In an instant, like the muffled sound of air escaping, the sun-like energy core's light quickly dimmed.

It became quiet and calm again, shimmering with a crystal-like glow.

Yet at this moment, everyone fell silent.

"...What went wrong?"

......

Ten minutes later.

Everyone stood together on the platform in front of the Angry Iron Plate, watching as Zumama removed her hand from the core.

Liko eagerly asked, "Master, what happened? Didn't you and the boss verify that the structure should be fine…?"

Lin Guang also nodded.

The Spirit Pattern architecture on the framework, he even specially replicated it in his Domain within the Artificial Divine Domain when inscribing the Spirit Patterns.

The answer was that there were no problems, and the performance was exceptionally excellent within the Tier Five range.

Zumama jumped down with a thud, her slender bare feet and ample thighs supporting her body. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Her brow slightly furrowed as she looked at the core located at the very center of the Angry Iron Plate.

"...It's the instability of the core causing the issue."

Liko's pupils suddenly shrank: "?!

"No way?!"

The architecture of the Angry Iron Plate, overall, wasn't any special distributed processing system but rather divided into two systems.

The pilot is one core, and this Core Crystal is another core. The two share the tasks of computation and execution for the entire machine.

This core was Zumama's past creation, her proudest work, the processor of the Angry Iron Plate, the energy distribution system.

If Zumama is the brain of the Angry Iron Plate… then this core is its heart.

Core malfunction?

At this time?

This news was just like a bolt from the blue!

Keep in mind, the Mechanical Spirit Cup is less than a month and a half away, and the repair and recasting tasks for various parts of the Angry Iron Plate are already fully booked, where's the time to make another Tier Five Perfect Core?

Moreover—

No matter how you put it.

The current architecture is designed on this core and is the foundation of the Angry Iron Plate, the underlying logic of everything.

Rather than saying that the framework is the Angry Iron Plate…

It's better to say that this core is what bears the name "Angry Iron Plate."

A Spiritual Artifact of Perfect Level, due to the existence of Spiritual Properties, each one is difficult to replicate and mass-produce.

Even if designed well, using the same blueprint and materials to create them into a Perfect Level, there would be subtle differences between two Perfect Level Spiritual Artifacts.

So even if a new core is truly made, the likelihood of it being compatible is very low…

"No, that's not possible! It should be good!"

Liko scratched her head: "When we came back from the warm-up match, we were relieved for half a day that the core wasn't broken!"

Zumama's eyes also fluctuated greatly, she calmed her mood, and in her expression, there was more of an indescribable confusion.

"No, it's not actually broken, it's just a bit unadapted… since that time we came back…"

"Unadapted? That time?"

"It seems… it's hard for me to describe, but I feel…"

The girl tried hard to organize her words.

But after thinking for a long time, she couldn't think of how to describe it. The tip of her pointed ears blushed pink, and in a hurry, she looked at Lin Guang, extending her hand.

Lin Guang silently nodded, holding the girl's cool, calloused but still soft hands, slightly sweaty.

A black crown appeared and rotated above his head.

The next moment.

Strange and colorful images flashed across his eyes, read and then transmitted to the others present.

In an instant, the three of them seemed to be back two months ago.

Facing the sword from Zero.

—The taste of iron and fire seemed to be tasted, countless ether turbulences passing through the Perception.

But at that moment, Zumama's mind was nothing else but the blue and white opponent in front of her and that seemingly killer stunning sword strike.

Facing that deadly blow, Zumama almost infused all the power in her body into the core, raising the load of the machine core to its utmost limit.

The saw blade of the giant machine traced a stunning trajectory as it sliced towards the opponent, although not harming the opponent, it broke through their Ethereal Shield.

At that time, even she didn't expect that such a strike could achieve such results.

And at that moment.

Zumama seemed to hear from the core a sound she had never experienced before, indescribable, but with a sense of emotion and spirituality…

A roar.

And just now, when the Angry Iron Plate lost control, Zumama seemed to faintly feel this sensation from the core again.

......

"I understand now."

From the empathy and transmission of that message, Remyu was almost the first to react, her eyes widening.

"It's not broken, it's True Activation, causing internal machine mismatch and instability!"

She looked at Liko and Zumama: "At the time, the Angry Iron Plate's materials probably weren't sufficient compared to now, right?"

Liko instinctively nodded.

Thanks to Lin Guang's funding… now just the framework, the various Spiritual Materials used to bear the Spirit Patterns were already close in value to the entire Angry Iron Plate in the past.

But she quickly raised a question: "True Activation?"

Zumama also showed a puzzled expression.

—What does that mean?

Lin Guang suddenly realized: "You mean the instability caused by having an energy level that is too high and insufficient tier levels?"

He had heard of this term.

Just like the threshold to condense True Intent requires the hard strength of a Five-Star Peak and the Seed of Intent, Spirit Beasts and Magical Beasts condensing their True Body also have similar thresholds.