Chapter 318 - ‘Unscientific’ Is a False Proposition
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A private message suddenly flashed across Suna’s tablet, interrupting her train of thought.
It was Yang Yi, asking her to come up and take a look, telling her not to stay locked inside the laboratory all the time. She could see for herself how the Shelter Ship was being disassembled and reassembled.
Suna frowned as she replied.
“What are you talking about? What’s there to look at?”
Even as she complained, she still opened the images Yang Yi had sent. The Shelter Ship was indeed in the middle of a massive transformation, modules separating, structures shifting, parts drifting away and reconnecting in an orderly, almost mechanical rhythm.
On her tablet, however, she already had Wei Qian’s design drafts. The ship’s modular assembly and disassembly system had been designed by Wei Qian and Di Jie.
Before transmigration, Di Jie might have worked in architecture, or at least something closely related. His sense of structure and aesthetics was unusually strong, almost like a professional architectural designer.
Suna set the message aside and turned her attention back to the lab table, falling into thought again.
She still couldn’t understand it.
Why was it that with identical reagent ratios, identical reaction times and sequences, and even the same temperature, pressure, and lighting conditions, the results still came out completely different every time?
It made no sense. It was as if chemistry itself had stopped existing.
On the metal lab table lay numerous demonic specimens, some severely damaged, others already dissected. Among them were most of the demons they had eliminated so far, as well as the legs of the Vitality Sardine Tree and the tentacles of a mutated pale worm. These two could still be considered semi-living samples.
At the center of the table stood five test tubes.
They had all been refined using the same method, yet the final reagents differed not only in color but even in their fundamental effects.
【Name: Some Magic Potion (Unfinished)】
【Type: Consumable / Magic Potion】【Quality: ???】【Description: Witch Suna’s experimental potion. It is incomplete; consumption may produce no effect, or an entirely unknown one.】
Even Suna herself could not predict its outcome. Because of that, she would never allow Yang Yi to drink it.
She carefully stored the test tubes away, preparing to dispose of them in the waste liquid pool, then picked up her tablet again.
Inside were Wei Qian’s research notes on the Love Potion. She had encountered the same problem before: the final product’s quality was completely uncontrollable, utterly “unscientific.”
But Suna knew that so-called ‘unscientific phenomena’ were, in essence, a false proposition.
They did not truly exist.
What people called ‘unscientific’ was simply the result of insufficient understanding of the underlying rules.
In this case, the issue of the potion clearly pointed to one thing: a variable problem.
There must be an unknown variable beyond Suna’s current understanding interfering with the experimental results, causing drastic fluctuations in the final products and preventing a stable outcome from being achieved.
If she could identify that hidden variable, or uncover more of them, then true quality control would become possible. At that point, so-called ‘unscientific phenomena' would naturally collapse into something explainable, something scientific.
Suna was not discouraged. She simply concluded that her knowledge was still insufficient and her accumulation of experimental data far from complete.
More importantly, she had noticed something else.
The higher the grade of a magic potion, the more exponentially difficult it became to control its quality. For example, the earlier Addiction Potion had reached top-tier quality. She had failed multiple times before finally managing to replicate it successfully.
She exhaled softly.
“Let’s switch to something else first. I’ll set this one aside for now.”
For the moment, she decided to change direction. It wasn’t retreat; it was a shift in focus, a way to adjust her state of mind while continuing to refine her overall skill level. She would return to it later.
Her gaze drifted across the samples on the table.
The Vitality Sardine Tree legs could be used to attempt a potion focused on greatly enhancing stamina recovery.
There was also a dream-infiltration potion that required Dream Crystals.
The low-tier Abyss Soul Stone could be used for another round of experimentation, along with vampire serum… and several other materials.
She had more than enough to work with.
Meanwhile, Yang Yi still had not managed to persuade Suna to come upstairs.
Her habit of isolating herself in the laboratory had clearly intensified. Apart from eating and sleeping, she spent nearly every hour immersed in research. Such a lifestyle was far from healthy and could easily lead to psychological strain over time.
He opened the crew interface and checked Suna’s sanity level.
“67… her sanity is actually holding up quite well.”
Yang Yi narrowed his single eye slightly, then turned to Xiao Ji, the small machine beside him.
“Assign you a task,” he said. “Whenever Suna’s research time approaches eight hours, play that audio recording to interrupt her work.”
He had used this method before. It had worked, until Xiao Ji went into maintenance on the Shelter Ship.
Xiao Ji’s indicator light flickered.
“Captain Yang Yi, you could also go yourself,” it suggested.
“Just follow orders,” Yang Yi replied flatly. “Execute the captain’s command, Chef Xiao Ji.”
Their eyes, or what passed for them, met.
For a brief moment, something like tacit understanding passed between them.
Then Xiao Ji straightened abruptly, raising a mechanical arm in a crisp salute.
“I guarantee mission completion!”
Satisfied, Yang Yi turned and walked toward the bow of the ship, where the old captain was still fishing.
The old man had been sitting there for more than half a month without doing any real work. His harvest was pathetic, only a few scattered fish.
It was time he finally contributed his share of ‘light and heat.’
【You have consumed an unknown magic potion. Stamina is fully restored. Your body has entered an extreme state of excitement… you cannot stop moving…】
The moment the notification appeared, Yang Yi’s expression changed slightly.
Before he could even react, a surge of heat spread through his body like a tidal wave. His muscles tightened instinctively, every fiber suddenly overflowing with energy that had nowhere to go.
“…What is this?”
He exhaled sharply.
The next second, his body moved on its own.
He took a step forward.
Then another.
The pacing rapidly sped up, walking became a jog, and a jog became a sprint.
“Hey!”
Suna’s eyes widened.
Yang Yi had already dashed past her in a blur, his bare upper body cutting through the air as if he were chasing something invisible. His speed was absurdly high, far beyond normal training output.
He turned sharply at the deck edge, then immediately reversed direction and sprinted back again.
Boom!
The wooden planks trembled faintly under his repeated bursts of acceleration.
Suna stared for a moment, then slowly lowered her gaze to the empty test tube in her hand.
“…It worked too well,” she muttered.
Meanwhile, Yang Yi’s inner voice was not nearly as calm as his movements suggested.
I can’t stop.
Not tired… but I can’t stop moving.
His breathing remained steady, but his body had entered a completely autonomous training loop, every step optimized for motion, every muscle demanding continued exertion.
On the upper deck, Xiao Ji peeked out from the corridor.
Its indicator light blinked rapidly.
“Captain Yang Yi appears to be… malfunctioning.”
“I’m not malfunctioning!” Yang Yi’s voice snapped back mid-sprint as he leapt over a coil of rope. “I’m just training!”
Suna rubbed her temples.
“It’s a stamina recovery potion…” she said slowly. “So why is it forcing continuous activity?”
She glanced again at the ingredients list in her mind.
Vitality Sardine Tree… regenerative stimulation… metabolic acceleration…
Then she sighed.
“…I might have overdone the activation variable.”
Yang Yi shot past her again.
And again.
And again.
Like a relentless storm circling the deck, completely incapable of stopping on its own.