Chapter 415 - Reopening the Elemental Era! (Part 1)
Despite the University Invention Competition’s seemingly unimpressive name due to the term “university,” it was far from ordinary.
Universities not only had teaching responsibilities but also research tasks. Many outstanding student mechanics could even reach level 5 or 6, just one or two levels below the republic’s top-tier Legendary mechanics.
Thus, these elite students were often core figures in university research projects. Due to their specialized fields and areas of expertise, even Legendary mechanics leading the projects sometimes sought their advice. To say their inventions were worthless would be unfair. Many skilled student mechanics could already develop mechas and fighter jets.
The annual University Invention Competition was highly anticipated, serving as a platform for over a hundred universities in the Stellar Moon Republic with mechanical programs to compete.
To help students achieve better results, many mechanical experts would even step in to mentor talented students. So while it appeared to be a competition among students, it was also a test of each university’s foundation.
“The Mechanical Era is so convenient.”
At the Orange Sky Research Institute, as the competition drew closer, Lu Ran and his team took a brief break after completing their invention. The past ten-plus days had exhausted Six-Paths Flower and #18, even with Six-Paths Flower occasionally slowing time with the Hell Path.
Clearly, even a Legendary being like Six-Paths Flower couldn’t sustain the toll of manipulating time indefinitely. But fortunately, they succeeded in the end.
Another thing Lu Ran found convenient about the Mechanical Era was that the University Invention Competition wasn’t held in the real world but in a Mechanical secret realm. Moreover, the main judges weren’t human mechanics but a super artificial intelligence.
When the competition began, all participants could enter the Mechanical secret realm through their university’s teleportation portal. Each participant would be assigned an isolated area within the secret realm, where they would be alone.
This area was monitored by the super AI and simultaneously live-streamed. Participants were required to talk to themselves while demonstrating their inventions in this space.
As they presented, the super AI would rank their inventions in real time based on certain criteria, with rankings updating every second. This would continue until all participants finished their presentations, at which point the initial rankings would be finalized. This was the first round of rankings.