Chapter 129
Chapter 129
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 129
Chapter Title: Intellectuals of This Era (2)
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The first short-term project for the repair club, "Intellectuals of This Era," was research on the Incense Burner Dharma Throne.
They planned to investigate the power over space and time inherent in the dharma throne.
The materials prepared were the dharma throne itself and the research journal of the Previous Dragon God.
The owner of the incense burner made a bold declaration.
"What should we start with? Disassemble it?"
Seoran, Jang Seonhwa, and Geum Yeongyeong—who were puppet artisans or mechanism artisans—foamed at the mouth one after another.
"Lady Damcheong, no, that's not it!"
"Exactly, there's no guarantee we can reassemble it!"
"B-better to do a non-destructive inspection!"
Fortunately, Damcheong possessed a mind open to new ideas.
Thanks to that, the incense burner dharma throne escaped the danger of destruction.
The three creators breathed sighs of relief.
Damcheong asked.
"So, how do you perform this non-destructive inspection?"
Geum Yeongyeong recalled knowledge she had learned as a child.
"There are many types of non-destructive inspections. Anyway, as long as you don't break the item during the process, it's fine. The means we can use right now are Lady Dragon Girl's Dragon Eye or Seoran's flesh senses."
"Oh, then let's try it right away."
"Lady Dragon Girl, please look inside and describe it in a drawing. I'll fetch brush and paper."
At that moment, Seoran's left and right brain hemispheres sparked simultaneously.
She had remembered Damcheong's drawing skills, which she had forgotten.
Even generously scored, they were on the level of pictograms.
Seoran stopped Geum Yeongyeong, who was about to stand up.
"Yeongyeong, sit down. I'll go instead."
"Out of nowhere? Well, okay."
"Be right back."
Seoran left the club room and headed to the puppet workshop.
She spotted the stationery used for drawing blueprints.
Seoran grabbed some paper, a brush, and one puppet.
Damcheong said to Seoran, who had hurried back.
"Didn't you bring an inkstone or ink?"
"This is an ink-filled brush."
"Ooh, how ingenious."
Geum Yeongyeong pointed at the porcelain puppet and asked.
"Why'd you bring that puppet?"
"It's a painter puppet to draw the internal structure of the incense burner dharma throne that we see through the Dragon Eye instead. This way, Lady Damcheong can focus solely on observing."
"Well, that makes sense."
And so, the non-destructive inspection began.
Damcheong opened her eyes wide and stared at the incense burner.
The power of the Dragon Eye, which peered into all things in creation, was activated.
The complex internal structure came into view at a glance.
Damcheong muttered with a puzzled expression.
"The structure seems a bit strange..."
Seoran pointed at the painter puppet and said.
"Seeing is worth a thousand words! Now, fire the lightning!"
"Got it."
A bolt of lightning shot from Damcheong's deer antlers.
The lightning struck the puppet, which had been sitting blankly.
The porcelain puppet interpreted the electrical signals racing through its circuits and converted them into a black-and-white flat image.
The painter puppet's hands moved busily.
The scene Damcheong witnessed unfolded on the paper.
In an instant, a complex blueprint was complete.
Seoran checked the blueprint with puffed-up anticipation.
Then she spoke in a disappointed voice.
"Aw, what is this?"
Jang Seonhwa, who peered at the drawing, chimed in.
"Teacher, maybe the puppet is broken?"
"Is that so?"
"Let's smack it a few times."
The two pounded on the painter puppet's back.
It might look like machine abuse, but it was actually a useful method.
If the malfunction was due to debris in the circuits, this was often enough to fix it.
Geum Yeongyeong examined the blueprint drawn by the puppet.
Indeed, the result was a total mess.
The internal structure was tangled every which way, with blank spaces here and there where parts weren't depicted.
Geum Yeongyeong asked Damcheong.
"Lady Dragon Girl, is this depiction accurate?"
"At least from what I saw, there's nothing wrong with it."
"Then it would be reasonable to assume the space inside the dharma throne is distorted. Is this some kind of power that manipulates space and time?"
The duo who had been beating up the innocent puppet froze.
An awkward silence flowed for a moment.
Jang Seonhwa broke the stillness.
"Looks like the puppet wasn't broken after all."
"Well, there's no way my creation could be that shoddy."
"As expected of you, Teacher!"
The porcelain puppet, cracked in places here and there, was quickly shoved into a corner of the club room.
There had been a bit of commotion, but the joint research continued.
The Intellectuals of This Era put their heads together.
And they reached one conclusion.
All four people gathered here were complete amateurs.
Seoran and Jang Seonhwa's field of expertise was puppetry.
Geum Yeongyeong was the repair club's sole mechanism artisan, but she hadn't completed higher education in dharma implements.
Damcheong went without saying.
In the end, the repair club's incense burner dharma throne research stumbled right at the first step.
The Intellectuals of This Era killed time exchanging nothing but vague speculations.
Then noon arrived.
Jang Seonhwa, owner of a precise stomach clock, said.
"I'm hungry. Shall we eat lunch first?"
The four headed to the dining hall amiably.
*****
Geum Yeongyeong was taken aback upon entering the dining hall.
"What? Where'd the table we always eat at go?"
The large round table they usually ate at was gone.
To be precise, part of it was still there.
Like a pizza with only 2 out of 8 slices left.
Seoran said innocently.
"The table? It's right in front of you."
"No, only a quarter is left."
"Oh, that? I changed the shape a bit for a mood refresh."
Damcheong quickly played the role of hype woman.
"No wonder the dining hall looks so much bigger! Seonhwa, what do you think?"
"The open spaciousness is truly impressive. The boring space we saw every day has been spiced with a small change as seasoning, bringing a sense of novelty. I give it 5 out of 5."
"I agree. Seeing the dining hall decorated in a fresh way really whets the appetite. Let's eat."
The four sat huddled along the curved outer edge of the remaining round table (25% left).
From the left: Damcheong, Geum Yeongyeong, Seoran, Jang Seonhwa.
It was an overt positioning to surround Geum Yeongyeong.
It was the twelfth countermeasure taught by the inner demon expert, aka "Eating together at a narrow table."
Damcheong picked up some pork side dish and gently placed it on Geum Yeongyeong's plate.
Seoran followed suit, picking up some chicken side dish for her.
The fourteenth countermeasure: "Picking sides for her."
Jang Seonhwa astutely hopped on the bandwagon.
"Teacher, try some of this duck."
"Thanks, Seonhwa. Here, you have some beef too."
"The beef melts in your mouth!"
Geum Yeongyeong couldn't quite grasp the situation.
But she couldn't just sit there idly.
The ones next to her seemed to expect something.
Geum Yeongyeong hesitantly placed some duck on Damcheong's plate.
"Lady Dragon Girl, eat lots."
"Thank you so much."
"N-no, it's nothing..."
The harmonious mealtime ended.
While sipping sweet honey tea, the ground shook.
It was the arrival of the Feast Mountain Great Peng.
Damcheong naturally stood from her seat.
She opened the dining hall window and deftly stuck her head out, careful not to snag her deer antlers on the frame.
Then she wet her finger and whistled a few times.
After repeated failures, she just shouted loudly.
"I'm over here!"
The thudding footsteps gradually receded.
Damcheong pulled her head back in from outside.
Her deer antlers caught on the window frame with a clack, pausing her once.
She twisted her head this way and that and successfully escaped.
Seoran, resting her chin on her hand, said to Damcheong.
"We gotta do something about that guy soon."
"Yeah."
"Should the next research topic be miniaturizing the Great Peng?"
Geum Yeongyeong, who had been listening quietly beside them, asked.
"Wait, what about the incense burner dharma throne research?"
Seoran replied nonchalantly.
"Just commission experts for the research. Whether it's technical analysis or reverse engineering, they'll handle it. Non-destructive inspections would be way safer done by mechanism artisans than newbies like us anyway."
Damcheong, wiser than usual with a full belly, agreed.
"Indeed, that makes sense."
Jang Seonhwa, who liked puppetry anyway, agreed.
"Brilliant idea."
With everyone agreeing, Geum Yeongyeong's thoughts leaned that way too.
"Well, yeah, that works."
Repair club, first joint research resolved!
*****
The clone of the Feast Mountain Great Peng was completed in two days.
A cute height of about 1 zhang (roughly 3m).
Fluffy petal feathers and a blunt, soft beak.
Its body was so perfectly round it could be rolled.
Zero possibility of physical harm to others.
But it could inflict mental harm.
Due to its lethally adorable nature.
Jang Seonhwa clutched her chest in pain.
"I can't... I can't breathe..."
The other three ignored the maknae as if accustomed to it.
Geum Yeongyeong asked.
"Now we just connect it to the main body and done?"
Seoran answered.
"Yeah, exactly. Lady Damcheong, let's head out right away."
"Got it."
The group boarded Damcheong's Five-Colored Cloud and entered the giant beak of the Feast Mountain Great Peng.
They went straight to the control room.
The puppet core, pulsing like a heart, awaited the group.
Seoran snapped the consciousness-linking device she brought into one of the nearby terminals.
A new function was added with one touch.
Thanks to the fully modular design.
With this, the Feast Mountain Great Peng miniaturization project was complete.
Seoran firmly pressed the activation button for the consciousness-linking device, the Dream-Within-a-Dream Organ.
The puppet core's pulsing weakened dramatically.
Damcheong asked.
"Did it succeed?"
"Yes, now that the main body is in hibernation, the Feast Mountain Great Peng should have awakened in its clone form."
"It must be anxious about its suddenly shrunken body. Let's go reassure it quickly."
The group headed for the control room exit.
As Seoran turned off the lights last, she spotted something.
It was a cylinder covered in ancient patterns.
A certain memory popped out from the depths of forgetfulness.
"Right, the cylinder."
Seoran picked up the ancient civilization's cylinder brimming with illusionary energy and left the control room.
She planned to commission research on this later too.
She figured it was probably just a temperature regulator at most.
On the way out, Geum Yeongyeong asked.
"By the way, how are you solving the connection range limit? It only works near the main body right now."
"I've already thought of that."
"What is it? Using a legion of Cyclops Eyes for relays?"
Seoran shook her head firmly.
"Nope, we're gonna float the entire communication facility into the sky."
They finally emerged outside the main body.
The clone Feast Mountain Great Peng was frolicking in the green field.