Chapter 680: The Ship at the Bottom of the Lake (Patreon)

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"The ship has been found!"

The message sent back from Base Two truly excited Sun Cheng.

"We've finally found it!"

It had been no easy task.

A little over a year ago, Sun Cheng had just arrived in the Transformers Universe. At that time, he had to work cautiously with Barricade to search for the whereabouts of Megatron and the All Spark.

Infiltrating the internet was one of his primary methods of search, and it was online that Sun Cheng found many intriguing photographs.

These intriguing photos all came from the hands of Earthlings. Some photographers were from Europe and America, while others were from Asia or possibly elsewhere. They dated back over a century ago at the earliest and were taken as recently as a few years ago.

They all had two commonalities: the locations in the photos were all Earth's ancient landmarks, and on top of these landmarks, there appeared some simpler, more rugged, yet entirely indecipherable symbols or patterns compared to hieroglyphs, cuneiform, or pictographic scripts.

These mysterious symbols that resembled patterns were none other than Cybertronian script.

Of course, if it were merely some Cybertronian script from the Cybertron Planet, Sun Cheng wouldn't have held much hope. After all, by that time, he had already realized that Earth in the Transformers Universe was deeply influenced by Cybertronian civilization.

Cybertronian script, as the name suggested, was a form of writing created during the height of Cybertronian civilization, allegedly by super leaders like the Thirteen Primes.

It was more mysterious and ancient compared to the script used by Cybertronians today, but the Civil War that had lasted for millions of years had thoroughly destroyed the once highly advanced civilization.

To this day, the knowledge of how to decipher and use Cybertronian script remained with only a few scholars and scientists among the Decepticons and Autobots, apart from the leaders of the two factions.

Around half a year ago, Sun Cheng had already incurred the displeasure of Soundwave and Megatron, and his covert actions in Russia had been discovered by Starscream and the Autobots.

In the face of such a crisis, he had to do everything in his power to find a way out.

Drawing from his previous experience of finding the Beast General's legacy in Lop Nur in the Far East, Sun Cheng quickly turned his attention to Bo Nation, which he had secretly manipulated.

Within Bo Nation's territory, there happened to be an ancient city ruin – Tiwanaku City. In that ruin, Cybertronian script had also been discovered.

After a series of surveys and excavations, they successfully found an underground pyramid located nearby, within which they discovered the remains of a Pathfinder.

However, the most significant discovery of that expedition was Sun Cheng's confirmation that the Pathfinder had crash-landed on Earth in a spaceship.

At that time, Sun Cheng speculated that the spaceship had likely crashed within a few hundred kilometers of Tiwanaku City.

And Lake Titicaca, which was very close to it, was the suspected crash site of the spaceship.

After exchanging a few words with Forerunner and Thunder, Sun Cheng discreetly left Terindad Island through a secret passage leading to the nearby sea.

Previously, in the underground tomb where he found the Pathfinder's remains, he had also acquired a metal sphere. That should be the main control brain starter of the crashed spaceship, which Sun Cheng had kept within the Spherical Space inside his body to this day.

It was a key, a key that could grant access to the ship and awaken the ship's main control intelligence.

However, considering the exceptionally high intelligence possessed by the super-intelligences created by the Cybertron civilization, at the time, Sun Cheng couldn't be sure about the extent of damage the ship had suffered. He was concerned about the possibility of being targeted by the ship's weapon systems.

So, he didn't rush to awaken the ship's intelligence but instead had his Decepticon engineers conduct a search centered around Tiwanaku City.

This search took several months, although it didn't occupy most of Sun Cheng's attention.

However, the engineers finally located the legendary fallen ship, and Sun Cheng was extremely excited.

Cybertronian ships were different from the small Hunter Civilization ship Sun Cheng had acquired in the Real World. Due to the unique physical structure of the Cybertronians, their ships were generally large.

What Sun Cheng desired most now was a cargo ship. It was said that during the Council of Primes era, the Cybertron civilization had manufactured large cargo ships capable of transporting tens of millions of tons of ore in a single trip. If he could acquire one of these ships and reverse-engineer its construction, he could elevate his power to a space-faring civilization level.

Then, there would be no need to continue fighting over Earth with the Autobots, Decepticons, and the powerful human nations.

Without returning to Base Two, after landing in Brazil, Sun Cheng headed straight for Bo Nation.

As he had suspected, the engineers eventually found the ship at the bottom of Lake Titicaca.

Lake Titicaca, located on the Kayao Plateau at the border of Bo Nation and Secret Country, was known as the "Pearl of the Highlands" and was the world's highest-altitude large freshwater lake.

Geographical scholars proposed two theories regarding the formation of this highland lake. The most widely supported theory suggested that it was formed by the expansion and compression of tectonic plates. However, some scholars insisted that Lake Titicaca was formed hundreds of thousands of years ago by a large meteorite impact, making it a meteorite lake created by an extraterrestrial collision.

Sun Cheng had little interest in these differing academic viewpoints.

The reason the engineers took nearly half a year to find the ship submerged in the lake was partly due to Sun Cheng being preoccupied with other matters in Base Two during that time.

Furthermore, there was another significant reason – regional conflicts.

While Bo Nation and Secret Country had been close allies in history, recent disputes over land dating back to the colonial era had strained their relationship.

Lake Titicaca served as a natural border between the two nations, and disputes over the islands within the lake had created tension between the two countries.

After a political upheaval in Bo Nation the previous year, the real controllers had become Base Two.

Unlike Bo Nation, Secret Country, with its elongated coastline in South America, may not have been an economic powerhouse, but its military strength was passable, and it attracted the attention of several global powers.

In order to secure a stable maritime outlet, under Sun Cheng's expansion plan, his Decepticon engineers and troops spent over half a year gradually encroaching on and ultimately gaining control of Secret Country.

Only after Secret Country fell under Base Two's control did the engineers have a stable environment, allowing them to conduct a thorough examination of the lake situated on the border between the two nations.

When Sun Cheng arrived, Accel had been waiting there for quite some time.

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Next Chapter >>Chapter 681: Spaceship at the Bottom of the Lake