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Whether it's the creation of mechas or battle armor, rare metals are required as materials. Basic, unprocessed metals cannot meet the demands of mechas or battle armor.
However, lower-grade yellow-rank mechas don't require advanced forging techniques—there's no need for thousand-refined metal; hundred-refined metal suffices.
On the other hand, even the lowest-tier single-word battle armor requires at least thousand-refined rare metals. Moreover, the metal must reach the first grade of thousand-refinement to withstand the powerful core array operations of the battle armor.
In forging, blacksmiths also need to hammer the metal into the desired shape.
Mecha manufacturers follow a similar process. While manufacturing mechas, they also perform deep processing on each component. However, in terms of basic shaping, they still rely on the cooperation of blacksmiths.
Of course, Xu Yuan was still at a low level as a mecha manufacturer, and the metal he needed was only at the hundred-refined level—a type of metal that is relatively easy to shape.
Once the metal reaches the first grade of thousand-refinement or higher, such as spirit-forged or soul-forged metal, it begins to possess sentience. At that point, mecha manufacturers who lack forging skills wouldn't dare to arbitrarily alter its shape and would instead rely on blacksmiths.
Under normal circumstances, this kind of situation rarely arises at higher levels.
For both high-grade mechas and battle armor, the proper manufacturing process has always been as follows: the mecha designer provides the design concept and completes the core array design, specifying even the dimensions of each component. Then, the blacksmith steps in to forge the metal. Once the metal is forged, the mecha manufacturer inscribes the core arrays onto the pre-forged metal.
Xu Yuan picked up a fist-sized piece of metal from the testing platform.
"This is the blueprint for a component of the palm section of a yellow-rank mecha's gauntlet. You have thirty minutes to successfully manufacture it."
Starting from level two, mecha manufacturers begin practical work, inscribing arrays onto rare metals and actively participating in the mecha manufacturing process.
Of course, a level-two mecha manufacturer only plays an auxiliary role, handling small parts of the mecha—for example, the palm section of a gauntlet.
Even though the mecha itself is massive, the gauntlet alone is larger than half of Xu Yuan's seven-year-old body. The metal in his hand clearly wasn't enough to forge the entire gauntlet—it was just one part of the palm section.
Xu Yuan scanned the blueprint and immediately understood.
This was the palm section of the gauntlet.
It was the most complex part, serving as the core for coordinating the arrays of different sections of the gauntlet.
But it posed no real challenge!
Xu Yuan focused, and the Tianyuan Spear appeared in his hand.
At this moment, the Tianyuan Spear wasn't in its usual spear form but had transformed into a needle-like object about the length of a palm, with the five elements converging at its tip.
The Tianyuan Spear glided across the surface of the metal, effortlessly leaving a scratch on the hundred-refined metal. Xu Yuan channeled his soul power into the scratch.
Xu Yuan's hands were steady.
He was completely absorbed in the task.
As the needle touched the metal, his soul power flowed through the tip into the material.
Currently, this was just the manufacturing of a standard yellow-rank mecha. If it were battle armor—even the simplest single-word battle armor—the metal used would already possess some degree of sentience due to being refined to the first grade of thousand-refinement. In such cases, while inscribing the core array, one would also need to communicate with the metal's sentience to ensure perfect integration between the core array and the material's inherent properties.
This process complements the blacksmith's communication with the metal's sentience during forging.
Thus, Xu Yuan was correct in saying that different secondary professions could mutually reinforce each other.
Of course, all of this required sufficient learning ability as a foundation.
And Xu Yuan was confident in his own capacity to learn.
Once his spiritual power broke through 500 points and reached the Linghai Realm, he would be able to absorb a second purple-grade spirit soul. At that time, he would add a soul ring to his brain martial soul, further enhancing his advantage in spiritual power.
From his current perspective, breaking through to 500 points wasn't too far off.
The needle traced lines on the surface of the hundred-refined metal—these were merely the outermost array patterns.
It wasn't difficult.
As long as one memorized the array designs, mastered the various engraving techniques, and carefully completed the entire array without mistakes, the task would be considered successful.
For Xu Yuan, this was child's play.
The real challenge began at the level-three mecha manufacturer stage. It wasn't just about replicating arrays anymore; one had to make real-time adjustments to ensure the core array was perfectly suited to each piece of rare metal. This step also required a deep understanding of the theoretical foundations of core arrays.
Therefore, while it was possible to quickly reach level-two as a mecha manufacturer through systematic study, advancing to level three required fully digesting all the array knowledge to apply it fluently.
This process overlapped with Xu Yuan's studies in mecha design and mecha repair. Understanding core arrays was equally important in both fields.
Level three wasn't particularly difficult.
After all, it was mainly about learning and digestion.
The true challenges always lay in the technical aspects and the parts requiring intuition and insight.
For mecha manufacturers, level four marked the first major hurdle in technical skill.
Up to level three, inscribing core arrays involved working only on the surface of the metal. However, at level four, arrays had to be inscribed within the metal itself.
This wasn't something a physical engraving tool could achieve. It required channeling soul power through the tool into the metal's interior to carve the appropriate arrays.
As for level-five mecha manufacturing, it built on level four by guiding the metal's innate sentience to participate in the array inscription process.
(Author's Note: Aside from forging, the original work's descriptions of other secondary professions' levels and abilities are quite inconsistent. For example, Ye Xinglan's rank fluctuates between level four and five, and there's little detail about the specific grading criteria for various professions. I've tried my best to organize and expand on these elements.
Similarly, the original work contains many conflicting settings, which I've attempted to reconcile.)
Though given thirty minutes, Xu Yuan completed the task in just ten.
When the arrays connected and emitted a faint blue glow, it signified the completion of his work.
Cai Yue'er narrowed her eyes slightly, a flicker of admiration appearing deep within her gaze.
It had to be said—within just one year, without neglecting his soul power cultivation or soul skill development, Xu Yuan had managed to advance two secondary professions to level two. This alone proved his extraordinary learning ability.
Over the past year, Xu Shengqun, Xu Yuan's uncle, hadn't dissuaded him from pursuing multiple fields precisely because of this.
Xu Shengqun had witnessed Xu Yuan's terrifying learning ability firsthand.
Even Mu Ye shared the same view.
The two had discussed Xu Yuan's case, and Mu Ye ultimately concluded that it was a characteristic of Xu Yuan's brain martial soul.
There had been other brain martial soul possessors in the history of the Body Sect, but martial souls themselves also had biases. Clearly, Xu Yuan's brain martial soul was biased toward enhancing learning and cognitive abilities!
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