Chapter 341 - 283: Communication with Lin Xin Bamboo Across Time and Space

They were giant, cold birds of steel.

Their bodies were easily over ten meters long. They were less like drones and more like fighter jets. Cold and solemn, they radiated a palpable aura of lethality and majesty.

They were parked in silence, hundreds of meters underground.

Cylindrical robots were performing maintenance on these steel behemoths.

Chu Bamboo held his breath as he walked among them, his gaze sweeping across the scene in silence. He felt as if he wasn’t in a drone base, but a colossal fighter jet hangar... or perhaps a steel graveyard.

Majestic and solemn, yet tinged with desolation!

"Hive! How many fighter jets are here?" Chu Bamboo forced his voice to remain steady.

"Correction: These are Z-3 model drones, not fighter jets," Hive stated calmly. "Total count is twenty-seven. Commencing search... Commencing self-start sequence."

Chu Bamboo froze. With a loud, crisp CLICK, the lights on a single, massive jet flickered to life.

"...So, all the others are broken?" Chu Bamboo wasn’t sure what kind of expression he should be making.

"Z-3, Unit 21 requires a complete overhaul. Estimated time until mission-ready is three days," Hive’s voice was as impassive as ever.

’It’ll be too late in three days...’ Chu Bamboo pursed his lips, but he wasn’t angry or disappointed. He just folded his arms across his chest.

He was wondering if he should go copy one of Brother Tu Mu’s restoration-type Divine Techniques.

Given Brother Tu Mu’s terrifying skill—he could fix a thousand-year-old phone, after all—repairing these jets should be a piece of cake, right?!

At the thought, Chu Bamboo’s heart began to beat uncontrollably. Drones... and from the looks of them, these jets were at least comparable to fifth-generation fighters from the Real World, maybe even sixth-generation... or possibly even higher!

What kind of terrifying power would this represent in this feudal era?

"...The only problem is," Chu Bamboo suddenly gave a bitter smile, "the weapons."

If all they could do was fly, they’d just be airplanes. A fighter jet, by definition, has to fight.

And in that case, the most crucial component... was missiles!

Chu Bamboo was sure there was still some stock in the base... but definitely not much. Probably only enough for one or two battles. The consumption of munitions in war was terrifyingly high...

Even when two Mao Bears went at it, their fighting gradually devolved from exchanges of high-tech precision weaponry to WWII-style trench warfare. Why? Wasn’t it because modern warfare was just too expensive to sustain?

In other words...

"I guess we can only use them at the most critical moments," Chu Bamboo sighed. Of course, when their time came, they would surely have a game-changing impact. The sheer spectacle would be no less explosive than the Great Mage Liu Xiu summoning a meteor to smash his opponents...

He shook his head. Then, a glint appeared in his eyes. ’If I want to use them regularly, unless... I can produce missiles in this era...’

However, Chu Bamboo quickly dismissed the ridiculous idea.

With the technological level of this steam-powered era?

Honestly, the odds of having guys like Brother Tu Mu slowly craft them by hand with a Hammer would be higher than the odds of this steam age’s technology ever producing them!

’Is this the surprise Lin Xin Bamboo told me about?’ Chu Bamboo mused wistfully.

"BING! Keywords ’Lin Xin Bamboo’ and ’surprise’ detected." Hive’s voice suddenly changed, replaced by a gentle, clear one. "The one triggering this must be Uncle Chu, right? It’s been a long time! Though... I guess I still can’t see you!"

Chu Bamboo froze. Realization dawned on him, and he fell silent. ’Is this the first time I’m hearing my dear niece’s voice?’

"I won’t waste time on pleasantries. After all, if you’ve made it here... it looks like you’ve run into some trouble, Uncle Chu!"

His grand-niece’s voice was tinged with playfulness. "Uncle Chu, you aren’t thinking that these unmanned fighter drones are the gift I left you, are you? Wrong, wrong, wrong! That’s not it at all..."

"These are just a small gift from my father to you! They’re nothing much... Strictly speaking, they were already obsolete in our era. Their only advantage is that they’re brutally simple in design—big, clunky, and tough. Hard to break..."

"After all, they had to be stored for such a long time! I can’t estimate how long, but it must be at least a few hundred years, right? That long storage period was a real headache for Father! He had to go through countless options before finally settling on this batch... machines that could supposedly last that long?"

"..." Chu Bamboo’s face was blank. ’Wrong. The time that’s passed between us... is measured in millennia!’

Lin Xin Bamboo continued at a leisurely pace, "Besides, even though I installed some automatic repair systems, if we’d gone with more advanced jets, the repair systems wouldn’t have been able to fix them... So we just had to make do with these!"

Chu Bamboo: "..."

’So that’s how it is!’ That certainly cleared up one of his earlier questions.

But still... Chu Bamboo glanced around at the giant birds of steel. ’Making do with *these*?’ HISS!

Chu Bamboo suddenly felt like he no longer knew the meaning of the words "make do"...

’But if this is the case... in my next life, maybe I should just say I can actually repair some more advanced planes?’ Chu Bamboo considered it, then pushed the thought away. ’Pointless! It’s like I said, the planes themselves aren’t the most important part! In this era, any of them are unimaginably advanced and can create a huge technological gap. What’s important is logistics! Weapons! Missiles!’

"Ahem!" The gentle voice’s tone suddenly shifted. "So, you’ve probably guessed it by now. Yes, now that I’m done talking about my father, I’m going to talk about... the gift *I* left for you..."

As her voice faded, the empty floor in the very center of the underground base slowly pulled apart.

Then, a silvery-white sphere, only about the size of a fist, was slowly lifted up on a tray.

"...TA-DA! An Antimatter Annihilation Bomb!"

Chu Bamboo: "???"

The expression on Chu Bamboo’s face froze. He almost thought he had misheard.

’Antimatter... If I remember correctly, this stuff in the Real World was supposedly... wait, you guys already weaponized this in your era?!’

"So? What do you think?" Lin Xin Bamboo’s voice was full of pride, not at all like a powerful magnate, but more like a young girl showing off to her elders. "When I was little, you always used to watch Doraemon with me... Doesn’t this feel just like one of those moments? You’ve run into an emergency, you’re at your wit’s end, and then you see me—your own Dora-Xin-mon—pull out a gadget? Doesn’t your heart just calm right down? Feel like everything’s under control now?"

Chu Bamboo stared for a moment, then smiled without a sound.

"After all, Uncle Chu, you must be facing a powerful enemy right now! This Antimatter Annihilation Bomb... once it detonates, it can annihilate everything within a twenty-meter radius! Of course, I’ve also hard-locked the range to twenty meters! This means any enemy within that range is dead. Of course, if your opponent can withstand antimatter annihilation, ummm... well, Uncle Chu, you’re on your own..." Lin Xin Bamboo’s voice sounded strange.

"You must be fighting a single, powerful enemy, right, Uncle Chu? And you’re probably surprised I figured that out?" Lin Xin Bamboo paused. "Hehe, of course, it’s not a prophecy! It’s just a logical deduction, my dear uncle. After all, if your enemy was an army, the fighter jets should have been enough!"

"...Oh, thanks so much." Chu Bamboo’s eye twitched. ’Out of more than twenty jets, only one looks barely salvageable. What kind of enemy army am I supposed to fight with a Hammer!’

However...

"You’re actually right..." Chu Bamboo didn’t know what kind of expression to wear. This feeling, as if he’d been shot between the eyes by a bullet that had traveled a thousand years... it could only make him marvel. It was no accident that Lin Xin Bamboo had become a leading figure during humanity’s final, near-extinction phase. Her mental and calculative prowess was simply terrifying.

"I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but thank you in advance," Chu Bamboo said as he walked forward. He gently closed his hand around the strange, fist-sized sphere that shimmered with a metallic luster and lifted it. "My dear niece."