bioinnovel Chapter 508: 8-Hour Mandated Rest!
Chapter 508: 8-Hour Mandated Rest!
At 1:17 PM, the temperature in the underground laboratory remained constant at 22 degrees Celsius.
The outer armor plates of the Chaos Mech have been removed, exposing the internal skeleton under the lights. The dark gold frame is covered with fine energy grooves.
Fifteen cut fragments of high-dimensional deep-sea tentacles were stacked in two rows on the worktable. Each fragment was the size of a fingernail, and its color was between dark gray and black, with irregular iridescent edges.
Zhang Yan picked up the first piece. The material was extremely hard, more than seven times harder than any known man-made alloy.
Ordinary tools cannot leave a mark on its surface, but it only obeys the will of nature.
A pale golden light appeared on Zhang Yan's right palm, and the purification pulse was released at an extremely low power with a frequency of 0.7 Hz.
The iridescent patterns on the surface of the wreckage shifted slightly, and the edges began to soften.
The softening range is only two millimeters, and the thousand-arm pops out from the wrist.
Six mechanical fingers bend the softened part with micron-level precision, fitting it to the arc surface of Chaos' right forearm. The debris automatically hardens after cooling, meshing with the mecha's skeleton.
Zhang Yan withdrew the Thousand Machine Arm and scanned the bonding thickness with the system. It was 0.029 millimeters, just one micrometer short.
He peeled the piece off, reheated and softened the area, applied an extra 0.3 Newtons of lateral force to the third knuckle of the Thousand-Arm, and then reattached it, 0.030 millimeters, within the allowable range.
The purification pulse is continuously released, and the second piece softens and adheres, 0.031 mm.
The third piece, 0.030 mm.
Once he got the hang of it, Zhang Yan found his rhythm by the seventh piece, reducing the time per piece from fourteen minutes to nine minutes.
The pulse power is locked at 0.7 Hz and remains unchanged. Once the pressure parameters of the boom are finely adjusted, they stop moving.
This thing comes from a higher-dimensional organism, and the fibers of each piece are not completely aligned.
Some curve along the direction of the sun, while others curve sideways. Forcing pressure can cause internal microcracks. Under the temperature gradient in the core region of the sun, these microcracks become the initiation point of thermal stress.
Zhang Yan's left hand is responsible for perception, the pulse in his right palm is responsible for softening, and the Thousand-Machine Arm is responsible for shaping. All three tasks are performed simultaneously, with the brain processing them in separate lines.
The fifteenth piece, the twentieth piece, the twenty-fifth piece.
My temples started to feel hot; this wasn't due to the strain on my inner energy, but rather a pure drain on my energy.
The fiber orientation of each piece of debris needs to be interpreted in real time, which is equivalent to doing high-precision manual work for two and a half hours continuously.
The thirtieth piece was completed, five hours had passed.
Zhang Yan retracted the Thousand Machine Arm, stood up and stretched his shoulders. Chaos's right half of his body was now covered by a dark gray coating that adhered to the dark gold skeleton, with almost no gaps.
The door opened, and Nie Qingcheng walked in carrying a thermal box, wearing the black turtleneck sweater.
She placed the insulated box on the empty space on the worktable, opened the lid, and inside were chopped mango chunks and a bowl of still steaming seaweed and egg drop soup.
"eat."
Zhang Yan looked at the fruit in the bowl: "Who cut the mango?"
What do you think?
Zhang Yan picked up a fork; the mango was cut into uneven sizes, and several pieces were noticeably crooked.
"Your swordsmanship has improved."
"Talk less and eat more."
Nie Qingcheng did not sit down. She walked half a circle around the Chaos Mech, her gaze lingering on the coating surface, and her finger traced the edge of the mech.
"This color is darker than you described before."
"There is a slight color difference between the actual product and the drawings, but it does not affect the performance."
"schedule?"
"Thirty pieces are finished, thirty-seven more to go, we can finish them by tomorrow morning."
Nie Qingcheng walked to his side and reached out to touch his wrist.
Zhang Yan looked down and saw that the screen of the work timer was flashing.
"What did you adjust?"
"Eight-hour mandatory rest mode." Nie Qingcheng withdrew her hand. "Starting from when you start working, system access will be locked after the sixteenth hour."
"Then I won't be able to keep up with the schedule."
"If you can't make it, just work two more hours tomorrow."
Zhang Yan did not refute; her tone was never one of discussion.
"I've had my soup." Nie Qingcheng turned and walked towards the door. She stopped at the door without looking back. "Qin Xiao just sent over the data. It's a new projection after the swarm's parent body changes its course. Forty-seven days."
Zhang Yan paused in his chewing of the mango; it was three days less than he had previously estimated.
"understood."
After the door closed, the laboratory returned to silence, with only the low-frequency hum of the ventilation ducts.
Forty-seven days, minus today, forty-six days remain. The coating process takes one and a half days, the round trip from departure to the sun plus the core operations take two days, and the final assembly of the Tiangong project takes fifteen to twenty days. The remaining time is a buffer period.
Enough, but not rich.
Zhang Yan finished his soup, pushed the insulated container aside, and continued working.
The thirty-first fiber was slightly lateral. Zhang Yan fine-tuned the pulse frequency to 0.72 Hz, which slowed down the softening speed, but made the fiber bending more uniform.
The thirty-fifth piece encountered a tough spot. In the center of this piece of debris was a small, dense structure, three times denser than the surrounding area, which the pulse could not penetrate.
Zhang Yan tried twice. The second time, he pushed the power to 0.8 Hz, and a crack appeared on the surface of the dense structure, but the arrangement of the internal fibers was disrupted.
If you stick it on like this, the thermal stress will start to spread from this point. He put the piece back on the worktable and took a new one from the material preparation area next to it to replace it. There are still four pieces left in the preparation area, which is enough to make up for any errors.
The fortieth film, the forty-fifth film, seven hours have passed.
Zhang Yan's right palm was sweating, which was caused by nerve ending fatigue due to continuous low-power output pulses, similar to the soreness in the fingers after a seven-hour delicate surgery.
The fiftieth piece, the Heavenly Craftsmanship Heart in the chest, is kept in a low-power state, with energy consumption almost negligible. Coating and shaping do not require high power; what matters is precision and patience.
It was 9:40 PM.
Zhang Yan glanced at the progress; there were still twelve pieces left to complete on the left side, and he might not be able to finish today. The timer on his wrist vibrated, and the screen lit up with red text, indicating that there was one hour left before the forced lockout.
She set the eight-hour period to start at 1 p.m. and lock it after sixteen hours, which is 5 a.m. It's not that the system locks after eight hours of work, but that after a total of sixteen hours, all system permissions are turned off regardless of whether the work is completed or not.
Nie Qingcheng has never made a mistake in mathematics.
Zhang Yan lowered his head and continued working. He could finish three to four pieces in an hour, but the remaining twelve pieces would require more than three hours to complete. He couldn't finish them today.
He pasted the fifty-sixth piece with a precision of 0.030, which was acceptable.
The tools were put away on the shelf, the unfinished wreckage was numbered, marked, and covered with a dust cloth, the lights were turned off, and I went upstairs.
The living room lights were off, but light shone through the crack in the door to the master bedroom at the end of the hallway. Zhang Yan pushed the door open and went in. Nie Qingcheng was sitting on the edge of the bed with a laptop on her lap, the screen reflecting off her face.
"Eleven pieces were not finished."
"I know."
"It should be finished in four hours tomorrow morning."
"Let's eat after we finish up."
Zhang Yan went into the bathroom and took a shower. When he came out, Nie Qingcheng had already closed her laptop and placed it on the bedside table. He lay down, and Nie Qingcheng turned off the light.
The darkness spread quietly.