Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 339
"But in fact, the most valuable does not mean the most important in many situations. It is often the materials that look unattractive that really matter!
"The Heavenly Silk Threat and Eight Gold Sulfur that Li Yao selected and the 'Iron-Knight-II' control chip that Mo Tianshui selected are all related to 'distribution' and 'control'. I assume that they have figured out the magical equipment that their opponent wanted to refine and they both adopted the most aggressive tactics. As a result, both of them suffered a great loss!
"Right now, I don't think they will ever be able to create the magical equipment they envisioned initially!
"They will have to make major adjustments to their plans, but they don't have much time for that."
The host shouted, "Indeed! While the two contestants are eyeing each other coldly, the real match has begun! They have six hours for their refining work. They seem to have more time than they did yesterday, but don't forget that they had received the structural designs in advance before the second round.
"Right now, they have to build everything from scratch!
"Designing the structure of a piece of magical equipment is the most fundamental and the most critical step in refining! Modern magical equipment is always made of dozens of components. Even the simplest of them require tens or even hundreds of structural designs!
"Only by drawing thousands of structural designs and inputting them into the crystal processor of the furnace will the furnace produce corresponding components that the refiner desires.
"If there are any errors in the structural design, the entire batch of components will be wasted!
"Right now, let's see how the two contestants make a comeback!
After a clang, Li Yao and Mo Tianshui's match officially began!
But the two of them were absolutely still. They sat cross-legged with frozen eyes, like two statues that had been covered in dust, meditating.
Beneath their indifferent faces, their thoughts were raging like scorching magma. They were both pondering how to devise a deadly weapon with their remaining materials now that the most crucial ones were gone!
Inside a VIP room close to the field, dozens of elegant refiners were either standing or sitting as they watched the picks of the two contestants' materials. They were deep in thought, too.
They were all celebrities in the circle of refiners of the Flying Star Sector.
Many of them came from the three main crystal suit centers. The strongest crystal suits of the Flying Star Sector had been born in their hands.
There were also pillars of the major noble families, including the members from the Mo family and the Huangpu family.
They were all thinking hard about the problems that Li Yao and Mo Tianshui had caused each other.
The contemplation lasted an hour and ten minutes.
The space around Mo Tianshui was rippling from the center of his head like the surface of a lake into which a pebble had been tossed. The waves were spreading to every corner of the workshop.
Around Li Yao, white mist was popping up from his body.
Since his computational ability had been brought to its maximum, his brain cells were consuming too much energy. He had entered an over-exhausted state, even though he was only sitting!
It had never occurred to the regular audience and the fans of magical equipment that even meditation could be so tiresome. The atmosphere was extremely intense. There was nothing but silence inside the two workshops. The sound of a needle dropping to the ground would be like roaring thunder.
An hour and fifteen minutes after the match began, Li Yao and Mo Tianshui rose up within half a minute of each other.
They were about to devise structural designs!
Shua!
Mo Tianshui's face was graver than ever, like ancient wood that had been soaked in a frozen lake for thousands of years. He opened his palms. Twenty translucent light beams immediately appeared around him.
His telepathic thoughts quickly expanded and galloped on the light beams. Gold lines extended forward like snakes, while more than twenty structural designs were created with the most intricate details!
"Unbelievable!"
"Incredible!"
"I've seen experienced refiners drawing multiple structural designs simultaneously, but Mo Tianshui is drawing twenty of them at the same time! How terrifying his computational ability is!"
"Mo Tianshui's movements are seamless without any pause. Watching him drawing structural designs is like watching the great musicians playing their favorite instruments. It's truly entertaining!"
"It appears that Mo Tianshui has figured out how to break out of the dilemma that Li Yao put him in. He is very confident!"
"Judging from the current speed, he will be able to complete almost a thousand structural designs in less than two hours and start making a marvelous weapon!"
"While Li Yao—"
While Mo Tianshui's inspiration was surging like springs and more and more structural designs were drawn, Li Yao had quickly set the basic parameters of the furnace and spiritualized the Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures.
He drew a handful of structural designs quickly and delivered the first batch of the materials into the furnace. His refining had already begun!
Li Yao was serious. Half of the dozens of light beams in front him were the control menus of the furnace, while the other half were empty canvases on which he could draw structural designs.
Li Yao's two hands turned into two clusters of grey mist. His left hand was adjusting the complicated parameters of the furnace, while his right hand was busy devising new structural designs.
"Two jobs at the same time!"
"Li Yao is refining components and drawing new structural designs!"
"Are you kidding me? He is so confident in his designing and coordinating abilities that he is certain he won't make the tiniest mistake?"
"Mo Tianshui's speed of drawing the structural designs can't be any higher. But still, Li Yao has started the refining work much earlier than him. By estimation, Li Yao should finish all the refining work at least half an hour sooner!"
Exclamations echoed nonstop inside the VIP room.
Doing the refining work while drawing structural designs was like writing an essay fluently without an outline. The author must determine what his next sentence would be while he was writing the current one!
The few most experienced refiners looked at each other. A middle-aged man with a long beard couldn't help but take a long breath and murmured, "I feel that I'm back at the Skyhill Sword Seminar that year and watching another 'Huangpu Shiyi'!"
The name 'Huangpu Shiyi' was like a cold front that completely froze the VIP room.
Inside his workshop, Mo Tianshui glanced at his opponent occasionally and was truly shocked by Li Yao's crazy performance.
He could do two jobs at the same time, too. But he could not be certain about the success rate. If there were errors in one of the structural designs, misfit components might be manufactured, and it would be a terrible disaster if the errors were only found during the assembly procedure.
Was Li Yao confident, or had he gone mad?
According to Mo Tianshui's pace, six hours should be more than enough time. There was no need for him to try to beat Li Yao in speed.
However, he felt ill at ease.
Li Yao was apparently trying to buy himself more time by doing two jobs simultaneously.
He should have enough time in this match. What was the purpose of going so fast at such great risk?
Time went on second by second while everybody was watching suspiciously.
Three hours after the match began, Mo Tianshui finished the drawing of all the 3,792 structural designs and immediately devoted himself to the actual refining process.
At this time, Li Yao had completed the refining of almost half his components.
Four hours. The two of them both entered their best state. They were both enshrouded in a layer of vague brightness that blurred their bodies, as if they had stepped into an unknown world.
Five hours after the match had begun, Mo Tianshui was still occupied with the refining work, but Li Yao had finished the refining of all the components he needed in advance!
There was only an hour to go before the end of the match.
With Li Yao's current hand speed, it would take him less than half an hour to assemble all the components and conduct the final debugging.
What was he going to do in the last half hour?
Everyone watching the match bulged their eyes.
"Weird. How weird!"
"According to Li Yao's structural designs, he seems to be planning to refine a compound saber that mixes the techniques of vibration and revolution."
"But such a piece of compound magical equipment will boast two entirely different spiritual energy circuits. A control chip is obligatory, otherwise they will definitely interfere with each other!"
"Li Yao's only control chip, 'Iron-Knight-II', was looted by Mo Tianshui."
"It seems that, although Mo Tianshui has predicted his plan and taken away his crucial materials, Li Yao is stubborn enough to stick to his idea."
"Then, where exactly is he going to find a new control chip?"
Li Yao shook his head to relax his neck. He blew on his burning hands, before he picked a few newly-hatched components and quickly assembled them into a piece of somewhat weird magical equipment.
This magical equipment looked like a short and fat single-tube telescope. There were seven crystal lenses of different sizes in the middle that were fixed by metal rings. Each of the rings had been carved with hundreds of rune arrays that were no larger than millets. They constituted a continuous group of rune arrays.
Under the influence of the rune arrays, six layers of round light beams made of pure spiritual energy were condensed among the seven-crystal lens.
The host was totally confused. "Master Dustless, what is this? It does not seem to be related to a blade!"
Master Dustless' voice was very solemn. "This is a piece of magical equipment similar to a microscope. It can magnify the object under the scopes. This gadget has been finely made. Its precision is very high!"
The host was dazed. "Microscope? Magnifying lens? Why is Li Yao refining such a piece of magical equipment that has zero combat ability?"
Li Yao put the 'microscope' on his right eye with a fixation tool. The crystal lens inside it slightly span. The size of the six layers of light beams in between were altered.
Li Yao's hands shivered. Almost ten pins thinner than hair appeared among his fingers.
On the operation platform was a crystal slip the size of a fingernail that was extremely thin. It was glimmering in silver brightness.
Li Yao lowered his head. Seven-colored mystic rays beamed out of the 'microscope' and enveloped the crystal chip.
The pins were trembling among his fingers, like snakes that were hissing feebly.
This time, even Master Dustless sounded somewhat shocked as he said, "Contestant Li Yao seems to be planning to carve a crystal chip with his hands!"
Chapter 500: Handmade Chip |
"How is that possible!" the host exclaimed, as if somebody had stabbed his bottom.
"Master Dustless, although I'm not a refiner, I know that chips are the most essential components of modern magical equipment. At least ten thousand tiny spiritual energy circuits have to be carved on chips only the size of fingernails for more than ten different layers to form a complicated and yet functional framework!
"Carving a chip requires a precision at the micrometer level, or perhaps even the sub-micrometer level, which means a thousandth, or even smaller, the diameter of a hair.
"It was not until the crystal processors evolved exponentially and chip makers controlled by crystal processors such as 'Tiny Ray Etching Machine' appeared that the microchips really thrived!
"But right now, you are telling me that a refiner is attempting to create a chip with his bare hands? Master Dustless, is it not a joke?"
Master Dustless smiled bitterly. "I know the procedure of chip production much better than you. I also believe that every member of the audience who has any common sense about magical equipment knows what a difficult and tedious job making a chip is. In fact, we have been calling the manufacturing of chips the summit of magical equipment refining.
"But facts are facts. There are no other possibilities when you look at what Li Yao has been doing.
"He is truly going to carve a chip with his bare hands!"
The host breathed heavily and scratched his head. "This is insane! This is incredible! Ten thousand spiritual energy circuits on the micrometer level without the tiniest errors. One of them goes wrong, and the entire chip will be wasted!
"Also, he has half an hour at best. Half an hour!
"Can his hands be that stable? Are they even faster than 'Tiny Ray Etching Machines'? Then isn't he even stronger than refiners at the Core Formation Stage?"
Bi Luoling, the other guest and the refiner from Red Line School, explained, "It cannot be compared that way.
"We all know that ancient refiners paid great attention to mini-scale etching with their hands. Many legendary refiners in history, such as Master Ou Yezi of the Hundred Smelting Clan, could even carve tens of thousands of rune arrays on magical equipment the size of millet!
"However, the modern Cultivation civilization developed together with crystal processors. Most modern refiners attached more importance to the utilization of crystal processors.
"You want to carve a chip? Then you can simply do that by operating magical equipment such as 'Tiny Ray Etching Machines' via a crystal processor. That will be both fast and handy.
"With the assistance of crystal processors, no rational refiners would waste their time with training themselves in the techniques of engraving chips with their bare hands. It is only a matter of preference and has nothing to do with capability or level.
"For example, fire is everywhere in modern world. We can buy a lighter that contains two rune arrays of the fire class for just one dollar.
"If so, who would bother to learn how to make fire with woods and stones? Does such a skill mean anything even if someone is adept at it?"
The host was dazed for a long time. Then he said, "Ms. Bi, are you indicating that this technique of Li Yao is like making fire with woods and stones, which is… utterly useless?"
Bi Luoling smiled bitterly. "Generally speaking, yes. But it's a whole different case right now. I really cannot see through Li Yao. What kind of environment and which school is such a weirdo from?"
Li Yao sat straight before the operation platform. His heart was tranquil, and his eyes were scorching. After several long breaths, he had completely forgotten that he was in the middle of a fierce competition. The spectators around seemed to turn into dust. The exclamations of the host and the guests in midair gradually died down, too.
All his concentration was focused on the tiny chip.
Although he was not making a super-complicated, integrated mainframe chip but the simplest single-function control chip, it still entailed 12,330 spiritual energy circuits.
He had to divide the chip, which was as thin as the wing of a cicada, into eleven layers with the etching technique and carve more than twelve thousand circuits evenly among the layers. They could not interfere with each other and had to be connected in certain patterns.
It was like building a maze on grit, which was simply an impossible mission.
If it had been two months prior, Li Yao would've had no confidence that he could do it.
But right now, after the cruel training with the Purple Ring Sword Ants, his hand speed had advanced to a whole new level. The stability of his hands was far higher than that of the most advanced artificial arms, too.
He was about to declare war on the unclimbable peak with his bruised hands!
In the ancient Cultivation world, there was no such thing as a crystal processor. All the magical equipment had to be built up from scratch by refiners in person!
Today, allow me to polish this control chip, an example of the essence of the modern Cultivation civilization, with the ancient refining techniques from forty thousand years ago!
Spiritual energy was surging inside Li Yao's body. His hands were glittering. Seven extremely tiny mystic rays were condensed in front of the seven pins among his fingers.
The mystic rays were only a thousandth the diameter of hair and completely unrecognizable to human eyes. Only through Li Yao's special head-worn microscope could he see the mystic rays that were in the shape of ultimate sabers!
The seven light sabers had different frequencies, which allowed them to enter the different layers of the chip and carve there at the same time!
Li Yao closed his eyes and made a countdown. Three seconds later, his eyelids suddenly opened. Inside his eyes, his pupils were surrounded by bright gold rings that were expanding and shrinking like the crystal cameras with extremely high resolution!
His body was still. But there were explosive sounds coming from his hands.
The audience was immediately in a riot.
Since the match had proceeded for a while, most regular spectators were tired. Some of them were taking a nap, only to be woken up by the continuous explosions. They all stood straight and listened attentively.
The host shouted at his loudest, "What's going on? Li Yao seemed to be frozen before the operation platform, but terrible sounds are coming from him, as if a fearsome animal is chewing its prey there! Let's focus the camera on his hands. Zoom in, and zoom in. Ah, Li Yao's hands have turned into a cluster of white mist where thousands of blurred shadows—"
"Not blurred shadows!"
Bi Luoling's voice cut off the host's scream like the sharpest saber as she continued, "It's the sonic barrier!"
"Every finger on Li Yao's two hands is moving rapidly and breaking the sonic barrier within the tiny distance!
