One of a Kind

The department head looked slightly disappointed, but he still asked, "Which fields have been invited this time?"

"Several disciplines under engineering, including architecture, geology, and areas such as engineering heat dissipation and construction."

Zhang Dong listed the specialty requirements for the twenty-six teachers invited this time.

To his surprise, the department head's eyes lit up. "Engineering heat dissipation? I can do that."

Zhang Dong was startled. "Director, you... you know engineering heat dissipation too?"

The department head looked a little embarrassed. "Over the years, I studied on my own and earned a certificate in engineering heat dissipation. Usually, I take on some private jobs to make a little extra money... you know."

Zhang Dong understood.

This was fairly common at the school.

"All right, I can submit your name. But the website still has to review it. Everything depends on the quality of the course, and I can't help with that."

"It's fine, it's fine. Having a chance is enough."

The department head enthusiastically escorted Zhang Dong out of his office.

Along the way, whether they knew him or not, whether they were familiar with him or not, nearly every teacher greeted Zhang Dong warmly.

"Ah..."

At that moment, Zhang Dong did not know what he was supposed to feel.

In just one day, the list of twenty-six teachers was submitted to Han Yang. Han Yang immediately arranged for them to begin teaching in batches and conducted evaluations.

Han Yang was fairly satisfied with the evaluation results. He could see that some of the teachers were not especially proficient in their fields, but they were fully capable of handling the current teaching tasks.

"This Zhang Dong is fairly reliable. He didn't pad the numbers with incompetents."

This was a small test Han Yang had set for Zhang Dong.

If Zhang Dong completed this task outstandingly, Han Yang would give him more work afterward.

After all, as Han Yang's computing power increased, Zhi Xue Web might need to invite tens of thousands of teachers in the future.

But if Zhang Dong failed this test, then sorry—Han Yang would replace him without hesitation.

Thus, a total of forty-six teachers began producing one lesson per day.

"With these twenty-six teachers' lessons, my own self-study, and temporary question-answering sessions in the form of consultations, my knowledge base for building an underground base should be sufficient."

Han Yang thought to himself.

But... accelerating his studies also placed a greater burden on Han Yang's computing power.

Han Yang had no choice but to further reduce the share of computing power assigned to the game-leveling business. Its average daily earnings hit another low, falling below sixty thousand to around fifty-five thousand.

Correspondingly, course purchasing costs rose sharply, climbing to an average daily expenditure of 18,400 yuan.

Over at Fuxing Mall, things could barely maintain a balance between income and expenditure. It was already good enough that Han Yang did not have to subsidize it with his own money.

Revival Mall had been doing booming business lately. Every store was always packed with customers. It should have generated some profit, but in order to maintain his relationships with Cheng Hong and several other government officials, Han Yang invested all of those profits back into it.

After all that, Han Yang could now earn around 36,000 yuan a day. At the moment, he had roughly seven million yuan in savings.

"This isn't enough. After my computing power increases, I'll need to build the underground base and expand Revival Mall's scale."

Revival Mall had to expand in order to provide sufficient cover for the existence of the underground base. This was something that had to be done.

It gave Han Yang a slight headache.

"But neither the underground base nor the mall expansion can be completed in a short time. This money is at least enough to get the projects started. When the time comes, I may have to earn and spend at the same time again."

After working so hard for so long, he still had to earn money and spend it immediately. Han Yang could not help but smile bitterly once more.

Time passed slowly. In the blink of an eye, another half month went by. Inside the laboratory at Fuxing Base, Han Yang controlled a robot and carefully connected the final cable.

After three major redesigns, five complete restarts, the resolution of more than three hundred inexplicable minor problems, the consumption of over six hundred circuit boards, millions of transistors, and tens of thousands of cables—most of which had been discarded due to modifications—the manufacturing of the new-generation CPU was finally complete.

Looking at the massive assembly of circuit boards, cables, and transistors before him, Han Yang's expression was complicated.

This brand-new CPU integrated a total of 160,000 transistors, 4,216 cables, and more than forty circuit boards, incorporating numerous new technologies and architectures.

Its frequency had broken through to the MHz range, reaching 5.5 MHz. That meant it could perform around 5.7 million floating-point operations per second. Its overall computing power was ten times greater than that of the previous-generation CPU.

A CPU at this level was only roughly equivalent to the lowest-performance industrial-grade chips currently used in the human world. But one thing was important: even the worst industrial-grade chips were produced in chip factories using photolithography.

And this huge pile of things before him had been made by Han Yang's own hands.

That meant Han Yang's handmade product had, for the first time, caught up to the tail end of industrially produced CPUs.

"This thing is probably one of a kind in all of Human Civilization. No—even including the Ita Civilization, it's probably still one of a kind."

The reason was simple. When a mature industrial system could freely manufacture chips with this level of performance, who would be so bored as to make one by hand?

Only someone like Han Yang, who could not yet afford a chip production line, would do something like this. And Han Yang would not make this thing again in the future.

After building the underground base, he planned to purchase a chip production line for research and manufacture entirely new chips.

"Then... begin testing."

He pressed the start button and connected the power. Immediately, some black-and-white images resembling an old cartoon appeared on a simple display screen.

With its performance, this was all it could support.

Yet Han Yang was extremely satisfied.

"Test passed. Then... integrate!"

With a command, the huge pile of components before him instantly disappeared. At the same time, Han Yang felt computing power more surging than ever before.

The game-leveling business, learning tasks, and other operations that had previously occupied as much as 98% of his computing power suddenly shrank to only 9.8%.

"I can proceed to the next stage of the plan."

Han Yang thought to himself.

At that moment, in another city, inside the general manager's office of Hero Mechanical and Electrical Group's headquarters building.

Sun Xiaoying stared gloomily at the two owners of Cosmic Warfare game studios before him.

"General Sun, we've already confirmed it. The one that supported Lü Yangsheng of the Tianmu Gang back then was Revival Game Studio. During this period, we've also joined forces with five relatively large studios in the industry and formed an alliance."

"Then start a price war! Crush that so-called Fuxing Studio for me!"