Deposed? I couldn't be happier! I wouldn't even be a dog to the crown prince.

Inside the side hall of the East Palace, a pungent, burnt smell permeated the air.

The once dignified and otherworldly Grand Preceptor Yuan Tiangang now appears in a state of utter misery.

His once-proud, long, silvery-white hair stood on end like a hedgehog, wisps of smoke rising from it. His exquisite purple Taoist robe, embroidered with the Tai Chi symbol, was now a tattered sack riddled with holes.

The worst part was his face, which was as black as if he had just been dug out of a coal mine. Only his eyes were so bright that it made you feel like he was about to ascend to heaven in the next second.

"Old Yuan, are you undergoing a tribulation of lightning in the palace?"

Li Chengqian covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve and took a half step back in disgust.

Li Shimin, who followed him in, was startled and instinctively reached for the sword at his waist.

"Grand Preceptor Yuan! Have you been possessed by an evil spirit?"

"Your Majesty! Your Highness!"

Yuan Tiangang seemed completely oblivious to the pain in his body. He held up the charred glass bottle in his hand with extreme fanaticism.

The bottle had a thin layer of tin foil inside, and a piece of wood was plugged into the mouth of the bottle, with a bent and deformed copper rod inserted through the middle of the wood.

This was a Leyden jar sketch that Li Chengqian had casually drawn for Yuan Tiangang a few months ago, based on his knowledge of physics as a time traveler.

"Your Highness! That 'Heavenly Might' you spoke of, existing above the nine heavens... I... I truly captured it!"

Yuan Tiangang was so excited that he was incoherent. He scrambled over to Li Chengqian and carefully placed the Leyden jar on the table.

"Your Highness, please look!"

Yuan Tiangang took a deep breath, extended his still slightly trembling black finger, and slowly approached the exposed copper rod at the mouth of the bottle.

Just when the fingertip was less than half an inch away from the bronze rod.

"Snapped!"

A faint, yet clearly audible, crisp sound rang out in the quiet side hall.

A thin, pale blue spark of electricity flashed between Yuan Tiangang's fingertips and the copper rod!

"hiss--"

Although the current was so weak that it couldn't even kill a mosquito, Yuan Tiangang still jerked his hand back as if he had been electrocuted, but a maniacal smile appeared on his face, as if he had heard the truth in the morning and was ready to die in the evening.

"Heavenly might! This is the miniature version of heavenly might!"

"As Your Highness instructed, during a thunderstorm, I used a specially made kite with copper wire attached to it to fly into the sky and then guided the copper wire into this bottle."

As Yuan Tiangang spoke, he gestured wildly, vividly illustrating the scene of someone recklessly flirting with death at the gates of hell.

"The moment that Heavenly Thunder struck down along the copper wire, I felt half of my body go numb, as if my soul was being ripped from my body!"

"But when I awoke, this bottle truly contained that extremely violent power of lightning!"

Looking at Yuan Tiangang's extremely disheveled yet extremely fanatical appearance.

Li Chengqian secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time, he couldn't help but admire the stubbornness of this "ancient scientist".

Flying a kite during a thunderstorm can attract lightning.

Even by today's standards, this would be considered an extremely suicidal act. The fact that the old Taoist priest wasn't instantly cleaved into ashes can only be attributed to his incredible luck, or perhaps it was simply that Heaven wanted to see just how far the Tang Dynasty's technological development could go astray.

"Not bad, you not only survived, but you also successfully put the lightning into the bottle."

Li Chengqian patted Yuan Tiangang's shoulder, which smelled of burning, and a satisfied smile appeared on his lips.

he knows.

From the moment that faint, pale blue spark leaped.

The technology tree of the Tang Dynasty has already forcefully sprouted new shoots of the electrical age, leading to the next dimension, from the massive body of the steam age!

And on the side.

Li Shimin, who had been in a daze, finally couldn't help but come closer.

He stared curiously at the ordinary-looking glass bottle.

"Grand Preceptor, you went through all that trouble, almost roasting yourself into jerky, just to produce this tiny spark in this bottle, barely bigger than a firefly?"

Li Shimin reached out to touch the bronze rod, but Yuan Tiangang stopped him in a very tense manner.

"Your Majesty, be careful! This is the might of Heaven! Although it is extremely weak now, it is still the power of thunder that can split trees and burn houses!"

Li Shimin curled his lip in disdain.

"Thunderous power? That's it? Can this thing be used to fight Goguryeo? Or to bombard enemy city walls?"

In the eyes of a pure militarist like Li Shimin, anything that cannot be used to kill or expand territory is just a clever trick.

He felt that his son was wasting time by having the imperial advisor conduct such superficial experiments; it would be more practical to build more cannons.

"Father, your vision is sometimes so short-sighted that it breaks my heart."

Li Chengqian retorted without hesitation.

He walked to the table, looked at the simple Leyden jar, and a crazy light that transcended the understanding of his time shone in his deep eyes.

"Red-coated cannons can only demolish city walls, and steam engines can only replace oxen and horses."

Li Chengqian turned his head and stared intently into Li Shimin's eyes.

"But what if you could amplify this 'spark' that you look down on and control it at will?"

"It can illuminate the entire city of Chang'an as brightly as day in the dark, without needing to burn any oil!"

"It can allow the military orders of the Tang Dynasty to travel thousands of miles in the blink of an eye, directly reaching the ears of any general in any protectorate!"

"It can even unleash a power a hundred times more terrifying than a steam engine, propelling the Tang Dynasty's steel warships, ignoring any storms, and conquering every inch of the ocean on this planet!"

Li Chengqian's extremely futuristic and unconventional description completely stunned Li Shimin.

Is the night as bright as day?

Military orders can instantly travel thousands of miles?

This is beyond human capability! It's clearly the magical powers of immortals from myths and legends, such as the ability to see a thousand miles, hear the wind, and command thunder and lightning!

"Chengqian...you...you must be talking nonsense?"

Li Shimin swallowed hard, his voice filled with disbelief and trembling.

"I never speak nonsense, I only speak the truth."

Li Chengqian ignored his father, whose worldview had been shattered.

He turned and walked to his desk, from which he precisely pulled out a rough-drawn parchment scroll from the pile of messy drawings. The scroll contained the power to change the world.

"Old Yuan."

Li Chengqian casually tossed the scroll into Yuan Tiangang's arms.

"Don't do such a foolish thing as summoning lightning anymore. It would be too embarrassing if the Grand Preceptor of the Tang Dynasty were struck by lightning and killed."

Yuan Tiangang hurriedly caught the scroll and looked down.

It was covered with some extremely strange coils and a huge magnet, and was filled with various formulas and symbols that looked like celestial script.

"Your Highness...this is..."

"This is called 'Fundamentals of Electromagnetic Induction'."

Li Chengqian sat back in the rocking chair, picked up the bowl of slightly warm plum juice, and took a sip in an extremely lazy manner.

"I've already drawn up the theory and a rough model for you."

"Go find Mo Ju and have him pick out a few of the most skilled blacksmiths for you."

"Use magnets and copper coils to build a machine that can generate those 'sparks' on its own."

Li Chengqian looked at the old Taoist priest who was holding the scroll and trembling with excitement, and a domineering and ruthless smile appeared on his lips.

"The nights in the Tang Dynasty were too long and too dark."

"It's time to let this land..."

"The true light has shone forth."