Farming With The In-game World - Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Chapter 45: Activated Materials List, Bronze Alloy

Creak crack, creak crack…

An Wen spent five minutes building a nest for Yuan Pan.

“What do you think?”

An Wen asked, pointing to the bare and ugly wooden cage at the side.

Looking at the ugly cage, Yuan Pan stretched out its claws in fury and destroyed it in one blow.

Then, he began staring angrily at An Wen with his tiny eyes.

“Eh… Don’t be angry, I don’t know what kind of nest you want either.”

“Look at this, doesn’t it look like the enlarged version of your previous wooden cage?”

“I thought you liked this kind of nest, so you can’t blame me if you didn’t actually like it.”

An Wen uttered nonsense with a serious face.

Upon hearing his words, Yuan Pan was bewildered.

Although his intelligence had also increased significantly after he ‘leveled up’, he was still nowhere as smart as a human.

As such, he was somewhat bewildered upon hearing An Wen’s reply.

“How about this, think about what kind of nest you want first, then let me know and I will make it for you, how does that sound?” An Wen added, seizing the opportunity amidst Yuan Pan’s confusion.

He then looked at An Wen, then turned around and crawled out of the wood processing plant.

Using his brain, which had a very limited capacity, he began thinking about exactly what kind of nest he desired.

After successfully confusing Yuan Pan and getting him to leave, An Wen got down to his work.

“The purpose of the wooden ox carts were to be fitted with air-powered excavation tools, so they don’t need too many intricate components. The air-powered tools will do as long as they’re able to continue digging without stopping.”

“In that case, the pedals can be done away with and the gears can be directly connected to an electric motor. The heads can also be removed and replaced with the air-powered excavation tools. The forward running movement will be maintained and the excavation tools can continue digging non-stop.”

Very quickly, An Wen came up with the design of the simplified wooden ox carts. He then began assembling them.

In the wood processing plant, many parts and components were ready-made.

As such, An Wen managed to assemble one wooden ox cart without a head in just over 20 minutes.

“It looks slightly ugly.”

Indeed, without a head, the wooden ox cart with only a body and four legs looked extremely unsightly.

Nevertheless, as long as it was functional, there was no cause for concern.

An Wen tried out the wooden ox cart that he built. After making sure that it had no flaws, he made his way to the mixed-use complex.

Even though the wooden ox carts he needed were simplified versions of the original, he would certainly not make hundreds of them himself.

Once he fused the simplified version of the wooden ox cart with the main skills, the design sketch would be formed and its production could be automated. Unless he had turned silly, he would surely not make them all himself.

“Do you wish to spend 800 Survival Points to fuse the main skills together?”

“Confirm.”

Whoosh!

A bolt of white light flashed.

Without even looking at the attributes of the sketch, An Wen started production for 200 units of the simplified wooden ox carts.

After closing the Knowledge Tree Storage and Consolidation List, he tapped to view the Skills Tree.

“Both Mathematics and Physics have not been leveled up yet, and I still can’t light up the skill icons in Chemistry and Biology either. For Materials, I also… eh? I can light up the icons in Materials now?”

An Wen had only intended to browse through the Skills Tree casually, but he discovered that the first icon in the Materials List was actually lit.

“Bronze Smelting?”

An Wen tapped on the icon and found that it was Bronze Smelting, a skill to refine copper.

Without hesitation, he activated it.

Instantly, a wealth of knowledge about the extraction and refining of copper filled An Wen’s mind.

“Eh? I can continue activating more skills?”

The icon below Bronze Smelting was Bronze Alloy, and beside it was a branch list. The list contained the skills Corrosion-resistant Bronze Alloy… Shape-memory Bronze Alloy… Wear-resistant Bronze Alloy… Weight-bearing Bronze Alloy… Sterilizing Bronze Alloy… Superconducting Bronze Alloy… The remaining skills further down the list could not be viewed.

An Wen lit up the Bronze Alloy icon, and the icons in the branch list appeared to be able to be lit as well.

What else was there to think about then?

One by one, An Wen lit up the icons in the branch list, until he reached Sterilizing Bronze Alloy and could not light up any more of the icons below.

All sorts of knowledge about bronze alloys emerged in his mind.

“I think I now have a brilliant brain.”

After ten minutes or so, An Wen absorbed a great amount of knowledge about bronze alloys. He instantly became so excited that his eyes glowed in glee.

What is copper?

For most people, copper is simply electrical wires.

In actual fact, however, copper takes up an extremely large proportion of humans’ industrial systems of today. Most, if not all products of commercial manufacturing including that of the machinery and equipment industry, the aerospace industry, as well as the vehicles and vessels industry, require the use of copper alloy materials.

At the forefront of science, scientists are also still researching continuously about copper.

“What a shame… I can’t light up any more of the icons below. If only I could acquire knowledge about Superconducting Bronze Alloy, it would be truly exceptional.”

An Wen uttered with slight regret.

Well, humans are always discontent.

Closing the Materials List, An Wen continued browsing the other lists to see if there were any more that he could light up.

It turned out that he found exactly that.

He could not light up any icons in the Engineering List previously, but he could light them all up now.

It was the third list that was now able to be lit up fully, after the Mathematics List and Physics List.

“It is completely possible for me to become a qualified postgraduate.”

After absorbing all of the engineering knowledge, An Wen felt absolutely no stress about his upcoming postgraduate studies.

He then continued to browse the other lists to see if he could light up any more.

Unfortunately, the Energy List was still completely greyed out and none of the icons could be lit.

Inhale!

An Wen closed the list and sat on the ground.

“It’s a good thing that I am able to activate more of the skills now. However, the question is, why am I able to do so now, but not before?”

It was extremely hard for An Wen to understand why that was so.

Previously, he had thought that the skills could only be activated after he left the newcomer’s village or found and progressed to the next stage.

Now, however, without him doing anything, the skills in Materials List and Engineering List could be activated.

Why was that the case?

An Wen recalled everything that he had done recently.

He did not seem to have done anything special, however.

At most, he had ‘showed off’ his abilities outside his camp.

Apart from that, he had been keeping a low profile throughout his past while staying at ‘home’ dutifully; he did not do anything out of the ordinary.

“Right, right… About bronze, I mined some ore in the morning and excavated a block of azurite.”

An Wen suddenly remembered.

The activation of the Materials List was certainly related to the fact that he had excavated a block of azurite.

“So, the activation of the Engineering List is related to the activation of the Materials List, since the engineering knowledge I acquired today from the activated skills was largely related to large-scale machinery and equipment.”

“The reason why the skill icons in the Engineering List were unable to be lit up previously is because they had to be supported by suitable materials. The strength of wood materials is too weak, but bronze alloy is strong enough.”

“This means that the activation of the various Skill Lists is related to the raw materials available… No, that’s too vague.”

“More precisely, the player has to fulfill certain prerequisites before the Lists are activated. For example, I discovered the copper mine, so the copper-related skills lit up in the Materials List.”

“As a result of Bronze Alloy, the Engineering List icons were lit up. It’s a chain reaction.”

At that thought, An Wen could essentially confirm the rules regarding the activation of the Skill Lists.

However, to An Wen, none of it was as important as another matter.

“Apart from discovering the mining cave, I also discovered a black pit in the morning.”

“Analyzing based on the mining cave, the black pit should be a coal mine.”

An Wen was extremely excited!

Would the discovery of the coal mine signify the activation of the Energy List?