Empress: Your Majesty, please respect yourself, I don't want to be promoted

Upon hearing the words of the Xiao family patriarch, Xiao Yun's small hands clenched tightly under her sleeves.

On the surface, however, he remained calm and composed, appearing as if he had been taught a lesson.

"I'm sorry, Ancestor, I was just being too attached to appearances."

"Haha~ It's alright."

The Xiao family patriarch smiled.

"To err is human, to forgive divine. Yun'er, you've just been in the Three Pavilions for too long and had too much contact with that traitorous Lu bandit. You've picked up some bad habits and inevitably lost some of your decisiveness. You'll be fine after a while."

"The success of one general is built on the bones of ten thousand soldiers. This is an unchanging truth. My Xiao family owes nothing to the imperial court. On the contrary, it is the Jiang family that owes our Xiao family. We are simply taking back everything that rightfully belongs to the Xiao family."

pat~
A crisp sound suddenly rang out from the thick fog.

Xiao Yun could tell that it was the sound of a piece being placed during a game of chess.

"Yun'er, you must remember, to achieve your goal, nothing in this world is indispensable."

"Kindness is the pity of the strong, just a momentary whim. It's okay to have it, but you can't care about it, much less be bound by it."

A hoarse voice filled the entire hall.

"You and I are chess players, and we are chess pieces for life."

"The world, heroes, chessboard, black and white—what do gain and loss, life and death have to do with the players?"

Xiao Yun raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Thank you for your teachings, Grandfather. I have learned a lot."

"hehe."

The Xiao family patriarch smiled, gave a few casual instructions, and then waved his hand, dismissing Xiao Yun.

"Take care, Ancestor. Your grandson takes his leave."

Xiao Yun cupped her hands in greeting, then slowly turned and left.

Luoyang, the Imperial Workshop.

Lu Chen sat in the inner hall, carefully reviewing the progress of the key projects currently underway at Tiangong Company.

With Xiao Yun acting as the acting head of Lingyun Prefecture, he didn't need to expend much energy. He only needed to steer the overall direction. Therefore, he devoted more of his energy to the Tiangong Division, a core department that was constantly changing the world.

The coal and mudstone have been improved seven or eight times, and the production cost has been decreasing while the effect has been continuously improving. Now, people in Sili and some nearby provinces, prefectures and counties no longer need to worry about heating during the winter.

Unless someone is exceptionally lazy, virtually no ordinary people will freeze to death.

The priority of these two projects can be lowered further.

Moreover, due to the large-scale use of coal, most combustion-type magic arrays have been discontinued, and the total consumption of spirit stones has decreased by 40% compared to previous years. However, the production capacity of smelting, armor casting, and weapon forging has increased by 30%. In addition, the quality of weapons and armor has also improved significantly due to the various new forging methods and production methods researched by the Heavenly Crafts Bureau.

Unfortunately, this traditional weapon will probably be phased out soon.

After all, no matter how high quality these weapons and armor are, they can't compare to the Spirit Pivot, which can instantly cast spirit spells. Therefore, future production capacity will definitely be focused on the Spirit Pivot and the equipment that matches it, so as to complete the replacement of the new military equipment as soon as possible.

After that, we need to build new production lines to melt down these traditional weapons and use the melted-down materials to create new equipment.

The most important task at present is still the improvement of the Illusionary Spirit Array and the Spirit Pivot; the imperial court desperately needs combat power right now.

The King of Chu has gathered countless powerful families and sects, large and small, whose strength is terrifying. Even with the might of a sage king, it would be difficult to defeat him. The court's military strength must be improved as soon as possible.

And we need to improve it while continuing production.

The enemy won't wait for you to optimize your weapons before launching an attack.

Of course, they could also maintain the existing production line and use some controllable smuggling channels to sell these soon-to-be-obsolete high-quality armors to the King of Chu, the Western Continent, and the barbarian tribes on the frontier, in exchange for raw materials, food, and other resources, thus taking advantage of the time difference.

The specific choices need to be discussed at the higher levels; he can't make such a big decision on his own.

He personally prefers to sell these old-fashioned junk items to alleviate the foreseeable food problem after the Illusionary Spirit Array is deployed, but he can't sell them too quickly.

Besides the improvements to the Spirit Pivot and the Illusionary Spirit Array, the projects also included communication, food supply increases, and transportation.

We need to raise the priority of increasing grain production by several levels and allocate more resources to it.

After all, while the Illusionary Spirit Array is powerful, it would significantly increase the demand for food. With the current food reserves of the imperial court, it is impossible to deploy it on a large scale; it can only sustain the consumption of a few key areas.

The transportation aspect has been handed over to Liyue, and there are already some promising signs. This girl is simply born to do scientific research. She just finished developing the Spirit Pivot and the Illusionary Spirit Array, and she can immediately devote herself to another key project. She can make progress in just a few days. Without changing the existing array base, she has managed to increase the transportation efficiency of the Wind Array by 10%.

This talent is indeed stronger than Su Ning's.

Moreover, this girl is a top-notch martial artist, selected as one of the original Xuanji Guards and becoming one of his first batch of fierce warriors.

It has to be said, people who are constantly being fed by God are truly amazing.

As for the communications that Su Ning was in charge of.
Just as Lu Chen was pondering, a series of footsteps suddenly came from outside.

Immediately afterwards, there was a gentle knock on the door.

"Lord Lu."

Su Ning's light, airy voice drifted in, interrupting Lu Chen's thoughts.

Lu Chen raised his head.

"Is this Su Siye? Come in."

click
The door was gently pushed open, and Su Ning walked in with her head down, then bowed and cupped her hands to Lu Chen.

"This humble official pays his respects to Lord Lu."

Lu Chen smiled and said, "Why are you suddenly being so polite?"

"Forehead"

A simple sentence left Su Ning, a young woman considerably older than Lu Chen, somewhat at a loss for words. She lowered her head, a faint blush rising to her cheeks. *Click!*
Chai Hongyu, who was serving nearby and almost invisible, clenched her fist without making a sound, and a hint of vigilance flashed in her eyes as she looked at Su Ning.

He then shook his head helplessly and glanced at Lu Chen.

This man is truly a grave sinner.
Lu Chen didn't think too much about it; he just made a casual joke and didn't pay attention to Su Ning's reaction. He then habitually said, "Sit down."

"Thank you, sir."

Su Ning responded and then sat down below Lu Chen with her head down.

While looking at the documents on the table, Lu Chen asked, "Since we last met, Su Siye has been busy developing the communication technique and hasn't come to see me for ten days. Is there any progress this time, or have you encountered any difficulties?"

Seeing that Lu Chen got straight to the point and didn't make any jokes about his overzealous stamping last time, Su Ning breathed a sigh of relief, but a hint of disappointment flashed across her delicate face.

After a moment, she took a deep breath to calm herself before speaking:
"In reply to you, sir, both are true."

"Oh?"

Lu Chen raised his head slightly, looking at Su Ning with a rather surprised expression.

"How to say?"

Su Ning did not answer immediately. Instead, she took out two high-level scrolls engraved with magic arrays from her bosom, opened them, placed one in front of Lu Chen, and then stood up with the other scroll in her hand and walked away.

"Sir, please look."

As she spoke, Su Ning opened the scroll in her hand, chanted incantations over it, and simultaneously cast various spells with one hand.

As she moved, the scroll in front of Lu Chen made a "beep beep beep" sound.

These sounds varied in length and rhythm, but each consisted of only one syllable.

A moment later, as if realizing something, Lu Chen's expression shifted slightly.

Su Ning stopped what she was doing at that moment and closed the scroll.

"My lord, as you just saw, as long as you input spiritual power into the new communication array, you can send a message through another connected array via the array's transformation."

"I have already tested it. Just inputting the spiritual power of a low-grade spirit crystal into it allows for one-hour communication between Luoyang and Cang County, a thousand miles away, via the new array. It's readily available and very low-cost, however..."

As she spoke, she suddenly lowered her head, and her voice became noticeably softer.

"Currently, it can only produce the simplest sounds and cannot form language. We are still researching how to make the magic circle emit specific sounds, but it seems unlikely to be achieved in the short term. Therefore, I would like to ask if you, sir, have any ideas or approaches?"

At this point, a look of frustration gradually appeared on Su Ning's face.

Compared to Li Yue, who developed the Illusionary Spirit Array and the Spirit Pivot in one go, she felt that her performance was really too poor. With the same manpower and resources, her research progress was so much slower than Li Yue's.

However, after hearing what she said, Lu Chen's eyes lit up.

Snapped!
He suddenly reached out and slammed his hand heavily on the table in front of him.

"enough!"

Lu Chen suddenly stood up, looking at Su Ning with great excitement. Then he reached out and put his hand firmly on Su Ning's shoulder, shouting, "Well done! Su Siye, you really didn't disappoint me!"

"what?"

Su Ning looked at Lu Chen with a bewildered expression.

After realizing what was happening, her eyes suddenly widened. Her voice trembled as she said:

"Sir, do you mean this half-baked communication technique is useful?"

"It works! It's so useful!!"

Lu Chen laughed.

"This is a revolutionary product, how could it be useless? No matter how primitive it is, it's still a thousand times better than current communication methods!"

"what?"

Su Ning turned her head and looked at the scroll on the table, her face full of disbelief.

"How can this be?"

She never expected that this piece of junk, which she considered worthless, would receive such high praise in Lu Chen's eyes.

It's important to understand that what Lu Chen considers epoch-making products are either things like coal and mudstone that can directly change lifestyles and production methods, or terrifying weapons like the Illusionary Spirit Array and the Spirit Pivot that can change the way warfare is conducted.

While what she made could produce sound over extremely long distances and was inexpensive to operate, it was a piece of junk that could only produce a single syllable. How could it possibly be compared to the Spirit Pivot and the Illusionary Spirit Array?

"Nothing is impossible."

Lu Chen didn't explain immediately, but instead asked impatiently, "By the way, Su Siye, is this new type of magic array expensive? What grade of materials are used to build the array? Are there any rare materials involved?"

Under his gaze, Su Ning quickly came to her senses.

Although she was full of doubts, she suppressed her curiosity, shook her head at Lu Chen, and replied:
"The cost of the magic array itself is not high. Ordinary cinnabar, weak water, mysterious branches, mithril, etc. are sufficient. However, it is a bit difficult to operate and requires the skill level of the magician. But this can be solved by engraving a scroll."

"As for the scroll, it doesn't need to be too good. An ordinary scroll will do. It's just that there are too many seal characters engraved on it. Ordinary scrolls are too rough and can't engrave fine seal characters, so the effect is somewhat compromised. It needs to be fixed in a place to be unrolled, and the size of the scroll will also increase accordingly."

"At the lowest cost, with current technology, it can be made for 100 strings of cash."

Upon hearing this, Lu Chen immediately slapped his thigh.

Snapped!
"Good! Very good!!"

"That's it!"

However, just as he was cheering loudly, Su Ning's expression inexplicably became somewhat strange, while Chai Hongyu behind Lu Chen suddenly turned somewhat unfriendly, as if she had been provoked by something.

A moment later, Su Ning returned to her seat, coughed twice, and then reached out, somewhat awkwardly, to rub her leg beneath the lady-in-waiting's long skirt. (End of Chapter)