“What?”

“You want to learn mechanical manufacturing from me too?”

After a dozen people had escorted him to the laboratory and laid him down, Su Mo was somewhat surprised to find Zhang Min standing respectfully before him.

He had agreed to let Zhang Bowen study under him for two reasons. First, whatever the Zhang Clan’s original intentions had been, their actions over this period had been quite kind to him. Without asking much, they had bought everything to support his research, from the miniature development platform to all kinds of expensive materials. Second, Zhang Bowen did have some basic skills and was quite intelligent, so he was worth cultivating.

But Zhang Min...

“Teacher Su, if you have some free time, you can teach me a little. If you’re busy, I’ll just help you out the way Bowen did.”

“I, I...” Under Su Mo’s piercing gaze, Zhang Min stammered twice and then gave up.

Eight years had passed. Although she was a university graduate, she had long ago forgotten what she had learned, and now she could not even recognize the basic symbol for electric current. Teach her? He might as well hire any worker from outside. They would probably know more than she did.

“All right. If you really want to learn, it’s not impossible.”

“Why don’t you start by previewing the material with the textbooks you studied before? If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.”

Seeing how exquisitely Zhang Min was made up, she really did seem to want to throw herself into scientific research. Su Mo paused, then softened his tone. Although he instinctively sensed that Zhang Min’s purpose did not lie there, he had now obtained the position of vice dean at the Academy of Sciences and was protected by Pei Shao as well. In a sense, within Tian Yuan Territory, very few people could outwit him anymore. If the other side truly harbored ill intentions, then even if they succeeded, the territory would most likely make the right choice after weighing the interests involved.

One o’clock in the afternoon.

The first batch of materials from the Academy of Sciences finally arrived. Sun Quan and the other two quietly went to the back door and carried a full box of precious alloys and a small box of precision parts off an unmarked small truck. The highest-grade alloy was level six, which fully met the requirements for the Sun-chaser battle armor and its faceplate. And the precision parts could be embedded into the faceplate at once, allowing an early start on debugging a suitable control system.

“Brother Zong, I think we still need to be careful about Zhang Min, and her father Zhang Da.”

Watching the small truck drive away, Sun Quan, who was carrying the heavier box, walked behind him and lowered his voice. “Last night after I got off work, I realized I had left my keys in the lab. When I came back to get them, I happened to catch these two sneaking around my lab, up to something.”

“The Summer Harvest is the day after tomorrow. According to the earlier agreement, we should be entitled to some of the harvest profits. What if the Zhang Clan wants to throw us away once we’ve served our purpose?”

“Used and thrown away?” Su Mo raised an eyebrow without changing his expression. “You won’t even get one percent of that profit. What are you afraid of? Besides, weren’t all the people who came in with us fired? They wouldn’t be so greedy as to covet your little bit of profit now, would they?”

“That’s hard to say. Brother Zong, you haven’t come in these past two days, and Zhang Min has come over several times to ask me what you’ve been doing. She was never this eager before she went to the Murloc Market, and now...”

“She went to the Murloc Market?” Su Mo caught the key point.

Sun Quan nodded. “Yes. I heard from some of the old workers at the grain depot that the Zhang Clan once saved the second prince of the murloc tribe. She must have gone to the second prince for help last time, but I don’t know how it went. Anyway, ever since Zhang Min came back, I feel she’s been acting quite strangely.”

Seeing that Su Mo was interested, Sun Quan began explaining in detail what he had gathered. He stopped only when they returned to the front of the laboratory and saw Zhang Min standing there.

“Teacher Su, now that those people are gone, our lab is empty, so I’ll read in the room next to yours. That way I can keep myself in line,” Zhang Min said with a sweet smile, then pushed open the door and went in.

Seeing her like this, and recalling what Sun Quan had said, Su Mo frowned and gave him a wink. Sun Quan understood at once. He carried the alloy box into the laboratory, set it down, and tiptoed away.

Eight o’clock in the evening.

Sitting in the laboratory, after installing the last set of chips into the semi-finished mask, Su Mo twisted his neck, looking slightly tired. But then he picked up the pale gold mask and gently stroked the raised patterns on its surface, and he could not help sighing again.

“Even alloys of the same grade are divided into different tiers. This top-tier alloy is simply perfect!”

From fourth-grade alloys upward, alloys could no longer be told apart by color and quality the way lower-grade alloys were. Take the sixth-grade flexible alloy worked into the faceplate as an example. For this newly appointed vice dean, the Academy of Sciences had sent the most advanced flexible alloy directly. Both its internal molecular arrangement and its manufacturing process used the most advanced technology currently available in the territory. According to the existing material grading tables, this grade six alloy, made with fourth-generation manufacturing technology, was actually comparable to a grade eight alloy made with first-generation technology.

“It’s a pity that even if I could bring the manufacturing technology back, the wasteland doesn’t have the foundation to produce alloys this advanced.”

Before Su Mo had even made a move, the mask was on his face. Then, just like before, it turned into a flexible substance. Starting from the edge, dozens of tiny pale golden tendrils began to flow rapidly, and in about seven or eight seconds they had wrapped around his entire head.

Inside the armor, Su Mo tried turning his head to look in different directions. Sure enough, with the help of the chip and all six miniature cameras, his field of vision was no longer limited to a small area. Whether he looked up or down, left or right, it was light as a feather and no longer hindered his vision in battle.

Of course, such convenience did not come without a price. Instead of the most primitive way of wearing it, the properties of this flexible alloy had been used to make a fusion-style wearable device. One had to put up with the sluggish response of the sensing alloy and the possibility of a failed fusion, which could prevent it from being put on and taken off quickly. Furthermore, a narrowed field of view caused by damage to the internal cameras or the processing chip was a serious problem that could not be ignored.

Even with all these shortcomings, Su Mo was quite satisfied. Compared with having to take attacks with his own body as before, this mask could basically ignore any pistol bullet, endure the kinetic energy of more than a dozen rifle bullets on a single point, and even take a shot from a large-caliber sniper rifle. It was terrifyingly strong. With it on, at least when hiding behind cover under gunfire, Su Mo no longer had to worry about getting shot in the head the moment he stuck it out.

“It’s a pity this thing wasn’t finished when we fought yesterday. Otherwise we could have killed at least thirty or forty more murlocs.”

He took off the faceplate and stood up, then placed it at a high point in the laboratory. With a few taps, the mask underwent a subtle change, gradually blending into the color of the wall. This was the effect of an extremely rare optical camouflage coating. Unless you looked at it from a specific angle, even standing right in front of it you would never notice a faceplate there. Its job, of course, was to monitor the interior of the room.

After finishing everything and tidying up the laboratory, Su Mo left whistling. Glancing into the next room, he saw Zhang Min actually sitting at the table, carefully flipping through the book in her hands. When she saw Su Mo looking over, she smiled and waved, then went back to “studying.”

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