114: Chapter 115 A Casual Reward of Ten Million Yuan in Cash! The Maskless Lithography Machine in the Bunker is Officially Ignition

Shen Du stopped in his tracks, looking at the capable assistant before him who had developed dark circles under his eyes from running the base.

He showed absolute generosity and boldness.

"Xu Hao, you've indeed had a hard time lately."

Shen Du patted him on the shoulder, his tone calm yet carrying an ironclad dominance:

"I remember out of that one billion special fund on the books, there should still be over a hundred and eighty million in cash flow left, right?"

Xu Hao nodded and was about to report the accounts, but Shen Du raised his hand to interrupt him.

"Draw ten million directly from that money."

Shen Du looked at him and gave an command that brooked no refusal:

"Consider it your year-end bonus for holding down the fort for me this entire past year.

Thank you for your hard work!"

A ten-million-cash reward was tossed out of Shen Du's mouth just like that, casually.

Had it been the old Xu Hao, who was still struggling in the low-level real estate agency market,

hearing this terrifying figure would probably have made him so excited that he'd become incoherent on the spot, or he might even have desperately tried to decline it.

But now, ever since he followed Shen Du to win that brutal ten-billion-level commercial war and secured his position as the vice president of Jiyuan Technology,

Xu Hao's horizons and net worth had already risen accordingly.

More importantly, he knew his boss's man-of-his-word style of doing things all too well.

Mr. Shen had always been clear-cut with rewards and punishments.

A heavy reward given was an acknowledgment of your ability, and no hypocritical refusal was allowed.

After a brief moment of daze,

Xu Hao did not act coy or hesitate at all, accepting this heavy reward quite calmly.

His expression turned solemn, and he nodded heavily. "Then I won't stand on ceremony with you. Thank you, Mr. Shen!"

With that, Xu Hao's spirits suddenly lifted.

His original fatigue vanished instantly.

He turned around, pointed to the thick alloy door in the deepest part of the factory area, and made a gesture of invitation:

"Let's go, Mr. Shen!

I'll take you down to the basement right now to have a look, to see what those spoiled 'lords of science'

are actually cooking up down there with those hundreds of millions of dollars in equipment you threw at them!"

Passing through that heavy explosion-proof alloy door, they descended deeper underground along a wide, dedicated inclined elevator.

As the elevator doors slowly slid open to both sides,

a cold breeze mixed with the cool air unique to ultra-clean cleanrooms and a faint scent of ozone instantly rushed over them.

Just as Shen Du stepped into this underground core laboratory, which was over ten meters deep and had been completely transformed into a sci-fi fortress,

a tall white man with a nest of messy hair, sunken eyes that gleamed with light, strode forward excitedly to meet them.

This was precisely the leader of the "Prometheus" Lithography Machine team,

the technical madman regarded by the mainstream Western semiconductor industry as a lunatic and a heretic:

Victor Zima.

"Mr. Shen! You're finally here!"

Victor rubbed his hands excitedly, speaking in English with a heavy Dutch accent, expressing his heartfelt wonder and gratitude:

"Thanks to this perfect venue you provided!

And even more thanks to the massive amount of cutting-edge equipment you sent in like crazy through the black market with absolutely no budget limit!

Without the bickering of those bureaucratic institutions and budget approvals, this place is simply an Eden gifted to us by God!"

Without any unnecessary pleasantries or nonsense,

this scientific madman couldn't wait to make an exaggerated gesture of invitation,

leading his financial backer directly toward the huge, clean, and vibration-proof space in the very center of the laboratory.

"Come, come, come! Quick, come take a look at our latest results from working sleeplessly for over a month!"

Following the direction of Victor's finger,

Shen Du's gaze was instantly pinned to the behemoth sitting on a magnetic levitation base ahead.

It was a massive machine pieced together from countless complex, cutting-edge components, dense superconducting pipelines,

and a cold vacuum deposition chamber.

It didn't have any sleek, beautiful casing.

Countless exposed wires and cooling pipes intertwined, making it look like a steel beast crawling out of cyberpunk ruins.

"This is what you wanted."

Victor stood in front of the massive machine and declared bluntly and proudly:

"Based on our theory,

we've managed to piece together this prototype of a Magnetic Resonance Interference Maskless Lithography Machine using those hundreds of millions of dollars in parts!"

He patted the cold metal frame as if caressing a peerless work of art:

"Because currently, it is only in the early experimental testing stage to verify the underlying algorithms.

All modules are temporarily connected externally in series, so it looks a bit crude and bloated.

But Mr. Shen, please believe us!

As soon as we finish running all the test data on this prototype,

I will definitely deliver a flawless, streamlined manufacturing blueprint that can be sent directly to the cleanroom!"

Before Shen Du could fully understand how this complex, book-of-heaven-like mechanical structure actually operated,

Victor, who had been passionately taking credit just a moment ago, underwent an instant shift in aura.

He whirled around and roared loudly at the team members scattered across various corners of the laboratory:

"Watanabe Toru!

And Linus!

Stop squatting there and messing with those few broken wires like idiots!

Didn't you see that Mr. Shen is here?

Get the hell back to your consoles and start this damn machine up for me!"

"And Arthur!

Stop shrinking in that corner and playing dead!

Hurry up and have someone bring over the high-purity silicon wafers for testing!

Load them immediately!

I want to boot it up for testing!"

Following Victor's deafening roars,

the entire underground laboratory instantly became like a supercar with its accelerator floored,

entering a state of furious operation.

Just a second ago, these individuals might have been the eccentric, slovenly "giant babies" Xu Hao spoke of,

who would even take their frustration out on others when getting stuck in a video game.

But the moment they heard the startup command

and their hands touched their professional domain, the slackness and laziness on these people were completely swept away!

Leaving only a cold, sharp, and cutting-edge professionalism.

Everyone's gaze became as sharp, cold, and focused as a scalpel.

Under Shen Du's deep gaze,

this group of geniuses, who had been blacklisted by the entire world, demonstrated a level of coordination and efficiency that made one's scalp tingle.

An expensive test wafer

was precisely delivered into the sealed vacuum deposition chamber by the robotic arm operated by Watanabe Toru.

Immediately after, Linus's and Arthur's hands turned into a blur on their keyboards.

Underlying algorithm data began to cascade frantically like a waterfall across several huge display screens.

Accompanied by extreme fine-tuning of various parts of the physical machine, countless complex commands perfectly intertwined in an extremely short span of time.

In less than five minutes!

Along with a low mechanical roar that could cause the human heart to resonate at the same frequency,

a blinding, eerie blue cold light

suddenly erupted from the central core of that massive machine, instantly illuminating the entire underground bunker.

As the maskless Lithography Machine entered full-power operation,

the blinding, eerie blue cold light began to flash at a high frequency that was difficult for the naked eye to capture within the complex vacuum chamber.