Section 159: A Difficult Problem

Since all of you practice specialized professions, it is quite difficult to classify you into any standard category. Therefore, we had no choice but to invite relevant masters to preside over this examination. The specific assessment methods will be determined by the masters themselves. Please submit your lists of required raw materials to your respective guides. However, please note that the rarity of the materials you use will also have an impact on your final scores. Heh, but you don't need to worry too much; even if you fail, you will still be allowed to remain in Jiukai City. I believe you all already have some understanding of Jiukai City. Unlike the chaotic and disorderly Rail-shape Ring, this place is stable and peaceful, just like paradise.

With sharp eyes, Ye Chong caught a glimpse of several people beside him showing expressions of disdain.

The old man turned a blind eye and continued, "Now, I will assign the masters who will be in charge of each of you."

The master assigned to Ye Chong was Master Xiao. Master Xiao was plump with a round face, and his reddish, bulbous wine-soaked nose was particularly prominent. His eyes were frequently squinted into slits, and his entire appearance looked smiling and very amiable.

He carefully looked Ye Chong up and down and said, "Heh, I didn't expect you to be the bone carver. Not bad, not bad. To achieve such success at such a young age—your future prospects are truly boundless."

"Thank you for the compliment," Ye Chong said calmly, his expression devoid of any arrogance or excitement.

A trace of appreciation flashed through Master Xiao's slightly squinted eyes. "What is even more commendable is that someone so young is neither arrogant nor impetuous. Good, good, good!" Master Xiao uttered the word "good" three times.

Ye Chong remained completely unfazed and instead asked, "I wonder what the content of my examination will be?" Ye Chong was far more concerned about this topic.

"Young man, do not be impatient!" Master Xiao said with a chuckle. "I have thought about this problem for a long time, but after pondering it back and forth, I finally came up with what should be a rather good test question!"

"Oh," Ye Chong merely responded, waiting for Master Xiao to state the question.

"Heh. Bone-material accessories are something I have also seen for the first time. I have carefully examined those works of yours; they are good—well, I should say quite good, and their performance in all aspects is outstanding! However, bone materials still possess many natural flaws that are difficult to make up for. For instance, their performance drops drastically in high-temperature environments." Master Xiao talked eloquently.

Ye Chong nodded in agreement. Master Xiao was right; in this regard, bone materials indeed had inherent disadvantages compared to metals.

Master Xiao still smiled as he said, "In any light mecha, apart from the optical brain, the most important accessory is the engine. Of course, the optical brain cannot be made using bone materials, but the engine seems to have some possibility. As to whether it is actually feasible, however, I do not know either; you will need to resolve that yourself. Heh, don't look at me like that; it is quite normal that I don't know, given that I don't understand bone materials as well as you do! Well, this is your examination question: use bone materials to construct a light mecha engine. I will not specify the model; as long as it is a light mecha engine, it will suffice. Of course, you may also use accessories made of other materials, but remember this: the greater the proportion of bone materials used in the entire light mecha engine, the higher the probability that you will pass the level-four examination!"

Ye Chong was momentarily stunned. Using bone materials to build a light mecha engine—surely this was some kind of mistake?

Seeing the doubtful look in Ye Chong's eyes, Master Xiao chuckled. "You heard correctly. It is to build a light mecha engine using bone materials! Very well, I have already told you the question, and you have three months to ponder and manufacture it. As Master Fan mentioned earlier, if you need any raw materials, you can inform your guide. Ah, this is my pass number. If you encounter any problems or once you have finished, you can contact me through this pass number. Heh, I am truly looking forward to seeing an engine made entirely of bone materials! Young man, work hard!"

Watching Ye Chong input his pass number into his pass wristband, Master Xiao said, "Very well, you may leave now. Heh, I must leave as well; I still have many matters to attend to!"

After bidding farewell to Master Xiao, Ye Chong walked out of the room. Along the way, he encountered quite a few of the applicants he had seen earlier, but judging from their deeply furrowed brows, their examination questions were evidently of considerable difficulty as well.

Returning to his quarters, Ye Chong spent the entire journey pondering how to use bone materials to manufacture a light mecha engine.

Bone materials are animal skeletal structures. Even those from mutated creatures are formidable in strength and toughness, but when it comes to high-temperature resistance, bone materials are far inferior to metals. This was why Ye Chong had never even considered using bone materials to build a light mecha engine, because in his view, this was an inherent characteristic of bone materials—an innate limitation—making it virtually impossible. The engine used in his so-called all-bone light mecha family was actually salvaged from a broken fish engine. Among the bone accessories he had made thus far, the only application in engines that could be considered relatively mature was the gasket.

Yet now, the difficult problem lay right before him, and he had no choice whatsoever. He no longer had the luxury of pondering whether this problem could be solved; instead, he had to figure out *how* it could be solved.

"Mu, do you think this is possible?" Ye Chong asked Mu. After thinking about it for so long, the result he arrived at remained a disheartening one: bone materials could not be used to build an engine.

"Of course it is possible. It is merely a question of probability!" Mu stated matter-of-factly.

Ye Chong instantly felt like a deflated ball. "What you said is complete nonsense!"

"From a certain perspective, yes. However, Yezi, this was the only answer to your question, and honesty ought to be commended!" Mu declared with righteous dignity.

Ye Chong broke out in a cold sweat. Was this really Mu? Ye Chong felt as though he could sniff a hint of Shang's influence.

It seemed he would have to figure this out on his own, Ye Chong mused. Shrinking back when encountering difficulties was simply not his style. Moreover, Master Xiao had also mentioned that other materials could be used, which was undoubtedly a compromise of sorts.

Still, were bone materials truly incapable of being used to craft a light mecha engine?

For days on end, Ye Chong pondered this question, often sitting for an entire day at a time, motionless like a statue.

Ye Chong rubbed his somewhat aching and swollen thighs, stood up, and stretched his waist. This was already the tenth day, and Ye Chong still had not come up with a method that satisfied him. However, he had thought of quite a few compromising solutions, such as retaining a metal core while only using bone materials in parts of lesser importance. If he truly could not think of a better solution by the very end, he would simply have to resort to that method.

Having stretched his limbs slightly, Ye Chong walked over to the desk, picked up the self-cleaning water cup, and raised it toward his lips.

He saw his own reflection in the cup—his brows tightly locked, looking slightly haggard.

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration cut through Ye Chong's mind like a shooting star piercing the night sky. Water... water... water... Ye Chong vaguely grasped something... What kind of water was it? Ah... it was nutrient solution!

Right! Nutrient solutions could be used to alter the properties of bone materials! Had the strengthening solutions he used previously not altered the properties of bone materials precisely? If he could utilize a kind of nutrient solution that drastically enhanced the high-temperature performance of bone materials, the problem would be solved effortlessly!

Ye Chong was instantly filled with excitement and drained the water in his cup in a single gulp.

The problem that had baffled him without the slightest breakthrough for ten days finally had a glimmer of hope. How could Ye Chong not be excited?

Yet, Ye Chong quickly calmed down from his excitement. Although he had a conception, realizing it would undoubtedly be an immensely arduous process. Furthermore, apart from this general idea, Ye Chong was entirely clueless about everything else, having zero direction.

Although he had learned about nutrient solutions from Madman Guan, he had merely scratched the surface. The strengthening solutions Madman Guan had given him were all focused on altering hardness and toughness; there were no formulas for solutions that enhanced high-temperature performance. For a novice nutrient specialist like Ye Chong to discover a novel strengthening solution formula capable of enhancing the high-temperature performance of bone materials within such a short timeframe was sheer fantasy!

Ye Chong recalled all the knowledge of nutrient formulation he had mastered, yet still found no progress.

Left with no other option, Ye Chong had to turn to Mu for help. "Mu, do you have any good methods?"

Mu pondered for a moment before saying, "Yezi, your idea is good, but as you know, I do not have a vast amount of data regarding nutrient formulation. However, there is one method we can try!"

"What method?" Ye Chong asked eagerly. He was like a traveler walking in the dark who suddenly caught a glimpse of dawn. Based on his past experience, whenever Mu said something was worth a try, it meant the feasibility of that method was quite high.

"Remember the Guan Family's automatic analysis mechanism that Madman Guan gave you last time? We can try that!" Mu reminded Ye Chong.

Ye Chong's eyes lit up. "Ah, how could I have forgotten about that wonderful thing? Wait, Mu, hasn't that thing already been stored in your database?"

"Yes, it is in my database, but to this day I still have not been able to analyze the core of this automatic analysis mechanism—which is the most fundamental law of nutrient formulation—because my database contains too little information regarding nutrient formulation, making effective analysis impossible! Nor can I determine its correctness," Mu explained.

"That powerful?" Ye Chong was greatly astonished. Even Mu could not analyze it, which meant that the manufacturing standard of what Madman Guan called the Guan Family's automatic analysis mechanism was extremely high! Up until now, the only thing Mu had failed to analyze was Guard, and now another item had been added to the list.

Alas, there truly were too many geniuses in this world. Whether it was Gu Shaoze or Madman Guan, neither of them looked much older than him, yet they had both pioneered their own fields and innovated upon the work of their predecessors! It was only a pity that both of their fates were ill-fated: Gu Shaoze was dead, and Madman Guan had disappeared without a trace while searching for his younger sister. Could it be that even the heavens envied them?

As he thought and thought, Ye Chong drifted off into a daydream.

"Yezi!" Mu noticed that Ye Chong's mind was wandering and spoke up.

"Oh!" Recovering his wits, Ye Chong inwardly mocked himself for letting his thoughts wander so far. He was merely an ordinary person; as long as he could survive, that was already good enough! Right now, Ye Chong's greatest desire was to resolve the strange illness plaguing his body and then find a quiet place where no one knew him to live out his days in peace! Yet now it seemed that achieving this goal would not be all that easy either.

"Shall we try it?" Mu asked.

Steadying his mind, Ye Chong let out a breath and said, "Let's try it!"