Using an energy field to support the energy core—Mo Yu himself thought the idea was far too ahead of its time.
But he never once doubted that Feng Qi could help him build that core.
While waiting, he had imagined countless possible solutions.
New materials, entirely new design concepts for the core—anything seemed possible.
But he never imagined it would turn out like this.
Not far from him, a little girl was weaving the framework of an energy field with threads of energy, moving with ease and precision. Mo Yu was completely stunned.
This kind of ability... was beyond human.
He couldn't understand how a little girl could control energy so effortlessly. The energy elements floating freely between heaven and earth gathered at her fingertips like obedient children, weaving and condensing under her command.
The construction of the energy field unfolded in a way that defied belief.
And what happened next completely shattered Mo Yu's understanding.
Right in the middle of weaving the field, the little girl suddenly frowned, tilted her head—and fell asleep on the spot.
Mo Yu reacted instantly, rushing forward to protect her.
The energy field was only halfway done and still looked unstable to him.
Stopping now could easily trigger an explosion.
But to his shock, the half-complete energy field hovered steadily in front of the girl. It was as stable as ever, with no sign of collapse.
That scene completely overturned everything Mo Yu thought he knew.
Realizing just how extraordinary the girl was, Mo Yu couldn't help but grow curious about her identity.
Half an hour later, as he kept watch, the little girl suddenly opened her eyes. Without saying a word, she refocused and resumed weaving the energy threads.
The structure of the energy field became increasingly complete.
By 8 p.m., the weaving was nearly finished.
As Mo Yu watched with anticipation, the little girl suddenly pulled her hands back and fell flat on her back, arms and legs sprawled out.
"What happened?" Mo Yu asked at once.
"It's time. I have to go see the boss. We'll finish the rest tomorrow."
Mo Yu stared at her serious little face and could only smile helplessly.
This girl's thinking was far too erratic. Her actions made no sense, and he couldn't keep up with her logic at all.
Watching her sleep so peacefully, Mo Yu turned and walked over to the control console.
He logged into his personal account and typed in a query into the database, trying to find information about the girl.
After searching, a restricted entry appeared in the privileged database.
Xiao You [Star City Top-Secret Clearance]
Age: Unknown (100+)
Talent Abilities: Energy Weaving, Energy Creation, Spatial Field Construction...
Detailed Information: Data under Star City top-secret clearance. Your account holds full data access but does not include permission to view top-secret personnel files.
…
Seeing the file state that the little girl had lived over 100 years, Mo Yu was left speechless.
He looked over at her sprawled out on the ground, sleeping like a rock, and felt a whirlwind of questions bubbling up inside.
Genetic mutation? How could someone live for 100 years and still look like a child?
Half a month later.
In the mechanical modification lab, a new round of body modification was underway.
Lying on the cold surgical table, Mo Yu's eyes locked onto the energy core floating in the air.
This version looked completely different from the one before.
Its casing was a semi-transparent energy field shell, and within it was a cold-colored compressed energy orb. Arcs of electricity danced inside, morphing and shifting. But no matter how unstable the internal flow seemed, the energy field held it all in—none of it leaked out.
As the mechanical arms once again tore into the skin on his chest…
The icy-blue energy core was slowly embedded into Mo Yu's chest.
But this time, nothing went wrong. The semi-transparent energy field merged smoothly with his flesh, spreading like icy-blue spiderwebs.
His left arm and both legs—each mechanical limb lit up with a cold glow.
Clenching his fists, Mo Yu felt a surge of power roaring through him.
He knew this moment marked a breakthrough—the most critical step in his path to mechanical modification had finally been taken.
From here on, he would keep pushing forward on this new path. Whether it ended in death or led to immortality through machinery, he wouldn't stop.
Dawn Year 104.
This year meant everything to Mo Yu.
Backed by the resources and support of Star City's Supreme Council, Mo Yu and his team advanced at incredible speed.
During this time, he no longer held back. He began actively using his talent abilities.
Mental Focus, Thought Acceleration, Intelligence (Lv1), Memory (Lv1)... all of these greatly boosted his research progress.
Though using these abilities came at a price—varying degrees of physical burden and even shortened lifespan—Mo Yu no longer cared.
He used them without hesitation.
Because in the end, he would abandon his flesh.
And when that day came, the side effects on his organic body would no longer affect him at all.
It was also in this same year that Mo Yu cut off his right arm and replaced it with a mechanical limb, officially beginning the transformation of his body.
During this process, Mo Yu removed his internal organs and installed mechanical components that simulated their functions.
All of these components were connected to the energy core, which supplied the energy needed to operate them.
But in Mo Yu's design, this was only the first step of his mechanical body transformation.
These simulated mechanical organs were only meant to support the current stage of modification and serve as the foundation for what came next.
The body's functional organs existed to maintain normal human physiology, but for a mechanical body, these functions could be discarded.
Once the initial phase of mechanical body modification was complete, Mo Yu quickly moved on to the next step.
This time, he decided to replace his heart with an energy core and implant it inside his body.
The heart was the power source of a flesh-and-blood body, while the energy core was the power source of a mechanical one. Every mechanical component needed energy supplied by the core.
Placing the core in the chest looked aesthetically pleasing by human standards, but it wasn't practical. Exposing such a vital core on the outside made it vulnerable to damage during combat.
If the core's energy field shell were torn apart, it would likely explode instantly.
But embedding the core inside the body was a different story.
With the protection of a cold, metallic shell, the chances of the core being damaged by external force would drop significantly.
Still, replacing the heart was a dangerously risky move.
Even "Li Xingchen," mentioned in the database, had never attempted it.
According to the records, Li Xingchen had studied the process of mechanical heart replacement, but due to limited resources from Hei Ying, his work remained stuck at the semi-mechanical stage. No real breakthroughs had been made.
The rest would have to be figured out by Mo Yu himself—step by step.
To ensure the heart replacement surgery could be completed safely, Mo Yu spent several years preparing.
When he once again lay down on that cold operating table, his heart was surprisingly calm.
At the moment his heart was removed, his consciousness didn't fade. The simulated external heart continued supplying blood to his brain, keeping it active.
When the heart was replaced by the energy core, his flesh-and-blood form was slowly stripped away.
Cold metal replaced bones. Tubes replaced blood vessels, linking to every part of his body.
As the blood drained out, the fluid running through his "vessels" was no longer red—but a cold, icy blue energy liquid.
The entire mechanical transformation process lasted three days.
And with it, he stepped into an entirely new phase of body modification.
Once the operation was complete, the surgical table lifted, and four mechanical arms began spraying paint across Mo Yu's body.
Soon, he looked human again.
Only now, a blood circulation unit was installed at the back of his head, ensuring blood supply to his brain.
And brain mechanization—that would be his next goal.
In the days that followed, Mo Yu continued to deepen his research in mechanical transformation. Backed by the mysterious city administrator, his team expanded to 593 people.
The entire team was now centered around Mo Yu's mechanical transformation project.
And Mo Yu, in turn, poured all his energy into learning and development.
While combing through the privileged database, he came across a message left behind by the pioneers of mechanical transformation.
One line from a former dean of the Future Research Institute—Li Xingchen's mentor—left a deep impression on Mo Yu.
[In this new era, if weak flesh cannot be evolved through spiritual energy, it will no longer be able to adapt to the times. Yet the path of cultivation still comes with far too many unsolved risks. One of the greatest is that physical disabilities render many techniques unusable. Cultivation techniques are built upon the idea of a complete human body. Missing any part of that body alters the technique's flow and function. Maybe one day, techniques that work on incomplete bodies will exist, but we don't have those yet. Right now, disability is a dead end... So it's time we abandon this flesh that binds our thoughts and souls. By transferring our neural patterns into synthetic bodies, we can usher in a new evolution.]
…
This was the message left behind by the first-generation pioneers of mechanical transformation.
With the help of his mentor, Li Xingchen had brought those ideas closer to practical reality.
But now, Mo Yu had already walked past the path his predecessors had paved and become a pioneer in his own right.
Next, he would face the most difficult challenge in mechanical transformation.
Brain mechanization.
If he succeeded, he would truly become a mechanical lifeform.
But to do that, he would need to upload his consciousness—allowing a mechanical brain to carry his thoughts and mind.
This was a realm no human had ever stepped into.
In the days to come, Mo Yu's team would revolve around him as they continued their learning and exploration.
Uploading consciousness—just hearing it sounded hard. Actually doing it was even harder.
Human brain consciousness includes thoughts, memories, emotions—all of it. Uploading this into a computer and having it function was called full brain emulation. To achieve it, progress was needed in three major technical fields: scanning, processing power and storage, and environmental simulation.
The human brain had 86 billion neurons, not to mention around 10,000 connections between each neuron and others. Current brain scanning tech couldn't even begin to replicate all that data.
More importantly, this tech had to be integrated with psionic energy systems.
After all, his path was the fusion of psionics and mechanization, and psionics was a key part of the process.
Still, Mo Yu wasn't discouraged. He decided to divide the brain mechanization process into multiple steps, gradually refining the plan.
First step: build cybernetic eyes.
Once the brain was mechanized, the human eyes would be replaced by mechanical ones.
In the future, he'd use mechanical eyes to scan and capture the external world and transmit that data to his brain's processor. That was how he would perceive the outside world.
Next would be the mechanization of hearing. Then smell…
Before he could upload brain data, he had to solve all these problems. Otherwise, his mechanized body would be like a coffin for his sealed consciousness. He'd lose all ability to perceive or make judgments about the external world.
It was going to be a long process—but Mo Yu was ready.
Over the years of research, ten years passed in a flash.
With the support and coordination of various Star City units, the technology behind mechanized modification made rapid breakthroughs.
Mo Yu's team now included all of Star City's top minds in science and technology.
And it was during this year that Mo Yu decided to take the most critical step.
To upload his consciousness into a fully mechanized brain, completing the final stage of his transformation from flesh to machine.
But this step carried far more risk than anything before.
Even Mo Yu himself wasn't confident that he could successfully complete the consciousness upload.
But he was ready to face failure head-on.
The day before the transformation, Mo Yu returned home and visited his grandmother, whom he hadn't seen in a long time.
Compared to his memories, she had clearly aged. Her face now carried more wrinkles of time.
In front of her, Mo Yu didn't say anything about what he'd been through all these years.
He was afraid it would make her feel sad or scared.
But it was like she could read his thoughts. When they said goodbye, she told him this:
"Since you've chosen this road, then go down it without hesitation. No matter what the future holds, you'll always be my good grandson."
Even as he gradually let go of his flesh and blood, Mo Yu still felt the stir of emotion at family bonds. It was a warmth he couldn't let go of.
Beneath the cold metal shell, he still held on to the human ties of family.
After saying goodbye to his grandmother, Mo Yu made one final visit to his old school—Breaking Dawn Academy.
A cool breeze drifted through the night as he walked through the campus, looking around at the scenes of his alma mater.
This place held many of his fond memories. It was where he'd met Wang Long, his wife, and so many brothers.
It was where his dream had started.
But more than twenty years had passed, and Breaking Dawn Academy had changed in so many ways. So many things were no longer the same.
And the same was true of him.
Back then, he had been determined to pursue cultivation and evolution. He'd never imagined himself going down the path of full-body mechanization.
Before leaving the school, Mo Yu stood before Feng Qi's statue.
His eyes rested on the stone tablet at its base.
Reading those words again after more than twenty years, he felt something entirely new.
Especially the last line carved into the stone:
[To those who come after—when you face setbacks and hardship, be sure to try once, try again, and try endlessly. Be ready to start over a thousand times, ten thousand times, with renewed courage.]
When he'd lost his loved one, he'd been stuck in despair, unable to escape.
But now, he'd clawed his way back. He was starting over from nothing.
Reading those words again, Mo Yu was overwhelmed.
Tomorrow would be the final, most critical step in mechanical transformation: consciousness upload.
Failure would mean death.
But in his heart, there was no fear at all.
Looking up at the hero statue of Feng Qi standing beneath the starry sky, Mo Yu felt an overwhelming sense of pride rise within him.
In that moment, he suddenly understood Feng Qi's mindset when he chose to sacrifice himself. There was no fear of death—only hope for the future.
He knew that even if he failed, the data and results from his attempt would lay the foundation for those who came after.
He was the pioneer of mechanical transformation. He might not be able to walk the entire road himself, but someone else would take the baton and carry it further.
After bowing to Feng Qi's statue, Mo Yu turned away and walked off without looking back.