275: Chapter 275 Production Challenges Near the Furnace

The heatwave in the Furnace Area struck his face like a scorching palm pressed against his nose and mouth.

Chen Wuwang stepped over the threshold, his boot soles making no sound as they touched the shockproof alloy floor.

But the smell of smoldering metal, the scorched scent of runic ink, and the intermittent humming in the air were all telling him—something was wrong here.

The furnace fire was still burning, but the rhythm was off.

Originally, there should have been three Spiritual Qi furnaces operating in sync, with runes flowing like a river and Spiritual Qi guide plates advancing in layers to produce batches of basic components.

But now, the one on the left had stopped, its cooling hood emitting white smoke; the one in the middle was barely holding on, its runes flashing on and off as if having a seizure; the one on the right was still on, but the temperature was set extremely low, and two apprentices were frantically adjusting parameters at the console, one of them holding a thermometer and shouting:

"The seventh quenching is off again! It's off by zero point six degrees!"

"Do it again!" A roar exploded.

Chen Tiezhu stood in front of the furnace, his work uniform soaked through on the back, hair plastered to his forehead, eyes red, clutching a calibration hammer in his hand.

He glared at the two apprentices: "Are you doing Artifact Refining or cooking? You can't even control the temperature difference by one degree; what are you going to use to re-equip the front line? The Sword Cultivator Team is heading out tomorrow, and the mecha armguards aren't even complete yet!"

The apprentices lowered their heads, silent, their fingers trembling as they restarted the program.

Chen Wuwang didn't move, his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye automatically activating scan mode. Data streams flowed silently into his consciousness—

"Spiritual Qi input fluctuation: ±18% (normal value should be ≤3%). Rune activation delay: average 4.7 seconds (standard is within 0.3 seconds). Production output: current rate is only 29.6% of the design peak."

He narrowed his eyes.

It wasn't that the equipment was broken, nor that the people were incompetent. It was the entire power supply System that was shaking.

It was like a river that should have been flowing steadily, now being stirred by someone with a stick, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, causing the downstream waterwheels to naturally fail to turn.

He recalled the sound of hammering he had heard outside half an hour ago—ding, ding, ding, as steady as a heartbeat, every strike landing on the node of metal resonance, with the runes lighting up and the Spiritual Qi following along, the efficiency was ridiculously high.

Looking at the mess before him now, it was like children playing with building blocks.

"Family Head?" An apprentice finally saw him, his voice weak, "Why are you here?"

Chen Wuwang raised his hand to signal him not to speak, slowly walking to the main console, his fingertips sliding across the panel to pull up the energy curve chart from the past twelve hours.

The waveform looked like a saw blade, rising and falling violently, with no pattern at all.

"When did this start?" he asked, his voice not loud, yet it drowned out the roar of the furnace fire.

Chen Tiezhu turned around, the ferocity on his face pausing, then collapsing: "You're here… that's good."

He wiped his face, his voice hoarse: "Just after the victory banquet broke up last night, I noticed something was wrong. The first batch of new materials went in, and only half the runes activated. I checked three times; the equipment is fine, the lines are fine, but it just won't stabilize. In these three days, production has dropped by forty percent, and the clansmen are all waiting for new equipment, but I…"

He gritted his teeth, his fist slamming onto the console, "The people I lead cannot do such cowardly work!"

Chen Wuwang didn't respond.

He stared at the data stream, his mind quickly cycling through several possibilities: Was the ore vein power supply unstable? Impossible, the main East Mountain ore vein just completed a pulse calibration this morning, and the fluctuation records were normal.

Was the transmission array being interfered with? That wasn't right either; the seven relay stations along the way hadn't reported any abnormalities.

So where was the problem?

He suddenly remembered something, his right eye switching to spectrum analysis mode, breaking down the Spiritual Qi fluctuations into basic frequency bands.

Sure enough—the main power supply band was normal, but the auxiliary resonance band had intermittent attenuation, causing the runes to fail to activate continuously.

It was like an engine with fuel, but the spark plug was working intermittently.

"It's not that they are incompetent," Chen Wuwang finally spoke, his voice as heavy as pressed iron, "It's that this process itself is wrong."

Chen Tiezhu looked up sharply: "What did you say?"

"You are staring at the hammer and the fire," Chen Wuwang pointed at the console, "But what I see is the collapse of the data stream. You are running a modern production line using traditional rune forging methods—the processes are connected, but the energy supply is broken. It's like making someone change their lungs while running; how far can they run?"

Chen Tiezhu was stunned, his lips moving, but no words came out.

He knew Chen Wuwang understood technology, but these words… were too harsh.

"But we've been doing it this way for three years!" His voice rose again, "From the first Spiritual Qi welding torch to the 'earth dragon' mecha, which one wasn't made this way? You can't just flip your stance like that!"

"I didn't say I wanted to start over from scratch," Chen Wuwang's tone remained unchanged.

"What I'm saying is—we need to change our mindset. Before, it was a workshop, grinding one piece at a time; being slow didn't matter."

"Now it's mass production, needing to produce three thousand components a day, and you're still relying on old masters to adjust the heat by feeling?"

"Relying on apprentices to manually calibrate the temperature? That won't work anymore."

He paused, his fingertips tapping lightly on the console.

Tap, tap, tap.

The rhythm was very light, yet it made Chen Tiezhu's heart jump.

This frequency… why does it sound a bit like that mysterious hammering from last night?

"We don't just need craftsmen," Chen Wuwang looked at the three paralyzed furnaces, his voice lowering, "We need a new production logic."

The air was silent for a moment.

The furnace fire was still burning, but no one spoke.

An apprentice asked cautiously: "Then… what do we do now? Can this batch of goods still be saved?"

Chen Wuwang didn't answer.

The data interface in his right eye was still scrolling; suddenly, an abnormal signal popped up—coming from the secondary energy storage tank in the West District, the resonance band was experiencing periodic interference, and every eleven minutes, there was a faint reverse pulse.

Found it.

The corner of his mouth twitched imperceptibly.

"Turn off the furnace on the right," he said, "Move all unfinished pieces to the middle console and run at reduced speed. Clear out the one on the left; prepare to do a pressure test."

"What are you doing?" Chen Tiezhu frowned.

"Digging out the root cause." Chen Wuwang walked toward the main control terminal, his fingers typing a few lines of commands on the keyboard, "Someone is stealing our resonance energy."

"Who?"

"I don't know. But I know where it's hiding." He didn't look back, "If you trust me, do as I say."

Chen Tiezhu stood in place, watching that silver-haired back; the sweat on his work uniform hadn't dried yet, but an indescribable feeling rose in his heart.

It wasn't suspicion, nor was it anger. It was a kind of… vibration that an old craftsman feels when seeing a new world about to crash through the door.

He took a deep breath and roared at the apprentices: "Listen to the Family Head! Clear the furnaces! Cut the flow! Prepare to reduce pressure!"

The apprentices moved immediately.

Chen Wuwang didn't speak again, his entire focus sinking into the data stream. The Mechanical Prosthetic Eye continuously analyzed the signal source, tracking the path of that strange reverse pulse.

His fingers were still tapping. Tap, tap, tap. Like keeping a beat, and like writing code.

The firelight from the furnace reflected on his face, half bright, half dark.

Chen Tiezhu sat on a metal stool by the furnace, hands resting on his knees, panting heavily. He didn't leave, nor did he sleep. He just kept watch here, waiting to see if this fire could really burn again.