The First Array Disc Takes Shape

The sound of the carving knife echoed in the rock cavity for three whole days.

On the evening of the fourth day, Mo Chen ruined the third jade fossil blank. Staring at the slightly off-center mark on the stone slab that had rendered the entire energy circuit unusable, he slammed the carving knife onto the stone platform.

"It's ruined again!" His voice was hoarse, his eyes sunken, and his hair a tangled mess like a pile of dry straw. "This piece of junk can't even tolerate an error finer than a hair!"

Shen Moxin put down her charcoal pencil and walked over from the other side of the stone platform. She picked up the discarded blank and examined it closely under the Soul Power lamp.

"It's not your problem." Her voice was steady as she lightly touched the edge of the engraving with her fingertips. "The internal texture of the jade fossil has subtle differences, which can cause unpredictable deflections during Soul Power transmission. Lu Yuan's rune structure is too precise, requiring extremely high uniformity of the substrate."

Mo Chen scratched his head in frustration. "What do we do? There are only two pieces left!"

"Screening." Shen Moxin put down the blank and walked back to her pile of notes. "Take out all the jade fossil scraps you have. I'll retest the uniformity of Soul Power transmission. Pick the best one."

Mo Chen was stunned. "... You're going to test it?"

"My Martial Soul, the ' Star Rail Pen,' is reasonably sensitive to the flow of Soul Power." Shen Moxin adjusted her glasses and took out the slender Martial Soul pen with a faint glow at its tip from her waist. "Although it's useless in combat, it's barely sufficient for this kind of fine-tuning."

After she finished speaking, before Mo Chen could react, she had already picked up a fragment of jade fossil. She channeled her Soul Power into the tip of the pen, and a thin, spider-web-like ray of light emerged, slowly tracing the surface of the stone.

Mo Chen looked at that focused profile, opened his mouth, but didn't say anything.

He simply plopped down, grabbed his water pouch, and gulped down a few mouthfuls. The cool water cleared his head a bit.

In another corner of the cavern, Lu Yuan closed his eyes and meditated. He had recovered most of the Soul Power he had used to treat Bai Zhi Zhi's brother, but his expression remained calm. Lin Xiao was out on reconnaissance and had not yet returned, Su Yan and Li Wangye were doing reaction training deep in the mine, Bai Zhi was taking care of her brother in the stone chamber. The entire base was so quiet that only the faint light from Shen Moxin's pen tip and Mo Chen's heavy breathing could be heard.

Time passed little by little.

Shen Moxin examined the seven fragments and finally selected a palm-sized, grayish-white jade fossil with the most uniform color. Fine beads of sweat appeared on her forehead, but her eyes shone with an astonishing brightness.

"This one," she handed the stone to Mo Chen, "Has the most regular internal texture, and its Soul Power transmission deviation is less than three-thousandths. It's enough."

Mo Chen took it, its surface smooth and warm to the touch. He stroked the stone's surface, then suddenly looked up. "That testing method you used earlier... could you teach me?"

Shen Moxin paused for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. Wait until the array plate is finished."

Mo Chen grinned, revealing his first smile in days. He picked up his carving knife, took a deep breath, and returned to his desk.

This time, he made his cuts extremely slowly.

The tip of the knife moved along the stone surface, making a very faint rustling sound. Soul Power flowed into the carving knife, leaving luminous patterns inside the jade fossil. Every stroke had to be steady, every line precise. Sweat slid down his forehead, dripping onto the stone and spreading into a small dark patch.

Shen Moxin wasn't idle. She spread out the array diagram manuscript that Lu Yuan had given her and used a charcoal pencil to recalculate the energy nodes on the stone slab.

"The core driver uses the smallest fragment of Soul Marrow," she muttered to herself, her pen flying across the paper. "The energy output of the fragment is unstable, requiring a three-layer buffer structure... Here, add a fine-tuning circuit..."

After she finished her calculations, she looked up at Mo Chen: "The seventh rune node, shift it half a millimeter to the left."

Mo Chen's wrist trembled, and the tip of the knife almost stopped. He squinted and looked closely, and sure enough, he found a slight misalignment between the rune and the main energy circuit.

"Thanks," he said in a muffled voice, carefully adjusting himself.

The two fell silent. The only sounds in the cavern were the chisels of carving knives, the scraping of charcoal pencils across the stone slabs, and the steady, dim light of the Soul Power lamp.

late at night.

Mo Chen finished carving the last rune. He put down the carving knife, his fingers trembling slightly from the tension of the long time. Shen Moxin walked over and embedded the smallest, lowest-quality fragment of Soul Marrow into the groove in the center of the array plate.

"Energy circuit connection," she said softly. "I'll guide you; you stabilize the substrate."

Mo Chen nodded and pressed his hands against the edge of the array plate. Shen Moxin condensed a wisp of Soul Power at her fingertips, as thin as a spider's thread, and probed towards the first activation node on the edge of the array plate.

Buzz--

A faint light appeared on the array pattern, but then flickered intermittently.

"The Soul Power injection is too fast." Shen Moxin immediately cut off the flow, frowning. "The release of shattered crystal energy has a delay; it needs to be activated in stages."

She adjusted her breathing and tried again. The strands of Soul Power probed in, this time slower and gentler. The first node lit up steadily, then the second, the third...

Mo Chen stared intently at the array plate, his palms sweating. He could feel the jade fossil trembling slightly, and the energy of the shattered Soul Marrow was flowing along the etched lines. But at the sixth node, the flow of light stagnated again.

"Uneven resistance in the circuit." Shen Moxin's forehead was covered in sweat. "Mo Chen, gently 'push' the eastern third of the seventh node with your Soul Power."

Mo Chen did as instructed, sending out a wisp of his Soul Power to probe. The two Soul Power subtly coordinated within the array plate, and the stream of light struggled to overcome the obstacle and continue forward.

One node, then another.

When the last circuit was connected, the Soul Marrow shard in the center of the array plate suddenly lit up. A milky white halo spread out from the shard, flowing along the rune patterns, and finally forming a pale white halo area about one meter in diameter above the array plate.

The light was faint, but it was definitely there.

Mo Chen held his breath. Shen Moxin slowly withdrew her Soul Power threads, adjusted her glasses, and stared unblinkingly behind the lenses.

Within that area of light, the air seemed to quiet down. The subtle, chaotic fluctuations of Soul Power that had permeated the mine were now smoothed out. An extremely peaceful and stable environment of Soul Power enveloped this small space.

"It's done..." Mo Chen murmured.

His voice trembled. Shen Moxin let out a long breath, leaned against the stone wall, and only then did he realize that his legs were a little weak.

Footsteps echoed from the entrance of the cavern. Lu Yuan entered, his gaze falling on the array plate, pausing for a moment.

"Is it finished?"

Mo Chen suddenly looked up, his eyes bloodshot. "It's done! Look, kid Lu!"

Lu Yuan approached, but did not immediately touch the array plate. He stood at the edge of the halo area, closing his eyes to sense it. A few seconds later, he stepped into the halo.

It's very obvious.

The activity of Soul Power within the area is slightly suppressed, unlike the restlessness outside. However, the purity and stability of Soul Power are significantly improved, as if turbid water has been filtered. Meditation here makes it easier to concentrate; and there are far fewer distractions when practicing precise Soul Power manipulation.

Lu Yuan opened his eyes and looked at the Soul Marrow shard in the center of the array plate, which was slowly releasing energy.

"The range is one meter in diameter, and the duration depends on the energy reserves of the fragment." He spoke steadily, "Given the quality of this fragment, operating at low power, it can probably last forty to fifty hours."

Mo Chen chuckled foolishly, clutching the array plate tightly, his eyes slightly red. Shen Moxin also smiled faintly, taking off her glasses and slowly wiping them.

"For the first physical demonstration, this is a very good result," Lu Yuan said. He paused, then added, "Thank you for your hard work."

Mo Chen waved his hand, his throat tight, unable to speak. Shen Moxin nodded gently.

Lu Yuan looked at the pale white halo, then gazed towards the dark mine tunnel outside the rock cavity, as if he could penetrate the stone wall and see the Thousand Needle Stone Forest in the distance.

A thought gradually became clear in my mind.

"Although the array plate has a small range, limited duration, and high operating cost," Lu Yuan said slowly, "It does create a stable Soul Power environment. This means that, for the first time, our theoretical research has produced an 'object' with clear practical value."

He turned to Mo Chen and Shen Moxin.

"Perhaps... we can use it to try and find a relatively safe area on the outskirts of the Thousand Needle Stone Forest to collect short-term field data." Lu Yuan's eyes were calm. "The chaotic Soul Power environment of the stone forest is perfect for testing the array plate's 'anti-interference' effect. Moreover..."

He paused.

"We can also take this opportunity to test just how far the sensing range of the Cloud Mist Sect's Soul Tool really is."

Mo Chen's smile froze. Shen Moxin also stopped wiping her glasses.

The cavern fell silent. Only the pale white glow emanating from the array disc swayed silently.

From the depths of the distant mine tunnels, the faint shouts of Su Yan and Li Wangye practicing their drills could be heard, carrying the tenacity unique to young people.

The sound pierced through the darkness and landed in the rock cavity, making the silence seem all the more heavy.