Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 609 - 154: I Reckon This Will Work (Part 2)

"You!" Liu Li was taken aback, "We originally only had four drones! And you still..."

"Don't worry." Sun Hang said as he peeled off the aluminum foil stuck to the drone's surface. After removing the foil, he conjured a small knife from his palm and "clack" pried open the drone's shell.

Liu Li remained silent, merely watching Sun Hang's actions with a blank expression — in his view, since Sun Hang had already ruined this drone, rather than arguing over something already meaningless, he might as well see what tricks Sun Hang could still perform.

The drone's shell is made from polymer materials, a term sounding sophisticated but simply translated as plastic — yet different plastic formulas result in drastically different performance and price. The plastic used for the drone's shell is extremely lightweight, possesses metal-like strength, and, unlike carbon fiber materials, doesn't exclusively exhibit rigidity to forces in specific directions.

Sun Hang tried squeezing the dismantled plastic shell in his hand; after deformation, it immediately reverted to its original shape without showing signs such as cracking or stress whitening.

"This material is good." Sun Hang nodded and tossed the dismantled shell aside.

A liquid metal stream extended slowly, engulfing the drone's body devoid of its shell. Soon, a layer of transparent metal foil as thin as a bubble replaced the drone's original shell... Under the light's exposure, this metal foil shimmered with iridescent lustre, resembling a glass art piece.

Moreover, through this transparent metal shell, the sophisticated mechanical structures and electronic components inside remain visible — blending art and technology beautifully.

Not only the shell was replaced; even the drone's propeller blades and driveshaft were coated with a barely noticeable thin metal film.

As for the antennae, they were replaced by four long metal needles directly "grown" out of the shell, each needle containing a dense honeycomb structure inside... Liu Li found it hard to imagine such a precise structure was crafted purely by hand, within just a minute, without using any equipment or tools, by the person in front of him.

Is this the ability to... manipulate metal he just mentioned?

"Alright." Sun Hang clapped his hands, "This should do... The weight issue is typically easy to resolve; I could just add an anti-gravity buff, but doing so might turn this drone into an object-type anomaly... To be honest, achieving this without using meme ability is indeed a bit troublesome."

"Are you sure... this drone can withstand radiation and interference?"

"I reckon it will." Sun Hang gave Liu Li a thumbs-up, "We'll know once we test it."

Liu Li nodded woodenly, carefully placing the artistic drone back into the box.

"No need to be so cautious; this thing looks fragile, but it's very durable. Even if you hit it with a hammer now, you can't dent its surface." said Sun Hang.

"How did you... manage to do this?"

"Explaining the principle behind this would be asking too much... I merely compress these metal materials and during shaping, add force in certain directions to make them support one another..." Sun Hang scratched his head and started fabricating wildly.

He actually didn't know how he achieved it.

The wish-fulfilling ability is like an opaque "black box," where Sun Hang inputs his requirements from one end. As long as Sun Hang's "blue bar" can sustain the energy consumed when the black box "operates," what comes out from the other end naturally fulfills Sun Hang's initial requirements.

As for the process in between... don't ask, because he doesn't know.

"Are you referring to the internal stress of materials?" Liu Li strangely examined the drone modified by Sun Hang, "No, engineers designing drones also consider stress factors. Merely using stress can't provide strength that far exceeds the material's inherent limits... You really haven't implanted anomalous memes into this drone, have you?"

"If I could directly transform it into an anomaly, it wouldn't be this troublesome," Sun Hang said.

Just as Liu Li wanted to ask more, the pilot's voice suddenly echoed through the cabin: "Report, sir, we've arrived at the designated airspace, currently hovering above Bunker One at an altitude of 2187 meters."

"We've arrived." Liu Li nodded, "All units follow the original plan for a final equipment check. I'll formulate the detailed action plan based on the drone and robot reconnaissance results."

Liu Li glanced at Sun Hang and said, "It's time to verify the drone you've modified."

...

Liu Li didn't release all four drones at once; instead, he released two — one was the factory-sealed "modified version XLR05" brought from the research institute, and the other was Sun Hang's heavily modified "extreme lightweight transparent shell XLR05."

Both drones deployed their rotors and simultaneously flew out of the cabin, descending into the cloud layer below.

Liu Li stared at the computer screen, saying nothing.

As the distance increased, both drones' signal strengths decreased, but comparatively, the modified drone by Sun Hang showed almost negligible signal attenuation.

The drones were approximately three hundred meters away from the helicopter, by which point the original drone's signal strength had already fallen below 50% — Liu Li's initial calculation showed a discrepancy; at a two-thousand-meter altitude, four drones would just barely establish a signal bridge from the ground to the helicopter at intervals of four hundred meters...

Now, this plan seemed unnecessary.

The signal strength of the drone modified by Sun Hang maintained over 90%... Despite signal strength attenuation being non-linear, at this strength, even if this drone landed on the ground directly, Liu Li aboard the helicopter could still receive its signal.

"Did it actually work?" Sun Hang glanced at the computer screen and muttered softly.

"You mean, you weren't sure yourself?" Crystal Princess asked in surprise.

"I only said I reckoned it would work; I never guaranteed it would definitely work," Sun Hang said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Quiet, we're about to break through the cloud layer." Liu Li said, "We'll soon see what Bunker One looks like."

As they spoke, the drones exited the clouds and plunged into the torrential rain curtain.

The outline of Bunker One was traced with high-luminous lines; judging by the footage captured by the drones, the external structure of Bunker One was intact, showing no signs of damage.

"It looks like it hasn't suffered an attack, doesn't it?" Crystal Princess said.

"Intact bunker outer walls don't prove it wasn't attacked," Liu Li said, "The drone detected no life signals inside the bunker, meaning either everyone inside has perished, or they've already left."

"What about memes? Any frequencies of anomalous memes detected?" Crystal Princess asked.

"Of course," Liu Li shook his head helplessly, "Due to Chimera 17, in the restricted area, the frequency of anomalous memes can be detected anywhere... This method isn't viable for seeking concealed anomalies here."

"Ah... Then what should we do?"

"Deploy robots, let them investigate inside the bunker," Liu Li said.