Chapter 3

Upon hearing the robot's response, Yang Yuanzhao finally breathed a sigh of relief and carefully observed Dangdang. It seemed to be male, and its appearance was so familiar, giving him a sense of looking in a mirror. Clearly, Dangdang had formed its body based on his image. He smiled wryly and said, "Dangdang, can you choose another form?"

"Sure, but I need a template!"

In the wilderness, where could he find a template? Yang Yuanzhao shrugged helplessly and said, "Alright, just stay like this."

Looking around the room with a futuristic, metallic sheen, he asked, "Where are we? In a different dimension?"

"No, this is your subconscious area. My main body is constructed here, using your subconscious to drive the expansion of the integrated machine. The architectural style is derived from the technology in your consciousness!"

Subconscious, thought extraction—seemed quite advanced. Having encountered a穿越 (time/space travel) and witnessed the wonders of the integrated machine, Yang Yuanzhao's capacity to accept things had greatly increased. He put aside the things he couldn't understand, recognizing this as black technology. His gaze fell on the three doors, and he asked, "What are these places?"

Dangdang pointed to the door behind him and said, "This is my basic core, representing my three functions!"

"Blueprints, disassembly, synthesis!" Yang Yuanzhao read the names on the doors and asked tentatively.

"Right," Dangdang continued, "all artificial objects have blueprints. My first function is scanning, which can scan any artificial object at the atomic level and record it as a blueprint. These blueprints are stored in the blueprint area!"

Yang Yuanzhao nodded. No wonder, when he picked up the engine, Dangdang's voice had sounded. It seemed that anything he touched could be scanned into a blueprint.

Seeing Yang Yuanzhao's gaze fall on the disassembly area, Dangdang pointed to it and explained, "The disassembly area is the source of materials and my energy. All my energy comes from the disassembly area!"

Energy, Yang Yuanzhao's eyes lit up. As an engine engineer, he knew very well the importance of energy to industry. From the first industrial revolution, the foundation of all industrial revolutions has been energy. The coal of the first industrial revolution, the oil and electricity of the second industrial revolution, all were based on energy. Only after World War II, with no significant changes in the world energy system, did the technological revolution led by microelectronics and materials science develop.

"To be specific, I'll explain it to you, but you won't understand. In short, this energy has transcended the atomic level!"

Atomic level, meaning within the atomic nucleus, controllable nuclear energy? Several questions flashed through Yang Yuanzhao's mind. From Dangdang's introduction, he suspected that this toy was far beyond Earth's technological standards. Being able to freely use atomic nuclear energy was something even 21st-century Earth couldn't match, let alone 1908. He wisely didn't ask more questions and continued to listen to Dangdang's explanation.

Dangdang pushed open the door to a similar metal room, much larger than the previous one, about 5 meters in length, width, and height. In front of him was a metal box glowing with light.

There were no intricate machines or numerous bottles and jars, just a simple box. Yang Yuanzhao estimated that the box was about 50 centimeters in size, glowing with a soft blue light, seemingly a mysterious form of energy.

"This is the disassembly pool!" Dangdang explained. "Any object can be disassembled through the disassembly pool, and the final disassembly results are stored at the atomic level!"

"Atomic level?" Yang Yuanzhao's eyes widened. As an engineer, who dealt with machinery daily, he knew very well what the atomic level meant. Whether it was materials or industry, the foundation was purity. The difference between ordinary items and high-precision items was purity. For example, nuclear weapons and atomic bombs, everyone knows the principle, which is Einstein's theory of relativity. The number of countries that possess them is limited, not because of anything else, but because of purity. The difference between ordinary nuclear materials and weapon-grade nuclear materials is enormous, and the human and material resources required to obtain them are unimaginable. Back in the day, the Manhattan Project in the United States consumed almost a fraction of the country's total electricity.

Almost instinctively, Yang Yuanzhao blurted out, "Can isotopes be disassembled too?"

"Isotopes cannot be disassembled!"

"Oh!" Yang Yuanzhao was slightly disappointed. At the atomic level, isotopes are the same atoms, but if isotopes cannot be disassembled, it means that nuclear materials cannot be extracted to form weapon-grade radioactive elements. His idea of throwing atomic bombs everywhere was dashed. However, he quickly calmed down. Disassembling pure atoms was already astonishing. The biggest limitation in industrial materials was impurities. Only with pure materials could the correct formulas be ensured, whether in materials science or large-scale industrial production. In this sense, the elemental integrated machine was incredibly powerful.

"Right!" Dangdang suddenly said, "Because I triggered a small wormhole, I have suffered significant energy loss and am in an incomplete state. After each disassembly, 95% of the material is consumed by me!"

"Consumed!"

"Yes, part of it is converted into my energy, allowing me to gradually unseal myself. I have lost most of my functions and only retain the basic ones, which need to be gradually unsealed. The other part is used for the energy consumed during disassembly!"

"In this state, you are still not fully unsealed. What will your fully unsealed state be like?"

"I can't say now, but it will be even more powerful than you can imagine!"

"Then let's change the topic. When will the next unseal be, and what do I need to do?"

"To unseal the next level, I just need enough energy, which means about 100 disassemblies, depending on what is being disassembled. I have temporarily set 20 levels. When the next level is unsealed, the side length of the disassembly pool will double, and the storage area will also expand. Most importantly, at level 2, I will only consume 90% of the material!"

Doubling the side length, Yang Yuanzhao scanned the disassembly pool. This meant the volume of material that could be disassembled would increase by 8 times, a massive increase. Indeed, this was a powerful alien creation. Without saying much, he left the disassembly area and, led by Dangdang, entered the final synthesis area. He had already guessed that this would be the most important function of the intelligent elemental integrated machine, using the elements from the disassembly pool and blueprints to create objects.

In the metal room, similar to the disassembly area, there was a 50-centimeter cube, but the color was yellow instead of blue. As expected, Dangdang's explanation matched his guess: using elements to synthesize objects, with the size not exceeding the volume of the synthesizer. However, there was a restriction: at level 1, only one ton of material could be produced per hour. Each unseal would double the production capacity.

Yang Yuanzhao didn't pay much attention to this. One ton seemed sufficient. He didn't realize that this production would become a significant bottleneck in the future. At this point, as a regular engineer, he couldn't imagine the vast amount of materials needed for large-scale industrial production.

"What can be produced now?"

"Lacking blueprints and raw materials, nothing can be produced!"

"Blueprints?"

"Yes, blueprints are the scanned blueprints of artificial objects, which are the basis for production. As for raw materials, they are the atomic materials produced by disassembly, which can be stored in the integrated machine's space. Currently, the space at level 1 is 125 cubic meters!"

"What will it be after upgrading?"

"Same as the disassembly and synthesis space, 8 times larger!"

Yang Yuanzhao understood that the storage space was about 1,000 times larger than the disassembly pool and synthesizer. This was where the resources needed for disassembly and synthesis came from. After touring the three areas, which were empty, Yang Yuanzhao wanted to verify the magical functions of the elemental integrated machine but lacked blueprints and materials, so he decided to leave.

Exiting the subconscious, the cold north wind did not make Yang Yuanzhao feel cold; instead, he felt warm. Dangdang's capabilities gave him confidence for the future. In this wilderness, he saw rows of factories, production lines, a flood of steel, and a fleet of steel ships. The 20th-century world was beckoning to him.

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