The Ambition of the Magic Tool: A Technological Flying Sword?

The successful mass production of Body Strengthening Pills and Qi Recovery Powder kept Bulma excited for days. She spent all her time in the lab optimizing the production process, even starting to design automated pill-filling lines and flashy packaging boxes.

Lin Fan, meanwhile, used these basic pills to stabilize his cultivation at the mid-stage of Qi Refining, feeling the stream of true qi within his body grow increasingly robust and solid.

But this was not enough.

Pills were consumables, mere supplements.

How could a true cultivator be without a handy magic treasure?

The flying sword artifacts recorded in the Great Dao Source Scripture—flying on a sword, taking an enemy's head from a thousand miles away—that was the realm he yearned for.

Of course, with his current meager cultivation, refining a real flying sword was nothing but a pipe dream.

But crafting a "blank," nurturing it with his divine sense in advance, and laying a foundation was something he could attempt.

The problem was the materials.

Refining materials from the cultivation world—Geng metal, secret silver, star iron—where would he find those on Earth?

He had no choice but to look for substitutes. He set his sights on the material warehouse of Bulma's family. That day, he found Bulma while she was calibrating the pill-packaging machine.

"Bulma, do you have... any metal that is exceptionally hard, highly conductive to energy, and very light?"

Lin Fan tried to describe it using terms she could understand.

Bulma crawled out from under the machine, her face smudged with machine oil. "Huh? Working on something new again? Hard, energy-conductive, and lightweight?" Her eyes lit up. "Are you talking about Vibranium? No, no, that's from comics... wait!"

She slapped her forehead. "I remember! A few years ago, my dad was developing a new type of spacecraft hull alongside the gravity room and synthesized a super alloy! Code name 'Z-1'! The strength is off the charts, the energy conductivity is the best I've ever seen, and it weighs only a third of titanium alloy of the same volume! It's just insanely expensive and a bit brittle..."

"A bit brittle?"

Lin Fan frowned; that was not a good attribute.

"Yeah, the impact resistance isn't great, and it cracks easily. So the spacecraft hull project was shelved." Bulma shrugged. "There should still be a few test bars in the warehouse, piled up like trash."

"Take me to see them."

Lin Fan was intrigued.

Deep inside the material warehouse, which was as large as a supermarket, Bulma pointed to a few dusty silver metal bars in the corner. "There, that stuff."

Lin Fan walked over and gently touched the cold metal surface with his fingers.

He channeled a sliver of true qi into his fingertip, imperceptibly.

Hum...

The metal bar emitted an extremely faint, almost undetectable resonance!

The conduction speed of the true qi within it was incredibly fast, with minimal loss!

But just as Bulma said, the internal structure of the metal seemed to have some kind of stress defect, leading to a lack of toughness.

"This is it!"

Lin Fan felt certain. Lacking toughness?

Perhaps he could use refining techniques to compensate and reinforce it!

"Why do you want this junk?" Bulma asked curiously.

Lin Fan pondered for a moment and decided to be honest. "I want to try... making a 'sword'."

"A sword?"

Bulma paused for a moment, then burst into laughter. "What era are we in to be playing with cold weapons? If you want a weapon, my family's latest Impact Gun..."

"It is not an ordinary weapon."

Lin Fan interrupted her, his expression serious. "It is something controlled by the mind, capable of flying through the air, and cutting through metal and jade... a 'flying sword'."

"F-flying through the air? Like the Flight Technique? Using a sword?"

Bulma's eyes widened instantly, her mouth forming an 'O'. In her mind, she instantly pictured Lin Fan standing on a sword, zipping through the sky, directing the sword to slash and hack...

"That is so cool!!!"

The next second, she shrieked, grabbing Lin Fan's arm in excitement. "It's a million times cooler than the Flight Technique! Why didn't you say so sooner! Let's build it! We must build it! What do I need to do?! Wait! Should we add a plasma thruster to the hilt? How about using high-frequency particle vibration blade technology for the edge? Do you want an automatic target-locking and navigation system?!"

Lin Fan: "..."

He finally managed to restrain Bulma, who was so excited she looked ready to fly. "...It doesn't need to be that complicated. In the beginning, I only need a sword blank. The key lies in the material itself and... well, 'energy resonance'."

He really didn't know how to explain "divine sense nurturing" and "refining arrays" to Bulma.

"Energy resonance? Got it! Leave it to me!"

Bulma clearly had her own interpretation.

She immediately sprang into action with a flurry of activity.

"Robot! Move the Z-1 bars to the high-energy laser cutting table!"

"Initiate 3D modeling! Lin Fan, what style of sword do you want? Chinese? Western? Katana? Give me the data!"

"Not strong enough? Simple! Ever heard of molecular rearrangement under high-temperature and high-pressure environments? I'll even throw in a carbon nanotube reinforcement layer for good measure!"

Lin Fan watched Bulma instantly shift into her element, listening to the roar of the massive equipment as it kicked to life, and suddenly felt that... he might have opened some sort of Pandora's box.

He had originally just wanted to hand-polish a rough sword blank.

Several hours later.

Following precise cutting by high-energy lasers, repeated forging by ultra-high-pressure hammers, and the "little bit" of black technology Bulma had forcibly added, a sword blank lay quietly on the cooling rack.

It was about three feet long and two fingers wide, with a streamlined body and a matte silver-gray finish. The surface was covered in intricate geometric patterns formed by the nano-coating, and the edge shimmered with a cold, icy light.

Rather than a flying sword, it looked more like a conceptual art piece from the distant future.

"How is it? Cool, right?"

Bulma boasted triumphantly, "It's definitely hard enough! And conductive enough! I even secretly embedded a micro-energy core and a signal receiver in the crossguard—who knows, you might be able to remote control it later!"

Lin Fan didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

He gripped the hilt (the feel was excellent, ergonomically designed by Bulma) and slowly channeled a wisp of true qi into it.

Hum—!

The blade let out a much clearer, sharper ring!

The true qi flowed through its interior with incredible smoothness, almost without any resistance! That layer of nano-coating and the molecular rearrangement technology seemed to have unexpectedly reinforced the structure, compensating for brittleness and even increasing its affinity for energy!

Although it was still a long way from being a true magical artifact, the foundation was far better than he had anticipated!

"Very good."

Lin Fan nodded in satisfaction, "Next, it needs to be nurtured with my own energy daily so that it gradually develops spirituality and becomes as responsive as an extension of my own arm."

"Nurturing? Spirituality?"

Bulma blinked, then immediately ran back to the console, "That's easy! I'll design a constant energy field nourishment chamber! Then I'll write a program to simulate various energy fluctuation frequencies to stimulate it..."

Lin Fan: "...This method requires personal effort and a communion of heart and spirit."

He hurriedly stopped Bulma from trying to shove the sword blank into a machine to power it up.

He sat cross-legged, placed the sword blank across his knees, hovered his hands over it, and closed his eyes. Following the most rudimentary nurturing technique from the Great Dao Source Scripture, he slowly sank his divine sense into the blade while continuously injecting a thin, steady stream of pure true qi.

This was a slow, grinding process that could not be rushed.

Bulma watched curiously from the side, pulling out various instruments to try and detect the energy data of this "communion of heart and spirit," but naturally, she found nothing.

However, looking at Lin Fan's focused expression and the sword blank, which seemed to become more restrained and profound under the faint flow of energy, her eyes shone with extreme excitement.

Scientific flying sword?

It seemed... there was really something to this!

She had already begun designing a matching flight control system and laser targeting sight in her mind...