Chapter 1014: Tourmaline

White light was flashing incessantly, and right before everyone's astonished eyes, the three components continued to transform. Furthermore, there were substantial objects being materialized within them!

"This is incredible!" Xu Chengyang exclaimed in a trembling voice as he adjusted his own glasses in disbelief. "Are the components returning to their original forms?"

"I think it goes deeper than that..." Zu Chongzhi was also completely flabbergasted as he said, "This is a process of creating something from nothing, it's close to the power of the Heavenly Dao!"

Even Qin Ye was finding this very difficult to believe, and turned to Zhao Yun as he asked, "General Zhao, have you seen anything like this in the past?"

"No." Zhao Yun was just as astonished as he was. "The ability to return something to its origins is power close to that of the Heavenly Dao... Is this the power of an ancient god fused with a creation-grade divine artifact? I don't think we can even refer to the new six paths of reincarnation as a creation-grade divine artifact anymore..."

However, no one was pondering this at this moment.

Everyone's eyes were completely glued to the scene unfolding before them, and they desperately wanted to know what the final objects were going to be.

They were going to be the three materials that formed the energy resource presented in their most primitive forms!

"Come on, this has to succeed! If everything goes well, we'll be taking a massive step toward our end goal!"

"This is going to save us an enormous amount of time! No longer will we have to experiment with a pool of countless items. Instead, we'll be able to conduct our search based on the original subjects themselves!"

As the white light became more and more intense, the atmosphere was also becoming more and more asphyxiating. All of a sudden, a resounding boom rang out, and the white light suddenly began to glow brighter than ever before! All of the underworld emissaries present, including even Qin Ye and Zhao Yun, were forced to close their eyes. Several seconds later, the light faded, and as everyone reopened their eyes...

Lu Ban's legs almost gave out from under him, and he stumbled unsteadily with cheeks that were heavily flushed from excitement as he exclaimed, "We did it! We succeeded!!"

Hovering right in front of them were three objects, consisting of two rocks and a clouds of white mist.

"We really did it..." Qin Ye's hands were trembling as he looked on in awe and elation. This was undoubtedly going to be a historic moment, and they were bearing witness to it!

This was the first step to the creation of the new energy resource, the precursor to the dawn of a new era!

He closed his eyes to collect himself, and only then did he feel just how violently his heart was thumping. Even in the split-second prior to success, he didn't dare to allow himself to hope.

During the past eight months, he had endured far too much disappointment, yet on this day, he could finally bring himself to hope again!

"Be quiet, everyone!" The main architects of the project immediately made their way over to Qin Ye before asking, "Yanluo Qin, can you tell what these things are?"

Before Qin Ye had a chance to reply, Zhao Yun did so in his stead. "That rock at the center is giving off black Yin energy, and if I'm not mistaken, that should be a magnet of the underworld known as a compass rock."

𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"Is it a common product?" Pang Hai immediately asked.

The new energy resource had to be something that could be made available for widespread civilian use, so the availability of its components was a very important factor of consideration.

If the materials were too expensive, then that would go against their original objective.

"It's very abundant!" Qin Ye replied with an excited expression. "It arises naturally in iron mines, and the ratio of iron ore and magnet rock that one can normally expect to excavate from an iron mine is around 10:1, so it's definitely cheap and readily available!"

Before anyone else had a chance to ask, he continued, "The other rock should be tourmaline."

It was a black rock with some semi-transparent sections, but those sections were red and green in color. It was like a piece of ore consisting of different random minerals, and it was something that wouldn't attract any attention if it were sitting on the side of the road.

Who could've imagined that these mundane objects would form the key to ushering in the new era?

"Tourmaline?" Deng Ruifeng's eyes immediately lit up upon hearing this. "Tourmaline is the only stone in the natural world confirmed to always carry electricity! In 1703, a few children in Amsterdam, Netherlands were playing with some tourmaline that had been brought back from Brazil by Dutch voyagers. One of the children discovered that the tourmaline was able to attract the dust and grass clippings nearby, and that was when tourmaline became known. In 1880, the Curies officially unveiled its secret. Feeble electric currents measured at 0.06mA run along the crystalline surface of tourmaline, and it can naturally replenish its own electricity stores through sunlight! It's the battery of the natural world! That was when tourmaline truly became known to the entire world."

All of the underworld emissaries cast their eyes toward the final object.

It was a cloud of white mist that looked as if it could be scattered by a gentle breeze.

After a brief silence, Zhao Yun said, "If I'm not mistaken, that's immortal energy in its purest form. I speculate that just as Yanluo Qin said, this immortal energy was innately carried by Gui Xu and unwittingly incorporated by Xu Fu into his energy resource. It wasn't contained in any particular object. Instead, it belonged in Gui Xu's remains, so it can't be restored any further than this."

At this point, the ability of the Chalice of Preiddeu Annwn had finally been confirmed. It was restoration!

Out of the three abilities, purification, decomposition, and restoration, then only one that could've achieved this was restoration!

No one said anything.

Everyone's minds were racing as they frantically calculated the costs involved.

Compass rocks were very commonplace, and tourmaline was also quite an abundant material. Thus, the most difficult thing to obtain was immortal energy!

"That's not an issue," Qin Ye said with a smile. "Leave it to me!"

Of course, this didn't mean that they could create an energy resource.

With these materials, they would only be able to recreate Xu Fu's energy resource, which had already been confirmed through experimentation to be far less efficient in the underworld.

However, this provided them with a massive clue to solving the puzzle. According to the laws of Yin Yang co-action, there had to be a type of ore that contained electron Yin runes in the underworld to correspond with tourmaline of the mortal realm!

If they could find that, then they would've essentially found the electron of the underworld!

After that, they could search for materials that could physically react with the electron Yin runes, and that would allow them to find proton Yin runes!

"In that case, we'll leave the immortal energy to you, Yanluo Qin. If you can obtain that, then we'll be able to immediately create Xu Fu's energy resource!" Deng Ruifeng said in an excited manner.

Qin Ye raised an eyebrow as he smiled and repeated, "Xu Fu's energy resource?"

Deng Ruifeng nodded with a wry smile as he replied, "We've heard about what Xu Fu has done. Even though he committed treason, we can't take the contribution of discovering a new energy resource away from him. His crimes can't cancel out the fact that he was a brilliant scientist, but we can choose to give him whatever degree of significance we like in the history books."

Qin Ye nodded in response. He wasn't petty enough to take this away from Xu Fu, he had always been a man with a very clear sense of right and wrong.

As for how Xu Fu was going to be recorded in the history books, it was most likely just going to be something like: "underworld emissary Xu Fu discovered an energy resource reaction by chance. Following further research and development by Hell's Resurgence Team, a new energy resource was developed by...

Qin Ye was silent for a short while before asking, "There's still around a month left until the opening of the gates of Heaven, what do you plan to do during this time?"

"Search for samples!" the architects replied in unison. At the same time, serious looks appeared on their faces, and Pang Hai said, "Yanluo Qin, we may be on the right path now, but there's still a massive amount of work that we have to do from here. Firstly, we have to find an ore that corresponds with tourmaline in the underworld. There are currently close to 5,000 known types of ore in the underworld, which isn't much, but we have to examine all of the possible reactions that they can generate under all types of physical states. For example, a certain type of ore could display similar properties to tourmaline, but perhaps it can only display such properties under certain physical conditions. Thus, we'll have to test everything one by one. Rest assured, we've already anticipated a situation like this and prepared a comprehensive plan for this, but it's still going to take a very long time."

Qin Ye's brows furrowed slightly upon hearing this. "How long will it take?"

Zu Chongzhi sighed, "Some physical conditions are very difficult to emulate and require lengthy observation periods. Even if we're lucky, it'll still take at least a year to complete all of the tests?"

"What if we're not so lucky?" Qin Ye asked.

"Then it'll take at least two years, and it won't even surprise me if it takes more than three years. If we have to go through all of the known types of ore in the underworld and it turns out that the very last one is the one we need, then the entire duration of this process will take around four years and seven months."

Everyone turned to Qin Ye with concerned expressions.

It had already been eight months, and it wasn't exactly a complete waste of time.

There was a breaking in process required for all new research and development teams in order to ensure their smooth operation, and this was the process that was taking place now. Furthermore, many of the Yin runes in the first layer of Archimedes's Yin Rune Wheel had already been broken down, and that could prove to be useful in the future.

However, assuming the research team had ordinary luck, it would take over two and a half years to complete these tests. In addition to the eight months that had already passed by, that would amount to over three years!

Would Hell be able to withstand the immense pressure from the rest of the world for three whole years?

They knew that even though they hadn't received any demands for reports to be released, they could imagine all of the forceful and demanding letters that their King Yanluo had already received. They were able to focus wholeheartedly on their research only because someone else was handling all of the external pressures for them.

An amused look appeared on Qin Ye's face as he said, "Don't forget that this is the Cathayan Underworld, when has the Cathayan Underworld ever bowed its head in the face of pressure from the rest of the world? Just do what you need to do. The hardships that we have to face now are nothing. During Cathay's development of the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, and the artificial satellite in the mortal realm, Russia had suddenly withdrawn all of its experts and destroyed all of the relevant documents. The entire world was already convinced that Cathay wouldn't be able to develop nuclear weapons, but we proved them all wrong. I don't care how displeased the rest of the world is now, once we develop the new energy resource, everyone has to shut up!"

After that, he gave Zhao Yun a nod, and both of them vanished on the spot.

The scientists stood in silence with their lips tightly pursed, following which Zu Chongzhi turned to the other architects as he said, "Let's begin, everyone. Time is of the essence, and I, for one, can't wait to begin!"

Lu Ban nodded as he chimed in, "Yanluo Qin is right, these hardships are nothing! Once we develop the new energy resource, the rest of the world won't be able to say anything!"

"Let's go to the laboratories! I don't know about all of you, but I don't want to rest anymore!"

"I've never been more ready! Let's get started right away!"

"You want me to rest after such a major breakthrough? In your dreams!"

At this point, Qin Ye and Zhao Yun had already arrived in another room.

This room was not far away from Qin Ye's office, but it was constantly locked and was not to be opened unless explicit orders were received from him.

However, the room had been opened now.

There were Yin soldiers standing on guard outside, and the instruction they had received was that no one, not even the architects, was allowed to enter the room aside from Yanluo Qin and those accompanying him.

Upon entering the room, Qin Ye snapped his fingers, and the room was instantly brightly lit.

The room wasn't very large, only around the size of a normal office, but there were over 100 grids in here, all of which were separated by glass, and adhered to every single grid was a tag from Hell.

The grips were rectangular in shape, and each one had the name and picture of a scientist from the Cathayan Underworld plastered to it.

All of the grids were filled with letters.

These were all of the letters related to the new energy resource that the Cathayan Underworld had received during the past eight months.