278: Chapter 278 The First Signs of the Genius Craftsman Chen Qiaoshou

The morning light had just climbed onto the alloy dome of the Technology Workshop, and the chill of the night dew still lingered in the air.

The newly erected high platform outside the Furnace Area was already surrounded by a dense crowd, a sea of black heads.

There were Loose Cultivators wearing coarse cloth short-garments, apprentices draped in rune-inscribed robes, and several artisan disciples carrying toolboxes, their faces smeared with grease.

The challenge board hung right in the center, with the first question carved onto it: "How to switch a Level 3 energy storage tank without interrupting the power supply?"

Below it was a simple diagram depicting the main trunk line of the West District's power supply System, with the location of the auxiliary resonant band marked in red.

"This question is too tricky," a young man wearing goggles muttered. "Once a Level 3 tank is moved, the entire resonant network will shake. Who would dare to switch it?"

"What the hell do you know?" someone beside him sneered. "The Chen family is running an assembly line now; how can they afford even half a second of power outage? They want speed within stability, not waiting for death."

"But no one actually knows how to do it!" someone else shouted. "Isn't this just for show? In the end, they'll just pick someone from the inside anyway."

Before the words had even faded, a commotion suddenly erupted from the back of the crowd.

Several men, looking like guards, pushed through the crowd, carrying a scrapped spiritual energy terminal. They walked over and tossed it under the platform; the metal shell hit the sandy ground with a clatter.

"Just cleared out from the waste recycling center," one of the guards said. "The Family Head said, whoever can make it restart and run a process, will pass the preliminary test."

The crowd exploded.

"The terminal is rusted like this, can it still be used?"

"Isn't this just making things difficult for us!"

Amidst the clamor, no one noticed the young man crouching in the corner.

He was wearing a faded gray cloth shirt, his pant hems were frayed, and on his feet were a pair of old cloth shoes with a hole at the toe.

He didn't look at the challenge board, nor did he join the crowd to gawk at the broken terminal. Instead, he kept his head down, rummaging through a pile of discarded parts, his fingers skillfully pushing aside charred wires and shattered chips.

Finally, he picked up a palm-sized energy conduction substrate—the edges were charred black, and there was a crack in the middle; it was a typical case of overload damage.

He pulled a small knife from his bosom. The blade was thin and narrow, looking as if he had sharpened it himself.

Crouching on the ground, without a word, he began carving onto the back of the substrate with an underhand grip.

His movements were lightning fast, his knuckles tensed, his wrist as steady as a welded bracket.

Every stroke was light, yet precisely placed on the key nodes of the energy pathway. The patterns he carved looked neither like traditional runes nor standardized circuits; they looked more like some kind of topological structure.

"Hey, what is that kid doing?" someone caught a glimpse.

"Don't know, scavenging maybe?"

"Leave him alone. With this kind of problem, you can't even touch the door without ten years of Artifact Refining experience."

But just as that person's voice fell, the young man stopped.

He unfastened a miniature power supply box from his waist and connected it to both sides of the substrate.

A spark flashed, and a faint blue light crawled along the newly carved patterns. The once-dead circuit actually flickered to life.

"Hum—"

A soft hum, lasting less than two breaths, then extinguished. But everyone had heard it.

The scene went silent for a moment.

"This... this is fucking closed-loop feedback?!"

An old artisan rushed forward, snatched the substrate to look closely: "He didn't use a rune template; he directly restructured the energy flow?!"

"Impossible! How many variables would that require to calculate?"

"Are you idiots?!" another person pointed at the question on the board. "Auxiliary resonance stealing power, isn't that just uncontrolled energy diversion? His move is equivalent to adding an automatic drainage valve before the leak! Although it won't last long, it's enough to switch the energy storage tank!"

"Holy shit... who is this guy?"

The discussions surged like a tide, but the young man just lowered his head to blow the dust off the substrate. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, but his expression was as calm as if he had just peeled an apple.

At this moment, in the shadows at the edge of the high platform, a figure moved.

Chen Wuwang had been standing there the whole time, leaning against a cooling pipe, his hands in his work pants pockets, his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye glowing with a faint blue light.

He had been watching from the moment that person crouched down, not blinking once.

He saw it clearly—there was not a hint of hesitation when the hand carved the patterns; every turn looked as if it had been rehearsed in his mind a thousand times.

This wasn't experience; it was intuition.

It was that kind of... instinct to patch a System vulnerability the moment he saw it, or to channel turbulence the moment he spotted it.

It looked exactly like the way he used to write code back in the day.

His heart jolted.

"It's you."

He didn't hesitate any longer and stepped off the high platform.

His footsteps were not heavy, but every step landed in the gaps of the crowd's clamor, like a blade slowly being drawn from its sheath.

The morning light shone in obliquely, stretching his shadow long, and it happened to fall right beside the young man.

He stood still without speaking, his gaze landing on the other person's hands—

They were a pair of hands covered in fine calluses, the fingertips thickened from long-term use of tools, and there was an old scar at the web between his thumb and index finger, as if he had been burned by hot metal.

Yet it was these very hands that had just used a small knife to rewrite the fate of a scrap substrate.

The young man seemed to notice something and slowly looked up.

Their eyes met.

Chen Wuwang didn't smile, nor did he speak.

He just stood there, like a mountain that had suddenly moved to your doorstep, blocking the wind and blocking the retreat.

The young man wasn't flustered either; he just placed the substrate gently on the ground, wiped the dust off his palms, his eyes clean, carrying a hint of confusion, but not dodging or avoiding the gaze.

The people around them gradually quieted down.

Someone recognized Chen Wuwang and gasped: "Family Head?"

"Why did he come down?"

"Could it be... he has his eye on this kid?"

Chen Tiezhu stood behind the supervision platform on the west side, arms crossed, his brows furrowed so tightly he could crush a mosquito.

He had been staring at the registration book just now and hadn't noticed the changes in the field at all.

It wasn't until he heard the commotion in the crowd that he looked up.

"Which one?" he asked his assistant.

"It's that one in the gray cloth shirt, who just used a small knife to fix the scrap substrate... The Family Head walked over to him personally."

Chen Tiezhu narrowed his eyes and looked through the gaps in the crowd.

He saw Chen Wuwang standing in front of the young man, the two of them staring at each other, neither moving.

His heart jumped.

"That can't be... just one look, and he's decided?"

On the other side, Chen Xiaodao was busy registering the applicant numbers on the east side. When he heard the commotion and looked back, he dropped his pen.

"My brother... entered the field?" he froze. "The last time he personally entered the field was three years ago when he caught that mole."

He shook his head, wanting to push through to see what was going on, but there were too many people, and he couldn't get over for a moment.

In the field, the sunlight grew brighter, making the metal ground reflect the light.

Chen Wuwang finally moved.

He raised his hand, not to shake hands, nor to pat a shoulder, but slowly pulled a chip from his pocket—

It was entirely silver-gray, with the six small characters "Technology Workshop · Access Key" carved on the front.

He didn't hand it over; he just held it between his fingertips, letting the sunlight shine on it, reflecting a thin, long spot of light that happened to land right in front of the young man's feet.

"What is your name?" he asked, his voice not loud, yet it suppressed the noise of the entire crowd.

The young man looked at him, paused, and replied: "Chen Qiaoshou."

Chen Wuwang nodded.

He said nothing more.

He took a step forward, the distance close enough to see the beads of sweat on the other person's eyelashes.

Then, he raised his other hand and pointed to the substrate that was still slightly hot.

"This board," he said, "is this the first one you've made today?"