Mr. Pantalone has no crazy plans today.

After all, he was just an ordinary banker, and even among the Jumanji, he was only the ninth seat, so it's conceivable that his strength was not very strong.

This is one of the reasons why he attaches so much importance to this project and plan.

On the other hand, once the 'mechanical prosthetic body' is completed, it means he will be able to roam freely outside during winter, and it will also be much easier to find ways to complete other plans.

While the sheer size of the funds might put some pressure on them, the good news is that Mond Winery was recently mortgaged to the Northern Bank, which means Pantalone still has a considerable amount of cash flow.

As long as it's not too outrageous, he can handle it.

At worst, they can just transfer this financial burden to Mondstadt. After the wine bubble crisis, many people will lose their jobs. Transferring the burden to Mondstadt will not only alleviate its financial pressure, but also provide employment opportunities for many unemployed people.

His assessment of this was: "A friendly nation, a great benefactor who saved Mondstadt's economy."

Even if the wind god Barbatos came, he would have to praise him for making the free and lazy Mondstadt people become like the people of Liyue, acquiring the wonderful quality of diligence, and giving the Mondstadt people who just wanted to lie down a goal to strive for.

It's a complete win-win situation; they're so happy they're practically swooning.

Just as Pantalone had figured out how to respond to Sandone's request for funding, Sandone denied that he had come to apply for funding.

"The engineering plans for 'mechanical prosthetics' and 'intelligent autonomous sequence mechanisms' do require more Mora, but in fact, the main reason I came to you this time was not to apply for funding."

If I wanted to apply for more Mora, I would have simply sent someone to notify you directly, instead of going through the trouble of asking you to come here. In fact, the main reason I wanted to tell you this time is that the 'mechanical prosthetic body' is almost finished.

Pantalone was stunned when he heard this.

what?

The 'mechanical prosthetic body' is almost finished being manufactured?

Wow, that was fast!

Keep in mind that he had already prepared for this to be a long-term, money-burning project.

For large-scale projects, such plans usually take several years to come without any results, but to his surprise, Sandone indicated that she already had a finished product so quickly.

"Why are you looking at me like that? I'm the chief mechanical engineer at Zhidong. This kind of thing is not a difficult challenge for me."

Sandonne gently put down his teacup and said softly.

Her posture was elegant and composed, radiating a unique confidence from the inside out.

Looking at the elegant and dignified girl before him, Pantalone readjusted his thoughts and carefully organized his words before replying.

"No... I'm just a little surprised that the finished product was obtained so quickly. Since I was able to get results so quickly, it's naturally a happy thing for me."

"Oh... no need for formalities. It's only close to completion. There are still quite a few problems before it's completely finished, which is why I specifically asked you to come and ask for your opinion."

Sandoni chuckled softly, then returned to his indifferent tone as he responded to Pantalone.

Upon hearing this, Pantalone paused slightly in the hand holding the teacup.

As an ordinary banker, all he wanted to say was...

Why are all of you researchers asking me, a banker, for my opinion?

Don't you guys have any self-awareness about this kind of thing?

But if he can't answer this kind of question, wouldn't he be in an awkward situation?

So he could only pretend that nothing was wrong, and drank the cup of black tea in one gulp to calm himself down. After adjusting his state, he forced out that business-like smile again and asked in a calm and composed manner.

"Oh? So there's a problem you can't solve?"

"There's no need to flatter me on that point."

The girl named "Puppet" gently closed her eyes, then picked up the cup of red tea that the puppet beside her had just brewed, brought it to her lips, took a sip, and said softly.

"In fact, the main issue in this regard is the 'Intelligent Sequence Self-Regulating Mechanism' project. With my abilities, creating the ideal engineering feat is certainly within my reach, but such feats are ultimately few and far between."

"For me, the biggest difficulty is not the technical difficulty, but the lack of a more efficient way to reduce the cost of manufacturing these mechanical creations, which takes up a lot of my materials budget."

"Such high costs are inconsistent with the original plan and the initial purpose. The biggest loss is the energy consumption."

"So I'm going to ask you, as the largest investor in this project and plan, what your opinion is on the current costs? After all, I think it's necessary to ask for your opinion as an investor."

After hearing Sandone's explanation, Pantalone finally understood why Sandone had sought him out.

His mind was filled with the words Sandonne had said to him, words that offered no answer.

Every sentence was about the difficulties encountered in the plan, and he couldn't figure it out no matter how hard he tried. After pondering for a long time, he finally discerned two words in the sentence—

ask for money.

In summary, this means that he was asked if he could reduce costs at the moment.

Are you planning to keep burning money?

Or are you planning to use some other method to solve this problem?

If you can't solve this problem, then you'll just have to keep burning money into it.

This made Pantalone start thinking about how to solve the problem. To be honest, he did have a solution.

The simplest way to address the problem of energy loss is to find an alternative energy source.

And he just so happens to have this kind of energy.

Due to the temporary change of the 'Elemental Force Energy Storage Plan', he transformed this energy storage plan, which was originally intended to store 'Elemental Force', into the 'Imaginary Internal Energy Storage Plan' to store more energy.