hsntnovel Chapter 93 Soul Power Compatibility
Chapter 93 Soul Power Compatibility
Now that we understand the principle, let's try to replicate it.
Li Fulan stared at the intricate patterns on the screen, his fingers tracing patterns on his chin. It was a habit of his, something he did whenever he was thinking.
Engineer Gu adjusted his glasses, somewhat hesitantly: "Copy? You mean use our equipment to engrave these patterns?"
"Yes." Li Fulan nodded. "Since these patterns are essentially energy circuits, theoretically we should be able to create them using our nano-engraving technology. What's the precision of your ion beam etching machine?"
"Nanometer level is no problem, the highest precision can reach five nanometers." Engineer Gu's eyes lit up, clearly also attracted by the idea. "But the problem is the material. Those patterns use a special energy-conducting material, do we have anything similar here?"
"Let's try using regular materials first and see if the process can get through."
Just do it.
Engineer Gu pulled a palm-sized steel plate from a locker; it was the most common material in the lab. Li Fulan then retrieved the scanned texture data on the computer and began writing the engraving program.
This process is more complicated than I imagined.
The patterns were incredibly complex; the "absorption array" on the edge of the blade alone contained tens of thousands of tiny lines, each with strict requirements for position, depth, and width. It took Li Fulan two whole hours to convert the first set of data into engraving instructions that the machine could recognize.
"Let's make a simplified version first," he said to Engineer Gu. "Just engrave the core part of the absorption array, about a thousand lines, and see the effect."
Engineer Gu fixed the steel plate onto the worktable of the ion beam etching machine and started the equipment.
The machine emitted a low hum, and an invisible ion beam began to move across the surface of the steel plate. The engraving progress was displayed in real time on the screen, showing nanoscale lines being precisely etched into the metal surface.
Fifteen minutes later, the carving was completed.
Engineer Gu carefully removed the steel plate and examined it under an electron microscope.
"The patterns are engraved very accurately, the precision is fine." He stared at the screen and nodded. "Now let's try to see if it can be powered on... no, I should say whether it can be powered on with 'soul power'."
Li Fulan stretched out her finger and gently touched the surface of the steel plate, attempting to infuse it with soul power.
A wisp of soul power seeped from his fingertips, touching the patterns—
"Bang!"
With a muffled thud, the steel plate instantly shattered into dozens of fragments, which flew everywhere. Fortunately, both of them were standing behind protective glass and were not injured.
"Holy crap!" Engineer Gu jumped back in shock, smashing his teacup on the floor. "This... it exploded?"
Li Fulan frowned as she looked at the shards on the ground.
The edges of the steel plate fragments had a strange, charred black color, as if they had been scorched by high temperatures. Some fragments were even slightly reddish, radiating heat.
"The material is no good." He picked up a fragment and examined it carefully. "Ordinary steel can't withstand the impact of soul power. This thing went out of control as soon as it entered the pattern. The energy couldn't flow along the intended path and directly burst the entire piece of metal."
"How about trying a different material?" Engineer Gu had recovered from his shock and began to think of solutions. "I have a batch of high-conductivity alloys here, leftovers from a project I did for the military. That stuff is specifically designed to transmit high-energy particles, and its energy conductivity is dozens of times stronger than ordinary metals."
"Give it a try."
The second experiment used that batch of high-conductivity alloy.
The engraving process went much more smoothly this time because the alloy's texture is more uniform than steel, resulting in better ion beam etching. Twenty minutes later, an alloy plate with the engraved patterns was removed.
Under an electron microscope, the precision of the lines was even higher than the first time. Each line was smooth and flat, without any burrs or breaks.
"This time it should be fine, right?" Engineer Gu rubbed his hands nervously.
Li Fulan took a deep breath and tried to inject soul power again.
This time, there was no explosion.
The soul power smoothly entered the patterns and began to flow along the predetermined path. Under the monitoring of an electron microscope, the patterns could be seen to faintly emit a pale blue light, which was a manifestation of the soul power circulating within them.
"Is it done?" Engineer Gu leaned closer to the screen, his eyes almost touching the monitor.
But Li Fulan's brows did not relax.
"It didn't work." He shook his head. "The soul power is indeed flowing, but it's flowing too slowly, and the losses are enormous. Look at this data—"
He pointed to the energy monitoring curve on the screen.
"I injected ten units of soul power, but only two units actually entered the pattern. The remaining eight units were all consumed at the entrance. Moreover, these two units were consumed with every step they took as they flowed through the pattern, and by the time they reached the halfway point, less than 0.5 units remained."
Engineer Gu's expression also turned serious.
"It's too inefficient," he muttered. "Even if the patterns are carved very precisely, it's useless because the energy can't reach the destination at all."
"The problem lies in the materials," Li Fulan pondered. "Although this high-conductivity alloy can transmit energy, its 'frequency' doesn't match the soul power. It's like... using a water pipe to transport oil; the pipe is functional, but the fluid's properties are wrong, so the efficiency is extremely low."
He looked at the two blood-drinking blades on the workbench.
"The reason why soul tools in Douluo Continent are effective is because the materials they use are 'compatible' with soul power. Things like deep-sea sunken silver may naturally possess the property of conducting soul power."
"Then shall we use sunken silver from the deep sea?" Engineer Gu asked.
"I only brought back these two blades, and the materials are limited." Li Fulan tapped the table. "Besides, even if we could make them, it would just be a copy, which wouldn't be very meaningful. What I want is to use our materials to simulate that property, so that we can mass-produce them."
He began pacing around the lab, his mind racing.
What makes deep-sea sunken silver so special? Why can it efficiently conduct soul power while ordinary metals cannot?
He recalled the results of the spectral analysis he had just received. The main components of the deep-sea silver were silver and iron, but it also contained several unknown elements whose atomic structures were unlike any other substance on Earth.
The problem may lie in those unknown elements.
"Engineer Gu," he suddenly stopped, "when you were analyzing those unknown elements, did you discover any unusual patterns?"
Engineer Gu was taken aback for a moment, then pulled out the previous analysis report.
"Let me see... The atomic structure of these elements is indeed very special." He pointed to a diagram on the report. "The electron orbits of ordinary atoms are fixed, but the electron orbits of these elements exhibit a kind of 'vibration' state, as if they are constantly shaking. I have never seen this phenomenon before."
"Vibration?" Li Fulan's eyes lit up. "Could it be... that the frequency of this vibration matches the frequency of soul power?"
Engineer Gu slapped his thigh: "That's right! If the vibration frequency of the electron orbital matches the soul power, then the soul power will resonate when transmitted through this material, naturally increasing efficiency! It's like a perfectly tuned radio that can perfectly receive radio waves of a specific frequency!"
"Could we artificially create this vibration frequency?"
Engineer Gu fell into deep thought.
"Theoretically, it's possible," he said slowly. "There's a method called 'atomic-level phonon injection,' which can artificially alter the lattice vibration frequency of a material. But this technology is extremely advanced, currently only in the laboratory stage, and very expensive..."
"Cost isn't an issue," Li Fulan interrupted him. "The gold soul coins I brought back are enough to last for a while. As long as it can be done, that's fine."
"Then let's give it a try!" Engineer Gu's eyes lit up again.
Preparations for the third experiment took a full day.
First, Engineer Gu scraped a small piece of deep-sea silver from the Blood-Drinking Blade and used a quantum scanner to precisely measure the lattice vibration frequency of the unknown element within it. That value was recorded, accurate to twelve decimal places.
Then, he activated the base's most advanced atomic manipulation equipment—a molecular beam epitaxy system worth hundreds of millions. This machine can manipulate matter at the atomic level and, theoretically, can create any desired crystal structure.
Finally, he chose a special nanoalloy as the substrate. This alloy has excellent energy conductivity and a relatively loose crystal structure, making it easier to modify.
"Initiate phonon injection."
The machine started, and an invisible beam of energy began bombarding the surface of the nanoalloy. At the quantum level, the atoms in the alloy began to change, their vibrational frequencies being gradually adjusted, moving closer to the frequency of deep-sea silver.
This process was extremely slow, taking a full six hours.
When the machine finally stopped, Li Fulan and Engineer Gu were both so sleepy that their eyelids were drooping. But they didn't have time to rest and immediately began testing the modified materials.
"Lattice vibration frequency...98.7% match!" Engineer Gu's voice trembled with excitement as he looked at the test results. "Success! The energy conduction properties of this alloy should be extremely close to those of deep-sea silver!"
"Don't get too excited yet, let's test it first." Li Fulan forced herself to stay alert and picked up the modified alloy.
The material looks no different from ordinary alloys, but the feel in the hand is quite different. There is a subtle "warm" sensation, as if the material itself is breathing.
He placed the alloy into an ion beam etching machine and used the same procedure to carve a set of soul-guided array patterns. This time he was more cautious, carving only the simplest one hundred patterns to form a basic "energy convergence" array.
After finishing the carving, he took a deep breath and tried to inject soul power again.
Soul power seeped from his fingertips, touching the patterns—
This time, there was no explosion, nor was there any severe damage.
The soul power flowed smoothly into the patterns, moving rapidly along the predetermined path. Under the monitoring of an electron microscope, the patterns could be seen emitting a bright, pale blue light, more than ten times brighter than when the high-conductivity alloy was used.
"Energy transfer efficiency... 87%!" Engineer Gu stared at the monitoring data, his voice cracking. "Holy crap! That's even higher than the original array pattern of the Bloodthirsty Blade! That blade's transfer efficiency is only 79%!"
A slight smile finally appeared on Li Fulan's lips.
It became.
The idea of using technological means to create "artificial soul guide materials" has been proven feasible. This means that he no longer needs to rely on the scarce natural minerals of Douluo Continent and can mass-produce the core materials of soul guides here.
"Next comes industrial production." He turned to Engineer Gu. "Could you write an automated program to let a robotic arm complete the carving of the patterns? Manual operation is too slow and prone to errors."
Engineer Gu thought for a moment: "The program isn't difficult to write; the key is precision control. The Soul Guiding Array requires extremely high precision; even a difference of one nanometer can affect the effect. As for the robotic arm... we need to use the highest precision model, and it will need to be recalibrated."
"Is three days enough for you?"
"That should be enough."
For the next three days, the entire laboratory was transformed into a bustling production workshop.
Engineer Gu was responsible for writing the automated engraving program, which was an extremely tedious task. He needed to convert data from tens of thousands of lines into instructions that the robotic arm could recognize, and also set up various error correction mechanisms to ensure that there would be no deviations during the engraving process.
Li Fulan was in charge of preparing the materials. He activated the phonon injection equipment and began mass production of the modified nanoalloys. This process was also very slow; it took four hours to modify a batch of materials, but at least mass production was possible.
By the evening of the third day, everything was ready.
"The first batch of 'technological soul tools' has begun production."
The robotic arm started up, and its six steel fingers moved simultaneously, beginning to carve patterns on the surface of the nano-alloy. The precision of the ion beam etching reached an astonishing three nanometers, many times more accurate than manual operation.
An hour later, the first finished product was produced.
It was a dagger, about twenty centimeters long, with an ordinary appearance. But under an electron microscope, one could see that the surface of the blade was covered with intricate soul-guided array patterns, forming a complete "sharpening enhancement" circuit.
Li Fulan gripped the dagger and infused it with a wisp of soul power.
A pale blue halo instantly appeared on the blade, a manifestation of soul power circulating within the array patterns. He casually picked up a steel plate and lightly sliced it with his dagger—
"laugh--"
The steel plate was easily cut open, with clean and smooth cuts, just like cutting tofu.
"The effect is good." Li Fulan nodded in satisfaction. "It's much better than the soul tools of the same level in Douluo Continent."
Engineer Gu stood to the side watching the monitoring data, his mouth agape, wide enough to fit an egg.
"Production efficiency... one per hour?" he said incredulously. "How long does it take a Soul Master in Douluo Continent to handcraft a Soul Tool?"
"Simple cases take a few days, while complex cases take months or even years."
"Then our efficiency is... "
"It's improved by hundreds or even thousands of times." A smile appeared on Li Fulan's lips. "And this is only the first version of the program; there's still a lot of room for further optimization."
He looked at the two blood-drinking blades on the workbench.
Now that the principle has been verified, the materials are available, and the production process is running smoothly, the next step is the main event—to completely modify those two blades and give Hu Liena a surprise.