166: Chapter 166: The Fusion of Eastern and Western Technologies, A New Chapter in Mecha

The lights of the Artifact Refining Workshop stayed on all night. Copper pipe arrays hummed in the corners to dissipate heat, and steaming white mist, thick with the acrid smell of scorched metal, condensed into a thin layer of frost on the tool racks at dawn.

Chen Tiezhu squatted before the experimental bench, his knuckles blackened and his fingernails embedded with rune residue that looked like tiny shards.

He stared at the fragment of a mecha skeleton he had just dismantled. Spiderweb-like cracks had burst at the junction where the Western energy matrix's crystal lattice lines met the Eastern Spirit Array's diversion grooves, and the edges were still emitting green smoke.

This was already the seventh time.

He didn't move or curse; he simply tossed the fragment into the scrap bin with a dull thud.

Then he reached back and touched the old-style fire-starter tucked into his waist—something his wife had left behind twenty years ago. It had long since lost its ability to ignite, but he would take it out and squeeze it every time he hit a Bottleneck.

His fingertips rubbed over the engravings on the copper casing, and he suddenly gave a low chuckle. "Constant current power supply... pulse excitation... one of you is breathing and the other is holding its breath; how could you not explode?"

As the words fell, he stood up abruptly and kicked over the nearby calculation board.

The wooden board hit the ground, and the densely packed data written on it scattered with a clatter.

Ignoring it, he turned and rushed to the filing cabinet, pulled open the bottom drawer, and took out a book with curled corners titled "Illustrated Guide to Basic Furnace Regulation."

He flipped the pages, and a yellowed hand-drawn sketch slid out—it was the structural breakdown of the "Gyration Melting Pattern," an old gadget he had designed in his youth to control furnace temperature fluctuations.

He stared at that diagram for a full half-incense time without even blinking.

Suddenly, he grabbed a pen and began drawing frantically on the back of the blank page.

Lines intersected and nested layer upon layer as he muttered under his breath, "It's not a hard connection... it needs to 'breathe'... store when inhaling, release when exhaling... like a person practicing internal arts, one breath out and one breath in... yes! The rhythm is right!"

The pen tip paused, and he drew a circular array in the center, surrounded by miniature rune nodes, labeling it "Dual-Frequency Resonance Layer."

"A buffer layer isn't enough; I need to add rhythm."

He talked to himself, "Western-style electrical energy is a straight road, while our Spiritual Qi is a winding mountain path. If we don't let it turn, we have to change the road into a slope!"

Having said that, he tore off the page, stuffed it into the Psionic Recorder he carried, and started the reverse modeling program.

A projection screen rose, the 3D structure rotated slowly, and the data stream scrolled rapidly.

He squinted, checking the spirit-conduction curves line by line, his fingers tapping and swiping in the air to adjust the distribution density of the nano-scale runes.

"First ring, increase by thirty percent... second ring, drop pressure by twenty percent... third ring, synchronous trigger... good! It's stable!"

The simulated skeleton on the screen finally didn't explode; instead, it lit up steadily with a green light. The two energy streams, East and West, intertwined like twin Dragons before finally merging into the core interface.

He grinned, then frowned again. "But this model consumes too many Materials; it can't actually be built."

He looked down at the workbench, his gaze sweeping over a pile of scrapped parts, finally stopping on a Black Iron guard plate dismantled from a first-generation mecha.

This material was resistant to high pressure and Spiritual Qi corrosion, but it was dead weight and had low energy conduction efficiency.

He had wanted to replace it long ago but could never find a substitute.

"If I can carve the 'Gyration Melting Pattern' into a nano-chip and then use Black Iron as the outer shell to bear the pressure..."

"The inner layer uses the Western lattice, the middle layer sandwiches this 'Dual-Frequency Resonance,' and the outer layer is covered with a traditional spirit-conduction groove..."

His thoughts moved faster and faster, his voice rising, "A three-layered structure! Combining hardness and softness! It can modulate frequency and take a hit!"

He immediately got to work. First, he used a laser etching machine to replicate the "Dual-Frequency Resonance Layer" array on a microchip, finally succeeding in activating the first stable path after three failures.

Next, he embedded the chip into the reserved slot of the Black Iron base plate and sealed it with a Psionic Welding Torch.

He held his breath throughout the process, his hands as steady as if he hadn't been awake for three days.

When the final Seal was completed, he stepped back and lightly touched it with a tester probe.

"Beep—Structural integrity complete, energy path closed-loop, resonance matching at 87.6%, no overflow risk for now."

He froze.

A few seconds later, he slammed his fist onto the table. "It worked! I actually managed to cobble it together!"

His voice echoed in the empty workshop, startling a mechanical mouse in the corner, which squeaked and scurried into a pipe gap.

Ignoring this, he immediately dragged out the main frame assembly platform and began fitting the newly designed composite skeleton segments into the main structure one by one.

With every segment installed, he used a portable scanner to confirm its stability.

By the time he fixed the final shoulder load-bearing beam into place, the horizon was already turning grayish-white.

The entire mecha stood there quietly, its silhouette more slender than before, yet its lines appeared more substantial.

From the surface, not much seemed to have changed, but only upon closer inspection could one see that the originally independent rune grooves were now interwoven with the metal lattice, like Bloodline merging into bone.

Chen Tiezhu walked around it three times, touching every joint from the ankle to the shoulder armor with his own hands.

He pulled out the fire-starter, opened the lid, and blew on it—still no fire.

But he smiled, placed the fire-starter gently beside the mecha's base, and whispered, "Old friend, this time we aren't going back; we're taking a new Dao."

The morning light shone through the high window at an angle, falling on the mecha's shoulder.

There was a small unsealed interface area revealing the cross-section of the internal triple-layered structure: the outer layer was rugged Spirit Array engravings, the middle layer was a nano-rune ring as thin as hair, and the inner layer was a cold-glinting Western crystal lattice matrix.

He stared at that cross-section for a long time before finally raising his hand and pressing the preliminary power button on the side of the machine.

"Hum—"

A low-frequency vibration rang out, and a flowing shimmer appeared on the mecha's surface.

The runes and the lattice lit up in synchronization, their flickering possessing a rhythm, as if they were breathing.

He didn't laugh or jump; he just stood there, watching that light ripple out in waves, spreading from the feet to the crown.

His hands trembled slightly, whether from exhaustion or excitement, he didn't know.

Just then, footsteps came from the doorway.

Chen Wuwang stood on the entrance platform, his silver hair slightly mussed by the morning breeze. His Mechanical Prosthetic Eye was in standby mode, its blue light unlit.

He didn't speak or approach; he just quietly watched the mecha and Chen Tiezhu's figure below.

Hearing the sound, Chen Tiezhu glanced back, nodded, and then turned back, his palm still pressed against the mecha's armor.

"It's not over yet," he said, his voice raspy. "Energy input, control synchronization, combat adaptation... everything still needs to be tested."

Chen Wuwang remained still, his fingers unconsciously tapping the hilt of the dagger at his waist, the rhythm slow and steady.

"No rush," he said. "You've already pried the door open."

The workshop fell silent, save for the slight sound of running water from the mecha's internal cooling System.

The morning light shone on the new skeleton, casting a long shadow that happened to span across Chen Tiezhu's feet.

He looked down at the shadow and whispered, "The ancestors' craft shouldn't be locked in a furnace gathering dust."

With that, he bent down to pick up his toolbox, took out a freshly sharpened engraving knife, and walked toward the reserved main control interface area on the back of the mecha.

"Next, it's time to connect the brain."