Chapter Thirty-One: An Unexpected Turn After the Breakthrough

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Deep within the abandoned warehouse, the prototype of the Cocoon Chamber gleamed with a cold metallic sheen beneath the harsh lights.

Unlike its crude skeletal frame from before, the surface of the ring-shaped chamber was now covered by an extraordinarily intricate silver-gray matrix woven from countless fine energy conduits, as though a colossal beast had donned armor made of flowing liquid metal.

Duan Peng’s bare upper body steamed with heat. Sweat trickled along the contours of his lean, powerful muscles as he carefully used a high-frequency welder to connect the final energy conduit—its tip flickering with a faint blue glow—to the interface of the core converter.

The air was thick with the acrid smell of searing metal mingled with specialized coolant, along with the low hum of an invisible, nerve-rattling energy field.

“Old Xu, are you sure this thing is going to work?” Duan Peng’s voice came through his protective mask, carrying a metallic buzz and a trace of barely perceptible tension. “It looks more fragile than glass!”

He pointed toward the intricate energy-field structure surrounding the converter, its presence visible only through the slight distortion it caused in the air.

This was not a physical material, but Jiyu’s proposed core solution—a dynamic energy-field lattice formed through precise calculations and the interference of multiple energy beams.

It was like an invisible, elastic membrane, theoretically capable of absorbing and dispersing the impact of the core’s turbulent energy.

Xu Yan stood before the main control console, where dazzling streams of data and three-dimensional field models cascaded across the screen.

The bloodshot veins in his eyes had grown more pronounced, yet his mind was in a strange state of exhilaration.

He did not answer Duan Peng at once. Instead, he briefly closed his eyes.

In an instant, that strange sensation of “inner vision” surged forth once more. Countless radiant streams, each representing a different energy attribute, rushed through the landscape of his mind.

He could clearly “see” that within the conduit Duan Peng had just connected, an indigo current symbolizing the foundation of stability was attempting to merge into the entire field. At the edge, however, it encountered several violent, restless streams of deep-red turbulence.

“Connection point offset by 0.08 micrometers. Increase the intensity of the third interference beam by 5.7 percent instantaneously. Duration: 0.3 seconds.”

Jiyu’s stream of information cut in with cold precision.

Xu Yan’s eyes snapped open. His fingers blurred across the virtual keyboard of the control console, his commands as exact as a surgeon’s blade.

Bzzzt—!

At the newly connected conduit’s port, a deep-blue halo, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, suddenly flared before vanishing without a trace.

On the screen, the parameter representing energy stability in that region instantly leaped from a dangerous yellow back into the safe green zone.

The violent crimson turbulence, as though struck at a precise pressure point, was subdued in an instant and merged into the main energy flow.

Startled by the sudden reaction at the port, Duan Peng staggered half a step backward and nearly dropped his welding torch.

“Holy hell! Old Xu, what did you do?!”

“A minor adjustment,” Xu Yan replied tersely. His voice carried a trace of barely perceptible weariness, along with a deeper, effortless confidence.

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He looked toward Duan Peng, his eyes gleaming with an almost inhumanly calm light.

“The energy-field structure is the Cocoon Chamber’s tendons and skin. It isn’t fragile, Duan Peng. It simply… requires the most precise ‘weaving’ and the strongest ‘will’ to maintain its balance. Trust me—and trust this steel behemoth’s ‘new skin.’”

He patted the cold hull.

Duan Peng looked at the unfamiliar light in Xu Yan’s eyes, a radiance that seemed capable of seeing straight into the essence of energy. Then he glanced at the data on the screen, which had stabilized in an instant. After swallowing hard, he finally gave a heavy nod.

“Damn it. Let’s do it! Even if this thing shakes me apart today, I’ll take it!”

Second critical test: Objective—maintain a stable environment for thirty minutes.

Duan Peng once again stood before the open entrance of the Cocoon Chamber.

This time, he made no bold declaration. He merely drew a deep breath, then faced Xu Yan at the main control console and pounded his chest firmly before turning resolutely and stepping into the cold metallic space.

The hatch hissed shut, sealing him off from the outside world.

“System self-check complete. Energy-field lattice initialization…” Xu Yan’s voice came through the internal communicator, exceptionally steady. “Complete.”

“Received.” Duan Peng’s voice echoed with a metallic resonance as he struggled to remain calm.

“Beginning Level-One energy infusion. Environmental field generation… commence!”

The familiar hum rose in pitch, but this time there was none of the catastrophic sensation of an explosion that had accompanied the previous attempt.

The chamber merely trembled slightly.

Duan Peng felt his body grow heavy as standard gravity took hold. Then came the gentle pressure of the surrounding atmosphere, while the temperature stabilized within a comfortable range.

“Gravity, pressure, temperature… initial stability achieved!” His voice held a note of delighted surprise.

“Infusion stable. Initiating dynamic field-balance maintenance…” Xu Yan’s voice remained calm, but every muscle in his body was taut before the console. His concentration was absolute, and the strange field of perception deep within his consciousness had opened to its fullest extent.

Countless “streams” formed from energy currents surged, intertwined, and collided before his eyes.

He was like a conductor standing at the edge of a raging waterfall. His hands became phantoms over the control console. Every keystroke and every minute adjustment of a dial precisely guided the torrents of violent energy, forcibly drawing them into the harmonious paths laid out in advance.

Time passed second by second.

Five minutes… ten minutes… fifteen minutes…

On the main control screen, the bar representing core stability remained firmly within the green safety zone.

The curves representing the environmental parameters were so smooth they appeared to have been drawn with a ruler.

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Duan Peng’s reports from inside the chamber also steadied, even taking on a trace of incredulous relief.

“Twenty minutes! Old Xu! Steady as a mountain!” Duan Peng’s voice brimmed with irrepressible excitement.

At some point, Jing Zhimin had silently come to stand behind Xu Yan in the warehouse. His tightly clenched fists had turned his knuckles white as he stared fixedly at the green bar symbolizing hope, ecstatic flames burning in his eyes.

Had they succeeded? Were they really… about to make it work?!

Yet at the twenty-third minute—

The situation suddenly changed!

Bzzzt—!!

A deep, muffled tremor, as though rising from the abyss, suddenly erupted from within the Cocoon Chamber.

The entire ring-shaped chamber shook violently, convulsing like a colossal beast in agony.

On the main control screen, the green bar that had remained steady was struck as if by a massive hammer and plunged sharply downward.

A glaring scarlet red instantly swallowed most of the screen.

A shrill alarm tore through the warehouse’s brief silence.

“Warning! Core energy turbulence detected! Local collapse of field structure! Pressure imbalance!”

The cold electronic voice tolled like a death knell.

“What’s happening?!” Jing Zhimin’s ecstatic expression froze into ice as he shouted.

Xu Yan’s pupils contracted sharply.

Within his field of perception, an unprecedented surge of dark-violet energy turbulence, resembling a cosmic storm, had erupted without warning from an extremely concealed weak point in the energy-field lattice—from a microscopic flaw that could not be perfectly resolved because of the limitations of materials available on Earth.

Like a maddened venomous dragon, it tore through the carefully maintained balance and swept the surrounding stable energy currents into a vortex of destruction.

“Duan Peng! Report!” For the first time, Xu Yan’s voice carried a searing urgency.

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