14 Chapter 14

With Keqing's comforting scent and her holding my form against her with a pillow between us and around my head to smother the sounds of the scary-as-hell outside world. I fell asleep without too much issue.

However, I was woken up by Keqing rolling me off her as the sounds of bird songs gently leaked through the air holes of the armored cabin we were in. "It's past daybreak, the night fiends will have retreated with the Sun's yang energy entering the world again." Keqing said taking a breath as she partly covered her face with a gloved hand to hide her flushed face at how I blearily looked at her.

But she frowned and spoke. "Wait? Come here?" She said and then as she pulled me into another hug she said quickly. "Absorb, some more spiritual essence from your spirit stones." 

And so I did so, with a slight worry that my trash mortal spiritual veins that hadn't gotten the isekai treatment of becoming cheats were leaking the essence or something equally fucking awful.

"You... You have a Physique?" Keqing muttered in confusion as she gently pushed me back a bit and at her words I sighed with relief and remembered my own inspection of my body when I picked up some cheap martial arts I could practice in my free time.

I said with some dissatisfaction at her making me mentally freak out as I put on my shoes and socks. "Yeah, I guess... My intake of spiritual energy is utterly awful but apparently, my body has the effect of outputting more or a higher form of spiritual energy that I possess." 

Standing up I saw Keqing flush slightly and under my gaze and I said with confusion. "Why? It doesn't help me cultivate anyway?" 

Her lips twitched and she likewise stood up from her sitting position as she retorted quickly. "Dummy! You have a version of the Heaven's Gifting Physique... You are literally 'The' prime target for dual cultivation and a high-end target for the Cloudy Crane Sect which focuses on Talisman and Barrier creation spells!" And Keqing then went on to explain how my Physique worked.

Lets say in dual cultivation I shared the energy gained from eating a pill or absorbing a lot of spirit stones and had ten units of power absorbed into my body. Well the power outputting outside of me, would instead of being only ten, would be fifty. All energy exiting my body would gain five times potency.

So when Keqing was cuddling me... She was getting five times the normal energy in the surrounding area with how I was pulling spiritual energy into my body.

And of course, should I use my energy to make a talisman, a barrier, or an outwards energy attack? Those would all be multiplied by my five times potency!

"That... Doesnt make sense at all though? Where does the energy for the five times potency increase come from?" My enhanced scientific mind knew that although energy could be drawn by other dimensions with the right technology. My body most certainly wasn't capable of doing that naturally.

A snicker rang out and I looked at Keqing and got out of my head as she said dryly. "Jake... Thousands of god's devil's and immortals have died in Liyue in the last ten millennia, there is uncountable unexplainable things in Liyue alone, just enjoy the benefits." 

I took a breath and nodded with Keqing clapping her hands as she said frankly. "Now, Lady Ningguang's hired laborers will likely be here in a couple of hours as they are likely already on their way with the sun already rising. So let us get back to work in expanding the production line as you said." 

After unbolting the door holding us within the cabins, I ignored the shriveled corpses of the oversized Hellbats that had seemingly had their life force sucked clean by the ghost last night and immediately went to work on the next production line.

'I got an iron line which is making iron plates, rods, and taking some of those rods to making piles of screws. Now I should make a new line to focus on copper to begin making more electronic items.' I thought before calling out to the guys coming out of the cabins. "Guys please take the Hellbat corpses and stuff them into the biomass burners! Also, Keqing can you give them ten spirit stones each?"

Overnight, I had acquired a good two thousand before the biomass burners had run out of power and the machinery stopped. So with only a couple dozen guards. I had no problem sharing the wealth and making them happy even as Keqing said dryly.

"Jake, that's a good three months wage for them." I just shrugged and replied evenly.

"We mined up two thousand last night... I don't have a space ring or bag. Let them have some." 

Keqing's lips twitched but she still helplessly gave the gleefully giggling soldiers and guards a good bonus for their hard work.

Good money was a powerful motivator to make people work harder... But in reality, the payment was one part of it, as each worker saw the whole process of how by merely moving some desiccated corpses into the burners. The biomass burners growled to life and all the other machines came back to life. And with all the machines coming to life, that meant more spiritual stones were harvested.

I could all but see their faces and all but hear their thoughts on how the spiritual stones were already in their hands after a hard days work.

After getting more materials I made another lesser build gun but this one was just a super welder basically so I could give it to a guard who was an elite archer who had steady hands so I could teach him to weld the platforms and thick walls together through electromagnetic welding.

Though... There was the slight issue of needing to get the guard to strip down to his underclothes and due to his armor being filled with pins, medals buttons, and of course metallic plates. 

"So what are you working on today?" Keqing asked from atop the building I had built around the first machinery line and I hummed as I drew out the assembly line for a copper harvesting line.

"I am going to be setting up a copper line, along with a lesser miner to collect trace amounts of Zinc to add to the process to make brass." I said quickly as I made an important realization.

If I wanted Liyue's assistance in things like defense and specialized materials being delivered. I couldn't wait the two or so hours for someone to rush over... To say nothing of how they couldn't come here through the night at all.

But what if I made an electric rail line? I want to see a fucking monster stop an armored bullet train moving on magnetic rails at more than three hundred miles an hour!

I was going to drag Liyue in the industrial age kicking and screaming if I had to... And if that required me to make train lines to every major part of Liyue then I would happily do so.