95: Chapter 95 Progress in Alchemy: A Glimmer of Hope

As the first light of day filtered through the ceiling of the Artifact Refining Workshop, Chen Tiezhu's hand was still resting on the locking bolt of the final mechanical arm, his knuckles tight.

That conduit was crooked by half an inch, like a rib inserted into the wrong place, jammed in the very center of the entire System.

He didn't move, nor did he speak; he just stared at the misalignment for a full ten breaths—this was the final piece of the entire reaction chamber puzzle. If it didn't connect, the previous seventy-two hours of non-stop work would have been for nothing.

"The left wing support has dipped by zero point three degrees," Chen Wuwang's voice came from behind, neither high nor low, like a blade grazing against the ear bone. "The main Spirit Array is experiencing stress shift, and the energy conduction will buckle."

He stood before the monitoring console, his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye glowing with a faint blue light. A three-dimensional structural diagram unfolded layer by layer in his field of vision, with a red marker precisely pinned to that set of hydraulic support legs in the bottom left corner.

Streams of data scrolled silently, displaying the pressure value, deformation coefficient, and resonant frequency of every support arm.

Chen Tiezhu hummed, "I knew you wouldn't let me off easy."

As he spoke, he waved his hand, and five Worker Ant type mechs slid out from the wall, their tracks making a faint grinding sound as they rolled across the floor.

They quickly gathered at the base of the support, their six claws opening to lock into the predetermined grooves.

"Leveling sequence initiated," Chen Wuwang tapped his fingertip, and the background commands were pushed simultaneously.

The six sets of hydraulic support legs rose slowly, the metal joints emitting a low hum.

Meanwhile, Ling Zhenzi crouched on the other side, fished out three brass talisman nails from a tattered cloth bag, bit his fingertip, and smeared it. As blood droplets rolled into the rune grooves, the talisman nails instantly lit up with a circle of dark gold patterns.

"Temporary pressure stabilization array, it won't hold for long," he said without raising his head. "Hurry up."

"Faster than you say," Chen Tiezhu sneered, though his eyes were locked onto the alignment progress bar on the operation screen.

One percent, five, ten... fifteen.

Click.

A slight metallic clicking sound rang out, and the conduit finally embedded itself seamlessly into the interface.

The entire frame shuddered violently, then returned to stability.

On the monitoring console, green signal lights lit up one by one, and the System topology diagram closed completely, like a fully drawn bow.

"Is it done?" Ling Zhenzi stood up and dusted the talisman powder off his gray robe.

"The frame is closed," Chen Wuwang corrected. "It is not 'done'."

His tone was calm, yet no one dared to breathe a sigh of relief.

The three of them were silent for a moment, their footsteps almost synchronized as they walked toward the central control area.

Beneath their feet was the newly laid alloy floor, which echoed slightly as they stepped on it.

Overhead, the three-layered reaction chambers were arranged in a ring, with Spirit Array conduits winding around them like blood vessels. Their surfaces were plated with an anti-overflow light film, glowing with a matte finish in the morning light.

In the lowest pill-condensing zone, the Formation chip slots were neatly arranged, each one already sealed and waiting for final activation.

Chen Tiezhu walked in the lead, his pace slowing down.

Arriving at the main console, he didn't touch any buttons, but instead reached out, his fingertips gently stroking the edge of a Formation chip slot—there was an extremely fine scratch there, left by his own hand while polishing it last night.

His fingers stopped there and did not move again.

After a long while, he said in a low voice, "Thirty-seven furnace explosions, one instance of three-breath pill condensation, and now... is this thing really going to start breathing?"

No one answered.

He knew the answer wasn't in words.

Ling Zhenzi ignored him and walked straight to the array eye stone platform, sat down cross-legged, placed his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes to perceive.

A moment later, his brows twitched slightly, but the corners of his mouth curled up:

"The chaotic energy of the earth veins is still skimming the edges, but the Womb Array has already taken hold. As long as you don't stuff a bunch of violent medicinal ingredients like dragon fruit into it, it can breathe on its own."

"We are using Nine-Turn Soul-Returning Grass base stalks," Chen Wuwang said, standing beside the holographic projection, his gaze sweeping over the entire System. "The activity is stable, and the fluctuation range is controlled within ±0.7 Hertz."

"Oh," Ling Zhenzi opened one eye. "Then this 'womb' of yours can be considered pregnant with a proper fetus."

Chen Tiezhu grinned, wanting to laugh, but held it back.

He turned and walked to the edge of the console, sat down, rested his left hand on the newly sealed chip slot, and his right hand habitually reached for a cigarette—only to find nothing.

Only then did he remember that since entering the Alchemy Workshop, he hadn't smoked a single one.

So he simply shoved his hand into his pants pocket, looked up at the dense network of conduits overhead, his eyes a bit unfocused, as if he were counting how many there were.

In fact, he already knew them by heart: three hundred and twenty-seven main trunks, one thousand four hundred and sixty-eight branch nodes, and seventy-nine sets of temperature control closed loops.

Every single one had been calibrated by his own hands, and every segment had been run through at least three simulation cycles.

Now they were all hanging there quietly, like a group of soldiers who had finally learned to stand in Formation.

"How much will production increase?" he suddenly asked.

"Based on theoretical model projections, basic Foundation-Building Medicinal Pills can achieve a daily average of three thousand six hundred, with a purity compliance rate of over 92%," Chen Wuwang answered crisply. "If the biofeedback System is connected later, it is expected to break through five thousand."

"That's a hundred times what it is now," Chen Tiezhu murmured. "Before, the whole clan could only refine less than two hundred qualified Medicinal Pills a month... and that depended on the heavens' mood, the age of the medicinal ingredients, and whoever happened to be in a good mood and not making mistakes."

When he said this, his voice was very soft, not like he was lamenting, but rather as if he were afraid of waking something up.

Ling Zhenzi opened his eyes, glanced at him, and didn't respond.

The air fell silent.

Outside, the wind passed through the high windows of the Artifact Refining Workshop, blowing a few uncollected blueprints and making them rustle.

Sunlight cut in at an angle, shining on the metal edges of the console, reflecting a dazzling spot of light that happened to land on Chen Wuwang's Mechanical Prosthetic Eye.

He didn't dodge.

He knew that one shouldn't be too excited at this moment.

He also knew that they were still a long way from true "pill condensation."

The equipment hadn't been powered on for testing, the parameters hadn't completed a full cycle, and the medicinal ingredients hadn't even been brought in yet.

Even if he pressed the start button now, it might explode into nothing but slag within ten seconds.

But he still felt that something was different.

It wasn't just that the machine had been built, but rather—they had truly chiseled out a path that no one had ever walked before, hammer by hammer, nail by nail.

It wasn't relying on Bloodline talent, it wasn't relying on ancestral Legacy, and it wasn't relying on some powerful being handing them a living.

It was forcibly, using their brains and hands, tearing open a gap.

"What's next?" Ling Zhenzi suddenly asked.

"Wait for debugging," Chen Wuwang said. "Starting tomorrow, we will load the operational logic module by module."

"I must be present," Ling Zhenzi nodded. "The first round cannot have any interruption in perception; if the Womb Array backfires, someone needs to be there to catch it."

"I'll be there too," Chen Tiezhu slapped the tabletop. "If something goes wrong, we'll take it apart and rebuild it."

Both of them looked at Chen Wuwang.

He stood where he was, neither nodding nor shaking his head, just reached out and pressed gently on the control panel.

It didn't start, it didn't power on, it just lit up the standby interface.

A line of small text appeared: [System ready, awaiting initialization.]

In Chinese, it read: "Waiting for initialization."

The light patterns flowed quietly, like a sleeping heart, ready to beat at any moment.

Chen Tiezhu looked at that line of text and suddenly laughed.

This time, he didn't hold it back.

Ling Zhenzi also tugged at the corner of his mouth, lowered his head to rub the residual talisman patterns on his fingertips, and closed his eyes to regulate his breath.

Chen Wuwang did not laugh.

He just stood there, his gaze falling on the line "Waiting for initialization," his eyes calm, as if he had already seen the next scene—

Electric current surging into the conduits, the array awakening, the medicinal liquid beginning to rotate, the first pill core, without anyone touching it, slowly condensing into form.