Courtyard House: Starting with handing over the keys, the state helps me abuse birds.

Xie Weihong nodded, and the two walked together towards the backyard.

Once inside, Duan Chengyi took a document out of his briefcase and handed it to him.

"The training progress of the second batch of trainees is all here."

Xie Weihong took the document and looked at it.

The three hundred people were divided into twelve classes, with one student from the first batch serving as the instructor for each class.

After a month of training, the results were remarkable.

"In Zhao Weize's class, twenty-three people sensed the Qi," Duan Chengyi said from the side. "Sun Guodong's class had eighteen. Zhou Bin's class had twenty-one. Wu Zhen's class had nineteen. The others were around ten or twenty each."

Xie Weihong nodded and continued flipping through the pages.

"These 300 people are indeed better than the first batch," Duan Chengyi continued. "The selection process was more rigorous, and their physical and mental qualities are excellent. In addition, the first batch of twelve instructors are experienced and teach in detail. Director Lu said that after another six months of training, this group will be ready to be put to use."

Xie Weihong closed the document and handed it back to him.

"good."

Duan Chengyi put away the documents with a smile on his face, but did not leave.

Xie Weihong looked at him: "Is there anything else?"

Duan Chengyi hesitated for a moment, then said, "Wei Hong, there's something... I don't know if I should ask."

"ask."

Duan Chengyi lowered his voice: "The expert group has studied all the technology you gave us last time. They said it's all genuine, and far more advanced than what we use now. They're wondering... where did you get all this stuff?"

Xie Weihong looked at him without saying a word.

Duan Chengyi quickly waved his hand: "I'm not trying to pry into your secrets, it's just...it's just that sometimes I find it too unbelievable. How could one person know so many technologies? Unless..."

He paused, then didn't continue.

Xie Weihong was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly smiled.

"Uncle Duan, just ask what you want to ask."

Duan Chengyi took a deep breath and asked, "Are there some... organization? Or some... force behind you?"

Xie Weihong looked at him calmly.

"have."

Duan Chengyi's heart skipped a beat.

"But this power isn't what you think." Xie Weihong stood up and walked to the window. "Simply put, I get rewards for doing certain things. Those rewards include technological data, cultivation techniques, and cultivation resources. That's it."

Duan Chengyi was stunned for a long time.

"It's that simple?"

"It's that simple."

Duan Chengyi smiled wryly: "Then what you did was..."

"Train them." Xie Weihong looked out the window; the people in the central courtyard were being carried onto stretchers. "The worse they suffer, the more reward I get."

Duan Chengyi remained silent.

After a long pause, he finally spoke: "Then...then them..."

"Damn it." Xie Weihong turned around. "The crimes they committed deserve ten deaths. Letting them live now, to make some contribution to the country, is already letting them off easy."

Duan Chengyi nodded and said nothing more.

Xie Weihong walked to the table, took a piece of paper from the drawer, and handed it to him.

"Perfect timing, I have something for you."

Duan Chengyi took it and was stunned.

The paper contained a complex pattern, like some kind of array, with densely packed lines and symbols intertwined, dazzling the eye. Next to it were some words he couldn't understand.

"This is……"

"A Spirit Gathering Array," Xie Weihong said. "It's for cultivation. Once set up, it can gather the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, doubling the speed of cultivation."

Duan Chengyi's eyes widened in surprise.

Double the increase?

Does that mean that what used to take a year to train can now be done in half a year?

"This thing..." His voice trembled, "How do I use it?"

"Just arrange it according to the diagram," Xie Weihong said. "But the diagram only shows the arrangement, not the underlying principles. I've tried it, and it's too inefficient; it can only accommodate a few people at a time. I'd like you to study it and see if you can figure out the underlying principles."

Duan Chengyi was stunned.

"You mean...we should study it?"

"Yes." Xie Weihong nodded. "If we can figure out the principle, we might be able to mass-produce it. Then, cultivation bases all over the country could use spirit-gathering arrays, doubling the cultivation speed."

Duan Chengyi's breathing became rapid.

"Furthermore," Xie Weihong took out a small cloth bag from her bosom and handed it to him, "this contains some cultivation crystals, which you may need for your research. The formation needs energy to operate, and these crystals are the energy source."

Duan Chengyi took the cloth bag, opened it, and took a look.

It contained dozens of crystals the size of a fingernail, completely transparent, emitting a faint glow. Holding it in your hand, you could feel a warm energy seeping into your body.

"this……"

"Take it," Xie Weihong said. "Let those experts study it carefully. If they can figure it out, it will be a tremendous benefit to the country."

Duan Chengyi took a deep breath and carefully put away the blueprints and the cloth bag.

"I'll go right now!"

He turned to leave, but stopped at the door and looked back at Xie Weihong.

"Wei Hong, thank you."

Xie Weihong smiled.

Duan Chengyi pushed open the door and went out; his footsteps quickly disappeared into the courtyard.

---

In the western suburbs of Beijing, at a heavily guarded research institute.

Duan Chengyi stood in a conference room, with more than a dozen people sitting in front of him.

Among these people were elderly mathematicians with gray hair, physicists wearing thick glasses, young scholars who had just returned from abroad, and several engineering and technical experts in military uniforms.

Each person had a copy of the blueprint in front of them.

Those are the blueprints for a spirit-gathering array.

The meeting room was extremely quiet, with only the occasional sound of papers being turned.

Duan Chengyi stood on the stage and waited for a while before speaking.

"Everyone, you've been looking at these blueprints for twenty minutes now. What are your thoughts?"

No one speaks.

The experts stared at the blueprints in front of them, their brows furrowed, and remained silent.

After a long while, an elderly mathematician with gray hair looked up, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes.

"Director Duan, this thing..." He paused, as if organizing his thoughts, "...doesn't seem to be from our world."

Duan Chengyi's heart skipped a beat.

"How so?"

The old mathematician pointed to a symbol on the drawing: "Look here. This symbol looks like some kind of mathematical symbol, but the operation it represents doesn't match any mathematical system we know. I've studied mathematics my whole life and I've never seen anything like it."

A physicist wearing thick glasses chimed in, "And then there are these lines. They look like paths for some kind of energy flow, but according to the laws of physics we know, such paths cannot exist. It violates the law of conservation of energy."

Another young scholar said, "I tried to simulate it in my mind. If you arrange it according to this blueprint, it is theoretically possible to gather some kind of energy. But why it can gather energy is completely unknown."

As Duan Chengyi listened to their words, his heart grew heavier and heavier.

"So...you can't figure it out?"

The old mathematician shook his head: "It's not that we can't figure it out, it's that it takes time. This thing is too new, unlike anything we know. We need to start from scratch and explore it step by step."

He paused, then added, "Moreover, we need actual testing. Just looking at blueprints isn't enough; we need to set it up, get it running, use instruments to measure, and collect data. Only through repeated experiments can we possibly find the patterns."

Duan Chengyi thought for a moment and asked, "What do you need?"

The old mathematician looked around at the people and said, "We need a large enough space, some precise measuring instruments, and... time."

"How long will it take?"