Aside from the Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements that Ma Xianhong possessed, none of the other Eight Unique Skills were so easily acquired.
"Everyone has the chance to become an Anomalous Human, so everyone should also have the chance to learn Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements, shouldn't they? It just depends on whether you can learn it."
Ma Xianhong tossed the book onto the table and said, sipping his tea.
It was just as he'd thought.
Holding firm to his principles.
"You just mentioned another idea…"
"You've somewhat convinced me."
Ma Xianhong put down his teacup and smiled slightly as he watched Qingshui pick up the book detailing Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements.
"You've at least made me realize that my future path will be difficult, so I don't mind having one more friend, even if I don't know whether you'll be able to help me in the future, or if you even will."
Qingshui didn't take off his battle armor. He opened the book and quickly flipped through it.
The camera in his battle armor's eye quickly captured the contents of the pages.
Ma Xianhong continued:
"But at least I believe in you. Everyone says Mohist Sect disciples value promises, uphold righteousness, and disregard life and death. I believe you are the same. At the very least, I'll have one more chance in the future."
"Don't worry, Old Ma, I'm really amazing. Look."
After recording, Qingshui heard Ma Xianhong's words and manipulated the Platinum battle armor to raise its arm, pointing it at a large tree in the distance in the courtyard.
A blue flash freeze ray appeared, and in just an instant, the large tree transformed into an ice sculpture as exquisite as a work of art.
Compared to the Arc Reactor, which requires advanced nanobots to manufacture, Flash Freeze Coolant is much easier to produce, requiring only a set of qualified equipment.
After the Platinum was completed, Qingshui had already begun preparations, producing a batch, and had made over a dozen cans before setting off.
Two cans were stored in the battle armor, half of the remainder was kept in the Devouring Pouch, and the other half was stored in a safe in the rented suite, ready to be summoned at any time.
"This…"
"I didn't use Qi. This is purely a physical phenomenon caused by chemical reagents. You can try to see how hard this ice is."
Qingshui confidently smiled at Ma Xianhong.
Ma Xianhong's expression stiffened.
"But don't mess with that tree. I still want to cool off and sleep under it in the summer."
"With this thing, wouldn't it be even better to cool off in the summer? You wouldn't even need to turn on the air conditioning."
After some simple banter, Ma Xianhong realized that even if Qingshui had been boasting, he definitely had some tricks up his sleeve.
Without relying on Qi, just by scientific means, he could freeze a tree directly, just like those sci-fi characters in movies and comics.
This made Ma Xianhong even more expectant of Qingshui's earlier boast.
Perhaps he really could help him when the time came?
Night fell.
Inside a room in Biyou Village.
Qingshui slurped his instant Tonkotsu ramen while carefully examining the two books laid out before him.
One was Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements, and the other was Divine Mechanisms of the Mohist Sect. Comparing the two yielded extra insights.
Compared to Divine Mechanisms of the Mohist Sect, Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements wasn't much more advanced in object manipulation, but in Materialization, it truly opened Qingshui's eyes.
Injecting Qi into the material, then controlling the Qi to vibrate continuously, listening to the sound of the object… In Old Ma's view, it's integrating Qi into the atomic gaps, allowing Qi to resonate with the atoms of the object, causing the object to accelerate its energy absorption, thus allowing the atoms to reach the most suitable excited state for refining in the shortest time…
Qingshui tilted his head slightly in thought.
This method demanded high levels of perception, Qi control, and Qi quality, presenting a barrier for most people.
And Artificer itself was a special profession with certain requirements for Anomalous Humans. With these two overlapping, the proportion of Anomalous Humans capable of learning Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements was indeed quite small.
No wonder in the original work, Old Ma revealed Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements without hiding anything, yet only Qiu Rang in the entire Biyou Village could learn it.
Moreover, the Magic Tools produced by Qiu Rang were inferior to Ma Xianhong's in both quality and quantity.
The Eight Unique Skills were ultimate techniques that surpassed the understanding of Anomalous Humans. Those who could master the Eight Unique Skills would not be weak, and their upper limit would be raised, but how much they could truly unleash still depended on the individual.
At least in Qingshui's view, if one disregarded the connection between the Eight Unique Skills and the so-called immortal arts, the Quanzhen sect's Dan Method, the Sanyimen's Reverse Life Triple, the Wang family's Divine Painting, the Tangmen's Devouring Pills, and so on—the practical value of these various sect's ultimate skills was not necessarily lower than the Eight Unique Skills.
But no matter what, the value of Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements was undeniable, and its utility to Qingshui was beyond doubt.
Closing the book, Qingshui took out a small piece of scrap material left over from forging the Platinum from his Devouring Pouch.
This was a small piece of silvery-white chrome alloy, not large in volume, so it didn't matter if it was scrapped. It was perfect for experimentation.
Abundant Qi was injected into the metal block, then Qingshui used his other hand to press the other side of the chrome alloy, using Separation Release Chakra for heating.
In a high-temperature state, these objects could be reshaped better, and the presence of Qi could isolate the object from reactions with external oxygen, preventing oxidation, and also ensuring that the alloy's internal structure would not be damaged by rising temperatures.
It could also forcibly fix the alloy's internal atomic structure, ensuring that molecular motion would not become too violent due to high temperatures, causing changes in the alloy's properties.
The latter step was very difficult, requiring a very high level of Qi quality and control.
Miscalculation. I should have tried with elemental metals first; that would have been much easier. Thankfully, it still succeeded.
A few minutes later, Qingshui let out a small sigh of relief, looking at the slender flying needle that had been shaped and was still red-hot.
But it wasn't over yet; there were still other steps to follow.
That involved using a special method from Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements to resonate the Qi injected into the flying needle with the atoms in the material, stimulating it to absorb energy and causing his own Qi to undergo Materialization in the shortest possible time.
If skilled enough, one could even materialize most common materials within three to five seconds.
This chromium alloy flying needle was composed of multiple materials. During Materialization, only one of them could be materialized. As long as the majority of one material was materialized, it was considered complete Materialization and could be used to create a Magic Tool.
However, if one wanted to materialize multiple materials within it all at once, the difficulty would be much higher.
But if it could be done in multiple stages, one material at a time, it would simply take a little more time.
That's what Qingshui did.
...
Hours later.
The cold moon set in the west, and the morning sun began to rise.
A ray of sunlight, accompanied by the faint aroma of food, drifted into the small courtyard.
"Professor Zhuo, breakfast is ready."
Ma Xianhong sat down at the stone table in the courtyard, carrying two bowls of beef noodles.
A flying knife, with profound sealing runes intricately carved on its surface, flew out from the window. It hooked the bag containing the beef noodles with its handle and flew into the room.
"Oh! As expected of a high-level intellectual, you learn so fast!"
Ma Xianhong's eyes lit up. He chuckled, then picked up the beef noodles from the table and walked over to open the door.
Inside the room, the tall, silver-white steel Puppet stood quietly in the corner.
Compared to before, this Puppet was missing a segment of its hand.
Qingshui had just detached Platinum's hand, preparing to begin Materialization, when Ma Xianhong walked in with the noodles, eating as he went.
"You succeeded? Are you planning to turn this big guy into a Magic Tool too? Even with Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements, that doesn't seem like an easy task."
Qingshui put down Platinum's hand, picked up the beef noodles, and began slurping them.
"It still takes much less time than it would for other Artificers to forge a high-level Magic Tool. Speaking of which, do you have any Lao Gan Ma? These noodles are a bit bland."
"I think we ran out. But it's true that no one here cooks particularly well. I wonder if we'll ever get someone who used to be a chef."
"Why not create a Magic Tool that can cook?"
"Then the person making the Magic Tool would have to know how to cook."
"Hey, no worries. Once I develop strong artificial intelligence and create a chef robot, I guarantee every dish will be at the average level of a five-star chef."
"I know you're impressive, but you can talk a little less; it won't cost you anything. Also, I think the time you spend on such a big guy is enough to create several Magic Tools. Whether for defense, attack, or other auxiliary means, they can all fill a gap. Why go for something so distant when there's a closer option?"
"Don't underestimate me, Old Ma. My abilities are truly more powerful than you imagine."
Qingshui finished the remaining noodles in two big bites, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.
He understood Ma Xianhong's meaning.
The difference between Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements and other Artificers lay in the speed of Materialization and the speed of Magic Tool creation.
For other Artificers, forging a Magic Tool could take anywhere from six months to a year and a half, or even ten years. With Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements, low-end Magic Tools could be mass-produced, and high-end ones wouldn't take much longer.
But this didn't mean that an Artificer using Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements could surpass other Artificers in individual works; he simply created things faster. The actual quality still depended on the Artificer's personal skill.
Instead of spending a lot of time creating one large item, it would be better to create several powerful Magic Tools. This would improve combat effectiveness in the shortest time, and the effect might even be better than the former.
However, this was based on the assumption that Qingshui was merely a pure Anomalous Human Artificer.
The Artificer's methods could be a very important tool for Qingshui, but they weren't his whole identity.
Ultimately, he was still a ninja, a Puppet Master, an engineer who mastered various black technologies, and even a swordsman.
Even without using the Platinum battle armor, and with this Avatar's Qi and Chakra levels only at the average Anomalous Human standard, his Swordplay and excellent perception abilities would still make him a master among the younger generation in the wider Anomalous Human world.
At least in his perception, among everyone in Biyou Village, the only person who could pose a threat to him, besides Ma Xianhong, might be Zhao Guizhen, who came from the Maoshan Sect, received orthodox lineage from a major sect, and also cultivated strange evil techniques.
And with an A+-grade Puppet, Qingshui's assessment would be hard to say.
He hadn't witnessed the combat power of the Ten Elders, so he couldn't judge, but he believed in his Puppet's combat power.
Excluding the unquantifiably powerful Old Master Zhang Zhiwei, who could swat anyone with a single palm, Qingshui believed that against other Ten Elders, he could at least defend himself, if not contend, before his own Chakra ran out.
Qingshui's own mental strength was very high, and his spiritual realm had reached a considerable level through his study of magic and the Mind Stone. The Mohist Sect Breathing Technique had no bottlenecks before reaching the Will of Heaven realm.
Therefore, his cultivation speed was very fast; a few months for him equaled several years for other Anomalous Humans, and it was only getting faster.
In the Anomalous Human world, this was a sign of great accomplishment in Mohist Sect techniques!
Some senior members of the Mohist Sect were currently only at this level. Even the current Mohist Sect Leader was merely at the peak of the Will of Heaven realm.
If he could transform Platinum into a Magic Tool, and then create and install the Arc Reactor, then even if its combat power wasn't comparable to his main body and other Avatars, Qingshui believed it would at least have near Kage-level combat power in the Ninja World.
Aside from the unfathomable Old Master, such strength should be enough to dominate the Ten Elders and Quansheng in the Anomalous Human world, moving about without restraint.
And if his main body also completed the Magic Tool Materialization of the Puppet, then...
Qingshui was very much looking forward to it.
Even though Biyou Village was a relatively primitive and less modernized village, cell phones and computers could still get reception there, so life wasn't entirely dull, and Qingshui wasn't completely cut off from the outside world.
Though he was currently only an associate professor at the sixth level, his academic achievements were undeniable. His accomplishments in mathematics and artificial intelligence were top-tier in the country, so if he were to suddenly disappear for ten days to half a month, it would still cause considerable trouble.
On the second day in Biyou Village, Ma Xianhong took Qingshui to see his Body Cultivation Furnace, which he used to transform ordinary people into Anomalous Humans.
The current Body Cultivation Furnace wasn't yet the version that Zhuge Qing would later help modify.
There were four generations of the Body Cultivation Furnace. Considering the final version, which Zhuge Qing helped modify, as the fourth generation, the current one could at most be considered the second generation, and its efficiency in transforming Anomalous Humans was much lower.
Qingshui wasn't a sorcerer like Zhuge Qing.
When it came to Qimen Dunjia, he was completely clueless.
However, his engineering skills were very high, enough to guide Ma Xianhong in certain aspects, such as the layout of energy lines.
Furthermore, his expertise in Medical Ninjutsu and biotechnology gave him a deep understanding of human anatomy—the Body Cultivation Furnace itself was designed to modify the human body.
This was enough to bring about some changes to the Body Cultivation Furnace.
However, Ma Xianhong didn't point out the strange piece of flesh hidden deep within the Body Cultivation Furnace, and Qingshui tacitly didn't mention it either.
His presence in Biyou Village now surely meant he was exposed to Qu Tong's scrutiny.
That wasn't too big of a deal, as Biyou Village had over a hundred people.
The key, though, was that he had mastered Divine Mechanism Hundred Refinements.
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