747: Chapter 742 can begin.

Alva Jensen and her team of top scientists, who had been "kidnapped" from all over the world within three months, were standing before the massive floor-to-ceiling glass of the main control room, looking at the device with nervous expressions.

"All system self-checks complete."

"Energy circulation system normal."

"neutron traction generator, one hundred percent charged."

"harmonic amplification matrix, on standby."

Klaus Schmidt, this German Engineer, who was now the Chief Engineer of the Forge, glanced at Alva beside him.

"Doctor, it can begin."

Alva took a deep breath, nodded, and issued the command into the communicator.

"'prometheus' One, ignite!"

The command was issued.

A highly focused high-energy neutron beam, invisible to the naked eye, accurately bombarded the core of the helheim stone.

Hum—

A low hum, as if from the depths of the universe, echoed throughout the spherical space.

A faint blue halo began to appear on the surface of the helheim stone.

"Initial resonance activated! Frequency... 1.73 terahertz! Stable!" a researcher shouted excitedly.

"Start harmonic amplification!" Alva immediately ordered.

The ring matrix surrounding the helheim stone lit up, and ultra-high-frequency electromagnetic harmonics enveloped it instantly like an invisible tide.

The blue halo suddenly surged!

On the energy output monitoring screen of the main control room, the curve representing energy output soared vertically like a rocket!

10 megawatts... 500 megawatts... 1 gigawatt... 10 gigawatts!

"My God!"

"Success! We succeeded!"

The entire main control room was instantly drowned in massive cheers.

Everyone hugged each other excitedly, celebrating this moment that would go down in history.

Alva Jensen looked at the perfect straight line stabilized at 12 gigawatts of output power on the screen, tears blurring her eyes.

She did it.

She proved to the whole world that she wasn't a lunatic!

However, just at this moment.

A piercing alarm suddenly rang throughout the base!

"Warning! Warning! core resonance cavity temperature rising abnormally!"

"Material stress exceeds the threshold by three hundred percent!"

"Micron-level cracks appearing in the cavity!"

The cheers stopped abruptly.

The smiles on everyone's faces froze.

Alva rushed to the control console, staring intently at the real-time internal structural images of the cavity.

The resonance cavity, crafted from the strongest special alloy on Earth, was showing fine cracks spreading like a spider web across its surface!

"How could this happen?" Klaus Schmidt's face was pale. "This is already the material most resistant to high pressure and high-frequency oscillation we could find!"

"Stop amplification! Cut off the neutron beam immediately!" Alva ordered decisively.

The energy output suddenly dropped to zero.

The temperature of the resonance cavity began to drop slowly, and the cracks stopped spreading.

The first ignition experiment had failed in an unexpected way.

From ecstasy to the bottom of the valley, it took less than thirty seconds.

There was dead silence in the main control room; the atmosphere was so oppressive it was suffocating.

Where did the problem lie?

Alva and her team began a frantic investigation and calculation.

They checked millions of lines of code, reviewed every physical model, and simulated thousands of possibilities.

Three days later, they reached a desperate conclusion.

The problem was not in the design.

It was in "matter" itself.

"The chain resonance of the helheim stone is not a simple energy release," Alva explained hoarsely, pointing at the holographic projection of the structural diagram during an emergency meeting.

"The resonance frequency it produces has a property of... 'penetration' and 'assimilation'. No known substance can completely isolate and withstand it. It will either be penetrated, or... its own lattice structure will be assimilated by the resonance, eventually leading to structural collapse."

"In other words," Klaus Schmidt summarized, "we can't build a cage that can hold this 'energy beast'?"

Alva nodded silently.

The meeting room fell into a desperate silence again.

They had pried open the door to the Earth's core, only to find they had no ability to receive the flood of energy gushing from behind it.

This was simply the world's greatest irony.

Just then, the meeting room door was pushed open.

Shen Yan walked in.

He hadn't stayed in Northern Europe for all three months, but all progress at the base was reported to him as quickly as possible.

He glanced at the dejection on everyone's faces in the room, didn't ask further, and walked straight to the holographic projection.

"Bring up all the data from the failure for me to see."

Alva immediately complied.

A massive stream of data flashed rapidly before Shen Yan.

Temperature, pressure, stress, spectral analysis, changes in material atomic structure...

Everyone present was a top expert in their respective fields, but they couldn't process such complex interdisciplinary information simultaneously like Shen Yan.

The way he looked at the data didn't look like reading; it was more like "scanning."

Five minutes later, the data stream stopped.

Shen Yan extended a finger and lightly tapped the holographic projection, magnifying a segment of impurity analysis data regarding the resonance cavity alloy countless times.

"The problem is here."

Everyone immediately gathered around.

"Is this... lattice impurities in the scandium-yttrium alloy?" a materials scientist asked in confusion. "This level of impurity rate is already the limit of current Earth technology—less than three parts per billion. Its impact on material performance is almost negligible."

"In a normal environment, it can be ignored."

Shen Yan's voice rang out.

"But in the resonance field of the helheim stone, these impurities are the first anthill that collapses the dam."

"The 'assimilation' effect of resonance will start from these impurity points and, like a virus, instantly tear apart the entire alloy's lattice chain."

A single word woke the dreamers!

Alva and Klaus looked at each other, both seeing the shock and realization in each other's eyes.

That was it!

It wasn't that the material wasn't strong enough, but that it wasn't "pure" enough!

"But..." the materials scientist raised a new question, his voice carrying a hint of helplessness, "to manufacture a perfect crystal alloy with zero impurities, with existing technology, it can only be 'printed' layer by layer with near-atomic precision using molecular beam epitaxy in the zero-gravity environment of space. That kind of cost and time..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but everyone understood.

It simply wasn't industrially feasible.

They had solved one problem, only to face another even more unsolvable one.

However, Shen Yan acted as if he hadn't heard him.

He just took out his phone and dialed a number.

"It's me."

"Has the sample of the 'Loki Veil' from 'heavenly craft' been made yet?"