Blue Star, Bureau 749's underground base.
Inside the artifact-refining industrial laboratory workshop.
A special silver-white alloy furnace several meters tall stood in the center of the laboratory.
Dozens of nimble mechanical arms were connected inside the furnace.
High-precision sensors of every kind covered it.
Wang Zhiwen stood before the main control console, his graying hair meticulously combed, looking through the enormous observation window.
He could see the lump of "slag" floating in a magnetic field inside the furnace, emitting a faint blue light, its original properties reawakened.
For this day, they had failed over a thousand times.
Only then had they finally mastered the technique of using particle collisions to "awaken" spirituality and reshape a material's structure with nanometer precision.
Now... it was finally time to put it into practice.
Taking a deep breath, Wang Zhiwen spoke gravely.
"Everyone... check everything again!"
"Yes!"
"Energy field stable!"
"All mechanical arms calibrated!"
"Microscopic monitoring system operating at full power!"
"Everything is ready!"
"..."
Once the order was given, reports from researchers at every station rang out one after another, their excitement impossible to suppress.
The control interfaces before them were incredibly complex.
They displayed tens of thousands of data points in real time, including energy flow and structural stress within the material.
Wang Zhiwen looked at Li Yuanchao, who stood beside him with his hands clasped behind his back, and nodded firmly.
Li Yuanchao understood and leaned toward the communications microphone.
His voice was steady and strong as it reached across two worlds:
"Comrade Lu Li, on behalf of our motherland and our people, I wish your first cross-world artifact refinement complete success!"
"Now... begin refining!"
Azure Pool Sect, Lu Li's cave abode.
"Understood!"
Lu Li's gaze sharpened.
Without hesitation, he tossed the piece of slag material repaired through Great Xia's technology into the bronze forging furnace.
"Whoosh!"
The furnace fire soared.
He skillfully controlled the heat.
At the same time, he clearly relayed every step he took and every change in spiritual power through the jade pendant in real time.
That was right, you hadn't heard wrong. Although Lu Li was refining an artifact himself,
Blue Star was actually starting at the same time!
Using technology to communicate with Lu Li in real time, both sides were going to refine an artifact together.
This was... cross-world artifact refinement!
"The artifact blank is in the furnace. Keep spiritual power output at thirty percent and warm it slowly over a low flame."
"Heat it evenly... sense the internal structure softening..."
The Blue Star base.
An operator's fingers flew as he converted Lu Li's instructions into precise parameters and entered them into the control system.
"Understood! Activating mechanical arms A1 through A7, executing the 'low-flame tempering' program, and setting spiritual power output to 30 percent..."
"Watch the Spirit Stones' rate of consumption and make sure the power supply remains stable!"
Inside the enormous special furnace, soft beams of light shot from the tips of several mechanical arms.
They precisely enveloped the repaired artifact slag.
Its internal structure was clearly visible beneath the microscopic sensors.
Directly above the furnace, several Spirit Stones sent back by Lu Li were slowly being consumed...
Two worlds, two entirely different civilizations and crafts.
At this moment, they were carrying out an unprecedented simultaneous forging around the same artifact.
Time passed, second by second.
With Lu Li's "live instruction" and the supercomputer's assistance, the two sides' progress remained perfectly synchronized.
Smelting, shaping, tempering...
Each step was completed smoothly.
Until they reached the most crucial step... engraving the Artifact Inscription!
"Artifact Inscription image ready!"
"3D alloy printing program being entered!"
The researcher in charge of operating the machine shouted the progress at the top of his lungs.
Lu Li held his breath and took out the black iron engraving knife he had purchased with contribution points.
His pure spiritual power gathered at its tip, like a scalpel.
On the already formed artifact armor, he began tracing the intricate and profound "force-dispersing" Artifact Inscription.
His movements were steady and fluid as he explained in detail the depth of each stroke, the interruptions in the flow of spiritual power, and the direction of the lines.
Over on Blue Star.
An extraordinarily precise six-axis engraving machine had long since been set in place.
The "tip" it used was a special alloy made from purified Azure Gold Spirit Ore and other superconducting metals.
It perfectly reproduced the image of the Artifact Inscription Lu Li had sent back earlier, engraving it on a nanometer scale.
The instant Lu Li finished the final stroke and lifted his engraving knife...
"Clang!"
The artifact armor in his hand suddenly gave a clear, resonant chime.
Spiritual light flickered across its surface, and a sense of immense weight filled the entire cave abode, its presence unmistakable!
"It worked!"
The joyful cry came through the jade pendant to Blue Star, but on the other side,
The artifact armor engraved by the machine floated silently in the furnace.
Not the slightest trace of spiritual light appeared.
Not a single unusual sign flickered into being; it looked like nothing more than an ordinary, exquisitely shaped suit of iron armor.
The sounds in the laboratory abruptly died away.
"Did... did it fail...?"
"There's none of the unusual phenomenon Comrade Little Lu said would appear when the artifact was completed..."
"Could it be... it still won't work...?"
Everyone's heart sank.
Their enormous expectations had come to nothing, bringing even deeper disappointment.
For over a year, the entire Bureau 749 had poured enormous resources into this, and tens of thousands of comrades had experimented and researched day and night.
But in the end...
"Could it be... that technology can never reproduce the wonders of immortal cultivation?"
Wang Zhiwen's face turned pale. He opened his mouth, but did not know what to say.
He fell into self-doubt.
And in that oppressive silence,
Lu Li's voice rang out again from the jade pendant.
"Director Li, Elder Wang, don't rush to a conclusion."
"Send me that one of yours that isn't reacting at all... let me take a look."
"Hm?"
Li Yuanchao and Wang Zhiwen exchanged a glance.
"Quick!"
Li Yuanchao gave the order without hesitation. "Do as Comrade Lu Li says!"
The next moment.
Light flashed from the jade pendant.
A strangely shaped piece of artifact armor appeared in Lu Li's hand.
And the instant it appeared in this world,
"Hum!"
Some mechanism inside the artifact armor seemed to activate instantly.
Fine, dark blue lines suddenly lit up across its previously dim surface.
They brightened and faded as though breathing, while dense spiritual vitality gushed forth.
It had succeeded!
But... Lu Li's expression was unusually strange.
He stood frozen in place.
In his left hand was the artifact armor he had refined himself, its design simple and ancient, like an old suit of lamellar armor.
As for the one from Blue Star in his right hand...
"This... this counts as artifact armor?"
Looking at the breastplate, brimming with a futuristic technological feel, Lu Li's mouth fell slightly open.
Its overall structure was streamlined, its base material silver-white.
A faintly visible hexagonal honeycomb matrix covered its surface.
Those "artifact patterns" resembled precisely etched integrated circuits, flowing with a dark blue light, full of the beauty of power and technology.
A famous image from the screen flashed through his mind.
He muttered to himself without thinking.
"Wait... the motherland's people... they didn't refine this using Iron Man's blueprints, did they?!"