You Call This Device Too Outdated?

The next morning, Gu Yuan personally went to the guesthouse to pick them up.

Mo Yuan had just finished breakfast. Jin Ling was crouched on his shoulder, slowly grooming its face with one forepaw—the little thing had become more and more particular lately, and he had no idea who it had learned that from.

Mo Yuan glanced at it without saying anything. After putting it away, he got up and followed Gu Yuan out.

The Association's private car traveled through the broad streets of southern Mingdu. The farther south it went, the sparser the buildings became.

This area was considered reserved land for scientific research in Mingdu. Occasionally, they passed a few relatively new gray buildings, each bearing plaques for various so-called "XX Research Institutes," but hardly any of them actually had people working inside.

After all, when it came to fiscal appropriations, the projects with the loudest names always got funded first. The rest were left hanging until the next budget.

Not to mention the pile of projects that occupied funding without conducting any experiments at all, or that carried out a few superficial projects just to make a show of it.

About twenty minutes later, the car turned onto a side road and stopped before an eight-meter-wide alloy gate.

The sign above the gate read, "Mingdu Third Experimental Base · High-Energy Materials Pilot Laboratory." Beneath it was a line of smaller text: "Mecha Engineer Association Asset No. 074."

Tsk tsk. They were really rich.

Gu Yuan took out his identity card and swiped it. The gate slowly slid open to both sides.

The car drove into the compound. Through the window, Mo Yuan took a quick look around: a roofed outdoor loading area, a three-story main building, and a steel-framed auxiliary workshop connected to the side. The entire area seemed to cover three or four thousand square meters. The ground was paved with high-temperature-resistant, corrosion-resistant alloy bricks, while the corners of the walls and the pillars bore obvious reinforcement marks. Clearly, the possibility of accidents caused by high-intensity experiments had been taken into consideration during the design.

The car came to a stop. Gu Yuan brought Mo Yuan out and pushed open the main building's door.

A faint dusty smell rushed toward them.

The equipment was indeed complete—two large Soul Conduction Array engraving platforms, a five-unit precision smelting furnace, three full-range material testing instruments of different models, and an entire row of neatly arranged storage tanks and material cabinets along the corner.

Mo Yuan's gaze swept across them one by one. A flash of blue light vanished from the depths of his eyes.

[Analysis] Authority fully activated.

The entire laboratory's physical structure, energy pipeline layout, equipment status, and detailed inventory of materials—all the data streams converged in his consciousness into a complete three-dimensional blueprint. In less than five seconds, everything had fallen into place.

The conclusion was that this was indeed a good place, but the definition of "good" needed to be revised.

"These devices have been sitting idle for three years, haven't they?" Mo Yuan walked ahead and patted the casing of one of the smelting furnaces, shaking off a layer of dust. He then examined the furnace's condition. "All the parameter calibrations are off. Of the five units, only about three can start up normally. The main control arrays of the other two show signs of scorching. Repairing them will probably require replacing the core arrays."

He spoke casually, but Gu Yuan could hear the deeper meaning in his words.

He laughed awkwardly and explained, "You know this place hasn't been used for a long time, but these things only need some debugging."

"So you're planning to use this for production? If it explodes later, I won't compensate the Association for its property losses."

Under normal procedures, they would of course have to submit equipment repair forms first, wait for the Association's logistics department to send people to calibrate and confirm everything, wait for approval of the parts purchase, and then wait for a construction schedule...

The entire process would take half a month at best. If it went slowly, three months wasn't impossible.

Gu Yuan, however, said, "That's simple. I'll bring a team over and have them repair everything right away. We can put it into use tomorrow."

Mo Yuan said nothing.

He walked over to the two "scorched" smelting furnaces, crouched down, and reached out to touch the cover plate of the maintenance opening on the side of one furnace. Then he stood up.

"Little Li."

Li Du, whom Gu Yuan had picked up along the way, immediately jogged over. "Master Mo Yuan, what is it?"

"Move all the raw materials in the material cabinets to the auxiliary workshop. No need to sort them. Just stack them together."

"Huh?" Li Du froze.

"Just move them. I'll need them later."

Upon hearing this, Li Du hurriedly did as he was told.

Mo Yuan didn't let the miscalibrated equipment off the hook, either.

He spent roughly forty minutes rewriting the energy-distribution logic of the temperature-control arrays in all five smelting furnaces, compressing the temperature fluctuations inside the furnace chambers from a sawtooth pattern to something approaching a straight line.

As for the two scorched main control arrays, he directly dismantled their core pillars, carved two new sets on the spot, and installed them. Their response speed was twelve percent faster than the original factory models.

Gu Yuan watched the entire process from the side. He went from astonishment at the beginning, to numbness later, and then to his current state...

He didn't know how to describe it. In any case, he had accepted it.

"All done. These furnaces can all be used now. It's just repairing something—why make such a fuss?" Mo Yuan patted the top cover of the last smelting furnace, then dusted off his hands.

The corner of Gu Yuan's mouth twitched. People like them didn't usually deal with large industrial machines, but who could have known that Mo Yuan really knew how to repair them?

Even so, he stepped forward and checked the real-time data on the instrument panel. This much, at least, he could understand.

He nodded. "The precision has indeed improved. By your standards, can we conduct the Molecular Reconstruction experiment now?"

Mo Yuan raised his head and glanced around at the devices in the laboratory that had begun operating again.

Then he said something that left Gu Yuan stunned on the spot.

"We can conduct it, but these devices can only handle the preliminary refining."

Gu Yuan frowned. "Preliminary refining? You mean..."

"Since you've seen my design plans, you know that the Molecular Reconstruction process has three steps." Mo Yuan held up three fingers. "First, use conventional metallurgical equipment to purify iron ore to a sufficiently pure metal. The existing smelting furnaces and refining equipment are enough for this step. After I adjust the parameters, they can raise the purity above 99.7 percent. Second, inscribe a specific Soul Conduction core array onto the pure iron. I must do this step personally, because the structure of the array is incompatible with every known system currently in existence. Third, put the inscribed pure iron into a specialized conversion device and activate the array. After a period of high-energy reaction, the iron element will be rearranged at the molecular level into the target structure of the rare metal."

Gu Yuan immediately pointed out the problem. "Then where is the 'specialized conversion device' for the third step?"

"There isn't one." Mo Yuan answered bluntly. "So I have to make one myself."

"...Make one?" Gu Yuan glanced at the equipment in the laboratory. "Is there anything here that can be modified?"

Mo Yuan walked around the laboratory, his gaze passing over the five-unit smelting furnace, the two engraving platforms, and the three testing instruments in turn. Then he shook his head.

"No. All these devices are designed for conventional metallurgy and material testing. Their underlying architecture is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of Molecular Reconstruction. If we force a modification, more than eighty percent would have to be changed, and the cost would be higher than making a new one. Besides..." He paused, his tone as calm as if he were stating a fact that had already been verified. "The level of these devices is only so-so. The temperature-control fluctuation range of the precision smelting furnace is plus or minus 0.1 degrees. The array resolution of the engraving platforms only reaches the micrometer level. That's enough for conventional experiments, but for molecular-level structural reshaping, they're behind by at least two generations."

Gu Yuan opened his mouth, then drew a deep breath and struggled to keep his tone steady. "Mo Yuan, do you know that this batch of equipment was the latest model purchased by the Association from the Federation Academy three years ago? Each five-unit precision smelting furnace starts at a market price in the hundreds of millions. Those two engraving platforms are currently the most precise devices in Mingdu outside the Academy's headquarters. You say they 'only reach the micrometer level,' but I can tell you that more than ninety percent of Level-8 Soul Engineers across the Federation can't even reach that threshold."

After saying this, he stopped and looked at Mo Yuan, waiting for his response.

Mo Yuan was silent for a moment. Then he walked to the center of the auxiliary workshop, crouched down, and pressed his right palm against the floor.

"So that's why I said the Federation's industrial technology is only so-so. But it doesn't matter. Since there isn't one, I'll just make one that can do it."

Blue light spread from his palm, traveling along the patterns in the alloy floor and expanding in all directions.

Fine particles of light began to emerge in the air throughout the auxiliary workshop. Metal particles were stripped from the walls, leftover materials from the equipment, and even free elements in the air. They converged into bands of silver-gray light, spiraling around Mo Yuan, intertwining and reshaping themselves.

Gu Yuan instinctively took a step back, his pupils contracting sharply.

The bands of light gathered, wove together, and solidified at astonishing speed.

In less than a minute, a nearly two-meter-tall cylindrical device, made entirely of silver-gray metal and covered in precise rune arrays, took shape on the floor.

Its outer shell displayed an almost perfect geometric smoothness. There were no welding or joining marks, as though it had naturally grown from within a single block of metal.

At the top of the device was a transparent reaction chamber. Its interior was carved with densely packed Soul Conduction Array structures, whose fine runes were impossible to make out clearly with the naked eye.

Mo Yuan stood up, dusted off nonexistent dirt from his hands, walked over to the device, and knocked on its casing with his knuckles.

A crisp metallic echo rang through the auxiliary workshop, long and even.

"All done. This is the specialized conversion device I designed. The reaction chamber's constant-temperature precision is plus or minus 0.02 degrees. The array resolution reaches the nanometer level. Its energy consumption is roughly sixty percent that of conventional equipment, but its actual output efficiency is more than twice as high."

Gu Yuan remained silent for roughly ten seconds. Then he walked over and reached out to touch the device's casing.

It felt smooth and cold. When his fingers passed over the rune arrays on its surface, they actually gave off a faint heat. Clearly, they were already in standby mode.

Gu Yuan's lips moved, but in the end, he only managed to say one thing. "How... how did you do that?"

"Hmm... Obviously, it was my Martial Soul ability." Mo Yuan nodded, his tone still calm. "Also, if you've done even a little research on Soul Beasts, you should know about the abilities of a Soul Beast called the Three-Legged Golden Toad."

As he spoke, he patted Jin Ling, which was lying on his shoulder.

Gu Yuan withdrew his hand and took a deep breath. Unusually, he didn't offer any further assessment.

He knew that his technical judgment could no longer keep up. If he continued speaking, he would only sound long-winded.

Perhaps Mo Yuan was a Level-9 Soul Engineer only because Level 9 was the highest level there was.

"So, how do we proceed?" he asked.

Mo Yuan glanced at the new device, then at the conventional smelting furnace beside it. "First, preheat the furnaces I've adjusted. Have Little Li pour the iron ore in and carry out the first refining step. I'll wait beside it. As soon as the pure iron is refined, I'll take over, inscribe the array, and then put it into this device."

"How long will the conversion take?"

"The first batch will be slower. After the array is activated at full power, it should take about eighty to ninety minutes. Later batches can be reduced to less than sixty minutes."

Gu Yuan silently calculated the time, nodded, and turned to wave at Li Du, who had just finished moving the materials. "Little Li, move that batch of iron ore over to the smelting furnace. Start it now."

Li Du wasn't entirely sure what had just happened, but one look at Gu Yuan's expression told him that this wasn't the time to ask questions. He immediately answered and got to work.

When he lifted the first basket of ore, he secretly glanced back at the unfamiliar silver-gray device in the center of the auxiliary workshop. He remembered that the place had been empty when he brought the materials in, but now there was something there that clearly didn't look like it could have been built in a short time.

He swallowed, didn't dare look any longer, and lowered his head to continue working.

Mo Yuan stood beside the newly built conversion device. He lightly traced a finger along the outside of the reaction chamber, activating the preset self-check program.

Blue light traveled once around the rune arrays, and the status feedback lit up entirely green.

"Ready," he said quietly, as though speaking to himself or to the device.

Gu Yuan stood at the entrance of the auxiliary workshop, watching Mo Yuan's back from a distance.

The nine-year-old child stood beside the silver-gray device, his slender frame seeming almost too thin. Yet the confidence and composure with which his fingers moved across the device's surface made Gu Yuan feel, in a daze, as though he was the junior who ought to be looked after.

He shook his head and suppressed the thought. Then he took out his communications terminal and sent a message to the Association's logistics department: Third Experimental Base has entered operational status. The first batch of experimental materials has entered the furnace. Any subsequent material requirements will be submitted through the special approval channel.

After sending it, he locked the screen and turned his gaze back to Mo Yuan.

Mo Yuan had already crouched beside the operating console and begun preparing the Soul Conduction Array templates for engraving.

The low hum of the smelting furnace warming up echoed through the workshop.

Gu Yuan slipped both hands into his pockets, leaned against the doorframe, and exhaled softly.

He was wondering whether he should fully support this junior who had left him utterly amazed.

There had recently been undercurrents surging within the Association. Originally, he had planned to use the revival of the Third Experimental Base to win over a group of people for himself.

But looking at Mo Yuan, he seemed to have developed a different plan.

For some reason, he had a feeling that Mo Yuan's future would never be confined to this one corner of the world.

As he pondered this, the furnace used for the preliminary refining came online.

Gu Yuan took a deep breath, put his complicated thoughts away, and prepared to witness that historic moment with his own eyes.