Four Split Personalities

As Ji Xiaoge put it, the helmets and blueprints previously secured at the auction by the Viper Chamber of Commerce agents were considered half-finished goods and appeared to be part of the dark past of Master Lu from Sky Pillar Mountain. His original intention was to create a device called the "Broad-Scale Mental Interference Device," which essentially worked by amplifying the user’s spiritual power and consequently plunging every thinking being within a certain radius into a state of chaos. It sounded like an exceptionally fearsome idea at first, but...

When Luwei had completed the design for the blueprints and was about to put it into practice, he suddenly discovered that there existed a high-level arcane magic called "Mental Oscillation." Although it was relatively obscure and demanded a lot from its users, its effect was identical to his "Broad-Scale Mental Interference Device." This revelation infuriated Master Lu so much that he immediately discarded the blueprints he had painstakingly developed over three and a half days.

For Luwei, valuing engineering meant achieving results that could not be attained through magic or alchemy alone, like Cordova’s Rune Body. But if other methods could achieve the same purpose, no matter how sophisticated, cost-saving, or convenient his research was, it became meaningless, so he disposed of those valuable blueprints.

Of course, in keeping with good practices of an advanced engineer, Luwei always kept backups of all his blueprints. Even though he had left Sky Pillar Mountain using some loophole, every creative process he undertook outside was synchronized with Seventh Outer Mountain, which was why Ji Xiaoge later discovered those blueprints...

The aforementioned details encompassed everything Ji Xiaoge and Luwei knew.

What they didn’t realize was that a Dwarf craftsman had found a small portion of the discarded blueprints. This old craftsman, lacking talent but with a very keen eye, immediately recognized their value. With the help of some notes casually scratched on them by Master Lu, he became a great engineer within a few years, aspiring to reconstruct the rest of the blueprints and build the highly valuable, trans-era masterpiece.

Thus, he spent more than a decade saving a significant amount of money and then carved out a laboratory in his basement, where he prepared meticulously and began his research with relentless focus, laboriously studying Master Lu’s blueprints, until one day... he literally starved to death.

Afterward, his foolish... dutiful son took over his father’s research, continuing to painstakingly work on the fragmented blueprints. Since this son at least remembered to eat, he did not starve to death and actually found the right approach, restoring most of the blueprints and even crafting a prototype before he too passed away.

The dwarfish son’s son—that is, his grandson—continued in the legacy of his father and grandfather, vigorously studying the blueprint. However, as the saying goes, wealth does not pass three generations; this grandson ended up poverty-stricken, nearly starving in the streets. He then saw through the illusions of the world, found the Golden Sour Plum Auction House, and entrusted them to sell the helmet and several blueprints as auction items.

Before joining the Viper Chamber of Commerce, Iron Bolt had met the grandson a few times and had seen the blueprint and prototype helmet. Recently, after joining the Viper Chamber of Commerce and becoming eager to prove his worth, coinciding with one of the slave buyers making several special requests, he remembered this matter, submitted several reports, and was granted a significant budget specifically to acquire the grandson’s blueprints and prototype helmet.

However, Iron Bolt had no plans to continue researching the elusive "Broad-Scale Mental Interference Device." In his view, this current prototype only needed slight adjustments to accomplish many interesting things, and he had already completed those adjustments on the road. So...

"Put it on him,"

Iron Bolt pointed at the vacant-eyed Orc before him and repeated with a smile, "See if he dies?"

Sergei, holding the helmet, furrowed his brow and said sternly, "Do you know how much this slave is worth? Just kill him like that?"

"I didn’t say he would definitely die, but it’s unavoidable that we’ll use up some in the final adjustments."

Iron Bolt shrugged indifferently, fervently watching that already ’completed’ helmet, "A slave isn’t cheap, but if we meet the buyer’s requirements, do you know how many times the value of these items will increase? So stop grumbling and just do as I told you!"

"You better be careful; I’m a third-level, just like you, and neither of us is the other’s subordinate."

Sergei snorted coldly, then slowly walked towards the Orc slave, adjusting to the sunlight.

Iron Bolt, excited, tugged at his large ear, muttering, "No worries, once this project is completed, I’ll move up to the second level. Haha, I’ll have more resources, make the most amazing inventions, and show those trash who drove me out of the association what a genius is!"

Sergei twitched the corner of his mouth, ignoring the suddenly excited Iron Bolt, and lifting the helmet that appeared simply framed and adorned with a ring of crystals, he proceeded to fit it onto the head of the Orc slave.