124: Chapter 124 Mech Improvement, Drill Strikes

The drill bit got stuck in the rock layer, emitting a harsh "screech—", like metal crying.

Chen Tiezhu shoved the young mechanic away from the console and reached out to touch the mecha's main shaft interface.

His palm had barely touched the scalding alloy casing before it recoiled from the burn.

He spat, pulled the oilcloth gloves from his waist to put them back on, gripped the transmission rod with his knuckles, and gave it a forceful twist, causing the entire "earth dragon" mecha to vibrate and hum.

"This is the seventh time." He stared at the jumping data on the terminal, his brows furrowed into a knot, "It still can't withstand the stress pressure below ninety zhang."

The air inside the tunnel was stuffy and hot, mixed with the smell of machine oil and rock dust.

Several young mechanics were squatting in the corner repairing hydraulic lines, none daring to look up.

The previous drilling attempt had lasted less than a quarter of an hour before two cutting edges of the newly installed triangular drill bit snapped, the core temperature spiked to a critical value, and it automatically shut down.

Someone muttered softly: "How about... we slow down for two days? Wait for Old Master Ling Zhenzi to push the shield further out?"

"Slow down?" Chen Tiezhu turned around abruptly, his eyes bloodshot, "We have a three-day buffer period, it's not for catching our breath! It's a window we snatched with our lives! You tell me how to slow down? Wait for the bugs to come in another wave, block the entire tunnel, and we just sit here chewing on rocks?"

No one answered.

He knew his clansmen were nervous. Below ninety zhang, the rock density doubled, the Spiritual Qi flow was chaotic, and even the detectors often malfunctioned.

Before, they relied on "shell-peeling" to grind their way in bit by bit; now, to increase speed, they had to break the hard bones.

But if they couldn't break it, it was the same as waiting to die on the spot.

He lowered his head to pull up the data panel again, his fingers sliding across sets of waveforms. Suddenly, his gaze stopped on a subtle stress curve—that was the record of underground back-surging force fluctuations collected by Ling Zhenzi while setting up the Spirit Array.

"Wait..."

He narrowed his eyes, quickly switched to the structural simulation interface, and overlaid the damage points from the last operation with this set of data for comparison:

"Here, the rock layer here isn't solid, it's a honeycomb interlayer! No wonder the drill bit's stress was uneven, all the torque was concentrated on one point!"

He slammed the table and stood up, his roar causing rubble to rattle down from the ceiling:

"Change the design! Stop using the cutting-style drill bit, switch to a spiral pressure-style! Like twisting a bottle cap, slowly screw it in! Don't force it!"

The mechanics were stunned.

"Spiral-style?" A young man asked tentatively, "But we don't have a ready-made mold."

"If we don't have one, we make it!"

Chen Tiezhu grabbed a wrench and smashed it into the scrap pile, clattering through a heap of discarded parts, "Not enough Materials? Use the shells of the Gold-Eating Insect!"

"The fragments we picked up from cleaning the battlefield last time are still sitting in the warehouse! That stuff can even chew through Spirit Steel; mix it into the alloy, and the wear resistance will at least double!"

Everyone's eyes lit up.

Three hours later, the forge furnace blazed with fire.

Chen Tiezhu personally stood guard by the molten pool, adding the special formula scoop by scoop: seven parts black iron, two parts meteorite sand, and one part Gold-Eating Insect shell powder.

The flames scorched his face with oily sweat, and his left prosthetic arm grew slightly hot due to heat conduction, but he remained motionless until the alloy liquid shimmered with a cyan-gold luster, then he said in a deep voice: "Cast it!"

The mold closed, and the cooling water hissed, steaming up into white fog.

Six failures.

The seventh time, the drill bit was formed, its surface engraved with fine flow-guiding grooves, the tip in a double-spiral cone shape, the whole body emitting a cold, dark luster.

"Install it!"

The new drill bit was hoisted up and embedded into the "earth dragon" head interface. With a click, it locked into place, and all circuits automatically connected.

The first test drill.

The mecha pushed forward, and the moment the drill bit touched the rock wall, a roar exploded. The spiral blade slowly rotated and applied pressure, and the rock layer began to crack.

On the monitoring screen, the load curve rose steadily—

Suddenly!

"Bang!"

The left leg hydraulic line burst, and high-pressure oil sprayed like rain. The mecha knelt on one knee, the drill bit deeply embedded in the rock, vibrating violently.

"Power transmission problem!" Chen Tiezhu jumped into the cockpit and lifted the floor panel to check the drive shaft, "The mecha frame can't support the counter-torque of the new drill bit! The old structure can't take the strain!"

He gritted his teeth, his gaze sweeping over the scattered discarded parts, and suddenly locked onto an old-model sentry mecha that was half-dismantled.

"Dismantle its buffer array! The micro-Spiritual Energy frequency stabilizer! Bring it here!"

Three mechanics immediately got to work, dismantling three sets of old chip modules within ten minutes, and welded them around the drive shaft for reinforcement.

Chen Tiezhu connected the wires himself, forcibly grafting the oscillation absorption System originally used to balance flight posture onto the ground load-bearing structure.

"Try again."

This time he boarded the mecha himself.

The hatch closed, and the engine started. He gripped the control stick with both hands, pressed the accelerator pedal with his foot, and pushed forward slowly.

The drill bit rotated and cut into the rock crevice.

Vibrations came through, the monitoring values jumped, but no longer spiked. He controlled the mecha to move back and forth slightly, advancing and retreating three times at a depth of ten zhang, feeling every piece of feedback.

"It's done." He said in a low voice, "The resonance point has been avoided."

He turned on the external broadcast, his voice hoarse but clear: "Attention everyone, the new spiral pressure drill bit test is complete, efficiency is more than four times higher than the original model, the structure is stable, and it can be put into continuous operation."

The crowd was silent for a moment.

Immediately after, someone shouted first: "Old Zhutou! You actually pulled it off!"

Applause erupted.

Some jumped up to pat their companions on the shoulder, some excitedly held their heads and cried out, and a few young mechanics rushed up to hug the mechanical leg of the "earth dragon", pounding it and laughing.

"Now we can dig to the bottom!"

"The Spiritual Vein is right below! Our Chen family is going to make a comeback!"

"Tomorrow we'll be able to see the new ore layer!"

The cheers bounced back and forth in the tunnel, shaking dust down from the ceiling.

But just at this moment, several elder clansmen gathered around, their expressions grave.

"Tiezhu," the white-haired old craftsman at the lead leaned on his cane, his tone heavy, "This new gadget is impressive, but it hasn't been through real combat after all. What if it blows up halfway through drilling and hurts someone? How about... we discuss it again?"

The laughter gradually died down.

Chen Tiezhu didn't speak; he walked back to the console and pulled up the full recorded footage.

In the footage, the drill bit steadily rotated into the high-density rock layer, rubble peeled away like an avalanche, while the mecha body only had slight wobbling, and all parameters remained within the safe range.

He pointed to the last line of the data screenshot: "Look, the vibration frequency is 0.87 Hertz, 12% below the mecha's tolerance threshold. This isn't a gamble; it's calculated."

He paused, unplugged the data cable, strode to the front of the "earth dragon", and turned to face everyone.

"I know you are afraid."

"I am afraid too. I'm afraid that if we are one step too slow, resources won't keep up, and the next generation of children won't even be able to enter the Cultivate room; I'm afraid that before the new city is built, the enemy will kill their way here; I'm even more afraid that when there is clearly an opportunity to charge forward, we will walk ourselves into a dead end because of 'wait a bit longer' or 'let's wait and see'!"

He raised his wrench and slammed it heavily onto the mecha's leg armor, emitting a loud "clang".

"But now, we have this drill bit! It is not some legendary Sharp Weapon; it is something we hammered and welded out ourselves! It is something we tested with our lives! It can take us through, and dig to the bottom!"

He suddenly raised his hand and pointed into the depths of the tunnel, his voice exploding:

"With this drill bit, we will be able to mine the Spiritual Vein faster and deeper!"

Silence for a second.

Immediately after, applause thundered.

Some whistled, some jumped up and roared, and more people spontaneously dispersed to check tools, count Materials, and debug auxiliary equipment, their movements crisp and decisive, their eyes bright as fire.

At the end of the tunnel, the modified "earth dragon" stood silently, the spiral drill bit shimmering with cold light, like a steel beast about to awaken.

Chen Tiezhu stood beside it, his face covered in oil and dirt, breathing heavily, his right hand leaning on the wrench, his left hand still pointing into the dark depths.

The clansmen gathered around, and not a single person left.

Everyone knew that the next shovel would chisel into the unknown earth's core.