On the afternoon of the second day, Su Ming arrived at the Basic Formation Lines Maintenance Department from the Accounting Office.

The moment he stepped through the stone hall’s entrance, the originally noisy and chaotic atmosphere instantly fell dead silent.

Over a dozen gazes, like searchlights, snapped to focus on him in unison.

“He’s here.”

“That’s him? The one who repaired seven shield formations in half a day yesterday?”

“He doesn’t look like he has three heads and six arms…”

Su Ming walked straight ahead without looking sideways, heading directly for the corner he used yesterday, ready to start work.

“J-Junior Brother Su.”

A voice, somewhat stammering, came from beside him.

Su Ming turned his head. It was the menial disciple from yesterday who was closest to him, the first one to discover he had spliced the formation plate back together.

That menial disciple wore a smile that was both ingratiating and somewhat fearful, holding a damaged formation plate in his hands.

“Junior Brother, the core circuit of this ‘Shield Formation’ plate of mine… it just won’t connect properly. C-could you… take a look?”

As soon as he finished speaking, several people immediately gathered around from the surroundings, all looking at Su Ming with hopeful eyes.

Before Su Ming could speak.

“Ahem!”

A heavy cough came from deep within the stone hall.

Chen Ping was sitting on that high-backed chair, his expression stern.

“What’s this crowd doing? Have you all finished the work in your hands?”

The menial disciples immediately scattered like birds and beasts.

Chen Ping’s gaze fell on Su Ming, his voice softening considerably.

“Su Ming, come here.”

Su Ming complied and stepped forward.

Chen Ping pointed to a clean and tidy stone table beside him.

On it were not damaged formation plates, but several thick stacks of jade slips and animal skin diagrams.

“Starting today, you will use this table.”

“You no longer need to touch those basic repair tasks.”

Chen Ping tossed over a blank jade token, engraved with the character “Chen”.

“This is my token. With this token, you can freely enter and exit all the archive rooms within the maintenance department.”

“What I need you to do is to read through all the original formation diagrams of low-level formations in our repository, the repair notes from past generations, and the wear-and-tear reports from the last three years.”

“Then, give me an… optimization plan.”

The entire stone hall once again fell into deathly silence.

All the menial disciples stopped the work in their hands, staring at the jade slips and diagrams on that stone table.

An optimization plan?

Have a menial disciple who just arrived yesterday optimize the repair procedures that Formation Peak has passed down for over a hundred years?

Has Senior Brother Chen gone mad?!

Su Ming’s heart also sank heavily.

This wasn’t just putting him on a fire to roast anymore, this was directly tossing him into an alchemy furnace.

“Master, this…”

“Take it!” Lin Yu’s soul thought was resolute and decisive.

“What are you afraid of! Isn’t this exactly what you’re best at? He wants you to optimize formations, so you give him data analysis! He wants results, so we’ll give him a perfect result in a way he can’t understand!”

Su Ming steadied his mind and bowed once more to Chen Ping.

“This disciple… will do his utmost.”

…

In the days that followed, Su Ming completely transformed from a “repairman” into a “researcher”.

Every morning, he handled the ledgers of the External Affairs Hall at the Accounting Office, and every afternoon, he plunged headfirst into the archives room of the Formation Peak maintenance department.

The archives room was piled high with dust-covered archives.

The air was filled with the ancient, dry scent of animal hide mixed with spiritual ink.

Su Ming, holding the jade token, passed through without hindrance.

He wasn’t in a hurry to look at those profound formation theories.

Instead, he pulled out all the materials related to the “Bedrock Shield Formation”.

From the first draft of the design sketch a hundred years ago, to the detailed records of every revision, to the material ratios of every batch, and thousands of wear-and-tear reports.

A massive amount of information flooded into his mind.

To outsiders, he was merely boringly flipping through old papers.

But inside the Xuantian ring, Lin Yu’s soul thought was already dancing with excitement.

“Beautiful! Too beautiful!”

“Disciple, look at this energy circuit design, doesn’t it look like the most basic series circuit?”

“That redundant part you erased, I found it! The designer added a ‘voltage-stabilizing’ rune here, which actually caused extra spiritual energy loss! A classic case of gilding the lily!”

Using terms Su Ming completely couldn’t understand, Lin Yu broke down the complex formations into the most basic physical models and logic modules.

And Su Ming, relying on his terrifying memory and inductive ability, matched these models and modules one by one with the actual wear-and-tear data.

Seven days later.

Su Ming walked out of the archives room carrying a thick stack of animal skin paper and placed it on Chen Ping’s desk.

“Senior Brother Chen, these are this disciple’s humble opinions regarding the ‘Bedrock Shield Formation’.”

Chen Ping put down the work in his hands and picked up the first sheet with suspicion.

There wasn’t a single formation rune on the paper.

Instead, it was a chart composed of horizontal and vertical lines and various strange symbols that he had never seen before.

The chart was titled: “Pie Chart of Attribution Analysis for Common Damage Types of ‘Bedrock Shield Formation’ in the Past Three Years”.

Chen Ping’s brows furrowed into a deep crease.

“What is this?”

“Reporting to Senior Brother, this chart classifies and analyzes the proportion of all damages that appeared in three thousand wear-and-tear reports.”

Su Ming pointed to the largest area on the chart.

“Look, ‘Core Rune Energy Attenuation’ accounts for a high forty percent. The main cause of this attenuation is not external impact, but the ‘fatigue’ of the material itself during the process of spiritual energy activation.”

He then flipped to the second sheet of paper.

On it was another, even more complex chart filled with curves.

“Graph of Different Batches of Mystic Iron Ore Ratios vs. Formation Plate ‘Spiritual Energy Fatigue’ Curve.”

“This disciple compared the material formulas of fifty different batches and found that when the ‘Red Copper’ content in the Mystic Iron ore exceeds three parts per thousand, the ‘fatigue’ threshold of the formation plate plummets off a cliff.”

“And the Mystic Iron ore drawn from our repository in the past half year generally has a ‘Red Copper’ content around five parts per thousand.”

Chen Ping’s breathing gradually became rapid.

He couldn’t understand those charts.

But he could understand Su Ming’s words!

Su Ming wasn’t discussing elusive formation theory, he was talking about materials, data, cost!

Things that every maintenance department manager could understand!

Su Ming opened the last page.

It was a clear, well-organized proposal.

“Five Suggestions Regarding Optimizing the ‘Bedrock Shield Formation’ Repair Process and Upstream Material Quality Control.”

First, it is suggested to communicate with the Vessel Hall to strictly control the ‘Red Copper’ content in Mystic Iron ore.

Second, standardize the repair process: use Plan One for Type A damage, Plan Two for Type B damage.

Third, improve the spiritual energy adhesive formula by adding a small amount of ‘Gel Grass’ powder, which can increase structural strength by over thirty percent.

Fourth…

Looking at each clear, specific, and actionable suggestion, Chen Ping’s hands began to tremble slightly.

He abruptly raised his head and looked at Su Ming, his gaze as if looking at a monster.

What kind of formation genius was this?!

This was clearly a management prodigy!

Elder Ma…

Where on earth did you dig up such a treasure?!

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep