“No, these were captured from underground,” Lu Yuan walked over and tapped the Mechanical Desert Spider's head. “They've been reprogrammed and modified, and now they're capable of various tasks.”

In the past two days, Lu Yuan had Jubian modify the Mechanical Desert Spiders. First, high-power mining drills were added to their two front legs. Then, their fuel was changed from methane tanks to more advanced, higher energy density high-energy batteries. This not only tripled their operating time but also completely eliminated the hidden danger of gas explosions.

Now, fully charged, the Mechanical Desert Spider can walk over 2500 kilometers or continuously excavate rock for a week at a fixed location.

“They can mine too?”

After hearing the introduction, the Town Chief immediately realized the value of this thing.

“Of course they can. In fact, mining is actually the 'Mech Guardians' old profession,” Lu Yuan continued.

“They are equipped with AI, which is an artificial intelligence system, capable of understanding human language. If you need them to mine, install underground supports, lay tracks, conveyor belts, or anything else, you just need to speak the command.”

“Even for actions they don't know at the current stage, you can guide and train them. Although their learning speed isn't as fast as human apprentices, it's definitely not slow.”

The more Lu Yuan introduced, the more unbelievable it became for the Town Chief and Engineer Li accompanying him.

Capable of handling all underground work? Is it real?

Lu Yuan saw their doubt.

“Let's go do a field test.”

He snapped his fingers at Tart.

The group entered the underground cave. Tart put down the remote control Pad and issued commands using only voice and gestures.

The Mechanical Desert Spider followed the commands, efficiently excavating rock from the various rock walls she designated, then loading the rock fragments into the specified containers, followed by various transportation tasks.

The Town Chief was too shocked to speak.

Who would have thought that these underground devils, whom no one dared to provoke in the past, could one day be transformed into such obedient and skilled workers!

According to his observation, the excavation efficiency of the modified 'Mech Guardians' far exceeded manual mining. If three or four of them worked together, it would be comparable to a medium-sized automatic mining support!

“Executive Officer, may I try it myself?” Engineer Li was nearly 70 years old, but at this moment, he was as excited as a young man, looking at Lu Yuan expectantly.

“Of course you can.”

Under Engineer Li's guidance, the Mechanical Desert Spider made a few mistakes at first, then correctly understood his intention and arranged the gravel into the shape of a conveyor belt.

Engineer Li looked at his Old Town Chief, his eyes filled with ecstasy, and nodded vigorously.

This will be a technology that will completely change mine production! In the future, workers might not even need to go down into the mine! No one will get injured anymore!

“This... it must be very expensive, right?”

The Town Chief could tell at a glance that this was a good thing, but also that it was expensive.

Lu Yuan smiled.

“We'll discuss the price later. This time, you can take four units back for a trial run and give me your feedback on improvements.”

Ah?

Not only were the people from Red Iron Town surprised, but even Tart suspected she had misheard.

Just giving them away for free?

And sending four units at once?

Not to mention how difficult it is to capture these mechanical creatures, the key is the subsequent maintenance and miner-ization modifications, which also take up the camp's production capacity.

Overall, the cost is not low.

She originally thought the Mechanical Desert Spiders would be a flagship product of Cangyuan, capable of earning a large amount of foreign exchange. She never expected them to be given away for free now. This went beyond the scope of expressing goodwill or showing strength.

It's completely unnecessary!

Another new player accompanying them started a live stream, and a large number of question mark bullet comments appeared in his live stream room.

Some netizens insisted that this was the developers messing around, seeing that the players were too strong, the camp was developing too well, and the game was too easy, so they deliberately designed this plot to increase the difficulty later.

In short, they just wouldn't let the players have too much fun.

The developer dog wants to teach you how to play the game!

Some also believed that the Executive Officer must have his reasons for doing this, but this voice was not mainstream.

At Lu Yuan's insistence, the Town Chief accepted the gift.

“Stay here tonight. You can think about my proposal again,” Lu Yuan said finally. “However, I cannot accept indecision on my end, as this will delay the camp's development and consequently lead to very serious consequences. Therefore, please give me your final answer tomorrow morning.”

“Alright...”

The Town Chief understood the meaning of this sentence.

An intuition unique to an elder told him that the Executive Officer before him was not a 'kind-hearted' person. In this Desert, such rulers don't live long.

If they didn't agree to cooperate, Cangyuan would look for other partners, or other 'ways' to solve the alloy shortage.

If they went back on their word then, they would become beggars.

“By the way, how come I didn't see Big Brother Ye Xing this time?”

While the Town Chief was still calculating, Shen Quan suddenly noticed that a familiar person seemed to be missing from the camp.

Lu Yuan smiled slightly.

“He's busy today.”

…………

450 kilometers away,

Under the witness of tens of thousands of viewers in the live stream room, Ye Xing followed the high-voltage power transmission lines all the way and finally arrived at Li Star's largest city - Oasis City!

“Big Ye, the scenery is a bit monotonous. Why can we only see the city walls on the outskirts?” someone asked via bullet comment.

Because I don't have x-ray vision.

Ye Xing didn't know how to respond.

“How should I put it, according to the aerial map we found in the Mechanical Hive before, this Desert is divided into eastern and western parts by a dried-up river valley. Oasis City is built in the sunken river valley,” he patiently explained.

“The downtown area is too low, which is unfavorable for defense, so obviously, successive City Lords have built fortifications on the outskirts, surrounding the city from higher ground, just like what we see now.”

Ye Xing activated the tactical helmet's zoom function.

Besides the city walls, the viewers also saw bunkers.

The closer they got to Oasis City, the denser the vehicle traffic became. At this moment, a long convoy of heavy-duty trucks was driving out of the city gate, more than half of which were carrying large water tanks.

Oasis City could make a lot of money just from selling drinking water.

“Let's go into the city and take a look,” some bullet comments encouraged Ye Xing.

“No, not going in today.”

Ye Xing saw that vehicles entering and exiting had to go through checkpoints with guards and decided not to bother with that.

“We'll do an aerial survey today.”

He drove the car to a hidden place and launched the drone from the car.

The drone climbed high into the sky, its view surpassing the city walls, and transmitted images.

Inside the city walls, the water shimmered.

Although he had guessed there was water in the city from its name, Ye Xing didn't expect the water surface to be so large!

What was inside the city walls was no longer an oasis, but a lush reservoir, covering an area of at least 40 square kilometers. Next to the reservoir was a magnificent complex of large buildings, which should be the City Lord's palace.

A wide waterway extended from the reservoir, dividing the main urban area on the shore into two. The civilian area was crowded and messy, with living conditions not much better than Red Iron Town.

As for the rich area, it matched everyone's imagination of the words 'rich area'. Every household had luxurious independent houses and courtyards, and even planted many landscape trees.

In this Desert, the water needed to sustain a tree through outdoor irrigation could support at least a dozen people.

In addition, there was a small island on the shore of the reservoir, with a pyramid-shaped building on it that was even more magnificent than the palace. Its purpose was currently unknown, and it didn't feel like a tomb.

Could it be some kind of temple?

They had seen enough of the city.

Ye Xing controlled the drone, changed its course, and began to meticulously photograph the fortifications outside the city.

As long as he sent this information to Caoyuan, he would be able to determine the defending forces and firepower configuration.