127: Chapter 127: Kunlun Academy: Even tightening a screw requires spiritual power

Just after the ideological reform class ended, Sun Siyuan and the group of veteran alchemists hadn't even recovered before they were hauled away by a bus.

The vehicle drove straight into the construction site of the factory next to Kunlun Academy, the one called "Shennong No. 1".

The site was absolutely bustling with activity.

Thousands of Kunlun Academy students in blue work uniforms, along with thousands of top-tier workers brought in from all over the country, were all busy and unable to stop.

Large cranes moved slowly overhead, hoisting modular reactor components one by one.

On the ground, unmanned engineering vehicles hauled tons of special alloys and pipelines, weaving accurately between various workstations.

In the air, one could hear the sharp sounds of steel being cut, smell the scent of welding, and feel the faint energy fluctuations from the students channeling their spiritual power.

The scene was invigorating and full of a futuristic feel, leaving the veteran alchemists completely stunned.

"This... is this the factory they were talking about?"

"My god, this place is way too big! It's several times larger than the entire mountain gate of our Medicine King Valley!"

"Look at that big guy! Is that a reactor? It's practically a small hill!"

They were like a group of country bumpkins who had just arrived in the city, finding everything fresh and novel, their mouths agape.

The bus stopped at the entrance of the site's temporary office.

Lin Yuan had been waiting there for a long time.

He was now the student lead for the "Shennong No. 1" project, dressed in a clean work uniform, wearing a yellow safety helmet, with a walkie-talkie and a roll of blueprints hanging from his waist, looking extremely sharp—completely different from the cocky young master at the opening ceremony.

"Greetings, masters, welcome to the 'Shennong No. 1' project department." Lin Yuan boarded the bus and spoke to this group of "new students" who were older than his grandfather, with a polite yet authoritative air.

"My name is Lin Yuan, and I am one of the construction supervisors here. From today on, you are under my command."

Hearing this, the expressions of the veteran alchemists on the bus darkened.

Let them take orders from a young kid? If this got out, where would they put their faces?

Sun Siyuan, however, had no reaction. He had already realized that age and seniority were the most useless things here.

"Supervisor Lin," he stood up and asked very politely, "What kind of work has the Academy arranged for us?"

Lin Yuan glanced at him, his face devoid of any particular expression, and answered in a business-like tone: "Chief Engineer Jiang has given instructions. You are all experts in alchemy, and your understanding of medicinal materials and heat control is deeper than us youngsters. Therefore, the first step is to start from the most basic 'perception'."

He pointed to an area under construction outside the window.

"Do you see the 'catalytic reaction pipelines' being installed over there?"

"Your task today is to go and tighten the screws on those pipelines."

"Tighten screws?" one veteran alchemist couldn't help but shout, "You want us to come here... and tighten screws?"

The bus was instantly filled with clamor.

They had thought they might do some physical labor, but they hadn't expected it to be this kind of simple, unskilled work.

"That's right, just tighten screws." Lin Yuan's expression was very serious, with no intention of joking, "But it's not just about tightening them randomly."

He took a small, wrench-like object out of his pocket and handed it to them to look at.

"This is a 'Spiritual Power Torque Wrench', the latest treasure of the Academy. It can convert your spiritual power into precise force."

"Those pipelines connect to the core of the reactor. The force used to tighten every single screw must be just right, exactly hitting the standard on the design drawings. If the force is too small, it will leak; if the force is too great, it will damage the formations inside the pipelines."

"Your job is to use your finest control of spiritual power to feel that 'measure'. When you can close your eyes, ignore the dashboard, and rely solely on your hand-feel to control the force of every screw within a one-thousandth margin of error, only then will this lesson be considered passed."

Lin Yuan's words caused the noise on the bus to slowly die down.

The veteran alchemists looked at one another.

They were all people who had played with fire and controlled spiritual power their entire lives, feeling that they understood the words 'fine control' deeper than anyone else.

But now, someone was actually asking them to use this skill to... tighten screws?

The feeling was as awkward as asking a master painter to go to a construction site to paint walls.

But they had no way to refute it.

Because what Lin Yuan said made sense.

If their 'control'—which they had always been so proud of—could not be quantified and standardized, then it was completely useless in a modern engineering project.

Sun Siyuan was the first to get off the bus.

He walked up to Lin Yuan and held out his hand: "Give me the wrench."

Lin Yuan handed him the "Spiritual Power Torque Wrench".

Sun Siyuan took it in his hand, weighed it, and then walked to a pipe connection that hadn't been fully assembled yet.

He took a breath and slowly channeled a bit of spiritual power into the wrench.

A faint blue light lit up at the tip of the wrench.

He mimicked the workers nearby, placed the wrench on a specially made screw, and then began to slowly apply force.

He closed his eyes, no longer thinking about alchemy or heritage.

He concentrated all his focus on his hands, on that tiny screw.

He could feel the screw turning inward bit by bit as his spiritual power was output.

He could feel the subtle locking mechanism between the materials.

He could even feel the faint energy resonance within the pipes, caused by the tightening of the screw against the formation patterns he didn't understand.

This was a brand-new experience.

It was completely different from the alchemy experiences he had had over the past few decades.

Alchemy was based on feeling, it was vague, and it relied on 'enlightenment'.

But now, what he needed was absolute rationality and absolute precision.

"Click."

A soft sound.

The indicator light on the wrench changed from blue to green.

At the same time, a counter-force came from inside the wrench, preventing him from applying any more force.

—The force was just right.

Sun Siyuan opened his eyes, looked at the screw he had tightened perfectly, and then looked at his trembling hands; a sudden sense of accomplishment welled up in his heart.

This sense of accomplishment was completely different from the self-appreciative joy he felt when he successfully refined a furnace of good pills.

This was a sense of belonging and solidity gained from perfectly embedding oneself as a small component into a huge machine.

He began to understand what Jiang Ning meant by the 'beauty of standardization'.

He looked up and saw the other uncles and seniors, each holding a wrench, clumsily but carefully tightening their first screws on those cold pipes.

Sunlight shone on them, and on those shining pipes.

At this moment, they were no longer high-and-mighty 'alchemy masters'.

They were just a group of ordinary workers, learning new things from scratch.