novelsite Chapter 43 0.53% Mechanical Affinity
Chapter 43 0.53% Mechanical Affinity
It's not just about expanding the scope.
Wang Zhengyang closed his eyes and concentrated, his consciousness sinking into the strange entity within his body known as the "Caldova Gene Engine." The leap from 0.49% to 0.53%—this mere 0.04 percentage point increase—brought about a complete reconstruction of his perceptual dimensions.
Now, he can "see" the arrangement of the steel's crystal structure—the orderly queue of iron atoms in the lattice is like an infinitely extending three-dimensional dot matrix, the solid solution of carbon atoms in the gaps is like a nebula, and the occasional dislocation defects are like folds on a map. Each flaw is a potential starting point for future fractures.
He can "hear" the nanoscale scratches on the surface of bearing balls—those tiny defects, less than one ten-thousandth the thickness of a hair, emit unique high-frequency vibrations during friction, with frequencies on the order of 10^12 Hz, like the mournful sound of metal. He can distinguish whether the scratches are due to mold defects during stamping or fatigue damage during use.
He could "sense" the fluctuations in the electron layer as the current flowed through the wires—not a continuous stream, but a collective leap of countless tiny particles, forming a kind of perceptible "electron tide." The periodic fluctuations of alternating current, the stable flow of direct current, the steep leading edge of pulse signals... all electrical signals had shape and texture in his perception.
More importantly, there is a qualitative change in control.
He opened his eyes and extended his right hand. With a thought, an M6 stainless steel screw on the control panel slowly floated up and hovered fifteen centimeters above his palm—there was no visible energy field, no hum of a magnetic levitation device, it was purely the directional force exerted on the metal by the Caldova engine through quantum coupling.
This time it wasn't just a few seconds, but a continuous suspension. Wang Zhengyang could clearly feel his "control" over the screw—it was a completely new neural interface experience, as if the screw had become an extension of his limbs. He "felt" the microscopic undulations of every machining mark on the thread, "knew" the 0.2-micrometer radius of the corner of the screw head's cross-shaped groove, and "understood" the distribution of residual stress inside the screw.
With a slight thought, the screw began to rotate, initially slowly—5 revolutions per minute—then gradually accelerating to 3000 revolutions per minute—emitting a sharp hiss in the air, finally becoming a stable silver dot. It decelerated, stopped, and instantly reversed, drawing a complex trajectory in the air: first a perfect circle with an error of no more than 0.1 millimeters, then a spiral with precise pitch, and finally a polygon composed of several sharp angles.
Everything moves with perfect precision, leaping from millimeter-level to micrometer-level accuracy. This marks the first qualitative leap for the Caldova engine after its activation level surpassed the 0.5% threshold—an upgrade from a "perception-feedback" model to a closed loop of "perception-computation-control." The engine can now process sensor data in real time and generate precise control commands, forming a complete closed loop of mechanical control capabilities.
Wang Zhengyang put down the screw, his consciousness sank into his body, and began to fully assess the changes in his state after the breakthrough.
Gene engine activation level: 0.53%.
The data appeared clearly in his mind. Unlike his previous vague perception, he could now "see" a virtual progress bar with a line of small text below: "Caldova-type gene engine - primary coupling stage. Next qualitative change node: 1.00% (first-order awakening)."
Body enhancement multiplier: 3.8 times that of a baseline human (muscle strength/bone strength/nerve conduction).
He walked to the corner of the maintenance bay, where there lay a discarded steering linkage—14 millimeters in diameter, made of 40Cr alloy steel. He gripped both ends, applying force smoothly without gathering any power. The metal rod groaned softly, bending in the middle—30 degrees, 60 degrees, 90 degrees… finally forming a perfect right-angle bend. When he released his grip, there were no cracks at the bend, only uniform traces of plastic deformation.
"The precision of power output control has improved," Wang Zhengyang assessed. He could do it before, but it required a longer time to build up power and it was difficult to precisely control the bending angle. Now, the 3.8 times the power felt like his natural strength, effortless and precisely controllable.
He walked to a test brick wall—standard red brickwork, grouted with cement mortar, 24 centimeters thick. Without a running start, he swung his right fist from his waist, and the moment it hit the wall, his forearm muscles tensed abruptly, the power surging like a wave from his feet through his hips to his fist.
"Bang!"
It wasn't the sound of bricks shattering, but a dull thud from the entire wall. Centered on the fist, the wall within a forty-centimeter radius cracked in a spiderweb pattern, with cracks extending as far as a meter away. The bricks didn't fly; instead, they shattered in place into tiny pieces the size of fingernails, maintaining the basic outline of the wall—a testament to extremely precise force penetration and destructive control.
"Weight test." Wang Zhengyang walked to the two prepared counterweight boxes—each weighing 100 kilograms and containing lead weights. He bent over, grabbed the handles on the side of the box with both hands, and exerted force with his waist and back.
The heavy object was lifted off the ground, but he didn't feel the expected heaviness. 3.8 times the strength meant that his actual load-bearing capacity exceeded 500 kilograms, which is equivalent to an ordinary person carrying two buckets of water. He moved around, turned, and even jogged in the maintenance cabin, his movements as fluid as if he were carrying nothing.
"Speed testing requires more space, so we'll postpone it for now." Wang Zhengyang put down the counterweight box. "But with the 150% increase in reaction speed..."
He picked up a nut from the ground and threw it at a wall three meters away. The nut spent about 0.7 seconds in the air, but in his dynamic vision, the process was stretched to nearly two seconds. He could see every detail of the nut's threads as it rotated, predict the precise location of its impact on the wall and the angle of its bounce, and even simultaneously calculate three different interception plans in his mind.
"I would see the movements of an ordinary person as slowed down at 0.5x speed," Wang Zhengyang concluded. "In addition, with my understanding of mechanical structures, in close combat, I can predict the mechanical weaknesses of my opponent's weapons and equipment, and achieve a precise kill with minimal loss of resources."
But all these improvements in physical attributes are merely "side effects" of the Caldova engine. The real core remains the ability to control the machinery.
Wang Zhengyang walked to the worktable and began to systematically test the mechanical control capabilities after the breakthrough.
Wang Zhengyang placed the 20mm diameter No. 45 steel shaft flat on the worktable, his right hand lightly pressing down about 30 centimeters above it. Concentrating his mind, he started the Caldova engine. This time, instead of guiding atomic migration for repair, he used his perception to penetrate deep into the steel's internal lattice structure, artificially creating localized stress concentrations on specific crystal planes.
His consciousness "saw" the arrangement of the iron atom lattice and found a pre-existing tiny dislocation. The engine began to calculate: if seven adjacent atoms were induced to shift by 0.03 nanometers around this dislocation, the dislocation line could propagate into the starting point of a microcrack.
Three seconds to calculate, one second to execute.
"Click."
With a slight crackling sound, fine spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the surface of the steel shaft, which then broke cleanly at one-third of its length. The fracture surface exhibited typical characteristics of brittle fracture—smooth, shiny, and without plastic deformation. The entire process consumed only 15% of the mental energy required to repair metal of the same volume.
"Destruction is easier than reconstruction; this is a law of materials science, and also a law of supernatural abilities." Wang Zhengyang recorded the data. "The key is to find the 'weakness' of the material and then apply the 'minimum necessary interference'."