Chapter 325 The Bottleneck of Cyber Cultivation
Before the news of the failed hijacking had even faded from the top trending topics on various channels, the new transfer order from the Coordination Bureau had already been issued.
This does not mean that the alliance has reduced its investment in cultivation resources. On the contrary, the spirit-gathering arrays in all major war zones are still roaring day and night, and the consumption of spirit stones, high-level demon cores, and recovery potions on the defensive lines is greater than ever before.
However, after the path of "mass-producing Golden Pills" was effectively shut down by the very forces of nature, the alliance's leadership was finally forced to acknowledge one thing—
With the countdown to the Void Main Tide underway, it is no longer realistic to expect to cultivate a group of truly capable high-level cultivators in just a few years using the traditional cultivation system.
Then we can only pin our hopes on another path that is faster, more brutal, and more in line with the logic of modern industry.
Heavy mechanical exoskeletons, military prosthetics, tactical exoskeletons, pseudo-spiritual root amplification circuits.
Since this world doesn't recognize shortcuts, let's use technology and steel to push it up.
Kyoto's second fortified city and third military industrial zone.
The factory area was filled with shouting from dawn till dusk.
The fire in the high-temperature forging furnace never went out. The glowing red special alloy billets were pulled out of the rolling line and clamped into the cooling tank by the robotic arm, and then sent to the spirit pattern engraving area and the assembly area. Before the previous batch of "Azure Tiger Mobile Skeleton" was even sealed in its box, the knee joint components and spinal support components of the next batch of heavy-duty "Mysterious Tiger Mobile Skeleton" had already been rushed to the workstation.
"The transport ship at Pier Seven must set sail tonight!"
"Re-inspect the load-bearing rod! Apply another coat of the guide plate!"
"Don't try to fool me with civilian standards on the front lines. If something goes wrong, none of you will escape responsibility!"
The entire military industrial zone resembles a steel millstone twisted to its limit.
With the shortcut blocked, almost everyone instinctively turned their attention here.
Because this path doesn't rely on enlightenment or fate.
At least on the surface, it is more controllable.
Moreover, it is indeed effective quickly.
......
Jianghuai War Zone, Seventh Forward Position.
Since the demon race on the other side of the Ten Thousand Mountains began to retreat, there haven't been any significant beast tides on this front line for several days. However, things at the front are no less complicated than before.
Because everyone knows that this silence is not the end, but just a respite.
The demon race is being drawn in, and so are the humans.
However, what humans collect are not claws and teeth, but fortifications, positions, supply lines, and a second life.
The entire defensive line is racing against time.
The old positions need to be deepened further back, the collapsed mining areas need to be re-bridged, the temporary protective arrays below the forward observation posts need to be changed into a stackable structure, and the firepower points that were originally only enough to block scattered attacks need to be forcibly upgraded to "mainstream level impact".
All of this requires mechanical external support.
The six-man heavy-armored engineering squad led by Zhou Ming was responsible for the most tiring and accident-prone part of the job today.
The three folding defensive fortification bases must be transported from the rear supply point into the front-line subsidence mining area and driven into their designated positions before the next round of geological pulses surges upwards.
This is not a battle.
It was even more grueling than many small-scale battles.
The terrain in that mining area was terrible. The ground was full of sinkholes, slag heaps, and collapsed rail supports from the old era. If you stepped into the wrong spot even slightly, you and your equipment could fall into a crevice. What was more troublesome was that there were unstable spiritual pressure surges underground that would rise up every now and then, forcing everyone to complete the entire process of blasting, moving, braking, and securing the equipment in a short period of time.
"Group Two, turn left!"
"Level the base of the formation, don't let it bump against anything!"
"Point number three, hurry up!"
Zhou Ming roared as he braced himself against the protective array base on his shoulder.
The newly installed "Xuanhu Mobile Frame" is indeed more powerful than the old model. Once the back pressurization node is activated, the leg hydraulic rods and waist support rings exert force simultaneously, making the whole person feel as if they are wrapped in a steel frame, capable of pushing the base forward.
The first two phases progressed relatively smoothly.
Six people trudged through the mud and pebbles, pushing the first base of the array to its designated position. The second one was just a few dozen meters away.
But just as the second array base was about to be placed, an accident occurred.
The ley line pulse, which was originally estimated to arrive in about ten minutes, arrived ahead of schedule.
A muffled boom came from deep underground.
The entire mining area seemed to have been pushed up from below, the ground undulated instantly, and the base plate that was almost in place suddenly tilted and slid into the sinkhole on the right.
"Hold on!!!"
Zhou Ming reacted extremely quickly, almost instinctively lunging forward, pulling the leg and waist support modules of the exoskeleton to their fullest extent, forcefully holding the edge of the array base in place.
That is, in this very instant.
Click!
The sound was very soft.
It's not even as good as the sound of gravel rubbing against each other when the ground undulates.
But Zhou Ming's expression changed immediately.
It wasn't the sound of bones; it was the main load-bearing rod inside the knee joint of the right leg exoskeleton.
Click, click!
The next second, the support of his right leg suddenly collapsed downwards, and the base he had stabilized immediately lost its balance and lurched forward.
Two team members tried to come up and help, but the booster module on their backs overheated almost simultaneously. Red light shot up along the psionic circuit, and the entire module shell began to heat up and deform.
"Turn off the boost! Turn it off now!"
Someone shouted.
But it was too late.
One of them had his right shoulder support arm deform first, causing the stress points of the entire outer suit to shift instantly, and he and the array base tumbled into the mud. The other person had just raised his hand to help when the guiding energy circuit in his waist seemed to be snapped, melting in half with a crack.
The second array base was eventually smashed down.
No one was killed.
However, the base was directly cracked at the edge, all three pre-engraved array patterns inside were destroyed, and the pre-buried points were also smashed down.
A forward reinforcement effort that should have been rushed during the ceasefire window was instantly turned into a scene of utter devastation.
And no monsters were involved in this incident.
It was not defeated in the charge, nor in the fighting.
The problem was that the materials couldn't hold up.
......
Before the news of this incident could reach Kyoto, another explosion occurred outside the second fortress city.
A heavy-duty construction mech, specifically designed for hoisting the main defensive pillars of the city, suddenly experienced a complete twisting of its main support arm after operating continuously for sixteen hours. Just as the massive stone pillar, weighing tens of tons and engraved with array patterns, was lifted into the air, the entire mech arm emitted a sickening metallic tearing sound before snapping in mid-air before everyone's eyes.
The stone pillar crashed down with a deafening roar.
The ground shook so badly that half of the construction site was trembling.
The newly laid foundation trenches were cracked, and several newly erected support frames were rendered unusable. Fortunately, the construction team below evacuated quickly; otherwise, if that pillar had fallen, it wouldn't have been just a matter of construction schedule, but a series of deaths.
Two incidents, one in the war zone and one in the rear, landed on the desks of the Coordinating Department and the Supreme Academy of Sciences almost one after the other.
Kyoto, the underground control room of the Supreme Academy of Sciences.
The forcibly cut load-bearing rod, the charred spirit guide circuit board, the twisted and deformed joint sleeve, and the spirit pattern coating that had bubbled and peeled off after overheating—these remnants were laid out on the experimental table, coldly shining under the light.
Wang Mingyuan stared at the crack pattern on the large screen, his expression growing increasingly grim.
"This is not an isolated case."
A senior expert specializing in psionic materials science next to him pushed several sets of data onto the main screen, his voice hoarse.
"The special armor steel of the old era, plus the first-generation spirit-guiding coating, and then the basic spirit runes, was already considered high strength in the ordinary military industry system. But the problem now is not whether it is tough enough."
He opened the combat parameters of Zhou Ming's squad's "Xuanhu Mobile Frame".
"The equipment on the front lines is now subjected to high-frequency bursts of power from Foundation Establishment cultivators, continuous heavy-load transport, sudden extreme braking, and long-term resonance in an environment of rising spiritual pressure."
"At this level of strength, the alloy's structure will first fatigue, then become brittle, and finally collapse as a whole."
"It wasn't damaged by the enemy."
"It's been worn down by the intensity of use."
No one responded in the meeting room.
The people from the Coordination Agency looked extremely grim.
The General Administration of Military Industry felt as if it had been slapped in the face.
The shortcut to alchemy had just been blocked, and everyone had just pinned their hopes on cyber cultivation, only to find that this path was not infinitely sustainable either.
"Can it be fixed?" someone finally asked.
"able."
The materials expert stared at the broken load-bearing rod on the table and slowly exhaled.
"But it's not about adding an extra step or thickening the steel plate by two millimeters."
"We need to replace the bones."
"The existing military alloys in our industrial inventory have reached their limits. We want to push exoskeletons, construction mechs, and military outer garments even higher, to make them withstand higher spiritual pressure, higher frequency overloads, and longer periods of use in the war zone—"
He paused, then looked up at the newly formed mineral belts and remnant nodes on the main screen.
"If we can't develop a formula with higher strength, we have to use materials that can truly carry the spirit."
"It's not made of materials from the old era."
"It's spirit ore, it's associated spirit gold, it's those things in the ruins that we couldn't understand before, but now we must understand."
After those words were spoken, the entire conference room fell completely silent.
Many people only realized at this point that the first thing blocked by heaven and earth was the shortcut of alchemy; and now, the second thing revealed is the physical limit of the path of cyber cultivation.
Heaven does not condone drug use.
With today's advanced technology, steel is not a bottomless pit.
This isn't about cutting corners; rather, the entire existing materials system has already hit a wall.
That evening, a joint briefing was directly delivered to all major theater commands, military industrial zones, and key coordination points:
[Confirmed: Existing military-grade psionic alloys and external materials have reached their fatigue limits under high-intensity combat conditions.]
Upon hearing this, the entire alliance seemed to sink into silence.
In the black market, the prices of load-bearing rods, booster modules, and guide plate coatings were all over the place; truckloads of scrapped parts were being hauled out of the front-line repair stations; and many people who had just installed new exterior parts a couple of days ago were suddenly required to limit overload.
Curses immediately filled the air.
"How are we supposed to fight like this?"
"The main tide hasn't even arrived yet, and the equipment's already falling apart!"
Despite the criticism, no one dared to stop.
Because everyone knows that if they don't push forward, the deadline behind them will get even closer.
Before dawn, Wang Mingyuan was still standing in front of that global resource map.
Western Sichuan, the northern border, the Nanling Mountains, newly formed mineral belts, and relic sites—red dots flashed silently on the screen.
The path to the "fake elixir" has been blocked by heaven and earth.
The path to industrial development has been blocked by materials.
Where can we go next? The answer is already there.
......