Nightmare Immortal Era

Chapter 29: Cloud and Mist Information Matrix

"I need an intelligence organization." Not only to investigate the Northern Family, but also because he felt like a country bumpkin who had just entered a big city when faced with the unfamiliarity of Ocean Cloud City.

In modern times, even country bumpkins can use their phones to learn about the world. But in this world, there are no phones. The software on the identity jade cards is limited, and there is no news, Weibo, or Bilibili.

"It seems like there are no newspapers in the city either." Yang Ning walked around the streets and found that besides shops selling materials, elixirs, Law Weapons, food, martial arts techniques, and pets, there were only accommodations, flower shops, gambling houses, escort services, and task assignments.

Moreover, there were a large number of flower shops. Yang Ning could see one every few steps, ranging from high-end to low-end, all of them seemingly doing good business.

In addition, Yang Ning could always see arenas at street corners, where two people were fighting while a group of people cheered and someone collected money.

Not only were martial artists fighting, but there were also women fighting, wearing nothing but their bare arms. Yang Ning stopped and criticized for quite a while before reluctantly leaving.

"There are two major forces permanently stationed in Ocean Cloud City: the students of Immortal Ascension Academy and the Ocean Cloud Army. Each grade of Immortal Ascension Academy has around thirty to forty thousand students, and with six grades, that's two hundred thousand. The number of Ocean Cloud Army soldiers is unknown, but it's also around two hundred thousand."

"Each student and soldier requires a large amount of logistical support for their studies, life, and work, such as catering, healthcare, material management, transportation, communication, and technical support. Based on experience, each soldier requires at least 1-2 service personnel to provide these support services. Therefore, the number of service personnel needed for the 400,000 people could be between 80,000 and 160,000," Deep Blue said.

Yang Ning nodded and said, "Ocean Cloud City used to be a service-oriented city in the early years. But with the settlement of graduates and soldiers' families over the years, a large number of locals have already been born. When we arrived, we could see a large number of farmlands surrounding Ocean Cloud City. Therefore, Ocean Cloud City should be a city that emphasizes the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries!"

The primary industry goes without saying. There aren't many Qi Refining cultivators in Ocean Cloud City, so most of the crops grown are rice and medicinal herbs for ordinary people.

The secondary industry mainly focuses on the development and manufacturing of weapons and elixirs.

The tertiary industry is dominated by flower shops. After all, the four-member group in the school consists of three men and one woman, and there are even fewer female soldiers in the Ocean Cloud Army. Among the 400,000 permanent residents, there are 350,000 single men. It's only natural that this industry is prosperous.

"So, the most well-informed place to gather information naturally is the flower shops. But unless I monopolize all the flower shops in the city, the information collected will definitely not be comprehensive!" This is not a place like a village with only one flower shop. In that case, it would be possible to monopolize the information in the entire city.

Moreover, even if Yang Ning had the capital to open a flower shop, he wouldn't spend money on such a place.

He considered himself a pure person, with his first goal being to become an immortal. His focus on scientific research was also because it would help him become an immortal.

Once it involves business competition, it would inevitably waste a great deal of his energy.

"All the problems in this world ultimately come down to a matter of ability. Since I am a scientist, I will solve them in a scientific way!"

It's just gathering intelligence. The modern Skynet is a good thing.

But the camera targets are too large, and the quantity needed is too much. If you just put them on the streets, as long as others aren't blind, they will notice that something is wrong.

Radar? It's good for monitoring enemy aircraft and such, but it's not very effective for monitoring people.

"Zhi Zi?" Yang Ning shook his head. He wanted it, but he couldn't make it!

However, he could create something with similar functions.

It's nothing more than being able to take photos and record sound. Among the abilities Yang Ning possesses, there happens to be something that satisfies both requirements.

Water!

Water can refract and reflect light. Yang Ning's Deep Blue Eyes telescope utilizes this principle.

If water mirrors were spread throughout the city, they could monitor the entire city. And this is not difficult to achieve because Ocean Cloud City is surrounded by clouds and mist all year round, and the air is filled with liquid droplets.

Water is also an excellent conductor of sound, and sound can cause droplets to vibrate. Just record these vibrations, and the sound can be restored naturally.

It's just a matter of decoding, and the principle is not complicated.

What Yang Ning needs to do is to create some water droplets that can hide in the mist without being discovered by others.

If these droplets were filled with mana, they would definitely be discovered. But what if they only contained spiritual power?

It's still the spiritual power that naturally dissipates from Nightmare Dragon Pearls that Yang Ning collected.

Everyone in this world naturally dissipates spiritual power. Such spiritual power should be found everywhere. Yang Ning's spiritual power should be like liquid merging into the ocean, and no one can detect it.

Of course, Yang Ning's habit is to consider defeat before victory. So what if he is discovered?

It shouldn't matter to Yang Ning because he is using spiritual power processed by Nightmare Dragon Pearls, which is already significantly different from his own spiritual power.

After all, his 1 point of mental power cannot create 1408 bullets out of thin air.

So, will the Nightmare be discovered by someone?

Yang Ning didn't think so, because the Nightmare was an event that happened thirty million years ago. Has anyone lived from thirty million years ago until now?

"I have considered everything I can think of. Whether the Nightmare will be recognized, whether the mental power transformed by the Nightmare will be recognized, I can only leave it to fate!" Yang Ning shook his head. He didn't like this feeling of being out of control, but with his current abilities, this was as far as he could go.

After all, he was just pretending to be weak, not actually trying to be weak. Development still had to continue.

Yang Ning walked on the street, seemingly looking around, but in reality, he silently summoned a droplet of water with a diameter of 3 micrometers and attempted to infuse it with mental power.

He had tested it last night. The larger the object, the more mental power it required.

And it wasn't just his creations that could be infused with mental power, but also inanimate objects.

Ordinary inanimate objects, like soil and metal, could be controlled after being infused with mental power, but the consumption was enormous.

On the other hand, things like wind, clouds, and lightning that he could already control naturally became even more versatile and energy-efficient after being infused with mental power, thanks to the abilities brought by the Dragon Ball. They hardly consumed any energy.

1 point of mental power could transform a 30-centimeter diameter mass of water, which, when atomized, could produce 50 million droplets with a diameter of 3 micrometers.

Each droplet could monitor an area of 4 square meters, allowing for a total coverage of 200 million square meters of land.

Ocean Cloud City had a total area of 4257 square kilometers, which could be easily covered by 20 droplets.

"If these droplets can hover, my control over water is limited to a range of 46 meters. However, water infused with mental power seems to have no such limitation and can go as far as needed!" Yang Ning began to set the functions of the water in his hand.

Since firearms modified by the Nightmare could now fire an unlimited number of bullets, modifying a droplet of water was naturally a breeze, not to mention that the functions Yang Ning added were not complicated.

As for transmitting light, vibrations, and changing shape, these were abilities that water itself possessed.

"This is already a kind of nanorobot, right?" After a long time, looking at the droplet in front of him that could only be seen with a nanoscopic eye, the droplet had transformed from a spherical shape into countless hexagonal flat planes, with two long tentacles growing on each side of the droplet, and countless small tentacles growing on the long tentacles, and even smaller tentacles growing on the small tentacles.

These tentacles should be called cilia.

These flat planes were used to transmit light, and the cilia were used to transmit vibrations. Yang Ning called this form the complete form of the reconnaissance droplet.

To prevent some people with exceptional vision from seeing the reconnaissance droplet, Yang Ning set up eighty thousand different forms. Sometimes only one flat plane would appear, sometimes only one cilia would appear, and their positions were also random, changing at a frequency of 4426 times per second. However, the changing forms were not random, and the mental power would adjust the changing forms based on the airflow and wind direction.

But there would always be one flat plane and one cilia in each instant.

"Is this really something that can be created in the Physical Body Realm?" Looking at the final product, Yang Ning couldn't help but suppress a laugh. He wasn't happy because of the functions of the droplet, but because no one would suspect him.

The abilities and levels of cultivators in this world were closely tied together, unlike on Earth, where pressing the nuclear launch button could be done by an elderly person with no strength.

This was how scientific creations worked. Even a child holding a scientific creation could kill an adult and demolish a building.

"That's right!" Deep Blue's tone was also cheerful. "Without the computational power of the Spirit Realm, without the superpowers brought by the Dragon Ball, without the corrupting power of the Nightmare, even a Qi Refining Stage cultivator couldn't do such a thing!"

"That's true!" Yang Ning nodded. Even a Qi Refining Stage cultivator wouldn't be able to handle the images and sounds transmitted by one hundred trillion droplets!

"Now that it's done, let's give it a name," Deep Blue asked.

Although this thing was for his own use and no one else would know about it, being alive meant pursuing some sense of ceremony.

Besides, nanorobots were still robots, and it was good to have a name for their birth.

"Let's call it the Droplet Information Matrix," Yang Ning smiled. Now he had a genuine droplet detector, and he had one hundred trillion of them!

"What will you call it if you create real droplets in the future?" Deep Blue asked.

"Hmm?" That was indeed a question.

As someone who loved science, there was no one who didn't like Liu Cixin. Yang Ning was also a loyal fan of "The Three-Body Problem." Since he had come to a world where he could reach the peak of technology, he definitely had to create droplets.

So, the name "Droplet Information Matrix" couldn't be used anymore.

"Then let's call it the Cloud Mist Information Matrix!" Yang Ning thought for a moment. "Yes, the Cloud Mist Information Matrix. After all, these droplets gathered together are like clouds and mist. From now on, you will be in charge of managing the information transmitted by this matrix!"

"Okay!" Deep Blue easily took on the task of managing the one hundred trillion Cloud Mist Matrix. After all, it had the support of the Spirit Realm. Computational pressure? It didn't exist!

(End of this chapter)