The humans, Lumina, and the Sandfolk technicians around them had long since been left in awe by Creel's astonishing skill and speed. Only when he raised the exquisitely crafted component over his head, as beautiful as a work of art, did everyone snap out of it and burst into applause.
"Long live! Long live Tulong Mechanical Factory!"
Then Creel Belmont, who had become deputy director of the technical department at Tulong Mechanical Factory after just one month on the job, was ushered by the crowd over to an aging electromagnetic roller machine. It was clearly secondhand, though no one knew which shuttered domestic factory the mechanical works had salvaged it from. Still, it had been very well maintained.
Without hesitation, Creel opened the cover on the back of the roller machine, pried out a fist-sized gear with a screwdriver, and pressed in the alloy "honeycomb" he was holding, which was exactly the same size.
The components were about the same size, but their structures were different, so many more connections needed to be made. Several senior technicians in the crowd hurried over to help. They were all highly skilled, and after three to five minutes of adjustments, the machine was running again.
The workers watching let out a collective sigh of relief, and faint cheers rose around them.
Even ordinary technicians who had only just started could hear the difference. The machine no longer clanked and jolted as it ran; instead, it moved with a high-tech smoothness, as if it were the most advanced brand-new equipment.
"See? Put this component into our roller machine in place of the No. 21 gear, and it'll improve efficiency by at least fifteen percent," he told the young Black engineer beside him.
Buska's expression had shifted from stunned, to numb, and now to helpless