Blueprints,Were they valuable?Absolutely.After all, superhumans were a tiny minority—human civilization's true greatest reliance was still technology, and all levels of thermal weaponry. Against this backdrop, high-tech weapons themselves could never be cheap, so the value of high-tech weapon blueprints was naturally even higher. And mech weapons? That went without saying.Even a low-tier E-rank weapon blueprint, as long as it met specifications, could fetch a considerable sum in royalties—whether sold to a civilized political party or to one of the renowned mechanical arms dealers across the cosmos. That money would be enough for an ordinary family to live comfortably without financial worries for a lifetime.However, everything was relative. While this blueprint might be incredibly precious to the average person, it was far less so for Lin Jie. An E-rank weapon? With his own knowledge and abilities, as long as conditions permitted, he could easily create over a dozen of them without breaking a sweat. In that case, this E-rank blueprint ended up feeling rather useless—like a "chicken rib" (something tasteless to eat but a waste to discard)."Wait, I need to calm down." As Lin Jie thought, he studied the blueprint's structure, and his eyes suddenly changed. Even though he'd only looked at it for a few minutes, his experience as a mechanic let him spot the uniqueness of this "Red Python."Compared to the E-rank weapons he knew, every index of this "Red Python" seemed to have been optimized to the extreme. Specifically, its output energy level, firing interval, and structural ratio all reached the most ideal state—a level of optimization that wasn't part of Lin Jie's existing knowledge reserve. In his memory, there were barely any similar weapons either.The reason was simple: with so many technological methods and weapon types available, the shortcomings of one weapon could often be compensated for by another. Naturally, no one bothered to pour endless effort into developing a single weapon to perfection.Take handguns, for example. Most people wouldn't waste time trying to drastically boost a handgun's range or firepower. For one thing, it would be time-consuming and labor-intensive with no guarantee of success; for another, it was unnecessary. If a handgun's range was insufficient, you could use a rifle; if a rifle's rate of fire was lacking, a submachine gun; if a submachine gun's firepower was weak, a sniper rifle. When swapping weapons solved the problem, no one was willing to fixate on overcoming one weapon's flaws like a stubborn fool.But the Red Python was different. This weapon itself wasn't high-ranked, and its blueprint structure wasn't that complicated—but Lin Jie was certain that in every aspect, this weapon truly achieved the most ideal state. Even when compared to same-rank weapons from the military or major tech corporations, it was in no way inferior; in fact, it might even be stronger."The blueprint is definitely optimized to perfection. The question is whether it'll actually work once built. Earlier, when I was looking for parts, I saw a heavy energy rifle—maybe I can try modifying it according to this blueprint."Lin Jie opened his eyes, stood up, and found the energy rifle in the junk mountain from memory. Calling it a "rifle" was a stretch: since it was designed for field mechs, its size was enormous—over two meters long, more like a cannon. It was a basic Private-class heavy rifle.Lin Jie carefully inspected the gun's structure, confirmed it could be simply modified to match the blueprint, then called Curly Hair over. Together, they carried the heavy energy rifle onto the flying vehicle. After counting to make sure they had enough required parts, they decided to head back immediately."So they're leaving already? Did they give up?" Not far away, Li Zhe watched as the prison guards escorting Curly Hair and Lin Jie boarded the vehicle, which then took off and flew away. He couldn't help muttering under his breath.He'd been the one largely responsible for damaging Curly Hair's mech, so he knew exactly how badly the machine was broken. He didn't believe Lin Jie and Curly Hair could have found enough parts to repair the mech in such a short time."Actually, external armor damage is easy to fix. The main issue is the main control chip—if they found a main control chip, the other damage is just trivial," Da Wei spoke up. As a professional mechanic, he knew far more than Li Zhe."So does that mean they really can fix that mech?""It's not out of the question."Li Zhe fell silent for a moment, but soon turned back to rummaging through the junk, his eyes growing slightly cold. "Hmph, it's no big deal. That mech's specs are still low after all. As long as I find allies—or sneak attack them again—I can blow it up!" He sounded perfectly justified, as if he didn't think it was shameful at all to rely on sneak attacks to win when his mech already had an advantage."Maybe I underestimated this Rubik's Cube..." That night, as Lin Jie lay on his bed resting, he couldn't help thinking about what had happened that day. It had been over seven or eight hours since he'd returned to the prison.While the intelligent core could solve the main control chip problem, it wasn't compatible with the Mammoth. He needed a dedicated computer to modify the intelligent program inside the core to some extent. Simon had already sent someone to prepare it; it would arrive first thing tomorrow morning. There were still four days left until the next Flag Capture Battle, so time was relatively abundant.He'd also carefully inspected the Mammoth's damage and the structure of the heavy energy rifle, then drawn up repair and modification plans—before he knew it, the day had passed. Now, resting alone at night, Lin Jie's thoughts turned back to the Rubik's Cube in his mind. He became more and more convinced that the cube must hold more than just an E-rank blueprint.True, the blueprint that had appeared this time was rather useless. But if he thought about it carefully, he'd only twisted the cube once. Just one twist had given him an E-rank blueprint—what if he twisted it a third time? A fourth?Lin Jie roughly estimated: a 3x3 Rubik's Cube had approximately 432.5 quintillion possible states. If each twist produced a blueprint... they couldn't all be lowly E-rank, could they?Of course, getting a blueprint with every twist was the most ideal scenario. Lin Jie had only twisted it once, so he couldn't draw a definite conclusion. But even if it took several twists to get one blueprint, the number of blueprints contained in the cube would still be astronomical. There might even be some incredibly powerful ones among them.That said, for someone still serving a prison sentence like him, all that was still far beyond his reach.His top priority right now was figuring out why the cube—dormant for 23 years—had suddenly reacted today.Lin Jie thought about it for a long time before arriving at an answer: electric shock.Yes. Looking back at what he'd done that day, Lin Jie believed electric shock was the only possible trigger. Perhaps it was the electric energy entering his body that had activated the cube, allowing him to twist it. And that electric energy had only been enough for one twist—which explained why the cube was now unresponsive again....At this point, some might ask: Had Lin Jie never been electrocuted before? Why did it only activate now?To answer that: As a mechanic, Lin Jie had certainly been electrocuted before—more than once. But technology in this universe was extremely advanced, and protective measures were remarkably reliable. Even if Lin Jie had been careless at work, the power supply would be cut off instantly. So all his previous electric shocks had been brief, barely lasting a second, and the voltage hadn't been very high either.Today, though—being stuck touching a live wire for four or five seconds before being thrown off—was a first.Lin Jie figured the problem was that his previous electric shocks had been too short; combined, they probably hadn't even lasted two seconds. That was why the cube had never received enough energy to activate. This time, the shock had lasted longer, giving the cube enough power to let him twist it once."So that means, to activate the cube again, I have to get electrocuted for a relatively long time once more..." Lin Jie glanced at the power outlet in his bedroom and couldn't help wincing instinctively.
