Even the Dumbest Person Should Be Able to Design a Mecha at Nine, Right?

"Gurgle—"

"Gur—croak—"

Inside the first-class cabin of the Soul-Guided train bound for Mingdu, Mo Yuan teased Jin Ling in his palm.

Wasn't this child worthy of being called a top-tier Soul Beast with the Ancient Golden Toad Bloodline of an ancient divine beast flowing through its veins?

At that moment, Jin Ling was hugging a piece of rare metal and sucking on it while enjoying Mo Yuan's massage.

"Go ahead and suck. Eat more while you can. That'll make it easier to increase your cultivation age later."

Mo Yuan had also made some progress in his research on ways to increase a Soul Spirit's cultivation age without using the Soul Ascension Platform.

He didn't know whether it would work on other Soul Spirits, but at least it worked for his own top-tier metal-attribute Soul Beast with an Ancient Divine Beast Bloodline.

As for anything more, he might have to make a trip to the Soul Ascension Platform when he had time and see whether he could obtain any useful information.

At the Federation's current train speeds, traveling from Aolai City to Mingdu took a full day and night.

Mo Yuan naturally wasn't going to mistreat himself, so he directly chose a first-class seat. It was a ticket that came with a private room.

After lying on the bed and sleeping for a while, they were basically almost there.

"Dear passengers, we have arrived in Mingdu. Please exit the train in an orderly manner..."

The announcement came over the speakers. Mo Yuan waited a little longer, leaving the Soul-Guided train only after most of the people had gone.

The moment he stepped out of the Soul-Guided train station, he saw a huge banner. It read:

Welcome Master Mo Yuan to Mingdu.

The corner of Mo Yuan's mouth twitched, but he still walked over to the man holding the banner.

The man clearly hadn't expected such a young child to approach him, but he still forced a smile. "Little boy, did you get separated from your parents? If so, you can go over there. There are law-enforcement officers there. Just ask them for help."

Mo Yuan looked him in the eye and shook his head. "Aren't you waiting for me?"

"Huh? You're Master Mo Yuan? No—"

The man's words caught in his throat. Mo Yuan took out a badge bearing a golden background and a slightly raised, simplified mecha design. Beside the mecha were eight black stars.

The mecha design showed that the badge had been issued by the Mecha Engineer Association, while the eight black stars represented a Level-8 professional rank.

In other words, this was a Level-8 Soul Engineer.

The man's attitude changed instantly. He immediately put on a fawning smile and bowed. "Greetings, Master Mo Yuan. I'm Li Du, dispatched by the Mingdu Mecha Engineer Association to receive you. You can just call me Little Li."

After confirming Mo Yuan's identity, Li Du was astonished at first, but that quickly turned into wild joy. Hadn't he fought his way through so many people to seize this job just to curry favor with this master?

Now that this master was so young, Li Du's desire to curry favor with him only grew stronger.

"All right, Little Li. Let's go to the Mecha Engineer Association." Mo Yuan nodded.

He didn't feel the slightest discomfort calling him Little Li. After all, he could tell at a glance that the man was barely concealing his intentions.

With this kind of person, calling him by his full name or using some other honorific would only make him even more nervous. It was better to simply go along with his wishes.

Once they boarded the Mecha Engineer Association's car, the driver immediately started the Soul-Guided Car and drove onto Mingdu's broad roads.

Speaking of which, the number of modern Soul Engineers had already become extremely low. Almost everyone had gone off to research mechas, which had ultimately led to the Soul Engineer Association being renamed the Mecha Engineer Association.

Of course, although it had changed its name, it still handled Soul Engineer assessments, and there were quite a few highly traditional Soul Engineers among its upper ranks.

Wasn't the Mecha Engineer Association a behemoth even more powerful than the Soul Master Association?

One only had to look at its headquarters in Mingdu to know. In a place as expensive as Mingdu, it could still occupy an entire development zone near the city center as its headquarters.

The Soul-Guided Car slowly entered the development zone and arrived beneath a high-rise building.

The moment Mo Yuan got out of the car, an old man with slightly graying hair came over to greet him. A Level-9 Soul Engineer badge was pinned to his chest.

"Hello, I'm Gu Yuan, vice president of the Mecha Engineer Association."

Mo Yuan shook his hand. "I'm Mo Yuan."

Although he had been mentally prepared, Gu Yuan still couldn't help being startled when he saw how young Mo Yuan was.

But he had seen countless upheavals in his life. He quickly composed himself. "Little friend Mo Yuan, you must be tired after your journey. Why not rest for a day before taking the rank assessment?"

Mo Yuan glanced at the time. It was only a little past nine.

"No need. Let's begin the assessment directly. We can come out for lunch after I finish."

"Huh?" Gu Yuan stared at Mo Yuan in bewilderment.

Lunch?

Did he not know how difficult the Level-9 Soul Engineer assessment was? How could he dare say he could complete it in less than three hours?

Mo Yuan ignored his surprise.

"What? Is there a problem?"

"No, no..." Gu Yuan thought to himself that the young man was probably just being rash. Once he ran into difficulties, he would learn to rein himself in.

"The rules for the Level-9 Soul Engineer assessment aren't complicated. They're divided into two parts: theoretical design and practical construction."

"For the theoretical design, you need to create a complete mecha design that meets the acceptance criteria according to the requirements. For the practical construction, you only need to produce any Level-9 Soul Tool. The association will provide all the materials."

After briefly announcing the rules, Gu Yuan and the other two Level-9 Soul Engineers withdrew, leaving Mo Yuan alone in the assessment workshop.

Mo Yuan flipped through the several sheets of paper covered in specific requirements and densely packed acceptance standards.

If this had been an ordinary Level-8 mecha designer, merely sorting out the specific design concepts would have taken a long time.

After all, as the crystallization of modern Soul-Guided Technology, every module on a mecha could be separated into an independent Soul Tool. Not to mention that when designing a mecha, one also had to consider the multi-array interactions between the various modules, energy-flow efficiency, optimal material ratios, and a whole host of complicated data.

But as the saying went, even the dumbest person should be able to design a mecha at nine, right?

A flash of blue light passed through Mo Yuan's eyes. The data seemed to dance and rearrange themselves before him, finally transforming silently into a complete model in his mind. He then dismantled it into individual modules.

One minute later, Mo Yuan smiled faintly, picked up his pen, and began drawing on a sheet of design paper.

This was a mecha specialized for deep-sea exploration. Mo Yuan first drew its overall outline, then continued by detailing the designs of each module and component.

In the room next door, Gu Yuan was chatting with the others.

Through the one-way glass window before them, they could see everything Mo Yuan did in the opposite room.

"Which set of design requirements is this again?" Gu Yuan asked.

The white-haired old man beside him thought for a moment before answering, "I think it's the Deep-Sea Exploration Mecha that the Sea God Legion asked us to help develop some time ago?"

"Why that thing? I remember it stumped quite a few people, didn't it?" Gu Yuan smacked his lips. He had seen those design requirements himself, but even he hadn't been able to think of a good solution in a short time.

"Heh heh, it's rare to meet such a young prodigy, so of course we wanted to give him a proper test."

"Ding-a-ling—"

While the three of them were chatting, a clear ring suddenly sounded.

"See? I bet he was stumped and wants to change the question." The old man laughed.

"Um, I've finished the design. Do you need to inspect it?"

"What? Finished the design?!" The old man's eyes widened, and he shot to his feet.

But from there, all they could see were more than thirty pages of densely packed design drafts.

Gu Yuan immediately ordered the assistant behind him to bring the design drawings over.