The Capsule Corp headquarters in West City towered into the clouds, its metal and glass surfaces gleaming coldly in the sunlight.
Bulma's sports car streaked into the private underground entrance like a blue bolt of lightning and pulled into a private garage the size of a football field. It was packed with concept cars of every make and model, aircraft, and strange machines whose purposes were impossible to guess.
"Welcome to my domain!"
Bulma hopped out, smugly tossed her long blue hair, and snapped her fingers.
The lights around them came on one after another, illuminating the entire garage like daylight.
Lin Fan stepped out of the car. Even though he'd been prepared, the futuristic scene still left him slightly stunned.
"Come with me!"
Bulma led the way at a brisk pace, passing through several alloy doors that required iris and voiceprint verification before finally reaching an enormous laboratory.
It was less a laboratory than a miniature version of a high-tech factory.
The ceiling stood ten meters high, and mechanical arms, 3D printers, material analyzers, and energy generators filled the room. In one corner, there were even piles of spaceship engine parts.
Several workers in white lab coats were busy at their stations. When they saw Bulma enter, they all greeted her respectfully.
"What do you think? Not bad, huh?"
Bulma planted her hands on her hips, looking as if she were saying, "Go on, praise me!"
"Breathtaking."
Lin Fan gave his honest assessment, his gaze sweeping over the sophisticated instruments he couldn't begin to understand.
The technology here was far beyond anything he'd known in his previous life.
"That whole area over there is yours!"
Bulma casually gestured toward a large empty space. "If you need any equipment, just tell the robots or give my dad's secretary a list. Now, tell me—what are we starting with?"
She could hardly wait.
Lin Fan didn't answer right away.
He walked over to a huge digital drafting board and pondered for a moment, recalling the blueprint for the Hundred Herb Cauldron in the basic chapter of the Great Dao Source Scripture. It was the most rudimentary alchemy furnace, containing a hint of the fundamental mysteries of gathering spiritual energy, harmonizing ingredients, and transforming substances.
But he didn't need an old-fashioned bronze cauldron.
He wanted to use the technology of this world to build a more precise and efficient "modern alchemy furnace" that could make up for his current lack of cultivation.
He reached out and quickly sketched on the board.
The lines weren't merely mechanical structures. They incorporated strange curves, symmetrical arrays of runes, and numerous nodes labeled with the directions of energy flow and specific material requirements.
Bulma leaned over curiously. The longer she looked, the more deeply she furrowed her brow. "Uh... Lin Fan, what are you drawing? A particle resonance chamber? Doesn't look like one... An energy focusing tower? It's way too short and squat... The more I look at it, the more it looks like... a giant smart pressure cooker? One with a massage function?"
The engineers nearby sneaked a few glances at the design too, their expressions strange as they whispered among themselves.
"This energy circuit design... it violates the basic laws of thermodynamics..."
"'Spirit-conducting' material requirements? What kind of parameter is that? It's not in the database..."
"The internal pressure curve has to stay within such precise fluctuations? Our current sensors might not be able to manage that..."
Lin Fan ignored the chatter around him and focused on the blueprint.
He replaced the traditional Spirit Gathering Array patterns with energy conduits and precision pressure regulators. He designed the earthfire vent as an adjustable, multi-frequency energy emitter, and converted the requirement for spiritual sense temperature control into a real-time feedback system...
At last, a complex blueprint that combined mystical principles with a science-fiction aesthetic was complete.
"Done."
Lin Fan set down the pen and sent the blueprint to the lab's main computer. "We'll need these materials, processed to the specifications on this blueprint."
Bulma leaned toward the screen and stared at the dense parameters and requirements, her mouth slightly agape.
"Ultra-high-purity crystalline steel? And the inner wall has to be coated with a layer of krypton-gold film? This stuff costs more per gram than diamonds!"
"Superconducting energy coils? This model is military-grade!" "And this... the internal energy field has to be absolutely uniform, with fluctuations below 0.001 percent?! That level of precision could build a spaceship engine! What are you even making?!"
Lin Fan looked at her and calmly uttered two words: "A pill furnace."
"A... a pill furnace?"
Bulma nearly bit her tongue, her eyes going round. "You mean... the kind where you throw in some herbs and rocks, heat it up, and then knead the result into little pills that make people immortal... like in those ancient legends?"
"Not immortality."
Lin Fan corrected her. "I'm only making a preliminary attempt to produce basic pills that strengthen the body and aid cultivation. Traditional furnaces are limited by their materials and craftsmanship, so their success rate is low and the heat is hard to control. I thought modern technology might solve those problems."
Bulma looked at Lin Fan's serious expression, then at the insanely precise blueprint on the screen. Suddenly, she slapped her thigh hard.
"Brilliant!!!" she shrieked, startling the engineers around her.
"How did I not think of this? Using high technology to recreate—or even improve—ancient techniques! Automated temperature control! Precise energy input! Real-time analysis of the ingredients! This isn't superstition. This is... this is biochemistry engineering from the future!"
Her scientific spirit was ablaze, the light in her eyes shining brighter than the lab's ceiling lights.
"Quick! Right now! Get moving!"
Bulma shouted at the engineers. "Follow Mr. Lin Fan's requirements! Use the highest-level clearance! Get the best materials! Build this... this 'high-tech smart pill furnace' for me! Make it happen!"
The engineers thought the young lady and this strange young man had both gone crazy, but none dared disobey her orders. They immediately sprang into action.
In an instant, the entire lab seemed to transform into a massive rush job to build an alchemy furnace.
Precision machine tools roared, laser cutters hissed, and intelligent robots shuttled back and forth with the expensive materials.
Bulma excitedly circled the enormous "lid" being assembled, constantly offering various "improvements."
"Should we add a spectrometer to monitor the medicinal ingredients in real time?"
"Could we install a robotic arm here to add the ingredients automatically?"
"We need to beef up the cooling system. What if the furnace explodes...?"
Lin Fan stood off to the side, occasionally pointing out details about the energy flow in key parts of the design that needed attention.
Science and the arcane were colliding for the first time in this cutting-edge laboratory—a clumsy, but fascinating, collision.
Several hours later, an extremely bizarre device stood in the middle of the laboratory.
It was roughly shaped like a round cauldron and stood about as tall as a person. Its body was made of a special alloy that gleamed silver-gray, and its surface was covered with complex energy conduits and cooling fins. Several viewing windows were made of high-strength transparent crystal, revealing a fine, tiered interior structure and various miniature sensor probes.
Rather than an alchemy furnace, it looked more like a miniature planetary engine from a science-fiction movie.
"It's finished!"
The chief engineer wiped the sweat from his brow and gave his report with a complicated expression.
This group of top engineers had worked overtime to build... a pressure cooker?
Bulma excitedly ran her hand over the furnace's cool surface, as if caressing a lover's face—if she had one. "It's beautiful... Those sleek lines... that precise construction..."
Lin Fan stepped forward, placed his palm against a specific energy input port on the furnace, and slowly infused it with a trace of True Qi.
Whirr...
A soft white light came on inside the furnace. Its energy indicators lit up one by one, accompanied by an extremely low hum, as its components began running their preset self-checks and fine-tuning.
It worked!
This "Modern Multi-functional Spirit Energy Reactor," built with the Dragon Ball World's cutting-edge technology and infused with the principles of alchemy from the cultivation world, had officially started up!
Lin Fan gazed at the enormous machine, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
Now it was time to see what it could do.
Bulma was already impatiently urging him from the side. "Where are the materials? Hurry! Toss in those plants and herbs so we can try it out! I want to see how it 'makes pills'!"
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