CHAPTER 449: CHAPTER 416 UNEXPECTED GAINS_2

Just as he was about to roll sideways in search of cover, the pursuing cougar was shot mid-body, flipped over, and during its inertia-driven tumble forward, it caught the hem of Mountain Eagle’s white coat with a pitiful whine...

"FUCK..."

Mountain Eagle felt a huge force, and his already somewhat unsteady body involuntarily plunged forward into the pool.

The moment he hit the water, Mountain Eagle felt a strong pull, drawing him uncontrollably into an arc within the pool and rapidly downward.

At this point, it was impossible to resurface; Mountain Eagle calmly took out two small breathing devices, shoving one into the unlucky child’s mouth, and the other into his own...

Then he clung desperately to the child, swiftly descending with the force of the water flow...

Upon reaching the bottom of the pool, Mountain Eagle reached out to grasp the edge of a large piece of Gold, activating the Sergeant System instantly. The system absorbed a huge chunk of gold, over two meters in diameter, like a pot lid at the bottom of the pool, and then he was sucked into the whirlpool with a sense of relief.

As he entered the whirlpool, Mountain Eagle felt impacts from all directions...

He hugged the child with both arms, curled up into a ball, and tumbled in the water, covering a distance of nearly three hundred meters before entering a semi-open waterway...

Then he slid down swiftly like on a water slide, a hundred or so meters, before suddenly feeling weightless.

At this time, Mountain Eagle and the child in his arms let out a sharp scream, flying a distance of over ten meters, and heavily crashed into an underground river below, about a dozen meters down.

With a "thump," an explosive sound...

Mountain Eagle, with the child in his arms, crashed heavily into the water, sideways!

Even with the flexible exoskeleton and Flexible Armor to mitigate the impact, Mountain Eagle still felt his head buzzing, his whole body faintly drifting along in the dark river for some distance, and finally, relying on his survival instinct, he grabbed a rock on the riverbank and climbed up onto the damp and chilly bank.

He leaned back against the icy rock wall, gasping heavily twice, then quickly checked the child in his arms...

The child had passed out, their once fluffy hair now limp like noodles hanging over their face, their little cheeks turning purplish from the cold.

Fortunately, with the help of the breathing apparatus, he hadn’t drowned...

Mountain Eagle gently removed the breathing device from the child’s mouth, then stripped off the child’s clothes, intending to dry and warm them when he discovered that this wild child was actually a girl...

Mountain Eagle, almost 30 himself, didn’t care about the gender of the child...

He took out a warm blanket to dry the child’s body, then tore off a self-heating flexible patch from his own chest and affixed it to the chest of the child. He then wrapped her in a thick, warm coat.

Having done all this, he finally took a long breath and then sat limply on the damp ground...

The Sergeant System could provide most of the survival supplies, except for food...

Mountain Eagle took out a high-powered flashlight to illuminate the surrounding space.

They were in an underground fissure, the mountain walls on both sides reflecting a bright luster. Clusters of high-quality Purple Crystals grew on the mountain walls like crops.

Ice-cold, bone-chilling meltwater rushed westward through the five-meter-wide dark river, with the occasional glitter of golden sand reflecting from the stones at the bottom.

And on the damp and chilly banks on both sides, there lay many corpses...

Among them were human corpses, as well as the bodies of wild animals.

The body of the cougar that Mountain Eagle had knocked into the pond was not far from him. It had failed to adjust its body when emerging from the water channel and hit the side of the mountain wall, damaging two tufts of Purple Crystal before heavily falling to the ground and dying.

Mountain Eagle walked over, picked up a few crystals to look at them. The Purple Crystals with high transparency and very few impurities cast a purple light on the ground under the flashlight, giving a natural flowing sensation.

He casually pocketed the crystals and pressed on with checking the bodies along the riverbank...

There were bears, lions, wolves...

And a dozen or so completely rotted, shriveled bodies wrapped in animal hides, plus a few in uniforms like the security personnel above.

Those animals had probably gone mad like that cougar, and in their panic, rushed into the pond and were sucked in.

Those dead security personnel might have been tempted by the gold under the water, or they might have accidentally fallen in; in any case, they were dead.

Mountain Eagle didn’t know where those bodies wrapped in animal hides came from; he could only imagine that perhaps the legends about Gold in Alaska truly existed.

Because the gold at the bottom of the pond, with a purity over 70%, theoretically could not be naturally occurring, it’s very likely they were refined by humans and then dumped into the pond for hiding.

Whatever the real truth was, Mountain Eagle didn’t care anymore because the gold ingested by the Sergeant System couldn’t be spat back out.

Just now, after purification by the system, Mountain Eagle had harvested 103.3 kilograms of gold...

With this gold added to the reserves Mountain Eagle had saved before, his gold storage exceeded the 130-kilogram mark. Many projects he had dared not touch before were now beckoning him...

Such as various types of individual missiles, suicide drones, armed single-soldier vehicles, and most importantly for Mountain Eagle, the Single Soldier Intelligent Tactical Core, which is an upgraded version of the Talos System with an onboard intelligent server...

Only by activating the Smart Tactical Core can all the equipment capabilities be integrated, using intelligence to fully ignite the interactivity between these tools and the user.

As Mountain Eagle’s intelligent equipment increased, it was very difficult for him alone to smoothly control so many unmanned systems during intense combat.

But, the Single Soldier Intelligent Tactical Core could completely change this situation!

For example, once activated with the Tactical Core, Mountain Eagle wouldn’t have to be distracted by controlling Crow and Golden Cicada, as well as semi-intelligent weapons like the Sunset Mountain Sentry Machine Gun.

The Smart Core could fully perceive the external environment through Crow and Golden Cicada, then offer suggestions or complete tasks according to the user’s needs.

Once equipped with a Smart Tactical Core and having manufactured enough intelligent weapons, one person could become an absolute one-hit determinant tactical strike unit—it’s not just a boast.

The only downside is that lighting up this device requires 100 kilograms of gold, and that is the discounted price after the Sergeant System absorbed Plutonium.

Before touching Plutonium, Mountain Eagle would not have even dared to dream about activating this device.

But now that the opportunity was here, of course, he would seize it without hesitation...

Just as Mountain Eagle activated his Single Soldier Intelligent Tactical System and started ordering the Sergeant System to manufacture it, a scream came from behind...

Turning his head, he saw the little girl who had woken up from a coma sitting on the ground and screaming. Mountain Eagle hurried over, picked the girl up in his arms, gently patted her back, and softly said, "Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, we are safe now, we are safe now..."

The little girl gradually calmed down. She sniffed the scent on Mountain Eagle’s shoulder and then whispered, "I want candy..."