Chapter 587: Immersive Virtual Experience, Explore the Upper Limit of Human Technology!
Alchemy furnace.
This was a frequent word that had long appeared in biographical doc.u.mentaries and novels.
They were common in ancient myths, emperors’ biographies, and folk tales.
Tracing back to ancient times, it could be found wherever people began to pursue power.
Although Su Mo had no expectations to upgrade the boiler into the High Taoist G.o.d’s magic treasure or Sun Wukong’s fiery eyes of the eight trigrams furnace during this upgrade, he was hopeful of the results.
‘I would have to spend more than 60,000 survival points if I didn’t have energy stones!
‘It cost so much for this upgrade, so no matter how rubbish it is, at least it won’t be something completely useless!
‘In the previous upgrades, the only thing that demanded more than tens of thousand points for an upgrade was Hope One’s larger parts,’ Su Mo thought to himself.
The boiler in front of him slowly transformed under the green light.
The first thing that ablated was obviously the several gauges in the front of the furnace.
These instruments were originally used to monitor the air pressure inside the furnace. When the green light flashed on them, they began to melt into molten iron, acc.u.mulating and being captured inside the light.
A second later, the furnace where coal was still burning was forcibly extinguished by the system’s upgrade power and immediately died out.
There were a few waves of gentle tremors.
The boiler’s entire shape, which originally looked like an iron pillar, began to fall apart with the molten iron on the ground, then it began to merge and transform.
Under the insane and vigorous pressure, its original long strip gradually turned into a huge silver-colored iron ball.
Thump…
Thump…
...
The moment the iron ball was formed, an invisible hammer that seemed to have appeared in the air and began to pound on it.
A shuddering sound could be heard in the void as dents formed on the surface of the iron ball.
The sound spread to the outside world.
The snowflakes had just begun to fall from the sky, and the air inexplicably felt a little stagnant.
“D*mn it! What’s that sound? It’s so uncomfortable!”
“F*ck! It seems to be coming from the boiler room. Could it be that the pressure in the furnace is too high and is about to explode?”
“Zhang Ze, what kind of nonsense is that? Why would the boiler suddenly explode when it’s been working fine? I’ll report it directly to the captain if you’re trying to shake people up!”
“No, it really is the boiler room! Guys, look at the boiler room!”
It was just past twelve midnight.
Most of the villagers had entered a state of war and rushed toward their posts with tools in their hands.
When the strange sound spread throughout the village, most of them stood in place, curiously looking for the source.
A moment of trance.
Someone was able to make a clear judgment and determined that the sound came from the boiler room. Everyone’s eyes immediately s.h.i.+fted in that direction.
It would be nothing if you did not see it, but you’ll be shocked when you do.
Above the boiler room, there seemed to be an invisible mouth.
Whenever snowflakes fell within a certain range, they would be completely swallowed up and disappear.
Even the light cast by the spotlights could not penetrate through this barrier.
Thump…
…
The discussion continued.
The bell’s ringing also did not stop.
Every time the humming of the bell sounded, the invisible swallowing barrier’s range would expand a little, making more snowflakes disappear.
More and more people began to gather around, overwhelmed by the scene before them.
The villagers were informed of the news that Su Mo was “casting a spell.” The leaders.h.i.+p team immediately reacted and woke up from their daze, running around to urge the villagers back to their posts.
“Don’t stand around doing nothing! It’s still snowing in other places in the village! Hurry up and get back to work!”
“There’s nothing for you guys to be worried about here!”
Although everyone was curious about what was happening in the boiler room, they understood that the most important thing at hand was to clear the snow to ensure that the snow around the basin was stable!
…
Time pa.s.sed by slowly.
The bells also showed no tendency to stop their chiming.
The upgrade started at eleven forty-eight at night and continued until the clock hand arrived at twelve-thirty midnight.
This upgrade was undoubtedly the longest that Su Mo had experienced ever since he arrived in the wasteland.
However, he was not nervous as he watched the transformation while being surrounded by the bell chimes.
“This is a great technique!
“This kind of ingenuous beating isn’t replicable by even the most sophisticated instruments!
“The technique has greatly exceeded the upper limit of human understanding at the moment!”
When the upgrade began, the energy stones on the ground did not melt into the item being upgraded like the other materials would in the past.
Instead, it was pulled by the hammer into the void toward the iron ball and then slowly beaten into the surface of it.
For every kilogram of energy stone, the hammer would repeatedly forge them 36 times and make three loud sounds.
For 800 kilograms of energy stones, a full 28,800 times of hammering was required and it would produce 2,400 loud sounds.
Su Mo’s initial amazement gradually turned into admiration. In the end, he was completely mesmerized by the process.
Witnessing the shape of the ball transforming, Su Mo’s eyes widened. He would rather have sore eyes than miss any details during the process.
The alchemy furnace slowly transformed but was not as imagined.
It had two legs and four handles, which were simple and heavy.
It maintained its previous spherical shape with dense irregular patterns all over it.
Without witnessing the complete transformation with your own eyes, it would have been a bit like a 19th-century round submarine at a glance.
In the front of the furnace, there was a closed, pure metal hatch, and beside it were several gauges similar to those that had been ablated before.
However, the gauges had gone through a complete transformation.
It no longer had a pure metal structure like before and had become a modern technological operation display panel.
Thump…
The alchemy furnace was completely formed when the last hammering motion fell on it.
The green light lifted, and the seemingly heavy ball slowly began to fall to the ground in the hole created by the disappeared boiler.
It fitted completely.
The hole above the roof was the only proof that another object had previously pa.s.sed through it.
Without it, whoever came to the boiler room would never be able to notice anything strange inside.
He patiently waited until the green light completely retracted from the ball and returned to the game panel.
Su Mo blinked his sore eyes and stepped forward hurriedly.
The limited s.p.a.ce only allowed for the new alchemy furnace to be a standard spherical shape with a diameter of 6.6 meters. The capacity had remained similar to the previous one.
He reached out to touch the furnace.
The entire exterior was icy cold, similar to the temperature of the surrounding environment, and there were no signs that it went through a high-temperature forging process at all.
He rubbed the pattern on it and circled around the furnace from the back to the front.
The round shape of the furnace made the protruding hatch seem extremely large from the side, which made its stability a little questionable.
However, from the front, the protruding of the hatch seemed very subtle and was hardly noticeable.
Su Mo held on to the handle, thinking it would take a lot of effort to open it.
Unlike his expectation, the hatch swung open naturally with just a little force and revealed its mysterious interior.
“Hmm? What’s this?”
Su Mo reached for the flashlight around his waist and switched it on.
He put his head inside the furnace and began to look around curiously.
From the outside, there was nothing special about the alchemy furnace except for the patterns, which looked a little mysterious.
When Su Mo scanned the inside of the furnace. He could see countless small parts strangely linked together.
There were square, rectangular, round, conical, triangular… and some other irregular cylinder-shaped parts inside.
The pale-white energy from the energy stones was like a stream of water, constantly flowing up and down through the cylinder-shaped parts.
“Is this really an alchemy furnace?”
Judging from the shape of the inside mechanism, the sphere-shaped thing seemed more like a large reactor.
The strange thought flashed in Su Mo’s mind.
Su Mo exerted force on his legs and carelessly burrowed into the alchemy furnace.
The height of the furnace was six meters.
Anyone shorter than two meters could fit inside without feeling cramped or restricted.
In addition to the various incomprehensible parts around it, a grid reflected a faint light.
At first glance, it felt like he had entered a single-person s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p from an interstellar age.
Su Mo observed it for a while but could not find where the circuit was connected and simply could not find out the operating principle of the alchemy furnace.
He gave up and simply sat down, summoning the system to perform a detailed a.n.a.lysis.
A green light flashed, and a brand new properties panel appeared.
[Alchemy Furnace (Rare – Upgradeable; Unique)]
[Description: Smart technology often applies to the simplest items. This item is an alchemy furnace that accommodates interstellar engine technology and simple quantum energy conversion. It is capable of burning any material substance with a ma.s.s not more than 3δ and turning it into a simple energy substance. The material substance can also be converted into a life-sustaining fluid substance through quantum energy conversion, but because the applied technology and mechanism are very basic and the material used does not meet the initial requirements, the conversion rate is significantly reduced.]
[Conversion probability: 0.0000…31%]
[Insertable substance: Any substance with a ma.s.s not more than 3δ (Suggestions: water, metal minerals, soil, plants, organisms…)]
[Convertable substance: Basic energy (mechanical energy, chemical energy), fluid substances (odorless; can maintain basic biological needs)]
[How to use: Insert conversion material, select the desired conversion direction, and proceed with the conversion process. The conversion speed depends on the quality of the material used.]
[Quiality upgrade requirements: KF energy stone (7.72 tons); Level 10 alloy (35 tons)]
[Technical upgrade requirements: Locked (The technological tree of the territory has to break through to the interstellar age or civilization has to advance to the information age.)]
[Substance conversion upgrade requirements: Locked (Spend 50,000 survival points to unlock.)]
[Evaluation:]
Fake Alchemy Furnace: You must invest in a series of corresponding rare materials to synthesize the desired substance.
The Real Alchemy Furnace: Very powerful. Any existing substance can be synthesized as long as basic energy requirements are met.
…
The properties of the alchemy furnace were not complicated.
The system did not give complete key details because higher technology was involved.
Throughout the a.n.a.lysis report, only the simplest usage method and the principle of conversion were introduced.
Meanwhile, Su Mo was stunned, and his eyes lost focus.
He did not fall into a trance because he was shocked by the alchemy furnace’s properties.
It was because the moment the panel had appeared, his consciousness was pulled into a magical s.p.a.ce and into the body of an unknown man!
He was in someone else’s body that he could not control as if in a VR game.
The character moved for a minute or two. Su Mo, who was watching from the character’s perspective, saw a lot of scenarios that he had always seen in videos and games.
Flying past him was an object that seemed to be an asteroid with huge kinetic energy.
It radiated with bright lights and illuminated the planets throughout the universe.
The scene was like birds migrating as an array of asteroid belts continuously moved forward.
There was also a vast black patch that seemed to be the black hole, but he could not determine it.
After a moment of observing his surroundings, Su Mo uttered to himself, “Is this…s.p.a.ce?”
Suddenly, some sort of mechanism seemed to have been triggered.
The man’s s.p.a.cecraft began to shake violently and his perspective began to spin around. The s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p tossed and turned as it fell toward a khaki-colored planet.
Boom!
Fortunately, the s.p.a.cecraft material had pa.s.sed the crash test and successfully landed on the plant with a few “wounds” despite crossing the asteroid belt.
This, unfortunately, was the beginning of a tragedy.
Fast forward to the next ten minutes, Su Mo witnessed the man carrying all equipment and hurriedly rushed out to explore the planet.
The man found the planet’s environment extremely dreadful and chose to commit suicide out of frustration and despair.
In the end, the man did not have the courage to end his life and began to turn around the situation to save himself with whatever was available.
He repaired anything that was repairable and found a purpose in whatever was already irreparable. Then, he began to explore the planet.
Out of all his behaviors, the most prominent one was when he modified the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p and combined it with a mineral on the khaki planet with the quantum energy conversion technology that had not been fully developed.
The item that was produced could sustain vitality…
It was the alchemy furnace!
With the completion of the alchemy furnace, the man successfully operated it and converted materials into a fluid substance. He excitedly gulped the fluid down his throat and screamed.
After that, the immersive scene was cut off.
‘The 60,000 survival points certainly lived up to the price,’ thought Su Mo.
Through the alchemy furnace upgrade, this was the first time that the system had provided a graphic experience.
The series of the behavior of this man was worthy to be recorded as a doc.u.mentary book of his self-rescue journey.
The whole experience was in fast-forward mode, so many details had been omitted.
However, after watching the whole process, Su Mo felt he had gained much from it.
“Energy stone, s.p.a.ce engine technology, quantum energy conversion technology, a mysterious khaki planet, the upper limit of human technology…”
The short experience allowed Su Mo to catch several important aspects.
This was once again another human civilization that he had come in contact with apart from the b.u.t.terfly Universe, which had extremely rapid technological development.
This newly found civilization not only achieved s.p.a.cecraft capable of speeding through the universe but had also demonstrated several terrifying technologies that only existed in their imaginations.
‘I still don’t have enough authority, so I couldn’t control his body. Otherwise, I could’ve witnessed his quantum energy conversion technology!’
Generally speaking, mastering this technology would have meant being able to use energy to synthesize any substance that had been discovered.
The quantum energy conversion technology on the s.p.a.cecraft was a very simple prototype. However, the beginning process was always the hardest part.
As long as the initial principle was clear, the follow-up progress had unimaginable development possibilities!
Unfortunately, at this stage, Su Mo could only watch it unfold in front of him and had no authority to take control of the man’s body.
The super technology that could allow them to achieve an advanced civilization if mastered could only be recorded down on a piece of paper for the time being by Su Mo.
He regretfully put away his notebook in his pockets.
‘The alchemy furnace he had developed with the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p engine must have had a conversion probability tens of thousands higher than the one here. It could turn two ordinary stones into vitality fluid that could prolong a person’s vitality for one day.
‘It’s okay. I don’t plan to convert anything from this alchemy furnace for now!’
In the virtual experience, Su Mo witnessed the man’s operation of the alchemy furnace.
When he returned to reality, he used his great memory to easily operate the alchemy furnace.
First, he picked up a few lumps of snow from the floor that drifted into the boiler room.
Then, gently placed the snow into the alchemy furnace.
In an instant, the program inside automatically detected the substance placed inside and began to burn.
After sufficient energy had built up, the screen in front finally lit up and displayed some gratifying data.
‘One ton of snow can be converted into heat energy to maintain the temperature at 24 degrees for about 40 seconds.
‘At the same time, it can produce fluid substances sufficient to supply one-sixteenth of the daily needs of an adult human being.
‘According to the internal volume capacity, it can convert about 300 tons of snow in one hour!’
Su Mo glanced over the data and nodded in satisfaction.
The reason the mysterious man had used the alchemy furnace was to use the limited useless substances he had to convert into large amounts of food supplies.
The current situation of the basin was the exact opposite.
Su Mo needed the current characteristics of the alchemy furnace that had the effect of completely getting rid of the substance, which could technically be considered a flaw.
One square meter was the thickness of three meters of snow, weighing around 600 to 900kg.
The intermediate value would be 800kg.
The alchemy furnace could burn 300 tons of snow in an hour, which meant it could completely clear 400 square meters of snow in an hour.
In just over two hours, all the snow with a depth of three meters within a one-kilometer radius could be ridden off entirely.
One day….
Without considering anything further than three meters, it would be possible to clear five kilometers around the basin and maintain the snow thickness under one meter.