Li Lin returned home and met Gregori, who was as cautious as Amoline had initially been. After stating his purpose, Li Lin excused himself and left, leaving the family to resolve their internal matters.
Li Lin never enjoyed forcing others to comply or imposing his will. Everything he did, he did with a clear conscience. If Gregori and Amoline ultimately decided not to move to Piltover, he planned to secretly deploy mechanical soldiers to protect their safety. He wanted to ensure that this family didn't meet the same tragic fate as in the original timeline—where they suffered disappearances and accidents, leaving Annie alone, scarred and darkened by the events.
While Annie's family needed time to deliberate, Li Lin found his hands momentarily free. After a brief moment of thought, he focused on himself and opened the system interface in his mind.
[Name: Li Lin]
[Profession: Mechanical War God]
[Level: 100]
[Skill Points: 497]
[Wealth: 364,318 Blue Essences, 26,630 Orange Essences]
[Additional Features: Skill Panel, Essence Shop, Class Advancement, Equipment Enchanting]
[Prerequisite conditions unmet. Features unavailable.]
At this point, Li Lin's level had been stuck at 100, unable to progress further. The only way forward was to advance his profession to "Mechanical Creator." However, much like the first class advancement, the prerequisites for this one posed a significant challenge.
The first requirement was to upgrade all his skills to the maximum level permitted by his current class. Fortunately, this wasn't difficult. Most of his other skills required only a few skill points to max out, and the "Mechanical Ascension" branch under the individual enhancement category consumed relatively few points.
This branch included abilities like mechanical limb replacements, organ transplants, skeletal enhancements, nerve upgrades, synthetic evolution, cross-module standardization, binary-driven programs, and even technologies leaning toward synthetic citizens, smarter robots, and micro-replicating machines. Many of these, in fact, Li Lin had already mastered. However, to complete the prerequisites, he needed to unlock these skills through the system itself.
As the nearly 500 skill points plummeted to just a few dozen, Li Lin maxed out all the skills that his current level allowed. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes briefly, and sorted through the influx of chaotic knowledge in his mind. Like organizing computer files into folders, he grouped related knowledge into categories, making it easier to recall in the future.
The first requirement for class advancement was easily fulfilled. The second, too, was not overly challenging: Li Lin needed to command over one million mechanical combat units, each with an average combat power exceeding 100.
Long before his battle against Bel'Veth, Li Lin's mechanical army had already met this criterion. The only exceptions were the weaker, more numerous combat drones and the air-combat machines, "Storms," whose average combat power hovered just below 100, needing only slight upgrades to meet the threshold.
Li Lin's other combat mechanical units had long surpassed a combat rating of 100, with their numbers already exceeding 300,000. If further upgrades were made to aerial combat units, that figure could easily approach 600,000. At this point, Li Lin no longer needed to secretly manufacture mechanical creations.
He had even sent the recorded footage of his battle against the Void Empress to Jarvan III and Swain. Coupled with his close relationships with the King of Demacia and the Emperor of Shurima, the three neighboring and most powerful nations around him would not harbor any ill will toward Piltover and Zaun expanding their armies. By ramping up factory production, achieving an army of 1 million combat units with an average combat rating of over 100 within a year seemed entirely feasible.
As for the prerequisites to advance in his profession, two of the conditions were straightforward, but the remaining two left Li Lin troubled. One required him to create a race of mechanical beings numbering no less than 10,000, each with independent "personalities"—not governed by an AI or controlled by a central system.
Creating a race? This was something Li Lin had never even considered before, and it had to be a race composed entirely of mechanical beings. While this concept did align with his title of "Creator of Machines," it presented no small challenge. Fortunately, the recently unlocked "Mechanical Ascension" branch of theoretical technology provided some inspiration.
If he could mimic human brains and thought processes to create robots with independent personalities, it might not be as difficult as it initially seemed. However, this idea remained purely theoretical; Li Lin had no way of knowing whether it would succeed without extensive experimentation and practical tests.
The final prerequisite was even more headache-inducing: he had to create a "mechanical miracle." The term itself was vague, and Li Lin had no idea what it truly meant or how to achieve it. At first, he thought that creating a race of mechanical beings with their own intelligence could qualify as a mechanical miracle, but the system still demanded another form of miracle. Since defeating the Void Empress, this requirement had been a persistent puzzle for Li Lin.
Whenever he had spare time in recent months, he would ponder the problem and project his ideas into simulated holograms, but none of them met his expectations. Even the AI could not provide clarity on what exactly constituted a "mechanical miracle," and its suggestions were of no help.
After rubbing his chin and frowning in deep thought for some time, Li Lin finally decided to set the matter aside for now. The Void's ultimate descent was still years away, giving him plenty of time to contemplate and test the few ideas he had in mind. At the very least, this would have to wait until the League of Legends initiative was established.
"AI," Li Lin called.
["I'm here, Master."]
"Send invitations to Azir, Jarvan III, and Swain, inviting them personally—or their representatives—to attend the first League of Legends summit at the War Academy."
Li Lin paused for a moment, then added, "Set the date for one month from now. Also, dispatch mechanical envoys to Bilgewater, Ionia, and the Freljord. I'll make time to personally visit the rulers of these regions."
For Bilgewater, Li Lin entered the names of Gangplank and Miss Fortune, the latter of whom was destined to become Bilgewater's new ruler in the future. In Ionia, he prioritized Shadow Order leader Zed, Kinkou Order leader Shen, and the spiritual leader Karma, leaving out Irelia for now, as she no longer held a leadership role.
As for the Freljord, his only feasible contact was Ashe, the warmother of the Avarosan tribe. Sejuani of the Winter's Claw, with her warlike and raiding nature, had ideals far removed from Ashe's vision of peaceful unification, making cooperation unlikely. The Ice Witch Lissandra was an even less viable option—she had brought the Void Watchers to Runeterra for power, sacrificing the land in the process.
Though she later regretted her actions, her attempts to erase her past sins and her relentless pursuit of Avarosa and Serylda's reincarnations made it clear that she and Li Lin were on entirely different paths. While some collaboration might be possible against the Void, Li Lin would never trust a woman so willing to betray her allies.
In addition to these regions, Li Lin also intended to visit Ixtal, which had remained isolated since the Void War began, as well as the distant eastern continent beyond Ionia. However, he prioritized the regions he was more familiar with for now.
(End of Chapter)