Chapter 46: Energy Source and Boiling Water

An Wen anxiously made his way to the large black pit in a hurry.

However, sometimes, the more anxious one was, the more likely it was for there to be trouble.

That was precisely the case. As An Wen was heading towards the large black pit, he was stopped by a brown bear.

"Ah..."

Suddenly, the brown bear stood up and opened its large mouth to scare An Wen.

Mmm, it looked almost exactly like a 'gif'.

Facing the brown bear, An Wen was completely unafraid.

"Let me tell you this, I am busy today, so don't go looking for trouble, or I will give you an 'upsized package' tonight." 

An Wen said to the brown bear, holding the Fang Tian Hua Halberd in his hand.

The atmosphere in the forest immediately turned solemn.

An Wen and the brown bear were five meters away from each other as they stared each other down.

A slight breeze whistled through the forest!

Numerous leaves fell slowly to the ground, the trees not holding them back.

Then, a leaf fell right in front of An Wen, momentarily blocking his view.

The brown bear saw through An Wen and immediately crouched over, its four legs gripping the ground as it began 'charging up' its energy.

The next second...

It turned around and ran away without looking back.

"This... Did this brown bear travel to this world from xxx? Why is it so scared of humans?"

Seeing the brown bear escaping into the distance, An Wen was slightly intrigued.

Brown bears were typically on the level of 'king' in the forest and unafraid of humans.

Of course, the location mattered as well.

For example, any bear from xxx would be meek, whether it was a black bear, brown bear, or a polar bear.

After finally catching a fish in a lake with much effort, it would end up being snatched away by humans instead.

However, such was usually not the worst fate.

The worst problem came when walking on the road at night, seen by two drunkards; the bear would be beaten up by them even though it had not provoked them.

Where had justice in the world disappeared to? Was the world lawless now?

"You're both bears, but just have a look at how well cared for pandas, your close relatives, are in our country compared to you. You're such an embarrassment to bears."

An Wen scoffed and continued towards the black pit.

More than 20 minutes later...

An Wen finally arrived at the large black pit, after circling around a mountain.

"As expected, this is an open-pit coal mine."

Looking at the ore in the large black pit, An Wen smiled.

He could not identify the copper mine, but he could identify a coal mine, since it was easy to recognize one, and it was also much more common.

"It's much easier to mine coal than copper."

Standing on the edge of the large pit, An Wen hit the coal a dozen times with the Fang Tian Hua Halberd and a standard-sized ball of coal with a diameter of 15 cm emerged. However, there was no sign of monsters appearing.

This was the advantage of open-pit mining; he did not need to be afraid of being disturbed by monsters.

An Wen immediately returned to the camp with the ball of coal.

Upon returning to the camp, he rushed to the mixed-use complex excitedly and anxiously.

When he tapped on the Energy List this time around, he found that its icons could now be lit up.

"Nice!"

Without hesitation, An Wen lit up the first icon in the Energy List.

Seconds later, the knowledge was infused into his mind.

Then...

An Wen was bewildered.

There was no problem with the lighting up of the icon and the infusion of knowledge.

However, he was rendered completely speechless by the content of the knowledge he acquired.

"Boiling... boiling water?"

Of course, the knowledge of boiling water was extremely advanced - it included information about the first law of thermodynamics, critical pressure and temperature, as well as the conversion between thermal energy and mechanical energy.

However, regardless of how the information was packaged, it was ultimately still about boiling water.

An Wen looked at the next icon below, Basic Energy Transformation at Critical Point.

The icon was lit.

This time, the knowledge he acquired was still about boiling water, however, it was even more advanced and the energy transformation efficiency was higher.

Next in the list was Extraordinary Energy Transformation at Critical Point.

The icon was lit!

It was still about boiling water!

The next icon in the list was Exceptionally Extraordinary Energy Transformation at Critical Point.

The icon was lit!

That's right, it was still about boiling water!

Going further down the list... he could not light up any more icons.

"Indeed, the fundamental nature of humans is all about boiling water."

After absorbing all the knowledge in the tree, An Wen was perplexed.

It turned out that the Energy System which he had pinned high hopes on was actually the same as humans, about boiling water.

What use was there for this knowledge?

Am I unable to afford the machinery for Exceptionally Extraordinary Energy Transformation at Critical Point? Or am I unable to afford coal and unable to make a boiler and electric motor unit? I must be silly.

I was excited for nothing.

An Wen closed the Energy List. Just as he was about to close the Skills List, he noticed from the corner of his eye that the Chemistry List was no longer greyed out.

Intuitively, he tapped on it.

"Chemistry Fundamentals... Coal Chemistry... These two icons are lit?"

An Wen realized that the Chemistry List had indeed been activated.

Furthermore, beneath Coal Chemistry was a branch list. On it was the skills Coal Refining, Coal Coking, and Coal Liquefaction, though its icon could not be lit up at present.

After lighting up the remaining icons, An Wen felt much better.

Although the Energy List did not live up to his expectations, the fact that a block of coal activated two Lists made it worthwhile.

"Now that the Energy List and Chemistry List have both been activated, only the Biology List is left to unlock."

An Wen was extremely puzzled by the remaining list. Logically, the Biology List should have been the first of the Lists to be activated. After all, it was made of trees that he had encountered the earliest in the other world, followed by monsters and animals.

All of which should've belonged to the biology system.

However, it was a mystery why the Biology List was now the only one left unactivated.

Speaking of animals, An Wen recalled that the soil on the island was free of any microorganisms. This was getting even more intriguing.

"It looks like Biology is really deep and profound."

An Wen uttered, before turning around to leave.

When he found Yuan Pan, he was still laying on the rock, dazed with lifeless eyes.

Oh no!

He had been completely stunned and bamboozled by the choice An Wen previously gave!

An Wen planted himself in front of Yuan Pan and gestured for a long while before he finally responded.

"→_→"

Yuan Pan instantly snapped out of its daze and looked at An Wen like so.

"Have you thought of how you want your nest to be? It's alright if you haven't, there's more than enough time for you to think slowly."

"I'm heading out to buy something. Do you want to follow me, or do you want to wait for me here?"

An Wen smiled and asked Yuan Pan.

Waving its claws in the air, Yuan Pan signaled An Wen to go alone. He wanted to continue thinking about his nest.

"Alright then, take your time to think."

An Wen replied and left the other world.

Returning home, he was not in a hurry to head out to buy the air-powered excavation tools.

Gulp gulp...

An Wen then drank a bottle of iced cola. How refreshing!

Sitting in front of his computer, he searched for air-powered excavation tools with low power online.

That's right, he searched for low power.

He did not need high-powered tools, since the rules of the game world were such that the material would emerge after hitting the cliff wall 30 times.

As such, there was no great significance for An Wen to use high-powered air-powered excavation tools.

After searching online for some time, he finally found a merchant that sold mini low-powered air-powered excavation tools.

"Do you have stock in your inventory for the TN-3 air-powered excavation tool model?"

An Wen enquired through the customer service chat on the merchant's website.

"Hello Sir, there is. We have sufficient stock in our inventory."

"Great, I have placed my order. Please confirm it and dispatch the goods as quickly as possible."

"Alright, thank you for trusting us. We will dispatch the goods in the shortest time possible."

"That's great."

An Wen placed an order for 500 air-powered excavation tools at once.

After purchasing the tools, he had nothing else to do; he knew for a fact that he didn't want to return to the other world, fearing that Yuan Pan would demand him to build his nest.

An Wen still could not understand why he was so particular about his nest.

Why was a tortoise from Myanmar just as particular about his 'house' as Chinese tortoises? Could it actually be because he was living with a Chinese man and learned the negative traits from him?

"Let me see if there are any new games recently?"

In the past two months, An Wen had not kept himself updated with any new games.

Now that he had nothing to do, he decided to take the opportunity to check them out.

In today's era of big data, advertisements were frequently targeted based on one's Internet browsing habits.

Just as An Wen began searching for new games, related advertisements started to appear.

"'Metal Fantasy' - With the world view of 'steampunk' at its core, enhance the metal rivets in all aspects. Metal is the true fantasy of men."

Truthfully, An Wen would typically not click on such advertisements.

However, the cover page of the advertisement for the game was extremely exceptional.

It was an image of a mecha - a steampunk-styled mecha.

The exterior design was sensational. Its body was decorated with Baroque-Esque flower patterns, and its hydraulics and pipes were largely exposed. Its armor was joined together with rivets, and it looked like a figure of brass as a whole. It completely embodied the concept of the aestheticization of violence.

"The artist must be extremely skilled and experienced, it looks absolutely stunning." An Wen said with respect.

Clicking on the advertisement, he was brought to another website. Then... Well, it was what everyone would be familiar with.

It was just like looking at beautiful girls on the Internet. With the beauty filter turned on, one would not even be able to tell if the other party was male or female.

When one met the other party in real life however, it would be a complete shock.

"Sigh... If only there really was such a steampunk game, I would buy the mecha on the cover page regardless of its price."

Regretfully, An Wen closed the webpage.

In honesty, he had a slight urge to build the mecha figure he saw moments ago.

"Should I build a 1:1 model of the steampunk mecha? I can construct a blacksmith store with two machine tools. I already have a copper mine, I can supplement the internal machinery design and even build a steam engine..."

As An Wen muttered to himself, he realized that something was amiss.

Steampunk?

He knew how to boil water.

He had also activated all of the engineering skills.

Thus, he could build steampunk-styled giant metal machinery and buildings.

"Steampunk... Machine Megacity... Sacred War Beast... This is... Holy crap…"