Azur Lane: Isekai'd with Maxed-Out Port

Back at the Red Maple Naval Academy, the only countries Lin Lan knew of besides the Orlan Union were the Nine Islands of Liao Continent, the Natlan Empire, and the Holy Teaching Nation.

Since Orlan had previously engaged in commercial collaborations or dispatched spies to investigate these nations, their territories were marked on Orlan's world map.

The Nine Islands of Liao Continent, as the name suggests, consists of nine main islands along with surrounding subsidiary ones.

As for the Natlan Empire and the Teaching Nation, both possess vast territories, rivaling the combined landmass of Orlan's eastern and western continents.

The only similarity with Orlan is that these two great nations also have numerous rivers, and their oceanic territory greatly exceeds their landmass.

None of these countries have any records of regions spending most of the year in winter.

So, where exactly did the Northern Union shipgirls go in search of him?

Thankfully, those shipgirls originally operated in polar regions and were all experienced in extreme environments.

He didn't need to worry that the Northern Union's forces would be weakened by such conditions—if anything, it would be like fighting on home turf for them.

After all, when he previously saw the Soviet Alliance during a conference call at the Ironblood Fortress, they didn't seem to be facing any particular difficulties.

After a brief thought, Lin Lan decided he should ask Saratoga to organize another meeting with the flagship representatives of each faction to gather more information on their current status.

Anchorage, having grown bored of watching the crab, grabbed Eldridge and the two ran off to the beach to collect seashells.

Meanwhile, Lin Lan once again unlocked his phone and opened a news site from the Eastern Continent to see if there were any major headlines recently.

Two stories were dominating the front page.

The first headline read: "Zhu Hai Commercial Association's Year-End Summary Meeting to be Held Next Month—Executives from All Five Major Conglomerates Confirm Attendance in Huanyang City, Capital of Orlan."

Lin Lan couldn't help but laugh out loud at the sight of this headline.

Of the five major conglomerates in the Zhu Hai Commercial Association, only four were still intact.

Battleaxe Industries had essentially collapsed following the death of Ye Zhanke—at most, the person attending would be a general agent not yet absorbed by the Tian'ou Group.

Or rather, even that seemed questionable—whether anyone would attend at all was still a big unknown.

As for the Tian'ou Group and the Goilia Conglomerate, though they were nominally part of the Zhu Hai Commercial Association, they had effectively become part of Lin Lan's own power base.

While the Noah Desin Conglomerate was still officially one of the five, it was merely a service-oriented group focused on human resource management.

Compared to Tian'ou, which monopolized transportation and multiple industries across the Western Continent, or Goilia, which monopolized light industry and nearly 70% of the Eastern Continent's petroleum resources, Noah Desin was hardly a threat.

Not to mention, under the management of Saratoga and New Jersey, the Goilia Conglomerate no longer exploited others by sending out "dispatch units" and splitting profits with Noah Desin.

That Noah Desin group would very likely be absorbed by the Eagle Union faction or the Tianxing Conglomerate.

Unknowingly, it seemed the Tianxing Conglomerate was becoming a bit of a lone wolf?

Still, that upcoming year-end meeting...

Lin Lan gave it some thought. If he were to attend the meeting as a representative of the Noah Desin Conglomerate, wouldn't that give Jian Qian'ou a huge shock?

And with Tianou's upper management all present, it would also be a perfect opportunity to settle old scores with them.

With that thought settled in his mind, Lin Lan turned his attention to the second headline:

"Tianxing Conglomerate Officially Announces Third-Generation Robots Now on the Market Nationwide—Available at All Zhu Hai Commercial Chain Stores."

Just then, Maury returned from the convenience store with several cups of ice cream. 

Lin Lan took a strawberry-flavored one with a smile, gently patting Maury's cute little head, before turning his gaze back to his phone and opening the full article.

The first thing he saw was a photo taken from above.

A massive crowd of robots—bald, covered in sleek white metal casing, with glowing blue eyes—stood in neat rows before the Orlan Memorial in Huanyang City. 

There were at least several hundred units.

Countless onlookers were lined up to purchase them.

"The third-generation robots have passed all tests conducted by the Tianxing Conglomerate and are fully ready for public sale. 

Prices are low, and a buy-one-get-one-free promotion with zero-interest financing is available for early buyers."

"In addition to sophisticated emotional simulation AI, the third-gen robots can learn and follow any user command. 

Apart from scheduled upgrades at commercial chain stores, they require no recharging at all."

"Tianou spokesman Zhao Tianyi stated that the new clean-energy engine powering these robots would revolutionize Orlan's future."

"So what are you waiting for? Grab your friends and family and head to the nearest store today…"

The rest of the article devolved into cliché promotional fluff urging readers to buy early and enjoy early.

The more Lin Lan read, the more his brow furrowed. Why did that so-called "no recharge required clean-energy engine" sound so familiar?

"Enterprise, those robots we saw this morning in the weapons warehouse—do they need charging?"

He remembered the third-gen Eagle Union models on the assembly line, and vaguely recalled Essex telling him they were made using technology left by the Goilia Conglomerate.

Since Goilia belonged to the Zhu Hai Commercial Association—and the Tian'ou Group in the Western Continent had access to third-gen bots—it made sense that Goilia would too.

Enterprise, who had taken off her cap and was sitting beside him with a smile while eating ice cream, replied without hesitation:

"Of course not. Those robots made with Goilia's tech use wisdom cube fragments as power cores. You could say they never need to be charged."

"But to ensure the fragment's circuitry remains compatible with the robot's systems, we still need to regularly use a full wisdom cube to 'reactivate' the fragments."

Lin Lan nodded and continued asking:

"How many robots can be made from the fragments of a single wisdom cube?"

"I remember Sara once told me that if you disable emotional AI and use the most basic settings, one wisdom cube can make up to fifty robots."

"Commander, don't tell me you're going to scold us for using wisdom cubes without permission…"

Hearing the slight worry in her tone, Lin Lan couldn't help but chuckle. His anxiety faded as he joked:

"There are so many wisdom cubes in the port, you think I'm stingy enough to care about a few? Don't make me out to be that frugal, alright?"

But it was clear his words didn't fully reassure the silver-haired beauty. Enterprise gazed into his face with her violet eyes and corrected him:

"Commander, that kind of talk might fool the newer shipgirls, but I've been here since the start—I know you care about the number of cubes."

Still sucking on her ice cream, the now less-blushing Hammann gave him a disdainful look and mercilessly exposed him:

"Hmph! Who was that big perv commander who once wailed to Akashi when the cube supply ran out and begged her to restock red cubes?"

Lin Lan's mouth twitched. He'd nearly forgotten the tragic experience of limited-time constructions during the Iris event.

"Alright, fine, I admit—back then I treated those cubes like my life… But now I've stockpiled so many that I'm not nearly as extreme as before, right?"

Faced with these veteran shipgirls who had fought alongside him for years, Lin Lan could only admit his black history with a bitter smile.

After all, with more time in the game and long lull periods between rerun events, he had accumulated a sizeable stash of wisdom cubes. 

He didn't need to suffer like when he first started.

Then he handed his phone to Enterprise so she could read the Tianou article as well.

From what Enterprise had explained, Lin Lan could now be certain of one thing.

The so-called clean-energy engine powering the third-gen robots sold by the Tianxing Conglomerate was, in fact, made from wisdom cube fragments.

And the "scheduled upgrades" were nothing more than reactivation procedures using full wisdom cubes.

"Tianxing Conglomerate… Commander, do you think they're connected to the Sirens?"

Enterprise looked serious as she handed the phone to a very curious Essex after finishing the article.

Lin Lan nodded. As expected of Enterprise—she had immediately seen the crux of the issue.

Previously, when he learned that Tianxing could sell wisdom cubes, he had wondered whether they might've obtained them through the Eastern Navy's channels.

But now, he was almost 100% sure that Tianxing had ties to the Sirens.

Just think about it—how many wisdom cubes would it take to mass-produce third-gen robots on this scale in so many cities across Orlan?

And most importantly—

The wisdom cubes Enterprise referred to were the real ones. The ones in Orlan were merely pseudo cubes with far less energy capacity.

So many pseudo-cubes… wouldn't the Eastern Navy rather use them to build their own pawn shipgirls?

Why would they give them away to Tianou?

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50 advanced chapters on p@t re on (.) com/SenatusTheta

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