6: Chapter 6 The Empress's Return Gift: Is this broken blueprint a lithography machine?

With money in his pocket, Jiang Chen instantly felt more confident.

He didn't go straight home; instead, he first went to the large supermarket downstairs. Pushing a shopping cart, as if he were stocking up on inventory, he specifically picked out items that were high-calorie and shelf-stable.

Fifty-pound bags of Northeast rice, give me ten bags.

Bottled purified water, he cleared out half the shelf.

Most importantly, there were the antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs from the pharmacy; these things were more precious than gold in the Wasteland. Although pharmacies had purchase limits now, Jiang Chen ran to five different stores and finally managed to scrape together a large bag of cephalosporin and amoxicillin.

Back at his rental apartment, Jiang Chen was tired like a dead dog, and before he could even catch his breath, he impatiently opened his phone.

On the screen, the battle situation in Dawn City had reached its most critical juncture.

That group of green mutated beasts was ramming against the city walls like madmen. The guarding soldiers were all gaunt and sallow from hunger, their hands trembling even while holding their guns. Jiang Wanqiu leaned against the battlements, her alloy battle blade already chipped, her silver long hair stuck to the side of her face by blood, her eyes revealing a sense of desperate determination.

"Only when you're full do you have the strength to fight."

Without a word, Jiang Chen activated the scan-and-feed mode on the pile of supplies.

"Hum—"

The supplies in the real world vanished into thin air.

And above Dawn City in the Wasteland, a "miracle" descended.

There were no dark clouds, no thunder and lightning, only crystalline white rice falling from the sky, covering the granary like a snowstorm. Barrels of crystal-clear purified water appeared out of thin air, along with those beautifully packaged "divine medicines," emitting a reassuring chemical sweetness.

[Divine grace is vast!]

[All soldiers' morale has skyrocketed! Hunger status removed! Wound recovery speed +300%!]

On the screen, those soldiers who had been on the verge of death grabbed handfuls of raw rice and stuffed it into their mouths, their eyes erupting with the glint of hungry wolves. Jiang Wanqiu even trembling took an amoxicillin, and her originally pale complexion regained its rosy color at a speed visible to the naked eye.

"For the Father God! Kill!"

A delicate shout pierced through the screen.

The well-fed and satiated Wasteland warriors acted as if they'd been injected with adrenaline, howling as they charged out of the city walls. The situation instantly reversed, and the group of mutated beasts was hacked to pieces and sent fleeing in terror by these suicidal madmen.

Ten minutes later, the crisis was resolved.

Covered in blood, Jiang Wanqiu knelt on the ruins, respectfully bowing toward the sky.

[Jiang Wanqiu: Father God above, if not for the divine grain and immortal medicine you bestowed, Dawn City would surely have fallen today.]

[Jiang Wanqiu: While clearing the battlefield, we discovered a fragmented "Seed of Civilization" in the ruins of an old-era research institute. Although we cannot understand the ancient text on it, this should be a crystallization of wisdom left behind by that glorious era.]

[Jiang Wanqiu: I wish to offer this item to the Father God as a meager return gift.]

The screen lit up with golden light once again.

[Sacrifice received: Unknown encrypted data storage device x1.]

[Extract?]

"A data storage device?"

Jiang Chen paused for a moment, "Don't tell me I just picked up a Wasteland MP3 player?"

He clicked extract.

With a "clatter," a small silver-white metal cube dropped onto the table.

This thing had a very peculiar design, entirely encased in some unknown liquid metal, with no interfaces at all. However, the moment Jiang Chen's finger touched it, it unexpectedly deformed as if it were alive, extending a standard USB port.

"Whoa, an adaptive interface? That's high-tech."

Jiang Chen became interested, turned around to open his four-year-old secondhand laptop, and plugged the thing in.

The computer screen flickered twice, and a folder named "EUV-001" popped up.

He double-clicked to open it.

Densely packed images and documents instantly filled the screen.

Jiang Chen leaned in to take a look and immediately felt a headache.

It was all diagrams.

Complex mechanical structure diagrams, optical lens group design blueprints, nanoscale circuit etching diagrams... Every blueprint was marked with dazzling parameters and formulas. The filenames were a bunch of gibberish, with technical jargon like "Extreme Ultraviolet Light Source Excitation" and "Dual-Stage Synchronous Control System."

"What is this?"

Jiang Chen scratched his head, looking completely bewildered, "It looks like a design blueprint for some precision instrument? A vacuum cleaner? Or a high-end hairdryer?"

Although he was a STEM student, he was an expert at skipping classes and playing video games, and his grasp of professional courses was only half-baked.

Moreover, these blueprints were too complex, complex enough to be beyond his range of understanding. The dense lines on them looked even messier than the Along the River During the Qingming Festival scroll.

"This thing... is it worth anything?"

Jiang Chen pouted in disappointment.

He had originally thought the Empress would send some more gold or black-tech weapons, but all she sent was a pile of blueprints?

This might be a treasure in the Wasteland, but in the real world, this was just a bunch of data.

"Forget it, at least it's a relic from a God-level Civilization; maybe I can sell it to a scrap dealer... No, wait, sell it to those who do mechanical design?"

Jiang Chen suddenly thought of something.

He hadn't been to school for the past two days, and that menopausal counselor was already throwing a fit in the group chat, saying that if he didn't turn in that damned "final mechanical design project," he would be failed and forced to retake the course.

"Doesn't this mean the ready-made assignment is right here?"

Jiang Chen's eyes lit up.

These blueprints looked quite intimidating, with neat lines and complex structures; although he couldn't understand what they were, using them to fool that dim-sighted Professor Yuan should be more than enough, right?

He acted immediately.

Jiang Chen unplugged the USB drive, pulled up his hoodie, grabbed his backpack, and headed out.

There was a print shop downstairs.

"Boss, need some printing."

Jiang Chen threw the USB drive on the counter and expertly commanded, "Take the diagrams in this folder, pick a few that look decent, and print them out for me. Use A3 paper, and make it clear."

The boss was a middle-aged man with a receding hairline, puffing on a cigarette, who glanced at the screen and muttered, "So many lines? This will use a lot of ink... I have to charge extra, five yuan per sheet."

"Fine, fine, just print it."

Jiang Chen was currently carrying a fortune of 400,000, so he didn't care about such small change.

Accompanied by the "zzzt" sound of the printer, sheets of blueprints smelling of ink were spat out.

Jiang Chen picked them up and took a look.

The first one was a cylindrical thing, full of lenses inside.

The second one looked like the base of an operating table.

The third one was a bunch of incomprehensible circuit board wiring.

"This will do."

Jiang Chen counted a dozen or so sheets, felt the thickness was about right, rolled them up into a ball like scrap newspaper, and shoved them crudely into his dirty backpack.

He had no idea.

What he had just rolled up and shoved into his bag were the full set of core design blueprints for the EUV Lithography Machine—the "pearl on the crown of industry" that the five major rogue nations of Blue Star were fighting tooth and nail over.

If the tech giants over at Eagle Sauce saw this scene, they would likely suffer a heart attack on the spot, falling to their knees and begging him to handle them with care.

"I'm off, boss."

Jiang Chen scanned the code to pay, slung his bag over his shoulder, and sauntered toward the school in a devil-may-care manner.

"I'll hand in the assignment first to save that old man from tagging me in the group chat every day. If these blueprints can satisfy him, maybe I can even ask him if there are any manufacturers that recycle this stuff."

The entrance of Tianhai University was still bustling with people.

Jiang Chen stood at the school gate, looked up at the imposing plaque, and took a deep breath.

"Old man Yuan, I hope you're in a better mood today and won't call my designs 'industrial garbage' again."

He patted his bulging backpack and strode into the campus.

"After all, what I've brought this time is 'high-tech' garbage certified by the Wasteland Empress."