Chapter 301 - 294: A Fight is About to Break Out
Chapter 301: Chapter 294: A Fight is About to Break Out
「Five days later.」
Production lines No. 1 and No. 2 were running at full speed, the conveyor belts emitting a low rumble. Refined black-vein iron ore from mines No. 1 and No. 2 was being transported into the warehouse through underground tunnels.
Allen chose not to expand production any further.
The main furnace core’s output had already reached 85%, and he needed to reserve some capacity for any sudden tasks.
If he spread himself too thin, the entire warzone’s defense and production would be instantly paralyzed the moment the Magic Power supply was cut.
He handed over full authority for the daily clearing missions and mine defenses to Jarvis, while he plunged into his private workshop.
His mission: to hand-craft an Earth Vein Magic Furnace.
Because the Magic Furnace was an extremely precise piece of equipment, the Factory Servants weren’t up to the task. He had to build it with his own hands.
To that end, he spent 530,000 Magic Stones in one go, purchasing all the manufacturing materials for five sets of Earth Vein Magic Furnaces from his mentor’s supply depot.
Five sets.
Not because he wanted to build five at once, but because he knew he was bound to have failures.
As it turned out, his assessment of himself was spot-on.
In the first two days, he had wasted materials worth 110,000 Magic Stones just practicing.
A Mithril conduction tube that failed during infusion: 37,000. An energy storage crystal cluster with an alignment deviation beyond tolerance: 18,000. As for other small parts, the list went on.
Every time a piece was scrapped, the corner of Allen’s eye would twitch.
He had already lost count of how many times his eye had twitched.
But starting on the third day, he found his rhythm.
The Rune-etching experience accumulated from creating the singularity engine, the design concepts from the volcanic Magic Furnace, and the exquisite design logic from the blueprints—these three technical threads gradually converged and merged in his mind.
More importantly—the Spiritual Power of a Second-level Wizard.
This wasn’t just a matter of having "more."
When his Spiritual Power broke through the quantitative limit of a First-level Wizard, his perception and ability to interfere with Magic Power underwent a fundamental leap. Before, when etching Runes, his Spiritual Power was like a carving knife, using brute force. Now, his Spiritual Power was more like a second skin, able to feel the internal stress distribution within the materials and the subtle preferences of the Magic Flow.
It was like evolving from "blind carving" to "X-ray carving."
This allowed new ideas to constantly emerge during his crafting process.
Take the material he was currently processing, for example. The standard procedure on the blueprint was to etch one hundred and twenty anchoring Runes on the surface to form a uniform spatial fluctuation field. But Allen discovered during the actual process that the natural grain of this crystal itself possessed a faint spatial affinity.
’If I can utilize this, instead of just ignoring it...’
"Recalculate. If I alter the anchoring Runes according to plan version four, will the spatial anchoring precision still meet requirements?"
[Calculating... The number of Runes can be reduced to ninety-one, while anchoring precision will increase by 3.7%. Magic Power loss will decrease by 8%.]
"Good."
A slight smile tugged at the corner of Allen’s mouth.
This kind of inspiration didn’t come from nowhere. It was "fed" by the hundreds of thousands of Magic Stones worth of materials he had scrapped, piece by piece, over the past five days.
The accumulation of skill is never an overnight process, and others’ blueprints and answers are not an unchangeable bible.
Although the cost of trial and error was high, it was worth it.
The six [Craftsman’s Hands] once again closed in on the crystal’s surface.
Allen held his breath—no, he completely suppressed his breathing. All seven of his mental sub-threads were engaged, his Spiritual Power transforming into probes thinner than a strand of hair, etching along the crystal’s natural grain, line by line.
[Record: A 0.3-degree fine-tuning of the spatial folding circuit’s angle may reduce the rate of Magic Power stagnation. Marked for verification.]
[Record: Redundancy exists in the earth vein resonance frequency. Eliminating twelve auxiliary nodes can increase output power, but will significantly reduce service life. This might be compensated for through other methods.]
Dseek and Jarvis went to work, converting these flashes of inspiration into solid data models.
Bit by bit, these inspirations accumulated into his own priceless trove of knowledge.
"BANG."
A piercing, muffled bang interrupted his thoughts.
The Mithril baseplate on the workbench suddenly erupted in a blinding red light. The Magic Power ran rampant, and the baseplate instantly twisted and shattered. If he hadn’t instantly cast a Magic Shield, his head might have been sliced off.
Allen opened his eyes, staring expressionlessly at the pile of slag.
[Warning: Etching of the second spatial anchoring matrix set has failed. The 7,400th Magic Power node’s placement was off by 0.01 millimeters.]
Allen forced a tight smile, the corner of his eye twitching.
The cost of some experiments was catastrophic. This was already the second set of core materials he had scrapped. This rate of burning through money would have given any First-level Wizard a heart attack.
But he didn’t pause. The Factory Servant behind him immediately and efficiently cleared away the slag, replacing it with a new piece of material.
"Continue."
Time flowed by in a state of extreme focus.
The third set of materials was scrapped in the final stages due to a Magic Power rejection reaction.
The etching of the fourth set of materials had finally reached its last step.
The core component for the "long-range spatial anchoring Rune" was just one final stroke from completion.
Allen held his breath, his Spiritual Power highly concentrated.
At that exact moment.
ZZZT—
The material under his hands actually moved on its own.
It wasn’t a physical earthquake, but an anomaly in the surrounding Magic Power.
The surrounding elemental particles were like boiling water, affecting these rare materials that were extremely sensitive to Magic Power.
The etching tool slipped by a tenth of a millimeter.
KRRR-TCH.
’Ruined again...’
But Allen didn’t even glance at the pile of scrap worth a hundred thousand Magic Stones.
He snapped his head around, staring intently in the direction of the Magic Power tremor.
[Warning! Ultra-high frequency Magic Power oscillation detected!]
[Warning! Strong interference detected! Workshop production lines have been halted.]
’This isn’t a natural phenomenon.’
Allen’s figure instantly vanished from the spot.
The next second, he appeared on an open-air platform outside the workshop and shot his gaze westward.
The sky was still the same sheet of scorched-yellow clouds.
But in the far west, in the direction of Forged Fire Fortress, the sky... had a hole torn in it.
It wasn’t a dark cloud, nor was it a storm.
It was pure nothingness, devouring all light.
A vast, irregular darkness, like the deepest ink stain, was eroding and covering the sky, the clouds, and even space itself.
It was as if a piece of the world had been violently scooped out.
With that darkness as its center, visible tides of Magic Power were being frantically pulled and devoured, forming a terrifying vortex that spanned the horizon.
The Magic Power balance of the entire plane had been shattered.
’My mentor...’
Allen’s pupils contracted sharply. ’The Son of the Abyss is here!’
He couldn’t think of any other cause for such an apocalyptic scene, other than a clash between the two beings who stood at the apex of this plane.
"Jarvis!" Without a moment’s hesitation, he issued a direct command.
[Yes, Commander.]
"Activate all online ’Demon Eye’ scout units! That includes all Type-Threes, and those two Type-Fours!"
[Command confirmed.]
"Abandon all standing recon orders! Turn them all around and advance on that dark area—at any cost!"
[Warning: Commander, that area exhibits an energy signature of an exceedingly high order. It has been classified as an extremely hazardous zone. All ’Demon Eye’ units will almost certainly be lost on approach. This would exhaust our entire remaining aerial force.]
Allen stared intently at the ever-expanding black region in the distance, a strange light glinting in his eyes.
"Then keep one back. Send out all the rest," he said, composing himself slightly.
"Hurry. I want a front-row seat."