94: Chapter 94 Ling Zhenzi's Assistance, Joining the Team

The data from the thirty-seventh failure had just been archived, and Chen Tiezhu's fingers were still resting on the edge of the Jade Slip, his fingertips stained with grease and dried ink lines.

He did not move, nor did he look up, merely staring at the mass of semi-coagulated medicinal liquid residue in the center of the console—like a fire that had been snuffed out, the ashes still harboring a faint blue glow.

The lightbulbs in the Artifact Refining Workshop were buzzing; the old wiring could not withstand the long-term high-load operation, causing the voltage to flicker unsteadily.

A wisp of white smoke seeped from the joints of the mechanical prosthetic limb on his left arm; the temperature had already exceeded the safety threshold, but he did not shut it down. If he shut it down again, he would have to restart the entire simulation process.

"Almost…" he rolled out a phrase from his throat, so low it was almost inaudible, "Still almost."

The curve on the screen collapsed again. The extraction rate barely met the standard, but the pill condensation node still collapsed. The medicinal properties dissipated at the very last moment, not because of insufficient energy, nor because of disordered parameters, but because—that thing "did not want to form a pill."

It was too sensitive.

Chen Wuwang stood before the monitoring screen, his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye synchronizing the playback of all operation logs from the past twelve hours.

He could see clearly: Chen Tiezhu had tried thirty-seven temperature control models, twelve oscillation frequencies, seven guiding media, and had even ground fragments of Sword Intent into powder and mixed it in. Each time he got closer to success, but each time he fell short in the final three breaths.

A person can push to their limit, and a machine can burn until it smokes, but some things cannot be forced through sheer brute force.

He raised his hand and swiped an encrypted signal on the communication interface, sending it to the Loose Cultivator Alliance base.

[Ling Zhenzi, come to the side hall of the Main Hall immediately; there is an urgent matter to discuss.]

No pleasantries, no explanations, just this one sentence.

He knew this old man had a peculiar temper, capable of squatting before a Formation model for three days without eating or drinking just to obsess over details. He also knew that his own face was always seen as "incongruous" in the old man's eyes—the mix of technology and Spirit Array was considered blasphemy by traditional Formation Masters.

But he also knew that in the entire Eastern Wasteland, only this person could perceive the rhythm of breathing in the "flow of Spiritual Qi."

Twenty minutes later, the door to the side hall opened.

Ling Zhenzi was wearing a gray robe, the cuffs frayed, carrying a tattered cloth bag in his hand as if he had just finished digging for rune stones in some ruin. The first thing he said upon entering was: "Did that iron lump of yours blow the furnace again?"

"It didn't blow," Chen Wuwang shook his head, "It's stuck."

He pulled up the holographic projection and spread out the design blueprint of the Alchemy Workshop: a three-layer reaction chamber, a spiritual energy conduit network, a dynamic feedback System... the lines were as dense as a spider web.

Ling Zhenzi glanced at it, his brows immediately knitting into hills: "Simulating meridians with spiritual energy conduits? Ridiculous! Spiritual Qi is not an electric current; how can you guide it so crudely?"

"Do you think this is assembling a mech? Medicinal materials are not metal; they 'breathe,' they 'tremble.' Locking them down with pipes is like making someone hold their breath while running—how far can they go?"

"We are not trying to control it," Chen Wuwang said in a steady voice, "We want to run alongside it."

"Alongside?" Ling Zhenzi sneered, "You don't even know how it breathes, so how can you run alongside it?"

"I know what it is afraid of."

Chen Wuwang opened a data stream, "High temperature for thirty breaths, forty percent loss of medicinal properties; vibration frequency exceeding seven hertz, cellular structure ruptures; once the Spiritual Pressure gradient rises sharply, it directly self-destructs the condensation process. This is not medicine; it is a living thing under stress."

Ling Zhenzi narrowed his eyes.

Chen Wuwang continued: "You say Spiritual Qi has a rhythm like breathing, so we will build a 'Womb'—not by force-feeding it fire, not by forcibly dragging it through a cycle, but by giving it an environment that can rise and fall with its rhythm. Let it feel… safe."

The air was silent for a moment.

Ling Zhenzi suddenly laughed, a strange laugh: "Womb? You really dare to use that word. However…"

He flicked his finger, and a yellowed rune paper flew out, sticking beneath the projection, "Since you want 'symbiosis,' then stop playing with those fancy conduits."

"I will add a 'Resonance Womb Array' in the lower pill condensation zone. No need for external force to catalyze it; rely on the medicinal material's own fluctuations to feed back into the Formation, and the Formation will in turn stabilize it—just like a heartbeat drives breathing, and breathing nourishes the heartbeat."

Chen Wuwang's eyes lit up.

"You mean… let the Formation and the medicinal material feed each other?"

"Correct," Ling Zhenzi snorted, "You tech-people always think about 'what I can give you,' never about 'what it wants.' Spiritual Qi is not fuel; it is the rhythm of life. If you force it to speed up, it will collapse for you to see."

Chen Wuwang did not refute, but instead turned and walked toward the laboratory: "Let's go, let's go see Tiezhu."

When the door was pushed open, Chen Tiezhu was still there, his back rigid, his right hand gripping a carving knife, his left hand supporting the table, his knuckles white.

"The old man is here," Chen Wuwang said directly.

Chen Tiezhu didn't even turn his head: "Which old man?"

"The one who scolded you for using conduits as meridians."

Ling Zhenzi stepped in, threw the cloth bag onto the table, and with a clatter, poured out a dozen crystal chips covered in runes, "I heard you've been working on a piece-of-trash project that failed thirty-seven times?"

Chen Tiezhu turned his head sharply, his eyes like knives.

"What the hell do you know!" He stood up, his mechanical prosthetic limb emitting a dull click, "How can your old method of relying on humans to feed spiritual power achieve mass production? How many Nascent Soul cultivators in the entire Eastern Wasteland can stare at three hundred pill furnaces a day?"

"I didn't say to use the old method," Ling Zhenzi said coldly, "I said—don't treat the Formation as a tool, treat it as a partner."

The two confronted each other, the smell of gunpowder thick enough to ignite the air.

Chen Wuwang stood in the middle, saying nothing, simply pulling up the "symbiotic resonance" concept again and projecting it on the wall.

A moment later, Chen Tiezhu shifted his gaze first. He stared at the rune paper and asked in a low voice: "Can this Formation of yours… really let the medicine condense into a pill on its own?"

"I cannot guarantee it," Ling Zhenzi said candidly, "But I can make it 'willing' to condense."

Chen Tiezhu was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly bent down and pulled a blueprint from under the table—it was the third edition of the reaction chamber structure diagram he had drawn.

He pointed to the fitting slot reserved at the bottom: "I originally planned to install a temperature control valve here; if I replace it with your array module… can the size fit?"

Ling Zhenzi took the blueprint and squinted at it for a long time: "It can. But traditional Formation carving requires seven days of nourishing with Qi; your production line requires plug-and-play, what will you do?"

"Chip-ification," Chen Tiezhu blurted out.

"What?"

"Formation chips." His eyes lit up, "Use nano-etching technology to pre-fabricate basic runes onto the crystal chips. You are responsible for injecting the initial spiritual essence, and once installed, it can be started. No need for nourishing with Qi, no need for ritual refining—install and start immediately."

Ling Zhenzi was stunned, then laughed loudly: "You madman! Selling Formations as parts? If those old fogies heard this, they would definitely expel you from the School!"

"I don't care about the School," Chen Tiezhu's voice dropped, "What I care about is—whether it can be done."

The laughter stopped.

Ling Zhenzi looked at him, then at Chen Wuwang, and finally nodded: "Fine. I'll do it."

The three gathered around the console and worked through the night to disassemble the third edition of the reaction chamber.

Chen Tiezhu was responsible for the mechanical framework modification, Ling Zhenzi hand-drew the micro-array diagrams, and Chen Wuwang loaded the collaborative algorithm in the background, using "medicinal material activity fluctuation" as an input variable to connect into the Formation response logic.

At 3:00 AM, the module was installed.

The first test started.

The medicinal liquid was injected into the condensation zone without any external interference.

The micro-array glowed faintly, runes circulating like a miniature heart beginning to beat.

After five breaths, a tiny vortex appeared in the center of the medicinal liquid.

After ten breaths, the vortex stabilized and began to slowly condense.

After fifteen breaths, a pill core the size of a grain of rice formed, glowing with a faint blue luster throughout.

After three breaths, it dissipated.

But it had truly formed.

Chen Tiezhu's hand trembled, not because of fatigue, but because he saw hope.

Ling Zhenzi wiped his face and grinned: "Almost… but this time, it wanted to form itself."

Chen Wuwang stood before the holographic projection, watching the three breaths of condensation data, his eyes calm.

Outside, the sky was not yet bright, but the lights of the Artifact Refining Workshop remained on.

Chen Tiezhu sat at the console, his right hand gently stroking the newly installed Formation chip module, his left fingertips still stained with grease, but his eyes revealed a long-lost light.

Ling Zhenzi sat cross-legged on the ground, faint traces of rune-writing still on his fingertips, recording the Spiritual Pressure feedback parameters of the experiment; though he looked fatigued, his spirits were high.

Chen Wuwang did not move.

He knew this was only the first step.

The real path had only just begun.