What’s the point of cultivating immortality if you don’t have money?.

Chapter 551 The faster the weapon forging, the better
"How could Zhang Yu have mastered it so quickly?"

Upon seeing the intelligence sent by Su Yunni, Jin Jun's first reaction was disbelief.

"To have achieved this in just over a month? They've really lost all sense of shame."

At this moment, Jin Jun was extremely suspicious of the authenticity of Zhang Yu's results.

He had seen this kind of thing too many times in the laboratories of the weapon-refining department. Some people were only barely qualified themselves, but they hired a skilled assistant to do most of the work, pushing the quality and speed to the limit, and then signed their names at the end.

“Zhang Yu should have some skill, at least enough to refine a Level 1 prototype machine, but it’s absolutely impossible for him to do this in just one month with only two people.”

"He must have spent a lot of money and hired a huge team to assist him."

Jin Jun made a judgment in his mind: "Only in this way could we have achieved this in just over a month."

"Is releasing this kind of news... an attempt to demoralize our troops?"

But Jin Jun had to admit that Zhang Yu had indeed stirred up his emotions.

He took a deep breath and then slowly exhaled. A surge of magical power flowed through his body, and a stable Dao heart gradually calmed his thoughts.

Jin Jun understood that the reason he was so easily provoked was because he had invested too much this time.

"I've invested nearly half of my wealth in this project. If it fails, not only will it be difficult to recover the funds, but it will also be a huge blow to my reputation in weapon crafting."

The thought that after his failure, he might be labeled in someone's contacts with something like "the person who was defeated by a civil engineering major," made Jin Jun seem to see his loans, funding, and investments becoming increasingly difficult to obtain, and his path to immortality becoming increasingly arduous.

"We must never admit defeat."

No matter who is helping Zhang Yu, Jin Jun has no intention of admitting defeat.

In particular, he understood that after the Level 1 prototype was completed, the next step was to repeatedly improve the prototype and gradually upgrade its level.

"At this point, it all comes down to Zhang Yu's own skill level."

“If his weapon-refining skills don’t reach level 11, no matter how hard he works or how much money he spends, he will never be able to raise the prototype machine to level 11.”

"If he were to seek a substitute for him at this point, he would definitely not pass the review."

"With my long-standing technical expertise in this area, based on the current debugging parameters, once this prototype is assembled, it will be able to reach level 5 in one go."

"His improvement will definitely be faster than his in the future."

With this in mind, Jin Jun gradually calmed down.

Of course, even though he had settled down, Jin Jun didn't intend to do nothing.

"Even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit. This project has cost me so much spiritual currency and time, I will never accept failure."

So on that day, Jin Jun mortgaged his physical remains and organs to further extend his loan. He then used the spirit coins he received to rent more advanced refining equipment and even hired a Golden Core level teacher to provide him with one-on-one guidance, offering pointers and filling in any gaps in his refining process.

Besides speeding himself up, Jin Jun also planned to cause Zhang Yu some trouble and slow him down.

He then sent out a message.

Jin Jun: Senior brother, there's something I need to ask you.
……

Inside Ye Xingli's laboratory.

Zhang Yu's body was surrounded by surging earthly gravitational forces, which had already fixed the prototype machine in mid-air.

At the same time, streams of magical power shot out from his hands, mixed with the material powder prepared by Zi Yunzhen, and were injected into the refining equipment next to him. Then, they transformed into layers of restrictions and were injected into the prototype machine.

As the number of restrictions increased, the prototype's high-temperature resistance was gradually strengthened.

Zhang Yu knew that to upgrade the prototype machine, besides repeatedly stacking restrictions on the mana circuits inside and outside the machine to improve its various performance aspects, he also needed to optimize the runes, refine the materials, and increase the upper limit of the mana core...

In addition to enhancing basic attributes, additional functions are also needed.

For example, if the current level 1 prototype machine is to be upgraded to level 2, a new skill module must be installed to give the prototype machine the ability to control fire.

Zhang Yu thought to himself, "The Level 1 prototype has already left interfaces for various functions. What I need to do is improve and add modules."

"To achieve this, my drawing skills need to reach a certain level."

I glanced at the Heavenly Sun God Prototype Machine Level 1 (6/10) on the Feather Book.

Zhang Yu thought to himself, "Now, every time I refine the prototype machine, it will not only enhance the prototype machine's basic attributes, but also advance the progress on the Yu Shu by 2 points with the blessing of the weapon-refining prodigy."

"Once I upgrade the blueprint to level 2, I will have enough technical expertise to add the fire resistance function that is only available at level 2 to the prototype."

Thinking this, Zhang Yu's movements in refining the prototype machine became even faster. His internal magical power and the materials around him seemed to flow freely, frantically attacking the prototype machine before him. Zi Yunzhen, watching this scene, couldn't help but twitch her eyelids and say, "Boss, isn't this too fast?"

In Zi Yunzhen's view, refining weapons is not about being as fast as possible, especially when learning and refining at the same time. You have to think about every step and make up for any shortcomings in order to make progress while refining weapons.

In Zi Yunzhen's view, Zhang Yu's blindfolded and frantic speed-up was too wasteful of materials and money, and might not even yield much progress.

Zi Yunzhen thought to herself, "Refining weapons doesn't mean that the more times you refine them, the more powerful they become..."

Zhang Yu thought to himself, "The key to weapon crafting is to accumulate experience. The more times I do it, the higher my weapon crafting skill level will be, right?"

Seeing that Zhang Yu ignored her, Zi Yunzhen couldn't help but say, "Boss, what's the value of your speed? You can't just pursue speed. Your current performance is too weak compared to Jin Jun's team. The judging panel will be looking at your thinking, not just the number of times you've refined the ingredients."

"I hope that in your future work, you can distill your thoughts into your daily reports, differentiate yourself, and form your own core competitiveness."

"Keep up the good work, boss. If you can grow and improve, I'm willing to take a pay cut so you can have more funds to push the project forward."

Looking at Zi Yunzhen, who was starting to promise herself a pay cut for her employees, Zhang Yu couldn't help but think to himself, "Damn it... When I was an employee, my boss made promises to me, and now that I'm the boss, my employees are making promises to me?"

"Kunxu, this wretched place."

Seeing that Zi Yunzhen was about to speak again, Zhang Yu waved his hand to stop her: "Yunzhen, I am somewhat disappointed with your current performance. I invited you to my project team in the hope that you could delve into the field of the Heavenly Sun God and become the most professional assistant in this area."

"I won't explain to you why we need to speed things up. I hope to give you an opportunity to grow, to force yourself to think, to explore, and to find the answers."

"I know that with such a fast pace, it must be very stressful for you to grow. But growth is always accompanied by pressure, and the time when you are under the most pressure is often when you grow the fastest."

"You will be incredibly grateful for this stressful time in the future; it will be a crucial stage in your life's transformation."

After calming her down, Zhang Yu continued to increase his speed, quickly making it harder and harder for Zi Yunzhen to keep up. She could only frantically force herself to speed up! Speed ​​up! Speed ​​up even more! Gradually, she no longer had any time to think.

She felt like she was desperately chasing Zhang Yu on a track, giving it her all until she was exhausted, but all she could do was watch Zhang Yu's figure get further and further away from her.

Just when Zi Yunzhen was completely unable to keep up, Zhang Yu suddenly stopped.

"I'm going to the Spirit Realm. Yun Zhen, you continue preparing."

Seeing this, Zi Yunzhen felt as if Zhang Yu had stopped on the track, allowing her to seize the time to gradually catch up.

Realizing this, Zi Yunzhen was filled with shame: "I dragged down the efficiency of the entire project team..."

At the same time, Zhang Yu had already entered the Taiqing Realm, started the weapon-refining simulation, and continued his cultivation in the Taiqing Realm.

Unlike weapon-refining techniques that can only be practiced in reality, Zhang Yu can continuously improve his levels of various weapon-refining and production skills, namely, his mastery of various magical treasures and magical artifact blueprints, through repeated practice in this illusory realm using the simulation function.

"The refining process in the laboratory can be considered as leaving a record of my work while refining the prototype machine."

"Taking advantage of the gaps to improve slightly in the Taiqing Realm will allow us to upgrade the blueprint level much faster."

Zhang Yu estimated in his mind: "If we proceed on both sides at the same time, I estimate that in another month or two, I will be able to upgrade the prototype machine to the Foundation Establishment level of level 11."

Just as Zhang Yu was burying himself in the laboratory every day, a message suddenly appeared before him.

……

In the spirit world.

Looking at the Taoist priest before him, who resembled a mechanically assembled figure, Zhang Yu asked, "Teacher Guiyuanzi, is there anything I can help you with?"

The Taoist priest glanced at Zhang Yu and said indifferently, "Why didn't you come to the recent history of weapon refining techniques?"

Zhang Yu was slightly taken aback and said, "I've already asked for leave..."

Gui Yuanzi coldly replied, "I don't recall ever approving your leave."

"Fine, I'll give you a chance now. You'll have to make up for all the classes you missed, or you can forget about passing this course this semester."

After saying that, Guiyuanzi left behind a rudimentary intelligent artifact spirit, which began giving Zhang Yu an online lesson at 1.0x speed, and then disappeared.

Zhang Yu was slightly taken aback, and sent another message to the other party asking for leave, only to be scolded in return.

Guiyuanzi: What leave do you need? Who gave you permission to take leave so easily?
Guiyuanzi: Don't think that you can avoid studying history just because you're doing projects.
Guiyuanzi: You haven't even learned the history of technology in the past, and you don't know the ins and outs. How can you study technology?
"This guy..." Zhang Yu looked at the spirit in front of him who was attending class and thought to himself, "Is someone deliberately messing with me again?"

Just then, Zi Yunzhen sent a message: Boss, the materials are ready. When are you coming back?
Zhang Yu replied: "You continue preparing the materials. I'll come back after I finish what I'm doing."
Then Zhang Yu thought for a moment and sent messages to Feng Tingting, Ye Xingli and Zhang Pianpian respectively. He wanted to find out what Guiyuanzi was up to.

After making some inquiries, Zhang Yu roughly understood what was going on. He browsed through the contacts and finally looked at Feng Yuhan.

(End of this chapter)