“Unbelievable. The Mortal Breathing Art can be practiced this way? How did I never think of this before...”
Looking at the diagram of the spiritual energy pathways, Lu Yang couldn’t help praising it.
By changing just a few of the meridians the spiritual energy had to pass through, the originally complicated route had become clear and straightforward.
The moment he saw this improved diagram, he realized just how valuable it was.
If he had tried to work it out himself, he could have spent his entire life on it and still might not have found a way to optimize the flow of spiritual energy like this.
But for the Shenwei Supercomputer, which could perform quadrillions of calculations per second, finding the optimal route wouldn’t even take a full second.
Lu Yang knew that his spiritual root was quite ordinary.
So if he wanted to pass himself off as a prodigy, he could only rely on his comprehension and other strengths.
Now, with this improved 《Circulatory Breathing Art》, he could pass himself off as a lucky disciple whose astonishing comprehension had earned him a place as the Sixth Elder’s personal disciple.
Even if anyone questioned him, this cultivation technique could serve as proof of his comprehension.
Before Lu Yang could recover from his delight, another piece of good news arrived.
“Reporting to Headquarters: the special personal sword made from extraterrestrial meteorite iron was completed ten minutes ago. It’s now being rushed from the military district to Headquarters!”
“According to the experimental data, the raw material—the extraterrestrial meteorite iron—is a special metal with a hardness one hundred times greater than diamond. It also has excellent properties, including heat and corrosion resistance.”
“Based on Commander Lu’s description of the Cultivation World, we estimate that in terms of sheer hardness, this personal sword could exceed top-grade Mortal-tier. However, it should still fall well short of a Yellow-tier magical treasure. After all, those are beyond the reach of modern physics...”
If he wanted to pass himself off as the Sixth Elder’s personal disciple, of course he needed a decent magical treasure at his side. That would make his claim far more convincing.
Although Great Xia couldn’t make magical treasures, it could at least find some extremely hard Materials and make Lu Yang a personal sword.
Twenty minutes later.
Escorted the entire way by soldiers,
a six-foot Longsword, black from tip to pommel and gleaming with a cold light, was delivered into Lu Yang’s hands.
The character “Lu” was engraved in the center of the sword hilt to identify its wielder.
In the Cultivation World, all modern firearms from the modern world failed to work. Only the cold weapons one carried could be used for self-defense.
Looking at the countdown, which had five days left, Lu Yang took a deep breath and gripped the sword hilt.
Now he had made all the preparations to pass himself off as a personal disciple. All that remained was the Sect Token, which had yet to be forged!
............
Meanwhile.
At the Forging Department’s frontline Command Center.
“The Yunan branch reports that Fusion Forging different metals has run into difficulties. In the first fifteen attempts, the best fusion rate was only 87 percent, still far from the target.”
“Additionally, their power consumption has reached the upper limit for normal use. Continuing the experiments will affect residents’ everyday electricity use and could even cause large-scale blackouts across the city. They’re asking Headquarters for guidance!”
“Other provinces are running into similar problems. Fusion Forging metals is much harder than we expected, and each experiment consumes a great deal of electricity. As a result, they can only perform six Fusion Forging attempts a day at most. Any more would affect the cities’ normal power supply.”
“At the current pace, completing the higher-ups’ order within five days will be extremely difficult, even if we have enough time. Most likely, we’ll finish about a day late.”
“Over the past two days, the power departments have received quite a few complaints. Many residents have called to report frequent circuit-breaker trips at home, which are already affecting their lives.”
“Because of this, power departments in several cities have already submitted requests asking us to reduce our electricity use as much as possible...”
Listening to the reports from the provinces relayed by the communications officer,
Commander-in-Chief Lin Jiakang furrowed his brow deeply and tapped his fingers lightly on the desk.
Before setting out, his superiors had given him a strict order: the forging of the Sect Token had to be completed within nine days.
As one of the few people who knew the inside story, he understood all too well how important this mission was.
Whether Great Xia could seize this opportunity and rise with the tide depended in large part on this mission. There could be no mistakes in the forging of the Sect Token.
Four days had already passed, and the mission was only nearly halfway complete.
At the pace they’d planned, completing the forging in the five days they had left would be extremely tight...
He rubbed his brow and looked through the window at the busy soldiers.
To coordinate resources across the provinces, these soldiers had barely slept for nearly four days, getting only three or four hours of sleep each day before returning to work.
They had now reached the crucial stage of forging the Sect Token.
Once the Fusion Forging of the metals was complete, all that remained would be to piece together the alloys produced by each province and microsculpt the surface with a photolithography machine.
The only way to speed up the process was to lift the power restrictions on the large laboratories in each province and fully support their Fusion Forging efforts.
But electricity couldn’t simply appear out of nowhere.
If they lifted the restrictions on the laboratories’ power use, they would have to ration electricity for city residents—and this would have to cover the entire country.
In a country where electricity had been available around the clock without restrictions, Lin Jiakang could already imagine how great an impact suddenly imposing power restrictions would have.
It would not only cause massive economic losses and public backlash; foreign forces would also seize the opportunity to smear them.
Whoever issued this order would take the blame for the whole affair and would very likely find their career advancement stymied from then on.
After a long silence,
he slowly rose from his seat, his gaze sweeping over everyone present as he spoke in a solemn, resolute voice:
“Comrades, the time has come for our country and our people to put us to the test!”
“We’ve reached the most crucial moment. We have only five days left, and we must complete this mission within that time!”
“Completing such a massive mission in so little time is almost impossible. But now, we have no choice but to give it everything we’ve got!”
“Notify the provincial branches: continue Fusion Forging. Don’t worry about industrial power consumption. Complete the forging as quickly as possible!”
“Also, issue another news announcement.”
“Starting today, Great Xia will impose nationwide power restrictions. They’re expected to last four to five days. Tell everyone to be prepared and not to panic!”
Before long,
a news announcement quickly spread.
【Great Xia Official Website: Due to special circumstances, Great Xia will begin nationwide power restrictions at ten o’clock this morning.】
【The restrictions are expected to last four to five days. Power will be available from eight in the morning until noon, and from four in the afternoon until eight in the evening. Normal power supply will be restored within five days at the latest. Residents across the country are advised to prepare accordingly.】
As the news spread across the internet,
countless netizens erupted!
“Wait, are you serious? Why are we suddenly having nationwide power restrictions, and for four to five days at that? If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was Flatbread Nation!”
“I’m so done. I was just in a life-or-death match, one win away from reaching Demon King S, and the power suddenly cut out. Does anyone understand how desperate I feel?”
“Fun fact: even when Flatbread Nation imposes power restrictions, it doesn’t have nationwide blackouts on this scale. Their high castes still live just as they please. But this time, we’re restricting power nationwide. We’ve been utterly crushed, that’s all I can say...”
“We’ve had unrestricted electricity for over a decade. Why are they suddenly restricting power on such a large scale? Is something wrong with the power plants?”
“I think everyone should try to be understanding. It’s only four or five days, and things will be back to normal afterward. It won’t disrupt our lives that much.”
“Heh, I’m not trying to put anyone down, but when have you ever heard of this happening in the United States? It’s the twenty-first century, and they’re still imposing nationwide power restrictions. If I had the qualifications, I would’ve emigrated to the United States ages ago!”
The news had been out for only half an hour.
Every major short-video platform was already in an uproar, and some forums were even overloaded and crashing. Media outlets were scrambling to report the news.
Countless Great Xia netizens were discussing it online.
The top twenty trending topics on Weibo were all related to “nationwide power restrictions.” The trending topic for Wang Feng’s concert was instantly pushed down past fiftieth place, once again ignored in a corner.