Watching the empty metal room slowly transform into a beautiful new home, Yang Hui's mouth twitched incessantly. The reason was none other than the fact that Sumeragi and Wang Liu Mei's arrangement was exactly the same as the private island in the GundamOO world.
"Why choose this?"
"Because this is our home," Wang Liu Mei said sweetly. In the GundamOO world, this private island was just one of her properties, a place she would occasionally visit for a vacation when she felt like it. But her relationship with Yang Hui was solidified here, and many beautiful memories were created in this place. Naturally, she wanted the place that carried this beauty to continue witnessing their happiness.
"Let's go see inside, Sumeragi-sister arranged it," Wang Liu Mei said, not wanting to take her favor for granted. She proactively took Yang Hui and Sumeragi's hands and ran towards the house.
Sure enough, although the exterior hadn't changed, the interior had undergone a complete transformation. Yang Hui thought he had returned to the Ptolemaios's ship's cabin or the interior of [Celestial Palace City], with corridors full of metallic texture. This was where Yang Hui and Sumeragi spent the most time together.
But entering the room's interior was different. It was like a single dormitory room at the Federation University, only several times larger, and the decor had been slightly altered. Still... it allowed Yang Hui to recall the beautiful years of the past.
"How is it? Do you like it?" Sumeragi asked.
"Of course, I like it! I love it all!" Yang Hui hugged both women and kissed them each.
Just as Yang Hui was about to take the next step, Sumeragi and Wang Liu Mei tacitly slapped away those groping hands, rolling their eyes.
"Alright, let's go to the war room first, it's almost time," Sumeragi reminded him. Neither she nor Wang Liu Mei minded spending a precious moment of intimacy with Yang Hui, but there was a time for everything.
"Okay," Yang Hui said, spreading his hands, and left the room with the two women, heading to the main war room on the fifth floor.
Sure enough, a group of single old men were already waiting for them there.
"Let's begin then, the first meeting of Prometheus Fortress. Now I have three construction opportunities, two enhancement opportunities, and one skill draw and one skill enhancement opportunity each. For skill enhancement, I plan to directly enhance MS design. Piloting skills can be improved through training and combat. My A-level spatial awareness is enough for me to control about thirty GN-bits at the same time, which is enough until my piloting skills improve significantly."
"Yang Hui, why don't you draw a skill first? If you draw a very important skill, the skill enhancement might be wasted," Sumeragi reminded him.
"Then let's draw a skill first." Sumeragi's suggestion was very pertinent, and Yang Hui naturally had no reason to object, so he directly used the skill draw opportunity.
[Skill Draw in progress... Skill acquired: Mental Strength Enhancement (Medium)]
"Hmm?"
A very ordinary skill, and its effect was also very simple, which was to enhance Yang Hui's mental strength. But this was precisely what Yang Hui needed most right now, because using the Innovator's abilities required mental strength!
Ordinary communication might not require it, but it was very energy-consuming in combat. If Yang Hui activated Innovator mode and recklessly unleashed his power, he would be completely exhausted in at most five minutes.
Moreover, Yang Hui also discovered other uses for mental strength, because he found that when he acquired this skill, his brain was a little clearer than before, and his thinking speed and reaction speed had both increased.
"How is it?" Sumeragi asked Yang Hui.
"Not bad, my thinking speed has increased, and I can maintain Innovator mode for longer..." Yang Hui told everyone his findings.
"In that case... I suggest enhancing the [Mental Strength Enhancement (Medium)] skill. MS design is mainly for research, but [Mental Strength Enhancement (Medium)] covers multiple aspects such as research, combat, and command."
"Yes, I also agree with Sumeragi-sister's opinion," Wang Liu Mei agreed.
Graham, Setsuna, Lyle, and Tieria's responsibilities were to nod, anyway, they couldn't offer any opinions, as long as Sumeragi's analysis was correct.
"Okay, then enhance [Mental Strength Enhancement (Medium)]."
After the enhancement, Yang Hui felt his brain become even clearer. Many problems that he had never been able to figure out before suddenly became clear, and more and better MS design ideas emerged in his mind.
It had to be said that Sumeragi's suggestion was completely correct, and Yang Hui was also very grateful to be able to bring her to Prometheus Fortress.
"As for the construction opportunities and building enhancement opportunities, I suggest building a production area, a research area, and a mining area separately. The production area and research area are necessary because we currently lack the necessary combat capabilities and are an important part of rebuilding our combat power in the future; as for the mining area, it is the foundation for Prometheus Fortress's recovery, so it must not be lacking.
As for the enhancement opportunities... I suggest enhancing the research area once and the production area once, for the same reasons as above."
"Shouldn't we enhance the central hall first? We need to unlock more permissions to better grasp all the functions of Prometheus Fortress," Wang Liu Mei raised an objection.
"That's true, but there's a problem."
"What problem?"
"We don't have enough manpower." Sumeragi glanced helplessly at everyone present, also telling Wang Liu Mei that there were only seven of them in the entire Prometheus Fortress. After unlocking more functions, there would be no one to execute them.
For example, Mephis had mentioned accepting and submitting tasks before. What if they needed to send people to other worlds to perform some task? Split up?
Please, there were already so few people, and they were still splitting up to execute tasks. Could they complete the task well when they were completely clueless? Whether they could come back alive was a problem.
They were newcomers, and this was their first time encountering the basic functions of Prometheus Fortress. There was still a large amount of information that had not been sorted and analyzed. It would be best if someone could follow Yang Hui on a mission, so that there would be a new leader, instead of directly going to a completely new world blindly.
Wang Liu Mei thought for a moment and realized that this was indeed the case, so she didn't object anymore.
"What about you? Any suggestions?" Sumeragi asked Graham and the other three, but their words and actions almost didn't piss her off.
"What you said is great! Let's do it that way!"
"Yes, Ms. Huang's predictions and plans have always been the best."
"Agree."
"Support."
Sumeragi: ...-——>(-`ェ-╬)
If you like being a hype man, then what are you doing in this meeting? After the meeting, you can just shout "666," right!?
"Sigh, I'm an idiot for asking you guys," Sumeragi cursed, covering her face.
"Ahaha, you're the best at this kind of thing anyway, but I agree with your plan, so let's do it that way, especially the research area and production area. Let's build them as soon as possible and start understanding the situation."
"Okay."
Immediately, Yang Hui brought up the operation panel and directly built a research area, a production area, and a mining area, and placed the enhancement opportunities on the production area and research area.
After clicking confirm, the holographic projection showed three new areas closely connected to the central hall. Everyone couldn't resist their curiosity and ran out to take a look. Sure enough, with the floating island where the central hall was located as the center point, new land had been connected in the left, right, and rear directions.
"Let's go see the research area first, then the production area, and finally the mining area."
"Okay."
The research area was very small, with only one research institute and two test sites. If it wasn't enhanced, there should only be one test site.
Everyone first entered the research building, where they could bring up the newly unlocked research panel. The research panel opened up into a tree diagram, and the content was various technologies from the GundamOO world that everyone was very familiar with. A separate branch was also divided out, and the content on it was most familiar to Yang Hui, because it was all content he had designed, including the [Into the Array], [Beiwei], [Flag Bearer], [Flag Snatcher], White Tiger-class Cruiser that had already been successfully launched... and also those that were still only on the design drawings, separate from the original technology of the GundamOO world.
However, only a portion of the technology tree diagram was lit up, and another portion was dark, such as the subsequent development type of the GN-X [Calamity Type], various Gundams that had not yet appeared, cruisers, and so on.
According to the prompts, Yang Hui needed to go to the corresponding world to unlock them, or use resources to upgrade them.
Yang Hui really wanted to upgrade, because the icons for the two most important technologies in the GundamOO world—GN Drive and VEDA—were dark, but after looking at the resources required...
Forget it, these resources were enough for him to enhance and build many new areas. Even if Prometheus Fortress had reserved "seed money" for them, the current value wasn't even enough for the change.
By the time the resources were accumulated, they might have already established a two-way channel with the GundamOO world.
"Mephis, can we research technology on our own?" Yang Hui asked. He might not be able to do it with his current knowledge reserves, but what if he absorbed knowledge from other worlds?
[Yes, new technologies will be automatically added to the research list when the difference in the test site reaches the allowable range, but experiments require resources.]
"Okay, I understand. Next, let's go to the production area and take a look."
Everyone then came to the production area, which was actually a large production workshop, containing two complete multi-functional production lines. Small items such as parts, shells, and missiles, and large items such as MS, warships, and even space fortresses could be directly produced on the production lines, but the time required was different, and the production target was closely related to the level of the production area and the complexity of the production.
Of course, the premise was that the technology tree had been lit up. The things that the production area could produce were all technologies that had been lit up in the research area.
Finally, they went to the mining area to understand the situation, but they only saw three generation devices of different shapes and colors, constantly extracting some substances from the void and converting them, eventually producing three different resources.
The generation devices did not require human operation or maintenance, and the resources produced were automatically transferred to the warehouse, which was convenient, worry-free, and labor-saving.
"Now let's arrange work. For the first world mission, we must be fully prepared," Yang Hui said. "Sumeragi, Liu Mei, I'll leave the sorting of the database to you. The central database must still store a large amount of information. Analyze, sort, and classify it, and find the information we need to understand now."
"Leave it to us."
"Graham, Setsuna, Lyle, Tieria, you are responsible for the training room. Figure out what functions it has and whether it can improve you... figure it all out."
"Understood."
"I'll be responsible for the research area, and try to light up more technology icons through experiments." The technology area could light up icons with existing knowledge reserves, and some technologies were still useful at this stage. Since they couldn't return to the GundamOO world for the time being, he would research them himself.
"What about the production area?"
"The production area will be left alone for the time being. Since we can't make GN Drives and GN Drives now, it's better to go to the new world and use new technologies to build."
After assigning the tasks, everyone dispersed. Except for returning to the room every night to rest and reward himself with Sumeragi and Wang Liu Mei, Yang Hui's eating, drinking, and shitting were all solved in the research building and test site.
...
Until a month later, when the mission was about to begin, everyone was waiting in the lobby on the first floor of the central building for Mephis's final announcement.
[Mission World confirmed: GundamAGE world, participating personnel: Yang Hui, Graham Aker]
(End of this chapter)