater by holding air.

We will need to examine them later one because underwater gear is important.

Well to start the slugs and snails themselves are a pain. They nullify physical damage due to their attacks and are weak to fire which dries them up. Slugs are the weakest monster at level 170-179.

They are slow with highly corrosive acid which it spits out. It’s body mucus is also the same acid which shows he is resistant to poison in general.

As such the way to kill these bastards was set and clear. Until we can start to produce salt to kill them easily through that I bring out the burning oil grenades. In general this isn’t as explosive as regular ones. This thing has oil inside and a shell that splits down the middle. After the trigger is pulled a mechanism within the shell will start to push the shell until it pops. This takes about four seconds and when it pops there are single small explosive at the top near the trigger that sets the oil on fire.

In general this works nicely to dry the body of the slugs and is rather effective as are regular grenades.

The only trouble is their acid which can be shot up to 250 meters away with disgustingly high precision.

Slugs are hard because of the shell and most of the time when they reach about 75% in HP they will hide in their shell. It works for us because the shell is nice and round so with a strong punch we can send the slugs rolling and push that far from the position we were in.

Still the strength needed to do this is unearthly. At first Bulk went Gear 1 which made him very strong but it just barely pushed the slug shell but when Victor suggested using the Overload skill, to which Bulk insulted him saying it could break him Victor shouted back a rather interesting thing we didn’t notice earlier.

“Why not just use the Hulk program. You were able to shut off your Overload skill using that program.” Victor said.

No one noticed before but when we looked it over and Bulk checked his skill it seems the Hulk prank program Brock made was actually integrated into the skills programming in this world and worked as an On and Off switch for the Overload skill of the knights class.

It doesn’t have to be said that we all laughed at this including Bulk himself at the coincidence. We did reprogram the program to remove any words like “Bulk smash” and renamed it into the “Overload Switch”.

The boost was more than enough to send the slugs rolling and since Bulk controlled the switch he turned it on for a few seconds and punched before turning off before coming for repairs since his arm was still damaged from the strain.

To that point we spent about 2 weeks pushing back all the slugs and snails into the scrap yard until it was considered safe.

After us came the builder and animals. I released them to quickly get accustomed to the area. Like always most animals prefer the woods and most robot's remain in the scraps.

In a quick week while using the queen furnaces within Brock we had made a two new gates for the North gate. It was made with many slabs of metal not meant to open. The doors on the side were open though and the inner corridors began getting cleaned.

By the end of the first month a clearing was beginning to appear and the elves were starting to come down and revitalize the earth.

It was at this point I spot with Delta and made boar robot's with natural instincts like one. We needed to release some to start loosening the hard packed earth and they were naturals at it.

It was a new animal and it went directly into the eggs and were fed. I took them out into the swampy lands, five of them and fed them until the five burst open disoriented.

Still I didn’t expect for what was happened after they got their wits in place.

At once the five rushed me like real boars and Delta laughed about making them to much like real ones.

I cursed at him while I dodged and kicked the boars into submission and made them flee.

Well I didn't plan to have them like me forever. I'm sure the "creator" love they give will last only a few generations before they turn wild which by then some time would have passed.

With those released it's not like to watch and slowly expand on them from here.

Also the crabs don't seem to care about our presence here or actually, they seem to like it because the environment is slowly getting better with more food for them.

Got to keep a watch on those for sure. Bulls are just the right size for their shells.

Delta PoV

The boy has finally reached the final gate has has been doing nicely. He still has me make the programs for his robot animals.

Hehehe, little does he know I am sneaking parts of my kwow codes into them so I can control them against their wills.

I really like how I made the boars though. It will take a few generations to make them truly fierce but eventually these animals will spread and I can make monsters and animals from them.

As I watched my influence spread all over the scrapyard the enter was still a void but I could feel "it". "It" was spreading like me but in less quantity and more quality. They were in possession of something strong.

As I felt this something happens to the connection I had to all clockwork. It was severed and time itself stopped.

"My my Delta. You have been busy." A female voice said.

"This infernal voice, Ariel you bitch! Where are you!" I shouted.

From a white light that appeared in front of me a female human appeared smirking at me.

"You sure are a lucky one, getting to see the outside and do such sneaky things like send small parts of you outside like a clone but sadly you won't leave this place. Your soul is chained here and not even moving your motherboard will change that." Ariel said.

"You bitch what are you doing here after so long!" I shouted.

"Isn't it obvious, I'm here to remake your seal with a few more restrictions. A titan like you thinking of yourself as a god will have to abide by the gods rules so I will restrain you more." Ariel said.

My eyes turned bright red while the chains begam to glow as it sucked up the energy of my rage.

"I won't remove your ability to speak with Techno, Gaia, Rust and those who discover you but you won't be able to speak with anyone else unless you are discovered and have your original program and not that virus." Ariel said. "Oh! And you can't control drones anymore." She said smiling and suddenly appeared near my chest where the main chain link holding me was.

Touching it, it turned red as the new restrictions were placed on me.

"There, should be working nicely now, got to go siince another "gods" of your kind was found. I can't wait until a true god is unbound. Its been boring just me watching over this wasteland planet." She said with a glum face which morphed into a sinister grin.

"I can't wait for the boy to move into a Core motherboard, things are always so interesting with him." She said.

Before I could say anything she vanished and time moved again. My connection was linked again and I could see the world outside again.

"That bitch, what will happen when the brat enters the core..." I mittered and thought of the possibility. I watch the kid as until his connection is cut along with a few hundred at the same time.

These people are strange vanishing at the same time.