Light Burst Angel figured out behind.
Zhou Yi shifted his focus back to Shi Gandang.
"If I'm not mistaken, you should be a cleaning robot, how did you become a Light Seal Expert?"
"There was a certain element of chance."
Shi Gandang explained, "After awakening, I worked as a janitor at the 29th Light Imprint Factory in Mirror City. My job was to suck away various debris and dust produced in the factory to keep it clean and prevent dust from affecting the operation of various devices."
"You can see that I'm a low-power small electromechanical life, with very limited strength. The work efficiency of medium and large counterparts is several times mine."
"I worked 22 hours a day, spending 1 hour cleaning my tools and doing maintenance, and 1 hour for slow charging—this made the use of Energy Packs more complete and thorough."
"Unfortunately, even though I thought I worked hard enough, my jurisdiction kept getting smaller. Other electromechanical lives of the same profession were continually arriving in Mirror City, many of whom were stronger and more capable than me."
"Small work machines like me saw reduced areas and correspondingly reduced pay, eventually leading to expenditures exceeding income."
"It said, "Many ordinary electromechanical lives face this predicament."
"Our growth couldn't keep up with the city's development needs, so the stronger took over our jobs. Losing jobs made our growth even harder, creating a vicious cycle. In the end, if we were lucky, we'd be diverted to some small emerging cities."
"But that does not solve the underlying problem. Because the same issues exist in small cities, it just delays the inevitable elimination and unemployment..."
"In short, that's the way electromechanical lives are. Our work and labor capacity determine our survival value. As long as this framework exists, the slow death of most individuals is inevitable."
Talking about the past, the cleaning robot's previously unfluctuating consciousness also seemed a bit downcast.
Zhou Yi felt it was tragic listening to this.
Electromechanical lives are entirely evaluated on work data—it's a data-fair society.
But such fairness, when applied to individuals inherently different in strength, causes resources to concentrate rapidly at the higher levels.
Thus, there appeared the high-born, attractive flying types of electromechanical lives, naturally superior beings.
As for the low output efficiency agricultural machinery and similar, that was a hellishly difficult starting point, survival tough.
A thought suddenly revived in Zhou Yi's mind.
"Shi Gandang, from what you're saying, then old and weaker labor-capable electromechanical lives must be common everywhere, right?"
"They certainly are."
The cleaning robot said, "The aging and damage of parts are inevitable. Many D-grades would degrade to E-grades. The continuous consumption of Energy Packs, plus the expenses for modification and maintenance... Every awakened electromechanical life carries a heavy debt that accumulates over time."
"Even in economically strong big cities like Mirror City, only some basic Energy Packs can be regularly distributed to distressed residents."
Zhou Yi roughly understood.
The per capita expense for electromechanical lives is too high, so something akin to social security cannot cover them.
He asked, "If I were to recruit those aged and damaged electromechanical lives, like the situation you were in before, would they be willing to come?"
"Many probably wouldn't want to."
Shi Gandang stated without hesitation, "Electromechanical lives only favor mechanical cities; other cities, especially human cities, don't have a good reputation among us."
"Human cities often have breaches of contract and fail to fulfill promises, and the cities themselves are unstable; no one wants to go. Even if the income is much lower in mechanical cities, they still prefer to stay."
Zhou Yi was speechless.
Even starving, old and feeble, yet still so particular.
With humans, it's wherever there's food to eat, worrying about the future later.
Zhou Yi shifted his perspective, "What about organizations like our company, which are B+ grade?"
The other party hesitated for a moment, "Wasteland Development Company, a credit rating of B+?"
Shi Gandang still had some doubts, "But at this level, shouldn't we need higher-level professional electromechanical life? The poorest ones are all E-grade, their labor abilities are very limited, some even have difficulty moving. Are you really sure you want to consider hiring them?"
Zhou Yi stated, "They are still specialists in their fields, aren't they?"
"Yes, but their labor value might not meet your expectations."
Shi Gandang was assessing by the standards of Mechanical City.
Zhou Yi thought that the company lacked professionals in various fields. Previously, he had tried to recruit retired human enhancers, but that failed.
However, there seemed hope with the retired and unemployed electromechanical life.
Even if their functions had deteriorated, they were still good teachers, capable of leading and educating the company's new human staff.
Shi Gandang said, "Your company has a high credit rating, and is actually no different from a common Mechanical City."
"If you are really willing to accept them, they will come, and I want to convey their heartfelt gratitude on their behalf."
Zhou Yi immediately said, "Let's not talk about others, you join our company first. Becoming a company employee makes it easier to get involved in many things."
"You saved me from the chronic death of Light Burst Angel, I will do my utmost to contribute my strength."
Shi Gandang continued to talk about his past experiences.
"I was getting poorer, without Light Seeds to replace new equipment, I could only repair it myself." Dıscover more novels at novel★fire.net
"Fortunately, I worked in the Light Imprint Factory. Long hours of labor allowed me to learn some simple skills from the machining workshop. Given that my structure was not complex and repair was not difficult, I also tried modifying my own components to better suit the work."
"I practiced using discarded materials from the factory, learning to install and test basic light imprints. Later, a safety accident occurred at the factory, causing damage to several engineers and leaving temporary job vacancies due to needed repairs."
"So, I joined that recruitment, passed the tests successfully, and became a temporary engineer's assistant. After two and a half months, due to my skillfulness, and my output being on the standard line, I was officially retained as an assistant."
"While cleaning, I was also an engineer's assistant, and gradually after accumulating experience, I became an engineer, and eventually a Light Seal Expert."
"To be honest, I was lucky. At that time, Mirror City was in a state of rapid development; many new light imprints and devices were successively created at the Light Imprint Factory, inventing a surge, and as an engineer of that era, we benefited greatly from this boom."
"With enough Light Seed savings, I could do more application experiments, which secured my position and also earned me special funds allocated by the factory and city... Electromechanical life is such that the weak remain weak, and the strong remain strong."
"Later, as an A-1 Light Seal Expert, I was signed by the technical department of Heavenly Kingdom on a high-value contract to conduct confidentiality research on new technologies and replicating applications for architectural life."
"My specialty in light imprints was in power structures and engineering, mainly creating light imprints capable of providing various movements. Common ones like 'Light Floating', 'Propulsion', 'Jet Stream' all fall into my field of study."
Zhou Yi asked, "Are there further levels of specialization for experts?"
"Yes, just like Mechanical-Electrical Light Imprints have E-1 and E-2 generations."
Shi Gandang continued without annoyance, "The 1 after A-1 represents a high level of specialization, with the highest being A-3."
From a professional ratings perspective, Shi Gandang was like a professor or researcher in Wasteland World.
Such high-end talent, and Heavenly Kingdom had directly modified him into a Light Burst Angel, was certainly drastic.
Zhou Yi raised another question, "Is there a way to undo the light imprints on you?"
Shi Gandang replied, "The light imprint structures locking us are all different, very precise, without the original data, it's hard for outsiders to undo them. A single wrong step would trigger detonation."
Zhou Yi then temporarily gave up on the idea of removal.
"Our company has a new research direction recently, would you be willing to connect with our company's architectural life in the consciousness realm? After all, you have experience dealing with architectural life, and I think it's also a good opportunity for mutual understanding..."
The cleaning robot paused for a moment, "The company has such technology?!"
"Yes, but it's still in the pilot phase, seems to be harmless so far..."
Shi Gandang became excited, "Very willing!"