Trafford's Trading Club

Chapter 1126: A Technical Talent Delayed by Cultivation

Yan Xiaoxi quickly found his master, the Firecloud Evil God.

The news brought back by Daoist Baijie was too significant—it could even affect the future structure between the nation and the Daoist and Demon factions. This wasn’t something Yan Xiaoxi could decide on his own.

At the moment, in the private courtyard, after hearing everything, the Firecloud Evil God was silent for a long time before finally asking, “Did you send this message out?”

Yan Xiaoxi shook his head and then cautiously asked, “Should I send it out now?”

The Firecloud Evil God countered, “What would be the consequences if you sent it now?”

Yan Xiaoxi gave a bitter smile. “The Management Bureau isn’t an impenetrable wall. If it reaches that point, the Daoist and Demon worlds will find out immediately... and then we’ll be in deep trouble. The casualties this time are too severe... other than ‘war,’ I can’t imagine any other outcome.”

“Exactly. And what you can think of, they certainly can too.”

The Firecloud Evil God sighed. “Who forced who into rebellion... that’s hard to define. If things truly escalate to full-blown war, then this land will be engulfed in chaos. If Daoist and Demon elites hide among the population and in cities, are we supposed to use nuclear weapons to wipe them out? Even using any kind of high-damage weapon will cause immeasurable civilian casualties and property loss...”

Yan Xiaoxi gave a bitter smile. “That 71st generation Heavenly Heart is a madman!”

“The Daoist and Demon factions must be chipped away, divided, weakened—slowly boiled like frogs. That’s the best strategy to dissolve them,” Firecloud Evil God shook his head. “He’s not crazy. He took this path because he understood.”He rubbed his forehead. “That’s why I’ve never liked dealing with the Plain-Clothed Dao people. They’re too calculative and still have the power to stir up storms. Ambitious, capable, and stubborn enemies are the most dangerous.”

“Should we suppress this matter first and report it only after things settle down?” Yan Xiaoxi frowned. “That way we can stabilize the situation and avoid being attacked from all sides.”

“No. You need to send the report immediately. If not, you’d be neglecting your duty as the Management Bureau’s Department Chief.” Firecloud Evil God said, “But at the same time, tell the Daoist and Demon sides that you will suppress the matter. Promise them the nation will distinguish individual guilt—if the ringleaders are punished and they recognize the situation, they’ll be treated leniently... give them hope.”

“This...” Yan Xiaoxi was stunned.

“If supernatural power can’t serve the country, if it doesn’t exist to protect the people and instead seeks to rule over them—then we’re better off without it. Otherwise, why have a nation? What is the foundation of a country?”

“I understand.” Yan Xiaoxi took a deep breath and nodded.

“Go. I’ll share the burden with you.”

“If I couldn’t handle this level of commitment, I wouldn’t have chosen this job in the first place.” Yan Xiaoxi smiled calmly and left.

---

Elsewhere in the Croaching Dragon Estate, in stark contrast to the tense atmosphere among the Daoist and Demon factions, the mood here was energetic.

Because a barrier had been set up outside the estate to block the mist, and power had been restored, all the equipment was now functioning normally.

This was a temporary lab set up by Dr. Zhao, head of the Management Bureau’s R&D department.

Inside the clean room, the R&D team watched as Dr. Zhao argued fiercely with someone—a young-looking man who was actually over forty years old. The reason for his youthful appearance? He was a genuine cultivator: Jiang Zuo.

Jiang Zuo had emerged from a spatial rift and somehow caught Dr. Zhao’s attention. Normally, the Bureau didn’t allow members of Daoist or Demon factions into the R&D department. But Jiang Zuo was an exception—personally approved by Dr. Zhao.

The reason? Jiang Zuo was a technical genius held back by cultivation.

“You have no idea how much Jiang Zuo’s paper on ‘Theoretical Research on Sparse Kernel Learning in Machine Learning’—which he wrote as a grad student!—contributed to our AI research! That was twenty years ago! And then he just walked away to cultivate! If he’d stayed on this path, he’d have achieved unimaginable things! Science and technology are the primary productive forces!!”

After much yelling like this, Dr. Zhao finally secured special clearance from Department Chief Yan Xiaoxi. More importantly, Jiang Zuo also had some broken-era tech retrieved from the Penglai Treasure Vault.

“It’s impossible! How could something that violates basic physical laws exist? A reverse phase transition can’t happen spontaneously, let alone a spontaneous material reorganization of the same substance! Turning water into ice? Sure. But turning a drop of water directly into mercury?!”

Jiang Zuo had clearly expected this reaction. Calmly, he took out a test tube containing a shimmering, multicolored liquid.

“What’s this?” Dr. Zhao was instantly intrigued.

“This is called Universal Material,” Jiang Zuo said seriously. “It has the ability to reorganize its molecular structure according to human mental intent... I’ve been researching it, and I’ve confirmed its form can shift based on the user’s spiritual will.”

Without wasting words, Jiang Zuo poured about 20 milliliters of the colorful liquid into a petri dish—liquid that had been secreted from a crystal he found at the bottom of the Universal Material pool.

He hadn’t figured out how the crystal secreted it, but he was sure of one thing: this liquid was Universal Material, and the crystal was what he now called the Universal Material Mother Lode.

Jiang Zuo stared intently at the petri dish. The liquid inside began to change... and, to Dr. Zhao’s astonishment, it gradually morphed into a small white cube.

“What... what is that?” Dr. Zhao asked instinctively.

“Sugar cube,” Jiang Zuo smiled. “Totally harmless. Quite sweet, too. Try it if you want.”

Dr. Zhao stared at the sugar cube in silence. Jiang Zuo thought he didn’t believe him and added quickly, “I swear I didn’t use any illusions. You can review the experiment recording. If you’re still skeptical, I’ll teach you the method. But I don’t know if your spiritual strength meets the minimum threshold to influence the Universal Material... Dr. Zhao? Dr. Zhao?”

“You damn idiot!!” Dr. Zhao suddenly screamed and lunged at Jiang Zuo, choking him. “You stupid bastard!! Of all things you could have transformed it into, you made a sugar cube?! Do you know what you’ve wasted?! One gram of this stuff is worth 200 million!! YOU WASTED IT ON A DAMN SUGAR CUBE!!!”

Even as a cultivator, Jiang Zuo felt like he was being strangled by Dr. Zhao’s grip—especially his left hand, which held a strange, Herculean strength… His left hand?

Jiang Zuo suddenly froze. Dr. Zhao’s left hand didn’t look human at all.

Thick, oddly keratinized, metallic in appearance…

“D-Doctor, your hand…” Jiang Zuo patted his arm with effort.

Dr. Zhao took deep breaths, his mood slowly calming down… and his left hand gradually returned to normal.

Finally, he let go of Jiang Zuo and exhaled. “Sorry, I got too emotional.”

Jiang Zuo swallowed hard and hesitantly asked, “Dr. Zhao, just now… your hand…”

Dr. Zhao shook his head calmly. “It was just a lab accident. My left hand can mutate, with strength far beyond normal—but the side effect is aggression. I need regular injections to manage it.”

“Gene experiment?” Jiang Zuo frowned. The Management Bureau’s R&D department really dared to try anything.

“Let’s not talk about that.” Dr. Zhao waved it off. “This Universal Material is much more important… Jiang Zuo, tell me, how much of this do you actually have?”

“Not much.” Jiang Zuo replied evenly, “You know how tight time was when we left. I only managed to bring back a little—about 700 milliliters.”

“You said that place is called the Penglai Treasure Vault?” Dr. Zhao suddenly asked.

Jiang Zuo gave a wry smile. “Doctor, I suggest you don’t get any ideas about it. Even if we could find a way in—which is unlikely—given the current tech we have, we’d be no better off than ordinary people in there.”

Dr. Zhao shook his head too. “Hard to imagine without concrete data.”

“No need for data. There can’t be any. This is… a civilizational gap. What I’ve brought back might take several generations of research just to decode. And even then, who knows if it can be absorbed.”

Dr. Zhao gave a bitter smile. Of course he knew that. They were working day and night, but it was like cavemen trying to understand the proof of the Riemann hypothesis. This wasn’t a matter of intelligence—it was a complete break in the chain of knowledge.

“Maybe we can make a breakthrough from these weapons,” Jiang Zuo suggested, looking over at several strange items.

These had been brought back by Captain Ling Feng’s team from elsewhere before leaving—high-tech weapons that looked straight out of a sci-fi movie.

Dr. Zhao clearly agreed. Rather than chasing after lost civilizations, they might have better luck with these partially understandable technologies.

“From this lightsaber, I found a very unusual material. Right now, it’s completely impossible to synthesize. We don’t even know its structure.” Dr. Zhao suddenly turned serious. “But if we can observe how Universal Material undergoes molecular reorganization, we might be able to understand this material’s structure—and possibly find a path to synthesize it.”

He held up the only lightsaber they had and pressed the button—a bright beam shot out, stable and humming.

“We might not be able to manufacture it ourselves yet, but copying the structure might still be possible.”

“Condensed energy beam tech… that’s a major hurdle on its own,” Jiang Zuo sighed.

Even though he wasn’t trained in this specific field, he could still imagine the implications.

Just as Dr. Zhao said—even if they could only imitate it—if these could be mass-produced, and every soldier had one, the country’s military might would rise to unprecedented levels.

And such tech wasn’t limited to lightsabers. Its applications could reach far beyond.

With that thought, Jiang Zuo broke into a cold sweat.

He wasn’t sure anymore—bringing Universal Material out from the Penglai Treasure Vault… was it really the right thing to do?

---

What puzzled Nero was that after meeting Su Zijun, Luo Qiu didn’t return to the club right away, nor did he go to collect the payment for the rich woman’s deal.

Instead, he came to a relatively open area.

It looked like a mountain cliff, but the surroundings were blanketed in thick fog—making it hard to see the actual terrain.

Luo Qiu simply stood on the cliff edge, looking into the distance for quite some time.

For someone like Nero, who was always on the move, this was torture. Who knew how many people would be waiting with grudges for her back at the club after being alone with the Boss for so long?

Nero felt like she was gambling with her life.

“Boss… um, M-Master?” Nero figured she should speak up—though calling him “Master” still made her squirm. But it was Miss Maid’s order.

Speaking of which, she had only been a Black Soul Envoy for less than half a day when Miss Maid handed her a maid’s rulebook thicker than a bilingual dictionary.

“Call me whatever you prefer. No need to force yourself,” Luo Qiu turned around and gave her a small smile. “Tai Yinzi flatters and sweet-talks because it’s in his nature. That’s why people don’t mind. But you’re different.”

“O-okay then.” Nero shrugged and immediately ripped off the maid outfit, baring her arms and legs, complaining, “Seriously, how the hell does Miss Maid wear this hot, heavy outfit all day and still function?”

(End of Chapter)