Protected by the nearly ten thousand people stationed in Pojun Town and guarded by patrols like Qi Xiaomei’s, even if a natural disaster struck, the territory would protect the researchers’ safety at the first moment.

Living here was naturally very safe.

The second was the Academy of Sciences’s various precision instruments.

Having ideas was not enough for scientific research. One also needed a great many experiments.

The reason the Tian Yuan Academy of Sciences was famous throughout the New Continent was mainly its various magical instruments, which produced many incredible effects.

Through them, a continuous stream of talent radiated across the continent, constantly attracting highly skilled people.

“The technology monument towers are just ahead. Do you want to go take a look?”

After getting to know each other a little better, Qi Xiaomei dropped her earlier pretentious facade and became more outgoing.

Seeing Su Mo nod, she gripped the accelerator, and the vehicle shot off at an alarming speed.

What surprised Qi Xiaomei was...

that throughout the whole ride, Su Mo’s expression remained unchanged, with no sign of fright.

“You’ve been on the battlefield too?” Qi Xiaomei suddenly blurted out.

“No, I’m just an ordinary person,” Su Mo replied succinctly.

He had figured it out. Qi Xiaomei was probably a retired soldier who had come here as a guard because she wasn’t content to just rest.

With someone like that targeting him, Su Mo did not want to expose his strength and cause trouble by some accident.

They could discuss everything once the Sun-chaser Battle Armor arrived.

Before long, the vehicle passed through a corridor and past small courtyards where pedestrians could rest, and arrived at a small square.

Here, Su Mo immediately saw three tall pillars, each about fifteen meters high, with many people sitting or standing beneath them.

A large group had gathered in front of the central pillar, and it was unclear what had happened.

When they saw the two approaching and noticed that Su Mo was an unfamiliar face, they realized he was a newcomer.

Someone glanced sideways and shook their head. “Another one.”

Others looked on with interest, faces beaming. “Another young man brimming with dreams is about to have his wings clipped here.”

Their voices were not hushed, as if they were not afraid Su Mo would be angry at their mockery.

“Don’t mind it. It’s just an old custom at the Academy of Sciences.”

“These are people who almost passed the researcher exam in previous years but failed for one reason or another.”

“They have high aspirations,” Qi Xiaomei said in a low voice, turning her head to the side.

The researcher exam came once in a lifetime for each person, and the selection was exceptionally brutal.

To get into this place, you had to be either a true genius with great potential or a top-notch researcher.

In previous years countless people had come to take the exam, but in the end only fifty people in the youth group and thirty in the adult group were selected.

But if you missed this chance, or failed the exam, and still wanted to become a researcher,

there were only two paths.

First, the external researchers Zhou Yue had mentioned could apply for research projects and use the equipment.

However, they had to bear all the costs of the project themselves. The Academy of Sciences would only provide technical guidance and no funding.

Second, anyone who solved a problem on a technology monument would be approved by the Academy of Sciences, as long as the researchers recognized the solution.

You could obtain formal researcher qualifications soon, and the difficulty of the questions might even speed up your professional title evaluation.

“It’s all right. Let them talk,” Su Mo said once Qi Xiaomei had explained everything.

Naturally he would not argue with these people over such a slight. His goal was to obtain the buffer alloy.

Zhou Yue had already made it very clear. The best place to find researchers and make connections was here.

If you could spot the researcher who had posted a question, approach him and strike up a conversation, the success rate was quite high when he was short on money.

Furthermore, if the problem was not as outrageous as he had imagined...

“Perhaps I can give it a try?”

After glancing at the question on the first stone tablet for a while, and listening to the commotion around him, Su Mo’s heart stirred slightly, and he could not help moving his feet toward the place where the crowd had gathered.

Squeezing through the outer ring of the crowd, he reached the high platform.

One glance made him laugh.

It matched his memory perfectly. The researcher standing in the center, posting the problem, was none other than someone he knew.

Hou Congwen had been one of the first mechanical apprentices Ai Jianfeng recruited in his territory.

Su Mo remembered him because, after the boy became Ai Jianfeng’s disciple, he had immediately changed his name to Hou Congwen, hoping the name would bring him some “mystical” blessing in his studies.

At the time it had become a topic of conversation for many people after meals, and Su Mo had naturally heard it more than once.

Eight years had passed, and the naive young man had become a scruffy middle-aged man.

Judging from his appearance, the uncle was still the boy in Su Mo’s memory, somewhat disheveled and unkempt, always wearing that tattered gray-blue hat, as if he hadn’t changed it in eight years.

But in his eyes, Su Mo could see a ray of light.

That was the light of wisdom, shining brightly!

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