This is really not mechanical ascension Chapter 853 - 441: Finally Taking Action Against the Mechani

After all, getting it for free wasn’t bad at all.

Once they confird it was a misunderstanding, the atmosphere between the two eased a lot. The Prophet even said, "Lord Azure Dragon, when the Holy Mother Church split from the Conservative faction, they took away many important items. If you happen to discover any, we are willing to pay a substantial price to redeem them."

"Important items?" Li Ming’s heart stirred slightly, "What important items?"

"I have so pictures here..." the Prophet said, sending over a few images.

Li Ming browsed through them briefly; they were all odd-looking items, like oval-shaped flesh-like proliferations, black busts...

He hadn’t seen any of them before, except...

Li Ming’s eyes fixed on one of the images, a black circular symbol stone, almost identical to the one in the Tank Guard’s hand.

He had an intuition that the Prophet’s roundabout approach was ultimately aid at this stone.

"Hmm... what are these things used for?" Li Ming asked casually.

"Well..." The Prophet hesitated, "It’s confidential to the organization, hard to say. However, we are willing to pay a price that will satisfy you."

Then she added, tactfully, "Many of these items are quite hard to use without special thods, so they’d only be decorative to you."

"What you say makes sense." Li Ming nodded, then changed his tone, "However, I haven’t discovered any of the things you ntioned."

The Prophet was silent for a mont, her tone calm, "Is that so? Then perhaps the Swearer has hidden them elsewhere."

After exchanging a few perfunctory words, the two ended the conversation. The Prophet turned to look at the Holy Mother at her side, "It seems we’ve temporarily pacified him; he doesn’t seem inclined to go to war with us."

"But... the Oathkeeper Stone, he feigns ignorance."

"Our coordinates are top secret, even if he wants to find them, it’ll take so effort. A temporary truce is the best choice." The Holy Mother frowned, "As for the Oathkeeper Stone, unless he didn’t kill the Swearer, he would surely discover it."

Her eyes flickered, "However, even if he passes the test of the Kaleidoscope World, he cannot gain recognition; if mishandled, perhaps the Oathkeeper Stone will help us eliminate this enemy."

......

"This thing, what exactly is it?"

After ending the communication, Li Ming grew interested and went to stand before the Tank Guard in the corner.

In its tal palm was a black stone, and the black symbol had spread across its entire hand, yet it hadn’t caused any damage.

Li Ming’s heart stirred slightly, and he pressed his palm against the tal exterior of the Tank Guard, attempting possession once more.

This ti, however, he felt a completely different sensation, as though the entire palm had a vague feeling that it was not his own.

With a gentle grip, the black symbol surged, and suddenly, the possessed Li Ming felt a tightening of his mind, and his vision scattered as if he had fallen into a kaleidoscope, with various colors passing before his eyes.

He had experienced similar scenes many tis before and remained unperturbed. After an indeterminate amount of ti, everything cleared up in front of him.

"This is..." Li Ming frowned, looking around, unsure of where he had arrived.

Before him stood lush, towering ancient trees and dense, low shrubs, even with black semi-transparent grass stems and wildflowers.

But they were all composed of a black semi-transparent crystal substance, the entire Crystal Jungle glistening with a translucent ink-black.

Even the ground beneath his feet was covered in sothing that felt like soil but had the texture of crystalline fine sand.

He was on high alert, checking his physical state, surprisingly still in the guise of the Tank Guard.

Then he sensed the control system right away. It was still intact, which reassured him sowhat.

Yet in such a beautiful environnt, it was filled with an omnipresent hostility and sense of oppression.

Li Ming didn’t know where this oppressive feeling ca from. After staying in place for a long ti, he attempted to move forward, stepping down, and the world shifted instantly.

The black plants vanished, replaced by a vast chaotic sky, dim as dusk, with strange dark shadows layered over everything and black-purple mist floating in the air.

The oppression was stronger all around, yet it didn’t cause any harm to the Tank Guard.

"Step by step, a different world?" Li Ming frowned again, attempting to step forward once more, and the surroundings shifted once more, turning into a fragnted world with gray shards floating around, intertwined spiral staircases spiraling into unseen parts.

"What is this place?" Li Ming looked around, kept moving forward, encountering scenes of interstellar battlefields, drifting Gobi deserts, even deep-sea settings ranging kiloters down.

The pressure grew stronger, and after an unknown amount of ti, the pressure around him beca almost unbearable even for the Tank Guard.

A voice suddenly appeared in his mind, "A chanical body cannot inherit..."

The voice ca out of nowhere, and Li Ming had no idea what had happened.

But in the next mont, he was back inside the cabin, and simultaneously, the Tank Guard’s tal hand, wrapped in black symbols, returned to its original state.

It was as if nothing had happened, but the black circular stone began to emit slight fluctuations, barely noticeable.

"Inherit? Inherit what, the identity of a Swearer?" Li Ming could only speculate based on existing clues.

"A chanical body can’t do it, it seems only life forms are eligible."

He looked at the black stone, deciding that he wasn’t going to take any risks himself.

Yet it seed to have been stimulated sohow, constantly emitting energy fluctuations, quite peculiar, like a certain frequency.

Li Ming took out the only detection equipnt he had on him and found nothing unusual, no signals.

"Strange..." He was slightly hesitant; the thing clearly had a secret, but what that secret was remained unknown.

For now, unable to figure it out, he decided to leave it be. On the way back, there were no changes; it remained calm, only emitting energy waves at regular intervals, spaced 1.58 seconds apart.

And a piece of news almost arrived with him at the Star Gate --

[The Empire has announced the establishnt of an internal inspection agency within the chanic Association to conduct a thorough investigation of chanics within its borders. Any violations of imperial law will be dealt with harshly!]

It finally ca, Li Ming thought as he read the statent.

The Empire’s announcent caused a massive stir across the interstellar space.

"The wording is quite harsh..." Li Ming pondered; as the saying goes, players united are strong. The chanical community is enormous, and their interests solidified are quite significant.

To deal with them harshly would cripple even a small civilization, let alone advanced civilizations up to a Star Cluster Level Civilization.

But the Empire, two years ago, had already distanced itself from the chanic Association due to the Forging Hamr Divine Craftsman incident, after an initial reorganization.

It hadn’t caused much of a stir, but attracted the attention of chanics from other civilizations, unaware of what occurred.

Then, three days later, the situation changed, as if pre-planned, the Star Cluster Republic Alliance and Eternal Brilliance Federation referenced the Empire’s announcent and also declared their intention to jointly inspect chanics within their borders.

Many chanics were still bewildered; wasn’t it an internal inspection of the Empire, why did everyone suddenly comply?

What terrified them even more was that within one short day, countless civilizations across interstellar space responded, declaring that they would also conduct investigations and deal with them severely.

If one civilization acted, there would be strong resistance. Even low-level chanics held significant power within their native civilizations, with complex networks.

These individuals were essentially the backbone of their civilizations, providing substantial taxes, GDP, and employnt; to touch them would be like killing a thousand enemies, injuring oneself by eight hundred.

But such an almost entire interstellar united pressure was terrifying; no one dared not fear it.

Even the most notorious Raiders or terrorist organizations in interstellar space had never faced such universal outcry.

Many life forms cheered loudly, claiming these chanics monopolized many resources and were akin to local tyrants in small civilizations.

For a mont, there was a sentint of "the chanics association has long been a bane of the interstellar."