Digivolution itself is something that really tests one's luck and fate… Flip through the great scroll of history: aside from the grand, magnificent epics of Earth's evolutionary past, there are also plenty of tragedies where the art style went wildly off-track.
The road of digivolution is an invisible racetrack; nobody wants to be the idiot who runs backwards… but if you don't reach the end, who the hell can know whether you're even on the right path?
Normally, digivolution for Digimon is difficult, but there are at least some threads of "order" guiding things.
In ancient times, Digimon were split into two factions: the "humanoid" type and the "beast" type. Because of countless issues, they fought each other endlessly—until Lucemon descended from the heavens and nuked the land flat, bringing the world its very first "order."
From then until now, who knows how much time has passed. The managers of that order have been replaced more than once. Zero didn't even know who the current host computer of the Digital World was supposed to be.
The "host" Zero was most familiar with, naturally, was Yggdrasil—the so‑called "Tree Auntie"…
…But Tree‑Auntie's managerial style was basically that of an irritable big sister deep in menopause. Most of the time, her solution to a problem was to dispatch her Royal Knight bouncer squad and wipe out the problematic party along with the problem itself.
Sometimes she even mixed up her motives halfway through, and her own bouncer squad had to tell her, "Get a grip!"—delivering a whole chuuni correction punch to their own boss.
And she was always tempted to reboot the entire world for a grand purge. Absolutely a radical faction.
But the current administrator of the Digital World acted more like an exhausted middle‑aged office worker, choices guided entirely by "whatever's least trouble."
Four Sovereigns were literally stomping on his face, and—if it were Tree‑Auntie? At this point she would've already sent people to charge in head-on.
Yet this current manager actually turned around to seek help from humans, offering nothing but support from behind the scenes through the "Holy Plan" and "Crests." They almost never manifested directly, at most sending Gennai as a representative…
Meanwhile Tree‑Auntie? If she doesn't like your face, she manifests an avatar personally and throws hands. No fear, no hesitation.
Just this one detail was already completely inconsistent with Tree‑Auntie's style. And her attitude toward humans was always… delicate. Most of the time, Tree‑Auntie did not look kindly on humans.
Combining all this information, Zero strongly suspected that the current Digital World administrator was not Tree‑Auntie, but some substitute bro filling in.
In any case, because the order‑keeper wasn't doing their job, and because the Light of Evolution was lost, digivolution across the entire Digital World had become hell difficulty.
That was what led to the whole situation in the original Adventure: Ultimates ruled the world, and Megas were like gods descending from the sky.
Under such circumstances, Digimon seeking further evolution resorted to all kinds of methods, and finally, some Digimon found another path to becoming stronger.
…That path was "mechanical modification"—enhancing themselves through mechanization.
And the ones who took that path to its extreme were the Metal Empire!
At this point in history, things were very different—not like the later Digital World where gods were everywhere: Four Sovereigns this, Ten Legendary Warriors that, Seven Great Demon Lords, Royal Knights… every one of them big‑name legends.
Back then, the Metal Empire wasn't exactly top tier, but today? They were absolutely a symbol of prestige. At most, only the demon-type Digimon's "Nightmare Soldiers" could compete.
Of course, later the Nightmare Soldiers got a version update and suddenly introduced the Seven Great Demon Lords—literal gods—so things changed drastically again.
But since they were long‑term villains, Zero obviously wouldn't join them. And beyond that, the entire Nightmare Soldiers faction was pure chaotic evil, living by the rule of "might makes right." If Zero went to them now, at most he'd be a nametag-underling nobody cared about.
That was why Zero came to Andromon—and ended up learning some absolutely insane insider information.
"What—this Unmanned Mechanical Factory is actually a weapons factory belonging to the Metal Empire?!"
Zero was shocked at first, then the pieces clicked.
Of course. Andromon's power level in Adventure was already extremely high. Why would such a being randomly squat in some tiny backwater like File Island, serving as a newbie‑village tutorial NPC?
It was a guardian‑type Digimon. So what was it guarding?
Naturally, this Unmanned Mechanical Factory.
According to the anime's original line, this factory produced equipment and then dismantled it immediately—an endless loop that produced nothing.
Would a joke factory like that need a guardian? And of all things, a guardian at the level of an Ultimate like Andromon? Even a Guardromon would've been overkill!
But now Zero finally understood: the factory had been halted for certain reasons, but in truth, it had originally been a weapons plant.
And that was why Devimon, after taking control of Andromon, never sent it anywhere else to help seize territory—instead letting it remain and oversee the factory.
Devimon wanted to use Andromon to restart the factory and produce heavy Metal Empire weaponry to arm his forces…
If that plan had succeeded, Devimon could've immediately fielded a powerful army, not only conquering File Island but even marching into the Server Continent to carve out territory.
A grand plan!
Unfortunately, that plan was now overturned—by Zero flipping the whole table.
As for why Devimon didn't send additional subordinates to guard such an important factory: probably because he trusted Andromon's strength.
…After all, if Andromon couldn't hold it, sending more small fry wouldn't help. Better to trust Andromon and allocate manpower to conquering File Island.
Understanding this made certain details suddenly feel… delicate.
Andromon was a member of the Metal Empire, guarding a Metal Empire weapons factory, acting as a friendly NPC on the protagonist side…
Yet in Adventure, the Metal Empire was visually framed as part of the villain side.
And later, Andromon even confronted Machinedramon head‑on—meaning the two sides were opposed.
Which implied that something must have happened within the Metal Empire.
This really wasn't hard to guess. Machinedramon was the Metal Empire's ultimate war weapon. One could even say that all prior mechanical modification data existed solely to pave the way for creating Machinedramon.
And "ultimate weapon goes berserk and causes internal upheaval"—this trope appears not hundreds but thousands of times across fiction. Nothing new there.
So Zero already had a rough guess.
As for the question Zero had asked, Andromon offered a straightforward answer. As a mechanized Digimon, his advice for digivolution was simple…
…Mechanization was their specialty. If Zero and Hajime wanted to pursue that route, they only needed to find suitable enhancement templates. Then this halted factory could be restarted to help the two of them undergo mechanical reinforcement.
If they weren't particularly interested in that route, then…
"...Right now, there are still two prototype pieces of equipment left in the factory. They were completed through the last two operational production lines while I was under Devimon's control. Since there's no way I'd hand them over to Devimon now, if you're interested, take them. They should be able to offer at least some assistance."