"Father, you're joking again."
Mei took Lucius's words as a joke.
Building a city on the sea wasn't without precedent. With current technology levels, it could indeed be done.
But the problem was, if they really wanted to build a city in the sea area her father had circled, how much money, manpower, and resources would it require?
Most importantly, even if it were built, how could they ensure it would develop?
"Mei, I'm not joking."
Seeing the serious look on Lucius's face, Mei realized that her father probably really wanted to complete this so-called St. Freya Academy City Cluster.
Mei instinctively wanted to persuade Lucius to give up this impractical idea, but stopped just as the words were about to leave her mouth.
Yes, this plan did sound impractical, almost like the ravings of a madman.
But was it really impossible for her father to achieve?
Mei thought of her father's changes during this period. He had truly reformed from being an alcoholic and gambler.
He had truly fulfilled his impractical promise, built a huge enterprise, and named it after his daughter.
He had become a good father his daughter could be proud of, almost as if he had completely become a different person.
Thinking back on everything that had happened during this time, Mei felt like she was in another lifetime, as if it were an intoxicating beautiful dream.
In the end, Mei didn't say anything, didn't even ask why her father wanted to do this. She just nodded.
"I believe you, Father."
"Whether you can do it or not... I believe you."
Believing was good. Believing in one's father didn't need a reason, just like the miracles he had brought her.
To Mei's trust, Lucius replied: "I will definitely do it. I must do it."
Lucius didn't tell Mei the rest.
If he couldn't do it, then everyone in all of Nagazora City and even the entire East Asia region would be sent to the sky by the great Eruption.
In the script he had set, Nagazora City was destined to be the stage and would erupt with a controllable great Eruption.
And he planned to de-urbanize this city, directly evacuating everyone.
Of course, not Thanos-style de-urbanization.
He planned to build a new city in the sea outside Nagazora City and name it St. Freya Academy City as the stage for the next phase of the script.
After it was built, he would move all of Nagazora City's residents to the newly established St. Freya Academy City Cluster to support St. Freya's framework.
Then, he would trigger the great Eruption in the empty Nagazora City and complete the [Escape from Nagazora] check-in.
And the residents of Nagazora City would not only survive the great Eruption but could also directly participate in the operation of St. Freya Academy City Cluster, obtaining better jobs, higher salaries, and more benefits.
Such a win-win solution—Lucius really couldn't think of anyone who would object.
Of course, the plan was set, but how to achieve it was indeed a problem.
After all, although the technology of this era had already developed greatly, raising a city on the sea wasn't an easy task.
Even with sufficient funds, building a city of this scale would probably take ten years.
But what Lucius lacked most now was time. There was at most one year until the Third Eruption, which meant he had to build St. Freya Academy City District within one year and migrate Nagazora City's residents there.
So, to save time, normal construction methods wouldn't work.
But fortunately, for Lucius who could obtain Fire Moth's future technology, he still had an alternative route to choose.
In the future era when Honkai erupted frequently, Fire Moth led humanity and Honkai in a technological race that could be called a grueling marathon. Combined with Honkai energy, an almost omnipotent energy source, this led to various black technologies exploding in the late Previous Era.
And among these, naturally were wonder-building technologies.
The Lunar New Atla base built by late-stage Fire Moth, the Abyss City at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean—these things were much harder to build than a maritime city cluster.
And the engineering mechs Lucius obtained were just a small part. There were even many technologies that couldn't be realized due to the collapse of the industrial system in the late Previous Era and only existed in theory.
But now, it wasn't too late. These technologies had their place.
Mei naturally didn't know what Lucius was thinking.
However, since her father had already finalized the plan, as a daughter, she naturally needed to contribute.
"Father, I will work hard to learn about business management."
Hearing Mei's words, Lucius looked at the purple-haired girl holding books and found that the book in her arms was indeed a work on management.
"Mei, why learn this?"
Mei looked at Lucius strangely and said: "Of course it's to help Father manage the company."
To this, Lucius shook his head.
"Mei, you don't need to learn these things."
"But Father, I also want to contribute..." Hearing Lucius's words, Mei felt somewhat dejected.
"Mei, I think you may have misunderstood me." Lucius took down several books from the office bookshelf and handed them to Mei. "Having you manage the company would really be overkill."
Mei looked at the books Lucius placed on the table and found they were actually a set of programming books.
Mei raised her head, her eyes showing confusion.
"I want you to learn programming knowledge and design an artificial intelligence that can assist engineering mechs in their work."
Having someone who had never touched programming before read a few programming books and then requiring her to write an AI—Lucius knew how absurd his words sounded.
However, absurd only applied to ordinary people. For an absolute genius with god-given talent like Mei, it was another concept entirely.
After hearing Lucius's request, Mei picked up a book from the table and flipped through it, saying: "I haven't touched programming before. Learning from scratch is a bit difficult. I'm afraid it will take quite some time to meet your requirements, Father."
"Don't force yourself. Take your time."
This wasn't to comfort Mei. The system shop also sold corresponding AIs. Lucius having Mei write code was mainly an experiment to see if she could create a certain character.
Hearing Lucius's words, Mei felt extremely guilty.
"Father, I might need a week to learn programming. To complete the AI construction, I'm afraid it will take a month."
"..."
Looking at Mei, who was embarrassed with guilt, he felt that the joys and sorrows between people and geniuses were not the same.
"Forget it... you, do your best!"
However, after flipping through the books for a while, Mei discovered something strange.
"Eh... The author of these books is... MEI?" Looking at the author's name on the book, Mei was greatly surprised. "The same name as me, what a coincidence."
"Yes, what a coincidence."
Lucius certainly wouldn't tell Mei that these books were programming books written by her future self.
Being able to create the super AI Prometheus, in a sense she was also a programming deity.
And his purpose in having Mei learn programming was naturally to try to see if he could get Prometheus created.
Although Prometheus didn't have much of a role in the early stages, perhaps it could take over Bronya's role.
Lucius had tried to find Bronya's counterpart in this era, but unfortunately, he hadn't found her so far. He did have a guess, but needed to confirm it with Mobius.
However, this matter wasn't urgent for now. He had another matter to attend to.
He looked at the system panel.
[Task: Witness Raiden Ryoma's imprisonment for economic fraud. Reward: 300 Crystals, A-rank Stigmata Selection Box x1]
[Task Status: Not Completed]
Since MEI Corp already existed, and Kiana and Raiden Mei existed too, the script could continue moving forward.
Yes, next was the classic scene from the Honkai world—the Raiden Ryoma imprisonment incident.
"Ryoma has been picking bananas at the plantation in Africa for two months."
"After such a beating from life, he should be able to turn over a new leaf... right?"
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