Mo Chen's "Legacy"

"Redundant guide channels, reverse spoiler lines." Mo Chen stared at Lu Yuan, the oil lamp light flickering in his deep-set eyes. "Kid, who taught you that?"

Lu Yuan didn't say anything, squatted down, and drew a triangle on the dusty ground with his finger. Three dots, several lines.

Mo Chen's beard twitched.

"Bullshit!" He lowered his voice, as if afraid of disturbing something. "This is a variant of the 'Basic Soul Power Stabilization Model'! Something those old fogies in the Hundred Refinements Pavilion's core workshop have been working on for decades! And you, a mere brat, came up with this on your own?"

Lu Yuan's fingertip touched the third node of the triangle.

"The flow of Soul Power here will be sluggish, right?"

Mo Chen was stunned.

He opened his mouth, but after a long while, he managed to squeeze out a "hmm".

Why is it so difficult?

"... Energy inertia." Mo Chen answered subconsciously, then shook his head, "No, that's not right. I tried widening the flow channels, but it didn't work. Adding auxiliary patterns actually increased the losses."

"You're going in the wrong direction."

Lu Yuan traced an arc between the second and fourth auxiliary lines with his finger.

"Soul Power isn't water. It has viscosity, inertia, and the characteristics of soul matter. Directly widening the channel will create a vortex dead zone. The energy will just swirl around there and dissipate."

Mo Chen's breathing became heavy.

He suddenly squatted down, his face almost touching the simple diagram on the ground.

"So... a reverse spoiler?" he murmured, "To create a reverse vortex to counteract the main vortex?"

"To offset some of it," Lu Yuan corrected, "To make the energy flow smoother."

Mo Chen raised his head and stared intently at Lu Yuan.

That look in his eyes was like a hungry wolf eyeing its prey.

"How old are you?"

Ten years old.

"... monster."

Mo Chen uttered those two words, his voice dry. He propped himself up on his knees, swayed, and walked to the pile of junk in the corner. After rummaging around for a while, he pulled out a thick book.

The booklet, made of several rough animal hides, had curled corners and layers of ink, some new and some old.

He walked back and handed the booklet to Lu Yuan.

"Look."

Lu Yuan took it. It felt heavy in his hand. He opened it and found it covered with dense sketches, equations, and hastily written annotations. In some places, the ink had been smudged by water, and some corners of the pages were scorched.

They are all diagrams of Soul Tool.

Various energy circuits, stabilizing arrays, and Soul Power transmission schemes were displayed, with annotations next to them reading "failure," "exploded," and "Soul Power went berserk."

Lu Yuan turned the pages one by one.

It was fast. His eyes scanned the graphics and text, his brain working in tandem. The energy theories from his past life collided and analyzed rapidly with these wild yet problematic design drawings.

Mo Chen watched him turn the pages, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the hem of his clothes.

The tunnel was quiet. The only sounds were the faint crackling of the burning oil lamp wick and Lin Xiao's steady breathing.

Lu Yuan stopped on the seventh page.

This page depicts a complex multi-node energy array, labeled. "General-purpose Level 1 Soul Guidance Core - Version 7 (Exploded Again)".

The graphic is beautiful. It's symmetrical and exquisite.

But Lu Yuan only glanced at it before shaking his head.

"Here," he pointed to a crossroads in the center of the array, "An energy path conflict."

Mo Chen leaned closer. "Conflict? I've calculated it seventeen times! The Soul Power load on each path is balanced!"

"It's not a load problem," Lu Yuan said, "It's a phase issue."

He picked up a pebble from the side and drew two overlapping waves on the blank space of the animal hide.

"Soul Power fluctuations are periodic. In your design, when the two Soul Power flows converge at this point, the peaks meet the troughs. The energy cancels each other out, and the node experiences shear force."

Mo Chen's eyes widened.

He snatched the booklet, stared at the array diagram, his lips trembling as he muttered to himself, his fingers gesturing in the air.

A few seconds later, he suddenly looked up.

"So... so in every test, this node always fails first? Not because the material isn't strong enough, but because..."

"Because the design itself creates internal friction," Lu Yuan replied.

Mo Chen plopped down on the ground.

He held the booklet, his shoulders trembling slightly. It wasn't fear, but a different emotion—the kind of excitement that comes from years of frustration, from hitting your head against a wall until you were completely lost, only to have someone suddenly break down the door with a single finger.

"Any more?" His voice trembled. "How many more of these stupid questions are in this booklet?"

Lu Yuan continued flipping through the pages.

Three more points were pointed out. One is that the resonance amplification generated when the energy circuit is closed will cause the Soul Tool to vibrate at high frequency until it disintegrates. Another is that the thermal expansion coefficient of the material was not taken into account, and the structure will deform and jam after the Soul Power continues to operate. The last point is more basic - the "Soul Power conduction efficiency formula" used by Mo Chen is flawed in itself, ignoring the influence of the environmental Soul Power concentration on the flow cross section.

With each point pointed out, Mo Chen's expression changed.

From excitement, to shock, and then to a near-complete blankness.

When Lu Yuan closed the booklet and handed it back to him, Mo Chen didn't take it. He stared at Lu Yuan for a long time.

"You..." His throat bobbed, "Where did you get all this stuff?"

Lu Yuan paused for a moment.

"I read it in a book. Some very old books."

"Old books?" Mo Chen scoffed, his smile more like a grimace. "I've even sneaked into the forbidden section on the lowest level of the Hundred Refinements Pavilion Pavilion's library. Nothing there. I've read almost every renowned text on soul guidance theory across the entire continent. There's nothing like what you're saying."

He paused, then lowered his voice.

"Either you're lying to me, or... those 'old books' you're reading don't belong to this era at all."

The oil lamp flickered.

Silence fell over the tunnel for a moment. Only the faint sound of water dripping in the distance, tapping, tapping on the rocks.

Lu Yuan neither admitted nor denied it.

He turned to look at Lin Xiao. The boy was still unconscious, but his breathing was much more even. The thin yellow film covering the wound was now firmly in place, and there was no more bleeding.

Mo Chen followed his gaze and suddenly grinned.

"That blood-clotting glue, you also learned about it from an 'old book'?" he asked, his tone strange.

"No," Lu Yuan said truthfully, "Your formula is unique. I didn't expect to use the juice of the Cordyceps sinensis as a carrier of clotting factors."

"Rotheart Vine is poisonous."

"You added silverleaf grass to neutralize the toxicity, and mixed in chalcedony powder to increase adhesion," Lu Yuan said. "The ratio is roughly three to one to 0.5. Is that right?"

Mo Chen stopped laughing.

He stared at Lu Yuan as if he were staring at a Soul Beast he had never seen before.

"... Yes," he said in a hoarse voice.

Silence again.

But this silence is different. Before, it was wariness, probing, and an exchange of benefits. Now, there's something else in the air—the subtle resonance between two people who have been trekking alone on their own paths for too long, suddenly discovering they're on the same road.

Mo Chen let out a long breath. He moved to the wall, sat down with his back against the rock face, took out a flat iron pot from his pocket, unscrewed it, and took a swig. The strong smell of alcohol spread out.

"Those bastards from the Hundred Refinements Pavilion," he wiped his mouth, "Said my ' Universal Soul Tool Core ' was wishful thinking. They said Soul Tool should be categorized and each go its own way. What's with this universal one? It's a waste of resources."

He sneered.

"They're afraid. They're afraid that if they really develop a universal core, the barrier to entry for Soul Tool will be lowered. Any Soul Master could use it without needing to spend years learning the control techniques. Then, what would their monopolized technology be worth?"

Lu Yuan listened quietly.

"Later, I experimented in secret and blew up half the workshop," Mo Chen continued, his tone as calm as if he were talking about someone else's business. "They took the opportunity to kick me out, saddled me with huge compensation claims, and labeled me a 'dangerous element.' No legitimate workshop dared to hire me. I could only hide here, making some gadgets and selling them on the black market to make a living."

He picked up the iron kettle and took another sip.

"Your theory," he said, setting down the kettle, his eyes gleaming in the dim light, "If I had heard it ten years earlier, I might not have suffered such a terrible fate."

Lu Yuan shook his head.

"It's useless. Ten years ago, if you had heard this, you would have just dismissed it as nonsense. You wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't failed so many times."

Mo Chen was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter.

Laughter echoed through the tunnel, hoarse and unrestrained.

"Yes! Yes!" he slapped his thigh, "I've hit a brick wall so many times before I fucking know the pain! Before I'm willing to look back and think about whether I've taken the wrong path!"

After he finished laughing, he looked at Lu Yuan, panting.

His eyes changed.

The previous fervor remains, but with an added weight—a sense of recognition, or rather, a feeling of finding kindred spirits.

"Kid," Mo Chen said, "Where are you planning to go? We can't keep hiding here with that seriously injured kid."

Lu Yuan pulled out the crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. It was the address Zhou Chun had given him: Old Shipyard Alley, Vast Sea City.

Mo Chen took it, squinted at it under the lamp for a while, and chuckled.

"Old Shipyard Alley... I know that place. A bunch of weirdos who research quirky stuff, some are actually quite skilled, but most are just charlatans." He tossed the note back to Lu Yuan. "What are you going there for?"

"Find someone. Maybe they can help."

"Help?" Mo Chen shook his head. "How about I help you?"

He stood up, walked to the pile of junk, rummaged through it for a while, and pulled out a palm-sized iron box. He opened it and found several rolls of even smaller animal hides and a few rough metal pieces inside.

"These," he shoved the box into Lu Yuan's hands, "Are things I've figured out over the years that still have some value. There's a formula for coagulating gel, and several potion recipes for resisting poisonous miasma and stabilizing Soul Power. Soul Tool design blueprints... You've seen that booklet; not much is useful, but some of the ideas might come in handy."

Lu Yuan took the box without saying a word.

Mo Chen stared at him, his beard twitching.

"Genius," he said suddenly, his voice very soft, "No, monster. You were born for this."

The next second, he suddenly reached out and grabbed Lu Yuan's shoulder. The force was great, his fingers digging into the flesh.

"Kid, don't go to that address on the letter!" His eyes were bloodshot, and his breathing was rapid. "Stay here and work with me! I have the skills, you have the brains. We'll turn this tunnel into a laboratory right here! We'll take care of those arrogant bastards, those knowledge-monopolizing scum, those idiots who say we're delusional—"

He gritted his teeth.

"Flip them all over!"

Before he could finish speaking...

Outside the tunnel, from a great distance, faint sounds could be heard.

It wasn't footsteps. It was the clanging of metal, and hushed shouts. Closer and more detailed than before, like a systematic search for every possible hiding place.

Mo Chen's expression changed.

He released Lu Yuan, darted to the entrance of the tunnel, and pressed his ear against the rock wall. After listening for a moment, he turned around, his eyes serious.

"The people from the Hundred Refinements Pavilion," he said hoarsely, "Haven't gone far. They're conducting a comprehensive search of the mountain."

Lu Yuan looked at Lin Xiao.

The boy was still unconscious, but his brows were slightly furrowed, as if he sensed the danger from the outside world.

The fleeting utopia of knowledge and resonance, like a bubble punctured by a needle, burst with a snap. The rusty and bloody smell of reality returned to the nostrils.

Mo Chen was still staring at him, his eyes burning with anticipation, yet also filled with a desperate madness.

Lu Yuan gripped the iron box tightly in his hand. The rough texture of the animal hide pressed against his palm.

He glanced at Mo Chen, then at Lin Xiao.

The sounds of searching outside the tunnel were getting closer and closer.