I am a demonic cultivator, not a capitalist with a conscience.

Chapter 55 The Work of the Mana Pool (23)

Seeing Chen Yu standing still at the door, Jin Cheng whispered, "Don't be fooled by the dirt here. Once you get some work done, everything will be fine."

Will they move to a new location?

"No, it's because you're tired that you don't mind the dirt here."

Staring blankly at Jin Cheng, Chen Yu had a lot to say, but couldn't say anything.

Jin Cheng just laughed heartily and said to Chen Yu, "There's nothing we can do. Tianyuan is poor right now, so we laborers will just have to do our best. At least the tools we produce can be exported and sold for some money, bringing some subsidies back to Tianyuan."

After putting down his luggage, Chen Yu followed Jin Cheng to the workshop, listening to Jin Cheng explain the situation there.

Area Lock is a blockade cast by the Star Lord, making it almost impossible for areas under Area Lock to communicate with the outside world.

This lock is not only reflected in culture and entertainment, but also in the circulation of goods.

Before the Tianyuan Cultivator Committee ran away, it sold off too many things, such as spiritual energy tax, land tax, air tax, single tax, married tax, sunlight tax, ventilation tax, toilet tax, etc.

These are all unequal treaties. If cultivators who truly follow them, they will be slaves for all eternity, working for other cities and capitalists their entire lives.

Therefore, the New Heavenly Origin Cultivator Committee resolutely rejected all treaties, the price of which was being sued in the upper realm, namely the Longevity Continent.

The state government ruled that Tianyuan must accept the treaty, or face a regional lockdown. The Tianyuan Cultivator Committee refused to comply, and was ultimately locked down.

Fortunately, some things were locked up, but some things could still be circulated out through certain channels and exchanged for some necessary supplies.

"Tianyuan Agricultural Machinery Factory happens to have export rights. Some agricultural machinery can be exported and exchanged for some goods. This is one of Tianyuan's few trade channels, so we'll just have to endure the hardship."

Looking at Jin Cheng's cheerful smile, Chen Yu felt a dull pain in his chest.

Every single one of you from the former Tianyuan Cultivator Committee must die!
No, death is too good for you. We must find a chance to buy the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, then send you in there to be tortured to death, so you can never get out!
Not only did you harm so many cultivators, but you also left me with money to burn. You are truly wicked and deserve to die a thousand deaths!
Jin Cheng patted Chen Yu on the shoulder: "Alright, let's get to work. My number is 114, and yours is 411, which is the opposite of what you'd expect. Don't talk too much when we meet later, or you'll get docked pay."

"Then how do we communicate?"

"Use your eyes. Don't worry, you can learn it with a little practice, it's very simple. And newcomers can do some gestures to help, people will understand."

"So what is our job?"

"I'm a skilled worker, so I'll probably be assigned to tighten screws. You're new here, so you'll probably be the mana pool."

"Is 'mana pool' a job?"

"It's hard to explain, you'll find out in a bit. Okay, let's get started. You're in group nine, so find your group leader, follow his instructions, and then get to work."

Chen Yu parted ways with Jin Cheng in a daze, and then followed the instructions to enter the workshop.

As soon as I entered the workshop, the deafening roar seemed to materialize and rushed towards me.

It was as if tens of thousands of thunderclaps were exploding in his ears, or as if thousands of giant dragons were roaring in his ears.

A wave of heat shot out along with the roar, making Chen Yu feel as if he were at the scene of a volcanic eruption, and he almost melted in the heat and the roar.

Entering the room despite the pressure, he felt that there was no need to speak, since he couldn't hear anything anyway.

But after getting used to it, Chen Yu felt that the place was incredibly vibrant.

Machinery and materials were everywhere. Ancient lathes seemed like ancient behemoths swallowing raw materials, and strong workers gripped red-hot iron rods with their bare hands, placing them in designated positions and forging them amidst the hissing sounds.

Their hammers swung so tightly that the air was still, the crisp clanging sounds even breaking the surrounding roar, as if a downpour was washing away the oppressive silence. "Amazing!"

While marveling at the greatness of the workers here, Chen Yu followed the signs and finally found the place marked with the words "Group Nine".

The group leader here was a rather elderly monk with gray hair and a homemade cigarette dangling from his mouth, rolled from newspaper.

He was only wearing a vest, beneath which lay muscles that even Chen Yu himself was ashamed of. Those muscles were clearly defined, each one already stretched into a fibrous strand, glistening and shiny under the sweat.

Upon seeing Chen Yu and the number on his chest, the leader of Group Nine scooped up a handful of molten iron with his bare hands, lit a cigarette for himself, and then pointed to the bottom of the massive machine tool, indicating that Chen Yu should crawl inside.

He went in with a puzzled look on his face and found it very crowded. Once inside, he could only curl up into a ball.

Then, a tube protruded from above, and the team leader outside squatted down, gesturing for Chen Yu to attach the suction cup at the end of the tube to his navel.

After doing all this, the team leader tossed a white, salt-like object to Chen Yu and gestured for him to begin absorbing spiritual energy and converting it into magical power.

After discovering that the "salt brick" was actually a fragment of a spirit stone that Jin Tun's younger brother had fished out of the ground and then compressed into a low-quality spirit stone, Chen Yu had a "meow meow fart" to say.

So this is what a mana pool is!

Let me absorb the spiritual energy from inferior spirit stones and then convert it into magic power to power the machine!
At that moment, Chen Yu suddenly realized that he was not a cultivator, but a cog in a machine.

He was merely the power source for the entire massive factory, destined to spend his entire life providing power to the machines in this cramped space.

The machine started running, and the stone in his hand began to release spiritual energy. A large amount of spiritual energy was absorbed by Chen Yu, and then the suction cup on his dantian drew away his magic power and sent it into the machine.

The machine overhead started operating, the entire lathe began to sway, and a huge crashing sound rang in his ears, but he no longer had the strength to care about anything else.

Inferior spirit stones are made by compressing spirit stone fragments. Although the concentration of spiritual energy inside is high, it is not uniform. Using them in machines can easily damage them.

At this time, cultivators at the third level of Qi Refining or above are needed to absorb the spiritual energy here and convert it into mana, which is both economical and efficient.

As for what the cultivators inside were thinking...

It's just a part; nobody will care.

Chen Yu had to constantly harmonize the spiritual energy within, converting it into magical power as much as possible, in order to keep up with the machine's extraction.

Six hours later, Chen Yu had counted the prime numbers to the six thousandth, or 58427, before finally stepping out of the cage, his body completely soaked with sweat.

To be fair, the environment inside is quite nice.

At most, it was a bit stuffy and hot around, the machines were a bit noisy, there was nothing to do so it was a bit boring, and the painful moment of not knowing when it would end was torturing my mind.

Practicing for a long time can improve one's proficiency in converting spiritual energy, but this can be done anywhere, so why torture yourself in a cage?
These events made Chen Yu realize that his previous thoughts were indeed naive.

You really don't know how grueling a factory can be until you experience it yourself.

He declined Jin Cheng's invitation to have dinner with him, staggered back to his dormitory, found his bed, crawled in, closed his eyes, and fell asleep immediately.

He slept very soundly, and even when someone went crazy and jumped off the building seven or eight times, they didn't wake him.

The others ignored the man who was jumping off the building. Eventually, he got tired of jumping and went back to sleep.

　Thank you Wu Ziyu for the 100-point reward.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)