Xiao had been quietly observing the priests' repeated failures to advance—and he already understood the reason.
The problem was obvious.
The Fusion Furnace they were attempting to construct was simply too dense.
Meeting the standard of a Fusion Furnace did not mean merely "installing an engine" inside the body.
The reason Xiao sometimes mocked it as an engine was because, strictly speaking, he himself still could not construct a true, fully controllable fusion reactor.
In theory, it was not impossible to install a CHOOH² combustion engine or even a high-speed rotary engine inside the body. By burning CHOOH², one could indeed obtain a steady source of power.
But that was clearly not what Xiao—or the Mechanicus—were pursuing.
What they wanted was not a conventional engine, nor were they chasing some romantic notion of perfect nuclear fusion. What they sought was something closer to a miniaturized nuclear furnace—closer to controlled fission in scale, yet far more refined.
In truth, whether it was nuclear fusion or nuclear fission, neither was particularly difficult with modern technology. Hydrogen bombs and nuclear bombs were nothing more than weapons born from these two reactions.
What was truly rare was control.
Explosive nuclear reactions were easy. Controllable nuclear reactions were not.
And the bottleneck that had plagued humanity for decades was still the same old enemy: materials science and energy conversion efficiency.
Controllable nuclear fusion generated temperatures reaching hundreds of millions of degrees. Under such conditions, no known material could withstand the heat for long. That alone had stalled the development of fusion reactors for generations.
But materials were not Xiao's concern.
The core of cyber aura lay in energy absorption.
No matter how terrifying the temperature, at its essence it was nothing more than violently released energy. In other words, the higher the temperature, the stronger the cyber aura became.
In fact, this could even form a positive feedback loop.
Higher temperature strengthened the material.
Stronger material allowed for even higher temperatures.
Where Xiao truly fell short was in energy conversion.
The essence of nuclear fusion was the excitation of material, releasing vast quantities of energy in the process. What Xiao wanted was that raw energy itself.
Traditional power generation was like boiling water to produce steam, then using that steam to turn turbines. Energy was transformed again and again, consumed countless times, until only scraps remained at the end.
That was unacceptable.
But forcibly absorbing raw fusion energy without any intermediate transformation was something Xiao could not yet do—at least not until he evolved to the fifth stage.
Thus, the Fusion Furnace was indeed based on fusion principles, but it still required the assistance of an engine-like structure to stabilize and channel the output, rather than directly converting fusion material into usable energy.
Which meant one thing:
To complete a Fusion Furnace, one needed extremely high-strength furnace walls and a core of immense density—and those required vast quantities of original power to condense.
The current design proposed by the Mechanicum was already operating at the absolute minimum structural density. Any further reduction would risk catastrophic self-destruction the moment ignition occurred.
And here lay the true problem.
Expecting a peak-stage priest to condense such a structure using their internal original power alone was pure fantasy.
They needed more.
Yet once a believer reached the peak stage, the amount of original power their body could contain would no longer increase. Even if they forcibly compressed it, the body could not retain it for long.
The compressed power had to be actively controlled at all times.
The moment concentration slipped, the power would leak out rapidly. Worse still, prolonged suppression could trigger violent backlash, injuring the practitioner from within.
To build a Fusion Furnace, they needed more original power.
But to increase original power, they needed a Fusion Furnace.
A perfect deadlock.
The believers were trapped in a vicious cycle.
Fortunately, the wisdom of the collective was vast.
With the aid of massive computational power, some priests soon asked a crucial question:
Why was compressed original power so unstable within the body—yet comparatively stable once shaped into a constructed Fusion Furnace?
The answer lay in structure.
Original power possessed both tangible and intangible characteristics.
Once shaped into a tangible construct, stability increased dramatically. Left intangible, it remained volatile and uncontrollable.
When original power enveloped the human body, it existed in a semi-invisible state, fused directly with cells and tissues. In that form, it could not be compressed further.
That realization sparked a bold proposal.
Was it possible to construct a prosthetic structure within the body—one that could house compressed original power without interfering with normal biological functions?
In essence, they wanted to turn the intangible into something tangible.
Their solution was elegant.
They would first convert original power into a prosthetic framework, constructing a hollow network structure throughout the body. Compressed original power would then be stored inside these channels, preventing it from escaping while allowing gradual accumulation.
The theory held.
The experiments began.
Hundreds of priests worked together, running simulations and physical trials. Soon, a prototype hollow network tunnel was completed.
After implantation, compressed original power was injected into the network.
This time, it stayed.
The power remained dormant within the channels, obediently awaiting the next command from its "master."
The discovery sent shockwaves through the priesthood.
Cheers erupted.
They had finally found the correct path.
Without delay, the priests began refining the design of what they now called the Cyber Prosthetic Power Network.
After months of calculations and revisions, the final routing scheme was completed—a network that would not hinder movement or biological function in the slightest.
The channels ran through limbs and bones, wrapped around internal organs, and intertwined with prosthetic components. Thick and thin pathways interlocked like a vast circuit board engraved into the human body.
The system consisted of twelve primary channels and eight auxiliary channels, forming a total of 362 network nodes.
In the end, all channels converged into a single, massive node.
Some chose to locate it in the chest cavity. Others preferred the abdominal cavity.
Inside that central node was a space large enough to house a fully functional Fusion Furnace.
More importantly, this power network was not only capable of storing compressed original power—it could also rapidly distribute energy from the Fusion Furnace once activation was complete.
When the Adeptus Mechanicus finalized this design, Xiao nearly dropped his jaw.
Because the power network they had constructed—
Perfectly overlapped with the twelve primary meridians, the eight extraordinary meridians, and the acupoint system of the human body.
The Mechanicus had no exposure to Dragon Kingdom culture. They had never studied ancient meridian theory.
And yet, using nothing but cold calculations and logic, they had recreated the optimal energy transmission network of the human body.
What could Xiao possibly say to that?
He could only offer a silent thumbs-up to those adorable, awe-inspiring ancestors of old.
This revelation also made Xiao reevaluate ancient texts.
Perhaps those scriptures that once seemed like incomprehensible heavenly writings contained truths capable of reshaping cyber cultivation itself.
Without hesitation, Xiao sent a command through the Daluo Arena to his nano-clone stationed in the Siheyuan World, ordering it to collect as many ancient cultural texts as possible.
In truth, ever since acquiring cyber aura, Xiao no longer needed to travel back and forth between worlds personally.
Through cyber-dimensional space, he could effortlessly command his cyber clones to handle countless mundane tasks simultaneously.
The age of running around was over.
Now—
The era of parallel ascension had truly begun.
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