by <unknown>
"Humm..."
The ice maker started shaking madly. Very quickly, a layer of frost condensed on Li Yao's hands, which was then immediately melted by the heat rising from the depths of his hand.
Only after repeatedly condensing and melting again and again for 4-5 times did Li Yao finally heave a long sigh of relief.
Despite his body being extremely exhausted, especially his hands, which had reached the point where each and every strand of muscle was torn...
His soul was excited to the limit and it seemed as if True Samadhi Fire was about to shoot out from his eyes!
"Next is... the cooler!"
In the refining process, many magical equipment required the temperature to be dropped from thousands of degrees to zero in the blink of an eye so that it could make the internal constituents crystallize and allow the equipment to withstand the powerful impact of the array glyphs.
Therefore, the cooler was also crucial and it very well defined the quality of a crafting furnace.
Gathering all ten fingers together, Li Yao brought them to his mouth and blew air upon them before he began the second round of crazy assembling!
For the next four hours, Li Yao didn't take a break for even a second and had even evaporated two tanks of ice-cold water for cooling.
Before the advent of dawn, he had finally completed all the assembling of the eight units!
The heater, cooler, compressor, anti-gravity unit, lightning unit... Eight units, like stars surrounding the moon, fanned out around the furnace.
Li Yao's pair of eyes had turned crimson as blood tears were quickly flowing out from the corners of his eyes.
Li Yao, however, was completely oblivious to it. Scooping out ice-cold water, he poured it on his head.
"Calm down, I have to calm down. I am only finished with the eight units. What comes next is the crucial most part. I have to use the core components to connect these eight units and integrate them with the main furnace!"
"This is the most important step. Whether the furnace can unleash 100% of its ability depends on this step!"
Li Yao took a long, deep breath as he scooped out a couple dozen ice cubes using the ladle and poured it over his head while he began analyzing the core components.
"What?"
Li Yao blinked his eyes as a sliver of a perplexed look appeared in the depth of his eyes.
"There is something wrong here! Why are these core components inconsistent with that in the blueprints?"
Still believing it to be his mistake, Li Yao placed all the core components separately and once again carefully examined the blueprints. Even after looking for a long while, he was still confused.
"Clearly, the components marked in the blueprint are more advanced and more sophisticated."
"And the components before me are comparatively crude and backward. Although they both have quite the similar refining style, they are simply not the same set of components."
Supporting his cheek with his palm, Li Yao pondered for a while. Meanwhile, the ice cubes that were poured on his head had completely melted, and the resulting water trickled down his cheeks and dripped onto the floor, making "drip drip drip" sounds.
"I understand! This furnace had an accident sometime in the past, and as a result, its core components were damaged. Therefore, to make do, they had improvised and imitated these components. That's why they are far worse than that in the blueprints."
Li Yao lightly smacked his forehead.
'This is troublesome. The components do not match the blueprints, making the assembling procedures completely insignificant. What to do now?'
'Shall I wait for teacher to return?'
Li Yao dismissed this notion at the very first moment it appeared in his mind.
What a joke! Li Yao was someone who would slaughter God if he encountered God, kill Buddha if he encountered Buddha on the road of assembling this furnace. Not to mention the fact of how happy and delighted he was when he first laid his eyes upon it.
It was like he had lured a girl onto the bed and even stripped off her pants. How could he stop abruptly at this moment?
How could that be possible?!
"Since the arrow is already fitted to the bowstring, it must be released. If I don't have the blueprints, then I will draw my own. If I don't have the assembling procedures, then I will deduce them myself!"
Firming his heart, Li Yao pulled out the jade chip from the mini crystal processor and threw it on one side before he launched a blank blueprint template. His thoughts moved at a lightning fast speed as he drew all the core components into the empty template via telepathic thoughts transmission.
It looked a little like a 3-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, where one could see thousands of pieces coming in contact with each other as they tried to draw a perfect 3-dimensional diagram. One could only imagine how hard it was!
Fortunately, Li Yao still had a secret trick up his sleeve.
"The three hours cool down period is already over. I can once again enter the super perceptive state!"
Li Yao pursed his lips into a smile. As he concentrated with all his heart, his temples once again madly started twitching, seemingly as if an inexhaustible amount of thoughts were stimulated as they clashed and spilled out from the depths of his brain!
After half an hour, during which god knows how many times he had poured ice-cold water over his head, a new translucent blueprint finally appeared in the hologram.
Li Yao was feeling dizzy and cold sweat broke out all over his body. He could barely move his lips as he somehow drew a smile that was even more miserable than when one was crying before a deep frown appeared over his glabella.
"This is still wrong!"
"There should not be any problems with this blueprint, and I have even deduced the subsequent assembling process. But the problem is..."
"If this blueprint is correct, then after I have assembled the furnace, the performance will be far less than what is demonstrated by the original blueprint!"
"If the true 1st Gen Tai'e crafting furnace can give a performance of 70 points, then this makeshift thing could give at most 40 points!"
"This won't do! Its performance is far worse."
"The 1st Gen Tai'e furnace was already an antique from a century ago, and now after these improvisations, its various performance parameters are rotten to the core. How am I supposed to refine some matchless masterworks?"
Li Yao quickly did some calculations.
In accordance with the blueprints that were given by Yuan Manqiu, the 1st Gen Tai'e crafting furnace could reach a temperature of 3,000 degrees in under a minute, and its limit temperature was 4,100 degrees!
Whereas in accordance with blueprints drawn by him, using these dilapidated components, it could only reach a temperature of 2,400 degrees in under 2 minutes, while its limit temperature was 2,900 degrees!
A temperature of 2,900 degrees was unable to melt even the cores of many demon beasts!
"This is not the crafting furnace I want! I have to modify it! But even a clever housewife can not cook a meal without rice. I don't have sturdier components which will increase the performance, so how am I going to improve it?"
Having pondered for a while, a spark suddenly flashed in Li Yao's eyes, illuminating his forehead.
"I do have them!"
"The Refining Department used to have a dozen crafting furnaces. Although they had been destroyed in the explosion, their wreckage is still buried under the rubble, all of which had been retrieved by me!"
"The oldest of these crafting furnace dates back to a century ago, and some of them are the latest model from a decade ago whose performance is unimaginably higher than that of the 1st Gen Tai'e furnace!"
"Although they have become a wreck, they still have many usable components which can be removed and installed on 1st Gen Tai'e. In that case, would I not be able to assemble an..."
"Unparalleled Super Modified 1st Gen Tai'e Crafting Furnace!?"
Li Yao, without even taking
a breath of respite, immediately charged towards the warehouse where he had stored the wrecked crafting furnaces.
While running, he was quickly doing calculations in his brain, figuring out which components of the wreckage could be disassembled and fitted into the 1st Gen Tai'e crafting furnace.
Over this past month, these wrecked crafting furnaces had been tossed about by him many times for research, so he clearly knew everything about them down to the minute details. He simply didn't need to think; translucent diagrams of components jumped out from the depths of his brain one after another.
When he finally arrived at the warehouse where the wrecked crafting furnaces were stored, four to five kinds of modifying plans had already appeared in his mind.
The overall performance of 1st Gen Tai'e furnace had been improved to 130%.
If he chose the most radical, most difficult, and riskiest plan, it was possible to increase the overall performance to 210%!
"Whooossssh!"
Li Yao, like a mad devil, charged into the warehouse.
A crafting furnace itself weighed a few tons or a couple dozen tons and some could even weigh over a hundred tons. Even if they had been wrecked, they were still exceptionally heavy; it was impossible for Li Yao to tow all the wreckage.
He simply dismantled them, removing the components he required, and used a forklift truck for towing them away.
The forklift truck was originally a manned equipment, but as its performance was quite low, it was simply unable to move while carrying such heavy magical equipment components.
Li Yao found a few thick iron cables and asked the Black Wing Sword to pull hard from the front.
How could the Black Wing Sword be willing to do work? It jumped three feet into the air in anger. Li Yao showered him with praises and promised that in the future, he would help it oil three times a day and give it a high purity crystal for it to engulf. Only in this way was he able to barely make it work like a horse.
After an hour, large piles of variegated components of different shapes and sizes were scattered around the 1st Gen Tai'e crafting furnace.
"Next... is the time to witness the miracle!"
Chapter 148: Professors, Please Give Me Some Pointers! |
The Grand Desolate War Institution had a dozen crafting furnace that had been purchased from different sects and clans in different periods, a couple of which were even self-created. Thus, whether it was the style or the spiritual energy operating principle, everything was vastly different.
However, since the founding of the Star Glory Federation, in order to meet the requirements of large-scale battles, every cultivation sect had always followed the "MECS(Magical Equipment Components Standard)" system.
With regards to basic components such as rivets, screws, gears, bearings, and so on and so forth, every sect didn't need to implement their own and everyone utilized a uniform standard.
As for the core components, their interface and specification were also identical to the greatest extent so as to ensure perfect compatibility.
The magical equipment of X sect could engrave the array glyphs of Y sect and use the crystals purified by the Z sect to run; only in such a way could the cultivation world exploit its potential during the war, thereby winning the battle of survival for the human race against the demon clan!
"Which plan should I use? Safe or radical?"
After hesitating for three seconds, Li Yao firmed his heart.
"Either don't fight or fight to the end!"
"The radical plan it is! Using the advanced magical equipment components, I will strive for ultimate performance!"
The idea was good, but when he started implementing in reality, he encountered a variety of unexpected difficulties.
Some of which was due to lack of theoretical research, some due to inexperience in modifying magical equipment, and most of which was due to a lack of rich spiritual energy, thereby making Li Yao unable to engrave profound and complex powerful array glyphs onto them.
Several times, Li Yao thought of giving up and thought of switching to a safe modifying plan.
But when he imagined the 40,000 credits waiting ahead of him, he clenched his teeth and persevered!
If he encountered a problem which he was unable to solve using grassroots theories, then he would try the elite theories and the classical ways.
If he encountered powerful array glyphs which he was unable to engrave, then he would engrave seven or eight identical, low-level array glyphs and connect them in series.
If he encountered a conflict between two units which he was unable to resolve, he would add 17-18 plug-in units with stabilizing array glyphs, and then in these stabilizing plug-in units, he would once again add four to five stabilizing plug-in units, like patches upon patches, to provide layers upon layers of reinforcement.
After three hours, when he was finished assembling the furnace, it was completely beyond recognition. It gave off the appearance of a monster which had been "transformed by a devil".
Around the main pitch-black furnace, there was a chaotic mess of hundreds of thick crystal cables connected to twelve units that were improvised using rivets, gears, stabilizing array glyphs, and other components.
For Li Yao, the original eight units were simply not powerful enough, thus he forcibly added four powerful units that he had dismantled from the wrecked furnaces.
At first glance, the crafting furnace looked as though it had just been wrecked by a Nascent Soul Stage old devil; it was completely a pile of scrap.
However, as far as Li Yao was concerned, the more he looked, the more he liked it and the more he found it perfect. He rushed to take out a turtle shell-like equipment at once.
This was a Shock Wave Oscilloscope, which could produce a unique spiritual wave specifically designed to analyze large-scale magical equipment consisting of multiple units and check whether it was properly installed.
If it was perfectly installed, the flow of spiritual energy between the various units would be very smooth, and as a result, the spiritual wave after circulating around all the units would again return back to the Shock Wave Oscilloscope whereupon a green light would light up.
Once the green light was lit, it meant that the equipment had been successfully installed and could be put to use as long as the anchoring and sealing array glyphs were engraved.
If there was some mistake, then the spiritual wave would explode and the magical equipment would scatter from the shock; however, it would not destroy the components, allowing the refiner to assemble it a second time.
"For heaven's sake, please be successful!"
Li Yao mumbled some words. His eyes were wide open as he started the Show Wave Oscilloscope.
…
Yuan Manqiu was in an exceptionally good mood.
After using hard and soft tactics for the whole night at the dean's residence, she was finally able to obtain an extra 5% of resources.
Although it did not seem to be much, don't forget that the original budget was arranged for hundreds of professors and students to use. Currently, the Refining Department was only left with one student, Li Yao, so an extra 5% resource was enough to fatten him.
Afterward, she once again sought out a few familiar professors and inquired about Li Yao's performance over this past month in a roundabout manner. The more she inquired, the more she found that he was unfathomable and had great potential that could be developed.
At the beginning, she was ready to return to the Refining Department at first light; however, she suddenly changed her mind.
The 1st Gen Tai'e furnace was a magical equipment from a century ago. One could say that its structure was complex yet not complex, simple yet not simple. It could be considered as a unique test to assess Li Yao's practical ability. She wanted to see when Li Yao would be actually able to discover that the core components were inconsistent with the blueprints.
After having unexpectedly waited for a long time, she still didn't receive Li Yao's message even by n
oon.
"Has he still not found the mistake?"
Yuan Manqiu couldn’t sit still. Moving her fat ass, she walked towards the refining room.
While walking, she was having a conversation with Jiang Wenbo, the logistics supervisor of the Mountain Sea Sect, via the spiritual crane messenger while the latter was sending the correct blueprints of the 1st Gen Tai'e furnace.
"Big Sis, the 1st Gen Tai'e furnace is too old. The technology used by many of the assembling processes are from 100 years ago. There are several arrays which are outdated and are out of use. Let alone studying them, the youths of today would have never laid their eyes upon them, and yet you have taken these things to test your disciple, isn't this simply too much?" Jiang Wenbo complacently said.
Yuan Manqiu slightly smiled:
"For ordinary people, I suppose it is too much, but my disciple is marvelous and I have high hopes for him. How about we make a bet? I bet that he has at least completely assembled five units."
Jiang Wenbo thought otherwise:
"Big Sis, you are too confident. No matter how monstrously talented he is, he is still a freshman. Three—he has completed at most three units!"
Yuan Manqiu nodded: "Alright, the refining room is just ahead. We will know the answer soon enough. As for the bet, that is—"
"BOOM!"
A loud noise interrupted her.
Yuan Manqiu and Jiang Wenbo were flabbergasted at the same time.
The two were veteran refiners, so naturally, just from the noise, they had recognized that it was noise made by the Shock Wave Oscilloscope.
"What the hell is he doing? Has that brat actually assembled the entire furnace? Is that why he’s using the Shock Wave Oscilloscope?"
"However, it seems he failed?"
"Even if he failed, he still might be a monstrous genius! Even without the correct blueprints and assembling procedures, he had still assembled it, which was just like a blind man riding a horse. Even if he assembled it incorrectly, it doesn’t matter!"
Yuan Manqiu and Jiang Wenbo took a glance at each other before she sped up her footsteps.
The warehouse was a total mess; the furnace had completely collapsed and was rolling over at the corner of a wall, whereas thousands upon thousands of magical equipment components were scattered all over the floor, giving off the impression as though two tornadoes had passed through here.
