by <unknown>
Such a talented young man shouldn't be just trained as a magical equipment mechanic or a refiner's assistant. He should be allowed to climb higher mountains!
"Contact this guy Li Yao for me. I have a few questions for him," said Xiong Tao emotionlessly and expressionlessly.
The young man showing up on the light beam somewhat surprised Xiong Tao.
Because of the long time of confinement inside a starship without any contact with lights, Li Yao's skin was apparently fairer than before, but his eyes, in which sparks seemed to be bursting from time to time, were even deeper and darker. No one would be able to tell what kind of things were buried behind the ink-like eyes.
Besides…
Staying inside a starship remnant that was filled with darkness for an entire week was usually an unbearable thing. Many people would cry to return to the company of their companions after one or two days. Even the most determined people would be somewhat agitated after a week of solitude.
But Li Yao was perfectly peaceful without the slightest sign of discomfort; he seemed to be enjoying the loneliness.
Xiong Tao appreciated such a quality.
Refining was an art of loneliness. For most of the time, a refiner had to keep themselves alone in a refining workshop.
In order to find the most suitable materials for a certain kind of magical equipment, they would often have to try thousands of times tirelessly, without any confidence that they could succeed at last.
When the sword Cultivators rode their swords, flying in the air and enjoying the reverence of thousands of people, refiners were walking on the path of turning unknown into known.
Those who could not bear loneliness were definitely not made to be refiners.
Those who could bear loneliness yet couldn't enjoy it would never become excellent refiners.
Only those who found fun in loneliness and even built a world of their own with which they entertained themselves could become the real experts in the art of refining!
Seeing Li Yao's appearance, Xiong Tao had totally believed what he said. The chief refiner asked straightforwardly, "How much of the Level 1 of 'Starship Maintenance Manual' have you grasped? 80%?"
If Li Yao's progress had reached 80%, Xiong Tao would put Li Yao in charge of several unimportant areas by himself for further observation.
Li Yao pondered for a moment about whether or not he should conceal part of his capability.
But very soon, he made up his mind because he had to seize every second and every opportunity to improve his capability in order to learn the best skills in the holy land of Cultivation of the Flying Star Sector, refine the strongest magical equipment, and find his way home!
Even if he could conceal part of capability right now, it would definitely still be exposed later in his training. By that time, his disguise right now would inevitably raise a lot of suspicion.
Therefore, he might as well show them his true abilities from the start!
Figuring the logic out, Li Yao stared Xiong Tao in eye and said, "I've fully grasped the first three levels, and I grasped 79.5% of the first five levels. Level 6, 33.2%. As for the files beyond Level 6, I haven't touched them yet."
Xiong Tao was speechless for three seconds.
The other four refiners were dumbfounded.
Three seconds later, Xiong Tao took a deep breath and replied calmly, "Alright. Please wait a moment."
The communication was cut off. The four refiners' doubtful exclamations echoed nonstop.
"Within only seven days, not only did he finish cleaning up so many components, he also managed to learn half of the 'Starship Maintenance Manual'?
"Impossible. It's simply impossible. At best, he skimmed through it. How on earth could he grasp it?"
"Stop arguing!"
Xiong Tao glared at them and said, "I'm going to prepare a special examination for him, with all the faults that happened to Gold Horn in the past seven days as the questions. Now, let's gather the major malfunctions and the minor ones in your respective areas from over the past week."
"In my area, a spiritual energy transmission tube was jammed once, resulting in a power rune array overloading and eventually exploding. Also, two power rune arrays interfered with each other and the spiritual pressure plunged. This fault is very rare. We spent thirty minutes ruling out all the other possibilities before we finally located the problem," said the refiner who was in charge of the engine compartment.
"In my place, the artificial gravity disappeared abruptly twice, and four kinds of magical equipment whose units were sensitive to gravity were flying everywhere inside them. Because the gravity was only away very briefly, we failed to find the source of the problem until we dug deep."
"It's needless to say too much about the turret zone. Although the few turrets have been repaired for emergencies, small problems are occurring to them every day, and big ones are happening to them every other day! There's not a single hour that it functions without error!"
The four refiners all spoke enthusiastically. Very soon, more than a hundred faults of various sorts were gathered.
Together with the three zones that Xiong Tao himself was in charge of, 182 faults were collected and transmitted to Li Yao's mini crystal processor as a special examination paper.
Looking at the dense, transparent illustrations spinning around his head, Li Yao couldn't be more thrilled. His face was red while he breathed heavily.
The questions on the paper was not in the least pedantic but associated with a lot of real-life situations. They were all comprehensive questions that could potentially affect the entire starship.
The paper is a finely-made one. The questions are very realistic!
For an expert in refining such as Li Yao, nothing excited him more than a finely-made exam.
Li Yao licked his lips. He stuffed almost twenty meat buns into his mouth in a row and washed them down with high-nutrition liquid in order to replenish his energy.
Then, he put a neat iron ring on his head.
The iron ring was a piece of self-made magical equipment of Li Yao's. It was an upgraded version of the 'Freezing Ring' that he had used back in the Grand Desolate War Institution. Other than the freezing rune arrays carved on the ring that could cool down the brain, it could also monitor the circulation of blood inside the head and automatically inject medication drugs.
When the blood inside his head was flowing too fast, the iron ring would promptly inject the medication drugs to bring up the hardness of cerebrovascular vessels and reduce their odds of fracture. If the situation was too bad, it would send warnings so that Li Yao could lower his brain cell activity and avoid the fate of mental derangement.
Let's begin!
Li Yao rubbed his fists and grinned hideously. He lunged at the paper like a hungry wolf charging at a lamb.
Chapter 462: Spiritual Shield Generator |
Xiong Tao looked at his watch when Li Yao's telepathic thoughts that were as vast as ocean were fully transmitted.
It was only 3 hours, 42 minutes and 57 seconds after they sent the paper over.
Li Yao's lightning-like speed caused the maintenance workshop to fall into a weird silence again.
All the refiners looked at each other in bewilderment, but they did not dare jump to any conclusions.
With crisp 'beep' sounds, light beams blossomed one after another like petals. The five refiners divided Li Yao's answers according to the fields they were good at and reviewed the content passionately.
"Correct. Correct. And still correct."
"His ideas about how to cope with the faults are very clear. The measures are resolute, too, without any indecision."
"Huh. He thought of a different solution to the No. 44 fault which employed three new algorithms. Let me see… Hiss. It's workable and 4.8 seconds faster than my solution!"
Exclamations echoed nonstop like the croaking frogs in a pond.
Of the 182 faults, Li Yao perfectly resolved 74 and located the critical parts of
the problem of another 38.
As for the remaining 70 questions, they were left completely blank.
Everybody was greatly relieved to see this.
They discovered that all the faults Li Yao had worked out had been provided with clear and simple solutions, some of which were even more practical than what they had employed in reality.
As for the faults that he didn't fully work out, the elaborations about the source of the faults were very neat and precise.
It equaled to saying that the correction rate of the questions he had answered was 100%!
With that in mind, the seasoned refiners would start doubting how this young monster was born and where he came from if he could solve all 182 faults flawlessly!
Thankfully, there were still questions that he didn't understand. Overall… he was still an 'acceptable' genius!
But one thing was bothering them. Based on Li Yao's knowledge, he definitely had something to say about the questions that had been left blank. But why did he choose to not write anything about them?
Xiong Tao pondered for a moment and turned on the communication channel again.
Li Yao appeared in the light beam again, with the thinking iron ring on his head. Under the dual effects of the freezing rune arrays and the medications drugs, a lot of hazy mist popped up from his head and wrapped him, making him look both eccentric and mysterious.
Xiong Tao was briefly dazed because he failed to see what the iron ring was meant for. But he didn't let the details bother him and asked straightforwardly, "I have two questions for you. Firstly, according to your solutions to the No. 14 fault and the No. 45 fault, the maintainer would be kept in an environment with a temperature higher than eight hundred degrees for three minutes. Is there anyone capable of doing that in a real-life scenario?"
"There is." Li Yao nodded.
Seeing his confident face and his unwavering eyes, Xiong Tao was almost convinced.
"The second question. Why did you not propose any solutions to the faults whose origins you had located?"
"Because I don't know any," replied Li Yao in a matter-of-fact way.
Xiong Tao's bull eyes narrowed as he said, "According to your ideas and answers to other questions, you can at least write something about them. The possible plans, for example. Why did you decide to abandon them completely?"
"Because it is a waste of time."
Li Yao answered calmly, "Everyone has the field that they are best at. It's impossible for a refiner to specialize in the maintenance and modification of all kinds of magical equipment. The starship is too large and boasts too many pieces of magical equipment. Everyone should focus on some of them.
"It's unnecessary, and impossible, for me to know all the fields. The only I need to do is to be adept at the field that I work on.
"If I am really faced with faults that are beyond my knowledge, I will ask the specialists of the fields to fix them instead of blindly coming up with ideas.
"Yes. I can try my best and write something on the paper. If I'm really lucky, they might even be correct.
"But it is going to waste a lot of my time and distract me from the field that I'm best at. More often than not, my ill-considered suggestions may even mislead other people and cause greater damage.
"Time is precious. I don't want to waste any of it. That's it."
His reply greatly interested Xiong Tao, whose lips curled in a vague smile.
Li Yao's talent in refining was already surprising enough. But what was more surprising was his awareness of self-control.
He was not like the regular 'geniuses' who did things randomly based on their immense natural gift.
The best steel should be used to craft the edge of a blade. For a Cultivator, the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures and the myriad of Cultivation arts were of course good steel, but the most important resource of all for them was 'time'!
A sensible Cultivator would always make the best use of each and every second by calculating carefully in the most frugal way. They understood which area they should devote their time to so that they could improve themselves to the ultimate level of Cultivation after days and years.
Xiong Tao had originally planned to ask Li Yao to take over several unimportant zones. But right now, he changed his mind.
He was of a mind to assign Li Yao to some important areas by himself. But since Li Yao was apparently too young, his backgrounds not entirely clear, and the important zones concerned the fate of the starship, Xiong Tao hesitated to make a decision.
Pondering for a moment, Xiong Tao finally made up his mind and said, "When you joined the Great Horn Exo Society, Manager Bai should've told you that, as long as you proved yourself to be capable enough, you would be responsible for the more important posts.
"Now, I'm thinking of asking you to work as Master Bai Ze's assistant and help him to ensure the normal functioning of the spiritual shield generator. Are you willing to take the offer?"
Li Yao blinked his eyes, but his mind was brimming with ecstasy.
Of course, he was willing to!
The spiritual shield generator was one of the most crucial pieces of magical equipment on a starship. It was even more important than the engine compartment and the mainframe crystal processor!
If the power rune arrays broke down, the starship could always drift slowly in the sea of stars, waiting for them to be repaired.
However, if the spiritual shield generator exploded because of a cosmic storm or the bombardment of a hostile starship, the spiritual shield of the starship would collapse.
If so, the shell of the starship would take the full blow of the enemy's attacks.
Even the most solid shell wouldn't be able to stand for long against such attacks.
Therefore, the spiritual shield was always outside of the shell to absorb the damage when the starship was cruising through a cosmic storm or engaged in a battle.
The spiritual energy generator, on the other hand, was always faced with great pressure. In fierce battles, it was almost certain that some faults would occur in the spiritual shield generator, sometimes even continuously. All the faults had to be quickly identified and attended to!
To master such a spiritual shield generator required sharp senses, fast hands, and resolute decisions, and none of the qualities were optional!
On a starship, the refiner responsible for the spiritual shield generator was usually the most skilled, experienced, and respected one.
Sometimes, they were only secondary to the chief refiner; sometimes, the chief refiner would manage the spiritual shield generator personally.
For the crew members of a starship, they often respected the refiner in charge of the generator even more than the chief refiner, since it was their lives that were in the hands of the refiner.
On Gold Horn, Master Bai Ze, who was in charge of the spiritual shield generator, was an expert in refining only inferior to Xiong Tao in the Great Horn Exo Society, as well as a creation-type Cultivator in the high level of the Building Foundation Stage!
…
Li Yao followed Bai Ze somewhat anxiously into the cabin where the spiritual shield generator was located.
There were bigger spiritual shields and there were smaller ones. A Cultivator could form a natural spiritual shield by triggering their own spiritual energy. Small-scale spiritual shield generators were also core units only lesser to the crystal reactor on crystal suits.
For the most part, the middle- and small-scale spiritual shields could only be expanded to one to two meters away and cover one or two people.
In comparison, the spiritual shield on a starship had to be enlarged to more than a thousand meters in order to protect the entire starship.
It was not hard to imagine the scale and complexity of the spiritual shield generator behind that.
In front of Li Yao were sixteen black metal plates more than five meters long embedded with countless crystals and carved with immeasurable rune arrays.
The metal plates
were distributed in a circle and placed in a giant ball-shaped zone more than fifty meters in diameter.
Other than the main maintenance workshop, the engine compartment, and the cockpit, this should be the largest independent space on the starship. It protruded slightly out of the starship. Looking from the outside, it looked like a lump on the back of the starship.
The generator was emitting a huge amount of heat continuously. To better transmit the heat, most of the generator was soaking in special deep-blue cooling liquids. It was revolving slowly around a thick axis.
This super-large system was made of more than a thousand units and hundreds of thousands of components. It was large, majestic, and solemn.
For a refiner such as Li Yao, walking into this place almost equaled to walking into a splendid palace. He found it hard to breathe.
The spiritual shield generator could produce double defenses.
The first defense was one purely made of spiritual energy, which could offset the hostile energy attacks.
The second defense was the twisted force field, which would cause the materials that were rushing close, such as meteoroids and cannonballs, to deviate from their trajectories.
Such strong defenses were why it was nearly impossible for a starship to be blown up by remote attacks before it ran out of spiritual energy.
It was also one of the reasons crystal suits were so popular in the Flying Star Sector and were even one of the most important weapons on a space battleground.
This was a world where 'shields' were stronger than 'spears'. Only crystal suits could infiltrate the spiritual shield without being stopped and intrude into the interior of the enemy's defense circle so that the battle could be finished inside the starship.
Over the two months of hunting, the spiritual shield generator of Gold Horn had suffered too many adversities to work normally any longer. It was already on the verge of collapse.
In order to maintain the normal coverage of the spiritual shield, Bai Ze had dedicated all that he had. He was almost planning to jump into the generator and burn his own soul to provide more energy for the spiritual shield.
Li Yao's arrival had come at the right time.
