As soon as Wang Cheng entered the fortress, Leng Yan instantly grabbed his ear and scolded him:
"You little brat, are you all grown up now and think you don't have to listen to me anymore? I told you to come in quickly, and you dare hang up on me? Just watch how I twist your ear off today!"
To Wang Cheng, although he hadn't undergone any major strengthening in the past few days, his body's overall condition had quietly improved due to the physical exertion, and he had officially reached Apprentice Level 4.
This allowed Wang Cheng's attacks, when using power amplification, to reach the level of Apprentice Level 6.
However, Wang Cheng had no intention of revealing all his strength. Before he had the power to protect himself, he wouldn't share his secrets with anyone—not even his own parents.
Wang Cheng quickly grimaced and begged for mercy in pain: "Aiya! Aiya! Mom, take it easy! My ear's gonna fall off…"
Seeing Wang Cheng like this—though she knew the brat was pretending—Leng Yan still let go of his ear and said with mock anger:
"Now you know your mom's strength, huh? If you dare act like this again next time, I won't let you off!"
Wang Hao looked at the two and felt a warm, happy vibe. At that moment, countless battle aircrafts were darkening the sky, flying in from the rear.
Once they arrived at the fortress, they began patrolling both sides along the city walls.
Seeing this, Wang Hao changed the subject and said to the two of them, "Alright, let's let Ah Cheng off this time. We'll talk later. The beast tide seems to be arriving. Since the jets have taken off, it won't be long now. You two be careful and don't wander off."
Leng Yan went quiet for a moment as if she understood something, and said to Wang Hao, "I know, but you must be careful. Stay safe!"
As soon as she said this, Wang Hao nodded and rushed off toward a gathering of experts.
Wang Cheng looked puzzled and asked, "Mom, what's Dad doing? Why are so many experts gathering over there?"
Worry flashed in Leng Yan's eyes. "Sigh… they've been summoned to defend outside the city wall."
Wang Cheng was shocked. "Defend outside the city wall? With so many weapons in place, they still need Dad and the others to fight outside?"
He had secretly observed the fortress weapons earlier and noted that there were over ten thousand of them.
And not just within the fortress—hidden weapon towers were also emerging all over the city walls.
"Of course," Leng Yan explained. "Even the wall-mounted weapons have limitations. For example, monsters attacking from underground or the sky are hard to hit. Especially those from underground—they can get right up to the base of the wall where weapons can't reach. In those cases, it's up to martial experts to clear and block them."
Wang Cheng finally understood. Compared to Earth's monsters, the ones on Water Source Planet were truly diverse and colorful.
For example, burrowing monsters had thousands of species on this planet, many of them quite powerful.
These creatures preferred to evolve underground where they wouldn't be scanned and destroyed by orbital weapons.
If such monsters suddenly burst out at the base of the wall and no one stopped them, they could breach it—an absolute disaster.
Then, countless monsters would pour through the tunnels and over the wall, flooding into human cities. It could trigger a planet-wide crisis on Water Source Star.
At this moment, Leng Yan called to Wang Cheng: "Ah Cheng, let's go to the wall!"
Wang Cheng was surprised. He didn't know what good it would do for him to be on the wall.
"Mom, why are we going to the wall? Even if we go, we can't fight monsters up there."
"You'll know when we get there. Let's go, hurry!"
Although Leng Yan wanted to move quickly, the hall—and in fact, the entire fortress—was already packed with hundreds of thousands of personnel.
If they weren't all martial artists, the congestion alone would've caused hours of delay.
Even so, it took them more than 20 minutes to reach the city wall.
Leng Yan spotted a weapon tower marked with a green sign and her eyes lit up. She dragged Wang Cheng over to the door, scanned her ID, and—
Beep! The door opened. A beam of light scanned her wristwatch, and a mechanical voice spoke:
"Leng Yan, Apprentice Level 4, welcome to the weapon control room. Your information has been recorded."
"Ah Cheng, scan and log in too, then come inside," she said as she stepped into the tower.
Wang Cheng followed suit, holding his watch to the scanner and logging in.
"Wang Cheng, Apprentice Level 2, welcome to the weapon control room. Your information has been recorded."
Wang Cheng entered just as the control room door closed behind him. The indicator outside turned red.
Inside, he saw Leng Yan already seated in one of the two chairs available.
"Ah Cheng, come sit quickly. I'll explain things to you!"
"Alright, I'm coming."
Wang Cheng looked around. The weapon room wasn't big—about 3 meters high and around 7 or 8 square meters.
Inside were two chairs that resembled virtual pods.
Wang Cheng frowned. "Mom, what is this stuff? What are we even doing here?"
"Of course it's useful! These virtual pods are connected to the external weapon systems. We can control the weapons to attack monsters using this virtual shooting system."
Seeing Wang Cheng's confusion, Leng Yan continued, "You have to understand—within the entire wall, weapon towers like this one are placed every 3 meters. The number of weapon rooms is astonishing. If we relied purely on AI to operate them, even diverting all computing power from the city might not be enough. And with human operators using the virtual shooting system, it's actually faster and more accurate than AI."
Wang Cheng finally got it—artificial intelligence wasn't omnipotent, not even at the planetary level.
In the face of a monster siege of this scale, even AIs would be stretched thin. Only intelligent lifeforms might handle it.
But such beings were too rare and precious. There's no way a minor slave lord would possess one—let alone assign it to a slave planet.
"This weapon tower has two types of weapons: energy weapons and physical weapons. The energy weapons include pulse laser guns and plasma beam cannons, which focus on energy-based attacks."
Then she pointed to Wang Cheng's side. "Yours are Gauss railguns and Gauss plasma cannons—those are for physical attacks."
(End of Chapter)