"You seem to be on the verge of a breakthrough."

Ah Yajun nudged Li Pu with his elbow, considering his understanding of Xiu Lijia, it seemed like this was something very valuable.

"Got it from running a dungeon."

Without waiting for inquiries, Li Pu directly explained.

Because if he didn't speak first, it felt like Xiu Lijia looked ready to devour him.

"Where you got it from isn't important, do you know what this is?"

Xiu Lijia grabbed his shoulder.

"Looks like our experimental project is saved!"

Her expression was extremely excited.

"Then tell us, what exactly is this thing?"

Ah Yajun pressed on.

"It's a long story."

"Mainly, I can't determine its quality right now, let me take you to meet someone first."

As she spoke, Xiu Lijia had Li Pu put the thing away first.

If this thing were seen by another project group, they might be tempted.

So on the way to the project group, she began to explain to the two of them.

The Crystal Core, that's the name of the big pearl.

It's a material capable of encapsulating concentrated essence energy.

But in fact, for the project's needs, it's somewhat like buying a wooden box and returning the pearl.

What they truly need is the vessel that holds this essence energy.

Which is this big pearl itself.

Essence energy is indeed valuable, but there are other means to obtain it.

With today's research technology, humans can even autonomously compress essence energy.

However, the production is slightly low, unlike the natural reserves produced in other worlds, after all, they've been accumulated over unknown ages.

With Xiu Lijia's current level of knowledge and operation, there's no way to determine the amount of essence energy contained within this big pearl.

And vessels are born for energy, the amount of energy determines the vessel's sturdiness.

So far, there's no straightforward method to measure vessels directly, so their only way is to estimate the pearl vessel's value based on the storage of essence energy.

Just about when Xiu Lijia finished her explanation, the three arrived at a rather spacious laboratory.

You could even say it's like a storeroom.

Robotic arms and smart robots were busily working here.

A giant combination assembly robot towering at ten meters stood still, its head lowered, supported by metal racks in the storeroom's center.

"What on earth is this thing?!"

It was Ah Yajun's first time seeing such a thing, prompting a surprised exclamation.

"Feels... a bit out of place."

And Li Pu offered his evaluation.

He didn't understand research stuff and wasn't interested in it.

But when he was young, curiosity led him to flip through some of grandfather's books.

So he could roughly guess what it was.

A patchwork robot.

Yes, that's its straightforward name.

From its exterior look now, it did seem so.

Its head, from its shape, appeared to be a fish beast's skull.

Only it was covered in a metal shell on the outside, with a layer of paint over it.

The body seemed to be the trunk of a large tree spirit, round and bulky. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The left arm was probably the skeletal structure of a large feline beast, with some tribal beast's strip-shaped weapons filling the gaps between bones.

The right arm was the spine of a serpent beast, with its snake skin still intact, just the internal flesh removed, currently with a robot performing further processing on it.

As for the two legs, no details were provided, but they're all from beast remains.

Meaning this was indeed a robot pieced together from beast remnants.

Of course, the internal linkage technology and structure were beyond his understanding.

All in all, this kind of robot was designed for Summoners or even ordinary people to pilot.

It could significantly enhance their combat capabilities compared to their own.

Even if this thing seemed somewhat crude now, Li Pu knew that once completed, it would still possess considerable combat power.

Perhaps it might take a scarecrow two punches to smash it.

The patchwork robot using beast materials was actually an early technology developed by humans after the Great Mutation.

At that time, Summoners were rarer, and to fight beasts, they had no choice but to use beasts.

Humans would try every way to collect some beast residuals from mutual battles or for various reasons produce severed limbs as weapons, to fight the beasts.

As technology gradually developed, they started assembling patchwork robots, piloted by humans to battle against beasts.

For a certain period, they indeed played a significant role in protecting humans.

It's just that as summoned beasts grew more prevalent, this technology gradually got phased out, an ancient technology it was.

Now seeing this thing appear made Li Pu feel like it resembled a revival of old technology.

However, judging by the looks of it, he reckoned it was merely a work for a graduate school project.

Because in grandpa's books, the strongest patchwork robots were actually nearly the size of an average person.

They had another name, called Mecha.

Under Xiu Lijia's lead, they walked to the side of the gigantic robot.

Li Pu felt an urge to touch this robot, but he restrained himself.

Beast remnants, of course, could also be related items.

But after all, this was someone else's research accomplishment, and he certainly couldn't take it.