Chapter 316: Heart of the Machine (Britz Extra)

Zaun is a sprawling underground town nestled beneath the winding ravines and gorges around Piltover. Various colors of smoke and dust leak from the staggered, corroded and aging smoke exhaust pipe network.

Filters the light from above into eerie colors, cross-reflecting between the tinted glass of the Zaun workshop. Zaun and Piltover were once united, but now they are divided and separated.

Although Zuan has always been shrouded in a hazy twilight, the bustling city is not a slight, and the people here are all-encompassing and culturally diverse.

Britz is a tall, burly, invulnerable steam robot originally designed to dispose of the toxic and harmful waste of Zaun.

But his self-evolution has gone beyond his original goal, and now Blitz uses his strength and resilience to protect others. It is able to see through superficial pretenses and illusions, see through real motives, and help those who really need help.

Soon after the development of Hextech, inventors and scientists flocked to Zaun, where they could experiment with all kinds of unstable substances without complying with Piltover's rules and regulations.

Their experiments often lead to catastrophes, often with houses collapsing and poisons leaking. A team at the Academy of Thaumaturgical Magic has developed a steam-powered robot.

It can be used to clear the toxic and harmful rubble, because the work is so dangerous that even the desperate Zuans are reluctant to take the risk.

These robots toiled the streets relentlessly and endlessly, and as there were more and more landfills around the city, their work became heavier and heavier.

But even hard machines often come with accidents, and these machines are often sent back to the academy, piece by piece. Wading through the mud of Zaun's lowest layers is no easy feat, with strong acids and highly toxic compounds eating away at their metal shells, little by little.

There was an aspiring young inventor named Victor who wanted to build a more durable machine that would clean up scrap more efficiently and without the need for expensive repairs.

He collects worn-out parts from scrapped robots, instead of using the shiny parts that are popular in the industry. Although Victor used materials that had been discarded by others, he designed a machine that was much more robust and durable.

He named his work Lightning Britz, hoping that the robot would be able to process waste like lightning and be worth much more than simply adding up its parts.

Victor eventually instills Britz with an unyielding desire to serve the people of Zaun and clean the city of toxic substances. Victor then sent it to the gutter to help.

The robot takes Victor's purpose to heart, believing that sacrifice and self-sacrifice can make the city greater.

Britz joins the other robots on a clean-up mission, always rushing to the front, leading the team into the core of the Pollution Zone to investigate. He bravely cleaned up the most toxic chemically contaminated area, and there was no need to return to the academy to repair it.

Blitz began to devise increasingly bold plans of action for other robots, but felt overwhelmed when some new dangers arose, as their work was limited to cleaning up chemical contamination.

One night, he borrowed Victor's Treasure Toolbox and turned on his steam engine. He realigned his mechanics and removed all functional constraints so that he could make a bigger difference in the city.

In the weeks that followed, Blitz organized mass evacuations in an orderly manner to keep residents away from the toxic fog; He redirected the food rationing system to make it much more efficient, and he repaired a sophisticated water filtration system that brought clean water back to many residents.

With each additional act of kindness, Britz has an additional determination of his own goals and a sense of self that no other robot can match.

Victor discovers that something extraordinary has changed in his creation, and wants to replicate Britz's deep cognition and self-preservation in other machines.

But Britz never revealed what led to his awakening, and without this crucial information, Victor has never been able to replicate his success.

Blitz walked the streets day and night, refusing to pause or rest as long as someone else might need help.

His aid extends not only to humans and stray animals, but even to damaged machines. When a fire caused by a gas leak destroyed the Davoran Clock Tower, he used his huge iron hand to rescue a family of mechanics, as well as the family's black cat, and even rescued a clockwork dancer doll from a children's bedroom on the way.

For this steam robot, any trivial thing counts, and within a day, he stopped a robbery of alchemunk thugs.

Catches an ice fruit that was almost dropped by a child, and rescues a lost Poro from under an out-of-control bicycle wheel, and takes him back to the home of the Touring Circus.

As time passed, Britz learned that some of the people he had helped eventually became seriously ill from exposure to toxic compounds.

He couldn't help it, so he was so anxious that he turned to his creator for help. Victor has always wanted to evolve the fragile human body, so he enthusiastically helped. He promised Blitz that they could even defeat death with the progress he made in the field of thaumaturgical magic.

Blitz convinced a gutter family to try Victor's solution, and together with Victor, he seamlessly integrated the mechanism into the human body, thus completely freeing himself from the disease.

At first, the transplant was a success, and the family got back on their feet. But after a few months of healthy living, their bodies began to weaken.

Victor and Britz did their best to find a solution, but their efforts only temporarily delayed the inevitable end. It didn't take long for the family to all die.

The defeat left Britz frustrated, and he knew that this way of helping others was not his own. He and his creator parted ways as friends and fellow travelers, and Britz wanted to bring the best difference to the inhabitants of Zaun in his own way.

While some people think of Zaun as a chaotic place, full of reckless experimentation and lawless crime, Britz sees only the endless opportunities it brings.

He is looking for opportunities to make a difference in Zuan, especially those who have been forgotten or abandoned by society.

Lubricated with hope, Blitz is confident that Zaun will develop into the greatest city in the history of Valoran.