Chapter 340 — It's Not That a Bad Archaeologist Can't Be a Good Mechanic, but a Good Archaeologist Shouldn't Be a Mechanic

"Where did you find a Tyrannosaurus hatchling? Did you get a sealed Tyrannosaurus egg from some ruin???" Feng Jin said, shaken.

Grandma Li, equally astonished, lunged forward and bent back the mecha Tyrannosaurus's foreclaws and foot-claws as if she were inspecting chicken feet.

The mecha Tyrannosaurus trembled all over. Grandma, you're hurting me.

"This..."

Faced with the seniors' shock, Shi Jin said: "It's not as if I had the luck to find a living Tyrannosaurus egg..."

"This is exactly what I mentioned earlier: combining technology with fossils. By manifesting the dream-phantoms within fossils and remodeling them into the life-form of a mechanical beast, one resurrects extinct ancient creatures, and through them, deduces the conditions of ancient history."

"You're saying you remodeled a fossil's dream-phantom into a living thing?? How is that possible!!" Grandma Li said, unable to comprehend.

A fossil's dream-phantom was, in essence, no different from the people and things that appear in a human's dreams while sleeping. Both were illusory images sketched out by spiritual fluctuations. How could such an illusory image possibly become a living being?

"Maybe it's because my Daydream Butterfly's power of reverie, and Can Bao's temporal and life energies, are rather special? After some tinkering, it just worked..." Shi Jin muttered.

The circumstances involved were far too complex; he couldn't explain them clearly either. As for exactly why it worked, one would have to ask Lin.

"How are its attributes?" Lu Yan asked.

"Low-tier Monarch species. It successfully inherited one of the Tyrannosaurus's racial skills: Earth Domain."

"Earth Domain--" Everyone was startled. This was a skill that first appeared in the age of the dinosaurs; a rare domain-type skill. Earth-type beasts within the Earth Domain gain enhanced earth-type skill effects, and their own vitality, strength, spirit, defense, and resistance all rise markedly.

Wherever it treads, all is earth. Archaeological findings show that Tyrannosaurus once appeared in the oceans as well; that was the result of Tyrannosaurus packs expanding their territory and waging war at sea through the Earth Domain.

"At present the technique is still imperfect. Otherwise, we might be able to perfectly inherit the full racial power of the Tyrannosaurus, and at that point it would amount to a mechanical life-form of the Overlord species. Going forward, if we can perfect it, we'll be able not only to peer through fossils into the lost ages of the Totem Era, but even into the more distant Mythic Era. And if the subject of study were the fossil of a mythic creature, the significance would be even greater."

When Shi Jin finished speaking, the others were already stupefied.

Good heavens, was this kid Shi Jin actually serious about all of that?

"Is that why you want to contract a mechanical life-form as your sixth beast?" Feng Jin asked.

Shi Jin nodded. "One can't be a good archaeologist without being a mechanic, right? I obtained a mythic creature's fossil from Mirage Abyss City."

"Right now I'm researching whether a mythic life-form can be resurrected. Unfortunately, the research is extremely difficult, and I'm short a pile of funding..."

Feng Jin and Grandma Li fell silent.

"The entire budget of the Mechanical Department at the Ancient Capital University for this year goes to you!"

"The fossils in all the fossil museums under my name are yours to use freely. I don't have any mythic creature fossils, but ancient creature fossils of every attribute and every species are all there, including the fossils of certain ancient totems."

Grandma Li was still bending the Tyrannosaurus back and forth, unable to make sense of it. So this was what had been developed from the fossil she had given Shi Jin?

Grandma Li suddenly felt that her fossil collection was about to appreciate in value.

"Wonderful."

Shi Jin wiped away a tear. Wonderful. Lin, our family's rich now. For the time being we don't have to pinch and scrape while waiting for the Mechanical Convention.

"When the time comes, I plan to take this research to the Mechanical Convention."

The moment Shi Jin finished speaking, Feng Jin and Grandma Li grew even more frenzied.

"You'd compete on behalf of Capital University's Department of Mechanics—the university just puts your name down, and the entire reward is yours."

"From what I know, the national resource vault holds a fossil of a mythical creature. With the results of this research, you could certainly apply to have it released!" Grandma Li chimed in.

In that cramped little conference room, no one cared about the Void Emperor's ruins anymore, nor about the genius newcomer in archaeology.

Lu Heng stood by in silence, nursing a nagging feeling that this archaeological newcomer might not end up close to him after all—that she would run off to Shi Jin's side to serve as his assistant...

...

Sky Capital University.

The Department of Mechanics.

Though it was already the holidays, a whole cluster of researchers had yet to leave campus—after all, the students being on break did not mean they were.

"Xiaolan, you'll be starting high school next year, right?"

"Even so, there's no need to push yourself this hard—look at those dark circles. You must be studying late into the night every day."

Inside a research institute, an old man in a white lab coat spoke to a young girl seated in the corner, writing up a research report.

The girl was quite lovely, standing about one meter sixty, lovely enough to be called a beauty—crisp, clean black hair cut short, a round face, eyes brimming with earnestness, and she too wore a custom white lab coat. She took off her glasses, rubbed her eyes, and looked at the old man.

"Grandpa Wu, it's nothing—it's just that I kept dreaming these past few days, so I haven't been resting very well."

Fang Lan was miserable. Since a few days ago, she had been having one nightmare after another; the content of them she mostly forgot upon waking, but that feeling of countless voices swirling around her ears and through her mind—that she had not forgotten.

"Hm? Have your parents taken you to see a doctor?"

The elderly researcher asked with concern.

"We went. The doctor also said it might be that the pressure of studying is too great, that there's nothing wrong with her mentally, and after taking some medicine she's already much better," Fang Lan said.

"Then you must make sure to rest well..." the old researcher said.

"This girl—I've told her time and again not to push so hard, and still she studies until midnight every day. If her health gives out, whose else would?" As the two chatted, a square-faced middle-aged man wearing black-framed glasses slowly walked over and said, "I was thinking I'd bring her to the institute to relax for a couple of days, but then it started up again."

Professor Wu's mouth twitched. "Xiao Fang, who on earth brings someone to a mechanics research institute to relax? Go to an amusement park!"

"She says it's more fun here..." Professor Fang wore a look of utter innocence.

"Health matters more." Professor Wu said, "Xiaolan is still young—don't be in such a rush."

"Not enough," Fang Lan said, pursing her lips.

Fang Lan's father gave a helpless laugh. "Her original goal was to be as formidable as Gao Xuan by the time she reached university, to match Gao Xuan—but then Gao Xuan lost to Shi Jin of Capital University at the national tournament. The blow to this girl was enormous."

"And so she made Shi Jin, who shares the same telepathic gift, her target."

"She plans to rely on that shared gift and the Department of Mechanics to bring down Shi Jin of the Department of Archaeology one day."

"Well." Professor Wu was taken aback. "That won't be easy..."

At the national tournament, Sky Capital University's competitors had also been utterly crushed by Shi Jin. The faculty and students of Sky Capital University were naturally no strangers to him either.