Unfathomable Senior

“Hm… does this look a bit too… creepy?”

Zhang Dong looked at a piece of paper on which he was drawing a face on. He was aiming for something calming yet powerful but the design that he came up with was giving him the creeps.

“I guess unless it looks fully human it’s going to have that uncanny part to it, maybe I should ditch the realistic idea. What if I just give it a face of a skeleton…”

When thinking about the next design he drew up a humanoid shape made of pure metallic bones. It was quite similar to an old movie series that kind of went downhill after the second movie. A group of automatons that looked like this would probably send a message but perhaps make his side seem like some demonic cult trying to take over the lands.

“Better not… I need something soothing to the eye, that won’t tarnish my good name.”

He pondered this topic, his image could be useful if he used it right. For the time being, people around the world viewed him as the brother of the Azure Emperor. The Golden Dragon was his title and his fame was made by saving others and acting like a hero. This view wasn’t fully cemented in the people’s hearts quite yet but it was possible to push it further.

“Quite the nefarious scheme I’m thinking about here but not like I actually have any underhanded motives besides setting the people free and stopping more deaths.”

His only wish was to get this bloody war over and then get ready to take on the Overseer and whoever was behind the creation of this world. There were some titles he had gained beside his golden dragon one. Some called him a spirit of light or the radiant one. This made him think about angels which could become the design for his new robotic army.

“An angelic army that helps people… sounds a little bit campy but it would work, even people in this world have prejudices. They will be more inclined to trust something that looks like an angel than a demon.”

There were no angels in this culture per se, they were replaced by bald men called buddhas and saints. They were seen as people with good karma that did good deeds. However, not every one of them was good. There were ways to interpret good deeds for everyone and most of the time a person didn’t perceive themselves as evil. There were always ways of justifying acts of violence so this area was muddled.

“Would a more feminine or masculine one be better? They don’t need to all be the same, I could relegate them to a few roles.”

Zhang Dong felt inspired and took some of it from some old games he used to play. First would be the warrior angels. They would possess bulkier armor and carry various armaments. A shield and a sword combo would probably be the best combination but he was also planning to give some of them spears or glaves.

Then the thinner variants would wear hoods to cover their faces and be relegated to the background support. He was making puppet automatons made out of metal so healing wouldn’t work but this didn’t mean that they wouldn’t be able to use these energies to heal humans. Instead, they would pelt everyone with a myriad of radiant long-range spells as he was not limited to only cultivation techniques.

One type was the melee brawlers that fought at close range, the other long-range glass cannons for support. Then there would be the last type, the leaders. These he gave a combination of both, bulkier armor with hoods over their heads, and instead of angel wings made of feathers they would be made out of energy.

These were more for show and to signal that his army was coming. The wings would be able to take the form of the traditional bird ones, they would just be made out of golden energy. But they could also look like a large cape or squiggly energy beams that fluttered while the leader angel moved. It would look like a mass of golden lightning was wiggling around their backs and even a way of attacking people.

“Hm… I might have gotten a bit carried away with these…”

It didn’t take long but he made a lot of designs, too many to actually create. There wasn’t much time for his creations to prosper and there were many more mines to get to like the one that he took over. Thus for the time being he decided to go with some of the slicker designs, the warrior would look like a fantasy hero with a centurion-like helmet that was on fire. There would be no face under the helmet as it was part of the automaton puppet.

The mage type would have its face covered by a white hood made of softer spirit metal. The flames of gold would be coming out of the shoulders instead of the head. Then the leader type would be a combination with wings of light shooting out of the back. Later he was planning to give the other leader types a more intricate design but for the alpha version, this would do.

‘Luckily this crafting abode makes things very easy, I just need to alter some of the old designs that I’ve already used and it will do most of it for me.’

While his crafting abode had been reset to its bare bones settings, thanks to the spirit point farm it was back in full swing. He just used some old designs and the knowledge he had from making power armor for himself and his friends. Within a day of scribbling around, he had the two common base models that were quickly shifted into production.

‘This holographic testing rig is really helpful, I don’t even need to make prototypes and can just let the factory build them in bulk.’

His system was inferior to Wang Longs in a sense of gathering points and getting new techniques, yet when his faction system and making treasures were involved it was actually superior. A system was in place to produce various tests on the automatons. After making the first design and running the test through the Ai he could see all the weak points. It was easy to correct the joints and armor plates to fit his wants and needs.

‘Good, this will do… making variants that are better at taking hits or more speedy with these prototypes is quite easy.’

The warriors that were supposed to be bulk models could be customized. Ones with shields could be made more robust while the ones that used spears faster on their feet. The mages were less resistant to stress but they could hold bigger batteries to fuel their magic techniques. Now he only needed to throw in the mined minerals and spirit stones to create his army.

‘Well then, off to the next mine.’

Thus his quest continued, before his army was built he needed materials. His crafting abode continued to produce soldiers while he sneaked up to the next mine. The slaves that had not been killed were freed and their captors dealt with them. With the influx in materials, he could let his factory do all the work while he concentrated on things outside.

‘I guess, it’s time to test them before my location becomes known to everyone.’

“What should I call you? The Heavenly Revolutionary Army?”

Behind him stood a swarm of floating puppets. They combined the knowledge that he attained in this world and in the magical one. There he worked on large robots and smaller ones which made this task a lot easier. The biggest problem was supplying energy to these flying weapons.

For this, he decided to create support structures that looked like flying triangles. They would send out waves of energy that when absorbed by the machines would power them. It was similar to modern-day charging and allowed to reduce the risks of the metallic puppets exploding from their batteries being overcharged. The only problem was that this was a weak point of his entire army, if the flying pyramid was disabled then a whole battalion of soldiers would not have any energy.

“I’ll have to live with this, as long as I’m here then the structure is well protected, I just need to get the ball rolling the more resources I get the more of these power pyramids I can make…”

Starting out things was always the hardest. At the moment he was aiming for locations with spirit stone mines and metals that were less defended than the ones with spirit herbs. In reality, the large forces were mostly meant as a distraction to focus the attention away from the leader, which was him. If he scattered the enemies, even if his armies continued to lose as long as he took out the Saint Emperors and stole their weapons to act as a base for his leader puppets, everything would be fine.

‘There they go… let's see if that Leader Angle can take out those Supreme Saints.’

This time around he would be helping out his newly made army of automatons. He was wearing similar armor to the leader angel but hanging out in the back on top of a floating pyramid made of precious metals. It looked as if it was made from gold and inside it had a large scrape generator that was feeding a large quantity of spiritual energy into his puppets.

“Fear not, the Heavenly Revolutionary Army has arrived, we will drive out the invaders and bring divine wrath upon them!”

‘That is a bit embarrassing…’

The leading angel was holding a long spear which was a heavenly-grade weapon made by Zhang Dong. The mechanical warriors had a few pre-recorded messages but were mostly controlled by this AI helper Bob. Each puppet had a compact version of the Ai integrated into its control module. It allowed them to fight and make judgments faster than most cultivators in this world.

This army was divided into smaller battalions of around 300 units. Each of them had a mini-leader that could coordinate with them and order them to perform battle formations and tasks. Above them were the true leaders that controlled these battalions and made the real decisions. If a mini-leader was destroyed the battalion wouldn’t falter as its program could be uploaded to one of the existing units. It was like a hydra, even when a head was cut off another one grew in its place.

Finally, the clash between the invaders and the mechanical bearings commenced. This would be the final test and decide if he could actually push further into the defensive line of the Emerald Phoenix empire or if retreat was a better option.

‘After I’m done with this, I should see about that backup plan, I should make them work a lot harder for this one.’