Chapter 178: Shocked Fan Yu, Where Did These Materials Come From?
Hearing Yan Shaozhe's arrangements, the staff member did not overthink the situation. He bowed respectfully and quickly withdrew to carry out his orders.
Meanwhile, far away in the Heavenly Soul Imperial City, a heavy silence hung inside the Imperial Study.
After several days of relentless, non-stop travel, Fan Yu finally stepped into the magnificent palace. The grueling journey had taken its toll; his eyes were heavily bloodshot, and his normally immaculate Soul Engineer robes were wrinkled and stained with travel dust.
He cared little for his appearance. Led by a silent attendant, he strode briskly into the grand hall, his boots clicking sharply against the polished floor.
"Your subject, Fan Yu, pays respects to Your Majesty!" Fan Yu halted in the center of the room, bowing deeply toward the Emperor of Heavenly Soul, who sat elevated upon the ornate dragon throne.
The Emperor set down his vermilion brush. He looked up, a meaningful, unreadable smile surfacing on his majestic face. "Fan Yu, you have arrived much sooner than I anticipated. It has been a difficult journey for you."
Fan Yu had no patience for pleasantries. He stepped forward, his voice tight with urgency. "Your Majesty, I received an emergency transmission from City Lord Li at Shrek. He stated that the northern defense line had collapsed and the Empire was facing a life-or-death crisis. What is the current situation at the border?"
He pressed a fist over his chest. "Although I am only a Soul Engineer, if the situation is dire, I am willing to do my utmost to reinforce the Empire's city defense formations."
A suffocating silence descended over the Imperial Study. The only sound was the faint crackle of the incense burning in a bronze censer.
The Emperor of Heavenly Soul slowly rose from the dragon throne. He descended the steps, walking around his massive sandalwood desk to stand directly before Fan Yu. He did not answer the question immediately. Instead, his sharp gaze carefully scrutinized the man—a genius who enjoyed immense prestige at Shrek Academy.
"Fan Yu, first, I must apologize to you," the Emperor finally spoke, his tone so terrifyingly calm that it was impossible to discern his true emotions.
"In truth, there is no collapse of the northern defense line. The message I sent you was merely to make you set aside your affairs at Shrek and rush back overnight to meet with me."
Fan Yu froze.
His bloodshot eyes widened. A brief flicker of utter confusion flashed across his face, only to be instantly swallowed by a surging tide of anger. The realization of being thoroughly deceived burned in his chest. His breathing grew ragged and heavy. Had the man standing before him been anyone other than the sovereign who held the power of life and death over the entire nation, Fan Yu would have erupted on the spot.
"Your Majesty... are you making a joke out of the Empire's safety and my loyalty to my homeland?" Fan Yu forced the words through gritted teeth, desperately suppressing the tremor in his voice. Beneath his wide sleeves, his hands clenched into tight fists. "I am overseeing extremely critical research at Shrek. Such deception... is truly beneath a monarch."
Facing the harsh questioning, the Emperor did not fly into a rage. Instead, he let out a cold, sharp snort. The oppressive aura of a supreme ruler radiated from him, pressing heavily against the air in the room.
"Deception? Fan Yu, as a Viscount I personally conferred, with the blood of the Heavenly Soul Empire flowing through your veins, you have stayed at Shrek Academy for twenty long years. In these two decades, have you ever stopped to consider where your exceptional skills were originally meant to be used?"
The Emperor took a step closer, his gaze burning intensely as it locked onto Fan Yu's eyes. "You are a citizen of Heavenly Soul. On this Douluo Continent, in terms of sheer talent, you are undeniably a genius. But open your eyes and look at the Empire! Our Soul Engineer technology has been utterly left behind by the Sun Moon Empire. We are struggling just to maintain our basic defenses. And you? You hide away at Shrek, cultivating talent for them, perfecting their defensive arrays, yet you offer nothing to the land that raised you. You have not contributed a single blueprint to the Empire's development. Do you truly believe this is right?"
Fan Yu was struck speechless.
The deeply ingrained concept of patriotism, instilled in him since childhood, collided violently with the deep sense of belonging and gratitude he had built at Shrek Academy over the past twenty years. His jaw worked, but the words caught in his throat.
"Your Majesty, I..."
"No need to explain," the Emperor waved his hand dismissively, cutting him off. The harshness in his eyes faded, replaced by a calculating gleam. He clapped his hands twice, the sound echoing sharply in the quiet study. He instructed the shadows behind the ornate folding screen, "Bring out the items that our distinguished guest has prepared."
An attendant walked forward with his head respectfully lowered, carrying a polished purple sandalwood box in his hands.
When the lid was lifted, there was no blinding flash of rare metals or precious gems. Inside lay only a few unremarkable, slightly yellowed handwritten pages.
"Fan Yu, do not be in such a hurry to refuse returning to the Empire," the Emperor said smoothly, casually picking up the top page. "You are a top-tier Soul Engineer. In your eyes, noble titles, fiefdoms, and mountains of gold may indeed hold no weight compared to your laboratory bench. Then, what about this?"
He extended the handwritten page toward Fan Yu.
Fan Yu's initial instinct was to refuse, assuming this was merely another political trap. But the moment his gaze swept across the complex diagrams and dense formulas on the paper, his instincts as an eighth-class Soul Engineer took over. His pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks.
It was the material Liu Yuan had specially prepared. It detailed an extremely secretive topological logic hidden within the core formation of the 'Red Dust Blessing'. In the current Soul Engineer landscape of the three original Douluo nations, this level of theoretical logic was an absolute, untouched wasteland of knowledge.
Fan Yu reached out, his hands trembling violently as he took the page.
He read three lines. The lingering anger and stubbornness on his face vanished, replaced by an expression of absolute, unadulterated shock.
He looked as though he had been possessed. Completely forgetting his surroundings, forgetting the Emperor, and forgetting royal etiquette, Fan Yu abruptly squatted down right there on the cold blue bricks of the Imperial Study. His fingers began to trace frantically against the floor, rapidly deducing the complex calculations shown on the paper.
"This... the energy loop at this specific node can actually guide spirit power in such a manner? This completely shatters the existing foundational theory of formation balance! Heavens above, how does this specific melting ratio of rare metals perfectly solve the discrepancy in thermal expansion coefficients?"
Fan Yu muttered feverishly to himself, his hands shaking as he quickly reached into the box to pull out the remaining pages.
The deeper he read, the more terrifying the shock became. His once rigid, proud posture was now trembling uncontrollably. As a genius who had dedicated his blood, sweat, and tears to this field for most of his life, he understood the crushing weight behind these casual scribbles better than anyone alive.
This was the absolute truth of the ninth class. It might even touch the very peak of the ninth class. This was forbidden, divine knowledge that he hadn't even caught a glimpse of after decades of agonizing, diligent study at Shrek Academy.
By the time his eyes devoured the final character on the last page, a thick layer of cold sweat had beaded across his forehead.
He slowly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes gazing up at the Emperor of Heavenly Soul in sheer, unmasked horror. His throat bobbed, and he asked in a dry, hoarse whisper, "Your Majesty... where... where in the world did these materials come from?"
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