On the training field in the Spire Experimental Base, there was the constant teeth-grinding screech of a steel bar being twisted.
After several months of reconstruction, the underground cavern had been transformed into a gigantic military base. Apart from the pyramid structure taking up to 10,000 square meters of real estate in the middle, there were also all sorts of dormitories, warehouses, training fields, and various facilities. There was even a soilless cultivation building which was usually not put to use.
At the present, there was a giant twice as tall as a regular person standing in the middle of the training field wearing nothing but white pants. He gripped a steel plate approximately five centimeters thick and with both hands pulling each side, began to slowly tear it apart.
This was where the sound of metal bending originated from.
The giant’s strength was ten times that of a regular person and could reach a speed of up to 90 kilometers an hour at full sprint. He could maintain such speed for up to five hundred meters while also boasting extreme endurance.
The reflected data was only representative of the giant who had only just come out of the life incubator.
After one to two months of intensive exercise, the giant’s strength could at least be doubled, the same for his endurance. While a significant breakthrough in terms of speed was not expected, he should be able to achieve a speed of hundred kilometers per hour.
The giant was like a hybrid of man and T-rex. Forget about lions or beasts, the giant would gladly take on the likes of rhinoceros and elephants.
Chen Chen was aware that even if a regular person was somehow enlarged to 3.5 meters, it was still nigh impossible to display such statistics. At most, the subject’s strength may be increased by two to three folds. Furthermore, the subject may see a decrease in speed and endurance as opposed to an improvement in those aspects. The worst-case scenario was that the subject would be wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life, unable to stand up ever again.
This was the effect of T-virus amplification.
From muscle mass to bone density, subject number one had displayed superhuman growth in all categories. It would make more sense to classify him as an entirely different species from common humans.
A new species evolved by the T-virus.
This was considered rather remarkable. Chen Chen remembered that in the game Resident Evil, these giants were branded as “tyrants” and they ranged from two meters up to four meters. The one thing they all had in common was their extreme individual combat abilities and regenerative abilities. No number of bullets was enough to pierce through their frame.
What was rather puzzling was that the Umbrella Corporation in the video game chose to introduce a claw-shaped structure for its right limb as a means of enhancing its combat abilities. It was the same thing as eternally strapping a cold weapon (TN: a classification of weapon that does not involve the use of gunpowder or other explosive materials) to the tyrant.
This observation was probably one of the earliest instances of questionable decisions. For a B.O.W. that could be controlled remotely, instead of designing a claw-like cold weapon, it would be more optimal to equip the tyrant with a Gatling Vulcan on one arm and an RPG rocket launcher on the other. To replace the practicality of regular limbs with claw-shaped limbs was certainly an intriguing decision.
In contrast, the newer biological organic weapon iteration, the Pursuer from the Nemesis Project made much more sense.
When Chen Chen saw subject one tearing apart the steel plate with his bare hands, an idea he never thought of before suddenly occurred to him. “Maybe the size of these biological organic weapons isn’t the hindrance we think it is. They may prove to be surprisingly useful under certain circumstances.
“Alright, it seems like choosing to use T-virus to manufacture biological organic weaponry was the right move.”
Chen Chen clapped his hands together to gather the staff’s attention. “Still, it won’t be necessary to produce too many of these unconventionally sized soldiers. This batch of six should suffice. From here on, I’d like you all to start working on smaller variants.”
“We’ll try to limit the size of the next batch of T-Black Knights to below two meters tall.”
Hannibal assured him with a nod.
“That’s not all.”
Chen Chen raised a finger and reminded. “As opposed to these soldiers optimized for strength, I’d prefer if you guys would develop more agile soldiers. These Black Knights should not exceed 180 centimeters and shouldn’t be too large. Ideally, they should be able to blend into a crowd.”
“Understood.”
Hannibal and Li Lei exchanged a look and nodded together.
It was only then when Chen Chen took his leave.
The reason Chen Chen had requested for such specification was that he did not expect the Black Knights to be utilized in a large scale battle. At the very least, before Blacklight Biotechnology was capable of taking on the entire Earth Federation, Chen Chen was not going to alter the primary uses of the Black Knights.
The way Chen Chen saw it, the Black Knights were more suitable for secret operations. This included operations such as escort protection, targeted assassination, intel collection, small-scale operations, and so on. This was to say that the Black Knights usually operated in public situations, therefore they should prioritize giving the Black Knights regular physique to help blend into a crowd.
In truth, Chen Chen always had the idea for a “Supersoldier Project” in mind.
At their core, these Black Knights were cloned subjects under the control of the God chip. As seen in the movie Upgrade, even a regular person injected with the chip could instantly turn into an expert in all criteria. One could become a weapons expert, a multi-talented expert in cooking, driving, flight, and everything else.
Of course, the perquisite being that the God chip had to contain enough information.
This meant that apart from works related to science and research, the chip-implanted individuals were essentially all-around special forces.
What if these special supersoldier forces possessed physical traits on par with Alice’s in the movie, coupled with the regenerative abilities of the tyrant?
What if after fulfilling all the above conditions, they were further enhanced with the addition of the GS Combat Suit from Gantz?
One could imagine that with this, a large team would not be necessary. If Chen Chen could put together a small task force consisting of ten of such members, they could easily overpower an army.
Still, an overwhelming force of such magnitude could only be achieved in a world pre-world war two, before there were hyper-range communications, combat helicopters, and weapons of mass destruction. The modern wars fought in the twenty-first century were far more layered.
If Chen Chen wanted to catch up to the current military standards, he would need to approach it from three different angles.
Communications, mobility, and anti-missile.
Communications as in a private dedicated communication system. Communication was an extremely important aspect in military affairs. An army that had its communications cut off was essentially stranded and given the death sentence. The importance of communication could not be stressed enough.
During wartime, nobody would be foolish enough to rely on phones for communications. Such primitive methods were easily intercepted and crucial information would be exposed this way.
Besides, a single electromagnetic bomb alone would put you in your place.
Therefore, Chen Chen would at least require an independent communication infrastructure, perhaps even an independent international communication system.
The significance of mobility was self-explanatory.
Currently, the Black Knights that Chen Chen had dispatched on missions still relied on international airlines as a primary form of transportation. Not only was it efficient, but it was also very susceptible to being tracked by the government of each region.
While Chen Chen had aircraft carriers and combat helicopters of his own, they were as good as useless in the face of the air defense forces of each country. One missile was all that was needed to stop them.
Therefore, Chen Chen needed a form of transport that would not be discovered by the airline defense networks of each country. With this form of transportation, the T-Black Knights could be efficiently deployed around the world where their combat abilities could be fully utilized.
Anti-missile was a matter of defensive measure.
As it was, all of the wonders of Blacklight Biotechnology were built within a land with a radius of 500 square kilometers. However, there was no safety guarantee for these wonders.
A single million-ton nuclear bomb, one hundred incendiary bombs or one thousand Tomahawks were enough to make light work of these wonders.
Therefore, a precise anti-missile infrastructure was extremely vital.
With that said, the final criteria was no urgent matter since there was a chance he may never even need it. After all, Chen Chen was not some kind of terrorist nor did he set up Blacklight Biotechnology to wipe out mankind.
It was the exact opposite. Chen Chen had intended to use Blacklight Biotechnology to speed up the advancement of mankind’s civilization. In conclusion, the final criteria was a preventative measure at best.
Chen Chen still had a long way to go to accomplish the goal he had charted.
Silently casting these plans back into the depths of his mind, Chen Chen returned to the secret laboratory to look at the ten clones he had cultivated himself. After ensuring that they were in prime condition, he left again.
Five of these ten clones were injected with the T-virus when they were still embryos and would eventually grow into the likes of the previous three-meter tall supergiant. As for the remaining five clones, they were left in their original state for Chen Chen’s later experiments.
After half a month, the five T-virus-injected clones had grown to approximately three to four years old while the clones not injected with T-virus were still in the stage of infancy.
It may take at least half a year for the clones not injected with T-virus to fully mature. This was the very limit of hormone control technology.
Chen Chen was not in a rush as he was already aware that the experiment would be extremely lengthy. Even with the technology acquired from Resident Evil, it was a tall task to develop a T-virus perfectly compatible with his genes and did not procure any side effects.
Fortunately, as the boss of the company, Chen Chen had a huge amount of funds available to invest as he liked. There was also Little X, the pioneering AI that could quickly and efficiently deduct the protein genetic map of the virus.
These were Chen Chen’s assurances.
Before all these, there was something else Chen Chen had to do.
An hour later, Chen Chen was driven to the nuclear power plant.
Previously, an arrangement was finalized with the Namibian government. Chen Chen had free reign to allocate all the generated electricity in his nuclear power plant as he liked and in exchange, Chen Chen must build a one million kilowatt thermal power station for Namibia in its capital Windhoek.
As far as Chen Chen was concerned, although it cost him a great deal, it was all worth it.
This was Chen Chen’s subtle approach to extending his reach into Namibia’s parliament, allowing him to turn Namibia into his disguised logistics base in time.
It was not so much that the Namibian government was aware of what was going on, but that the greed of men had a knack of surpassing expectations. Plenty of congressmen and ministers had succumbed to the monetary approach of Blacklight Biotechnology and now there was another bait to pull them in, which was an improved quality of life.
Like quenching their thirst with poison, there was no hope of turning back for them after they had sunk into the depths. The only way to survive was to stay on the Blacklight Biotechnology tank until the end of the road as there was simply no other alternative.
If Blacklight Biotechnology were to hypothetically evacuate Namibia right here and now, while they would suffer significant losses, the Namibia government social system would utterly collapse.
Upon returning to the substation, the USB drive which had been charging for half a month had accumulated yet another large chunk of energy. Combined with its original energy, it would not pose a problem to extract another Medpod 3000.
However, this time, there was something new that Chen Chen wanted to extract.
He wanted to try to extract all the bionic technology and robotic technology so far.
Chen Chen’s goal was simple. He looked at the computer display and instructed, “Little X, list all of the movies so far that touches subjects of robotic and bionic technology.”
Without uttering a word, Little X displayed the covers of the movies one by one —
Alita: Battle Angel, Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, I, Robot, Robocop, Terminator, Ex Machina, The Machine, Bicentennial Man, Edward Scissorhands…
Little X immediately provided a lengthy list containing up to hundreds of movies, most of them were movies Chen Chen had never even heard of.
Emm…
Chen Chen considered for a moment before instructing, “Filter out the serialized movies and movies with highly repetitive elements.”
A good half of movies were instantly filtered out but there was still a large number of movies left on the display.
“Filter out the movies that do a poor job of explaining its theories and the ones with weak underlying logic,” Chen Chen ordered again.
Yet another large portion of movies were cut out.
Chen Chen finally heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing the display. He instructed again, “We already have the robot from Terminator. What we need to do now is to decode the underlying technology inside it. Get rid of movies that are technologically inferior to either the Terminator robot or your artificial intelligence system.”
In an instant, all but three movies were left on the screen.
Alita: Battle Angel, Ghost in the Shell, I, Robot.
These three were also the movies Chen Chen deemed more acceptable.
If judging by robot technology alone, Terminator should establish itself as the golden standard. Although the T-800 was considered a commercial tier, the later liquid metal T-1000 and the stronger T-X were undoubtedly the top dogs of all the movies.
In contrast, the bionic technologies from “Blade Runner” and “Edward Scissorhands” paled in comparison although these two movies were as much of a classic as Terminator.
As for Little X, her intellectual level was getting close to that of an intellectual being. In the end, three movies were left in the list which met the previous criteria and possessed artificial intelligence surpassing those of most other movies.
Alita: Battle Angel and Ghost in the Shell displayed superiority in bionic technology. Since their technology was only partial robotic technology, they were kept in the list. Meanwhile, Sonny in I, Robot was already a full-fledged intelligent life and was thus retained in the list.
An intriguing look appeared on Chen Chen’s face when he looked at the list of three movies.
The problem he was pondering now was that would the USB drive in its first phase be able to extract Alita and Motoko Kusanagi right away?
Chen Chen knew that the USB drive in its first form was unable to extract living beings. This meant that if he were to force the issue, he would either only obtain two brainless, empty shells or simply fail to extract anything.
Chen Chen was also curious if he would arrive in a world where mankind had long perished should he use the second form of the USB drive.
While this may not be a big issue on its own, what if Chen Chen happened to run into the hostile threat that brought about the end of mankind?