Chapter 127: The Light-Bending Battle Blade, Choice (Third Update)

【Your design blueprint "Curved Light Warblade" has passed the system rating and has been added to the blueprint library.】

【Based on the rating of this blueprint, you have received 9999 expertise points.】

—

Over half a year after entering Chaos City, the long-absent system notification appeared once again.

In the virtual universe, Jiang Chen held his palm level, as if gripping something. To the naked eye, however, his palm was empty. Only by probing through the fluctuations of time and space laws could one discover an invisible long blade held within his grasp.

The blade was 12 meters long and 0.5 meters wide, with a very subtle curve in its narrow body; if one were not careful, it might easily be mistaken for a straight-edged sword.

This was a weapon module designed for the ["Gundam" Mecha].

Of course, it could also be used by certain larger races. Among humanity, there are countless branches, and there is no shortage of giant-sized ethnic groups.

Compared to psychic weapons or force weapons that possess various modes, the [Curved Light Warblade] has no ability to change form. Aside from its concealment, its only advantage is sharpness—extreme, ultimate sharpness.

Jiang Chen had simulated tests in the virtual universe; a single strike could sever even E9-grade metal, and its sharpness could be further enhanced by channeling energy into it. Whether it could threaten an Undying was up to the user, but when equipped on a high-spec ["Gundam" Mecha], it was more than enough to deal with an average World Lord.

"The 'Heavenly Craft Chaos Tablet' is truly a tremendous help to me. It creates a subtle synergy with my [Material Synthesis Master] expertise, allowing me to find the right direction through sheer intuition when synthesizing materials. I originally estimated that it would take at least a million experiments to synthesize materials that met the requirements. I didn't expect to succeed after only a few thousand attempts," Jiang Chen sighed.

The greatest difficulty in creating the [Curved Light Warblade] lay in the materials. It required simultaneous properties of sufficient strength, sharpness, sensory shielding, and optical invisibility—an extremely high level of difficulty.

However, now that it had been successfully created, Jiang Chen’s envisioned "Assassin" unit—a crucial functional branch of his mechanical legion—had a high probability of becoming a reality. Of course, the [Curved Light Warblade] alone was not enough; a device capable of making the mecha itself "invisible" was also required.

"Master, during your period of secluded study, a large number of emails were received. I have filtered out most of them, but there are two that are quite important and require your personal attention," Jarvis’s voice suddenly sounded.

"Understood." Jiang Chen reached out and tapped the air, causing a screen to appear before him displaying the two emails.

Jiang Chen generally had Jarvis filter or handle most emails automatically. Only those deemed important would be brought to his attention after a prompt from Jarvis. Whether an email was important depended on the sender or the content; as long as either met the standard, Jarvis would not intercept it but report it to Jiang Chen.

The first email was from the "Chaos City Reception Envoy," notifying all geniuses that one of the top 1,000 geniuses in the universe who had arrived in Chaos City had fallen, reminding the others to pay attention to their personal safety.

Jiang Chen quickly gathered the details: this genius from the Apocalypse Secret Realm had been surrounded by "Chaos Beasts" while hunting for "Chaos Spirits" outside Chaos City and had failed to escape in time, leading to their demise. The powerful figures within Chaos City might have noticed, but none had stepped in to save them. On the path of cultivation, one chooses their own road. If someone could encounter a life-or-death crisis in a place as safe as Chaos City, they were not worth the concern of those high-and-mighty figures.

"Chaos Beasts, Chaos Spirits... I have already absorbed enough, no need to go again."

The effect of Chaos Spirits in promoting soul evolution was indeed miraculous, but it had a limit. Not long after arriving in Chaos City, Jiang Chen had pushed his soul evolution to the extreme. Chaos Spirits were now of no use to him.

Jiang Chen moved to the next email.

The other email was from Luo Feng, sharing the good news that he had passed the first level of the Heavenly Bridge.

"Passed the first level in half a year? That’s a bit faster than in the original story. I wonder if Venerable Zhen Yan has started paying attention to Luo Feng yet?"

A thought crossed Jiang Chen’s mind, but he had no intention of delving into it. He deleted both emails and asked, "Jarvis, how is the progress on the [Sensory Shielding Coating Material] experiments?"

During these years of blueprint development and new material research, Jiang Chen would provide a concrete plan for many tedious tasks, leaving Jarvis to execute them. Jarvis had no edge in "creativity," but as an executor, he never made mistakes. This helped Jiang Chen save a significant amount of time and energy. Especially after Jiang Chen mastered the [Soul Virtualization] expertise, he could replicate his own insights into the laws for Jarvis, allowing Jarvis to independently complete complex tasks as long as Jiang Chen set up the detailed procedures beforehand.

This made Jiang Chen’s efficiency in developing new materials and blueprints much higher. However, obtaining a blueprint recognized by the system remained very difficult.

"Master, 64.7% of the plans have been attempted, producing 345,842 types of new materials, but none have met your requirements. The tests for the remaining 35.3% of plans are expected to be completed within 42 days," Jarvis reported promptly.

It wasn't good news, but Jiang Chen didn't feel particularly disappointed. He nodded and said, "It's fine, keep working hard. Even if they all fail, I’ll just research new plans."

After a pause, Jiang Chen muttered to himself, "Should I go and contemplate the 'Heavenly Craft Chaos Tablet' again? The guidance from the 'Heavenly Craft Chaos Tablet' is very helpful for material synthesis."

After his first contemplation, Jiang Chen had cleared the fifth level of the Heavenly Bridge and earned five opportunities to contemplate. Yet, over the past six months, he hadn't used a single one. The time for cultivation in Chaos City was thirty years. Since the difficulty of the Heavenly Bridge increased constantly, using up the opportunities too early would leave him with none later. Contemplating the Chaos Tablet was most effective only after one had researched and accumulated a large number of questions.

"Master, based on the data you have input into my database, waiting another 122 days before the next contemplation is the optimal choice," Jarvis reminded.

"I didn't ask for your advice. Never mind, pretend I didn't say anything." Jiang Chen couldn't help but roll his eyes, wondering if he should add an emotional module to Jarvis.

The current Jarvis was an excellent tool, but his lack of "emotion" often led to situations that left Jiang Chen speechless. After hesitating for a while, Jiang Chen decided against it. With his current clearance, his authority in the virtual universe was very high, and Jarvis could access vast amounts of information through it. If an "emotional module" existed, Jarvis’s evolution speed would be astonishing, and it wouldn't be long before he evolved into an intelligent life form like Babata.

However, while evolving, the original code structure would also limit Jarvis’s future development. Once Jarvis became an intelligent life form, modifying his underlying logic would be extremely difficult—even Jiang Chen wasn't sure he could do it. Jiang Chen planned to stick to his original plan: continuously increase his knowledge base and only when he was confident that he could make Jarvis a "perfect being" would he add the emotional module to evolve him into an intelligent life form.

"With just the 'Sensory Shielding Coating Material,' the ['Gundam' Mecha] will be complete in melee, ranged, and functional capabilities. It will be fully capable of being configured with different modules to achieve different roles."

"Fighters, warships, construct colossi, and other functional units are also nearly complete."

"The configuration of the mechanical legion is basically perfected; now, only the mecha built from the 'Void Dragon' is missing..."

The genius competition’s universe finals lasted over a year, the journey to the Initial Universe took three years, plus the half-year in Chaos City. Over these four years, Jiang Chen had long since perfected the designs for most of the units in his mechanical legion. Aside from the "Assassin" unit, which lacked only the "coating material," the entire mechanical legion was missing only its final core: Jiang Chen’s own "personal ride."

A super mecha built with the Void Dragon bone as the core material!

When he obtained the Void Dragon bone, Jiang Chen had hesitated between building a mecha or a warship. Over the years, he had often performed feasibility analyses and arguments for both plans. In the end, he chose to build a powerful mecha.

The reason? Compared to a warship, a mecha is much more flexible. Although the cost might be higher, having the more than one million Hunyuan units from selling the Zerg mother nest was more than enough to build a powerful mecha that could pose a significant threat even to Undying Gods.

"However..." Jiang Chen realized a problem. "With my current knowledge base, it is still very difficult to complete an 'Undying' level design that is as perfect and extreme as possible."

"Especially since the Void Dragon mecha, as my core vehicle, cannot pursue the extreme in one single direction like the rest of the mechanical legion; it must be incredibly comprehensive. On that basis, I must also ensure it can replicate the Void Dragon’s innate secret technique, 'Phase Jump'!"

"But there is still a long time left in Chaos City. Before entering the Primitive Universe, it will be enough to complete this design and build a mechanical legion of initial scale."

Thoughts flashed through Jiang Chen’s mind. He ordered Jarvis, "Jarvis, I am going back into seclusion. Remind me in six months to go contemplate the 'Heavenly Craft Chaos Tablet'."

—

The clone representing his true identity entered a state of seclusion to focus on the design of the "Void Dragon Mecha." Jiang Chen had a premonition that this would be an incredibly long task, with a difficulty and timeframe far beyond any of his past designs.

Meanwhile, Jiang Chen’s true body continued to idle in the ring world, spending most of his time in the system library, occasionally enjoying fine wine and food to reward himself during breaks.

After advancing to the fourth rank, the fifth level of the system library added a new section called "Runic Technology," a system that utilized special magical circuits to create runes, thereby invoking various extraordinary powers. In structure, it was somewhat similar to alchemical magic patterns, magical constructs, and the "secret patterns" of the Swallowed Star world, but that was only in appearance. In principle, they were completely different things.

For Jiang Chen, the main purpose of Runic Technology was to serve as a "supplement," using the power of runes to provide extra boosts to the mechanical legion, rather than forming a separate system outside of it.

Of course, Jiang Chen welcomed all knowledge. As his power increased, who knew if the "knowledge" of a certain system would hit a bottleneck or reach a limit at some stage, preventing further advancement? Only by mastering enough systems could one better switch routes when encountering such trouble.

His true body and his clone both had their own matters to attend to. As for the "Euso" and "Uchiha Shisui" clones, they were responsible for forging a new path outside of technology, giving Jiang Chen more "trump cards"—or to put it another way, patching his weaknesses.

The purpose of these two clones was to ensure that Jiang Chen would not be left helpless should he encounter a situation that technology could not handle. For instance, if he were to lose his mechanical legion for some reason, he would not be left at the mercy of others thanks to the means of a mental illusionist.

To improve the "talent" of these two routes, after receiving a new batch of expertise points, Jiang Chen specifically exchanged for expertise in illusions and blade skills.

【Blade Master】: You have an extremely high level of control over blade weapons; the blade is an extension of your body. The efficiency of learning and practicing blade-related abilities is significantly increased.
Requires 6666 expertise points to redeem.

【Illusion Master】: You are a master of manipulating the mind and have a profound understanding of illusions. The efficiency of learning and practicing illusion-related abilities is significantly increased.
Requires 6666 expertise points to redeem.

Two expertise skills, costing 13,332 expertise points—a considerable "investment." The descriptions looked tempting, but according to Jiang Chen’s experience, these two skills alone were only equivalent to the level of a top-tier genius from the "Apocalypse Secret Realm" or an "Earth-Heaven Secret Realm."

Of course, this referred to the talent aspect. The strength of an expertise skill was ultimately tied to its cost. A skill costing over six thousand points was indeed very powerful, but it definitely didn't reach the level of being "heaven-defying." In terms of blade talent alone, Jiang Chen guessed that the [Blade Master] expertise might not even bring him an improvement as strong as Luo Feng’s innate talent for blade techniques.

Of course, this was just a guess. Whether or not that was the case would have to be judged based on the speed of his progress after practicing for a while.

With the two expertise skills redeemed, the remaining expertise points on Jiang Chen’s panel dropped to just over a hundred.

"Focus on seclusion."

Inside the system library, Jiang Chen closed the system interface, pulled a book titled "The Mysteries of Space and Dimensions" from the shelf, and began to read carefully.

After reaching the fourth rank, the "Law Zone" under the "Arcane Technology" category had deeper laws and rules waiting for Jiang Chen to master. The power of technology was indeed strong, but who could say that the laws were not also a part of technology?

(End of chapter)