Sarah finally confirmed that among the thousand salvageable parts, besides the mental energy total detection unit, there was another particularly important and valuable component: the deviation value detector.
The former was easy to understand, but Sarah only learned about the latter from Professor Sun's explanations. Simply put, it measured mental energy stability.
The higher the deviation value, the more difficult it was to control mental energy. Generally, people with mental energy had deviation values fluctuating around plus or minus thirty. To become a card maker, one needed to be within plus or minus ten.
Axiom Central University, as one of the top three universities on Axiom Prime, required its Card Engineering School applicants to have deviation values within plus or minus five, with some flexibility for exceptionally talented individuals.
Deviation values weren't fixed; even some three-star card makers had high deviation values. Strong control could compensate for numerical differences, which was why Inspector Vega had wanted to create a mental energy control device.
The mental energy detection device originally had more than a dozen related data points, so having only two functional detection components left Sarah feeling wistful. But two was better than none.
While the deviation value could wait, Sarah was quite curious about her own mental energy total.
Sarah began studying the blueprints of 'Thirty Billion', focusing on the total detection design.
After three quiet days, when Professor Sun had almost forgotten Sarah's presence in the institute, Sarah appeared with the blueprints in hand.
"Director, I don't understand this design..." Sarah inquired.
Professor Sun explained, "This is linked to the vibration value."
An hour later.
"Director, I think there's an issue with this circuit control..."
"Indeed, it could be optimized."
An hour and a half later.
"Director..."
"..."
After several more iterations, Professor Sun, feeling as if her patience was being tested, looked at Sarah with a deadpan expression. "If you have any questions, compile them all and come to me at once."
"Oh," Sarah replied obediently, then pulled out a notebook from her pocket. "I've already compiled them."
Seeing the thick notebook and Sarah's innocent expression, Professor Sun finally reached out and lightly tapped Sarah's forehead. "You're doing this on purpose."
Sarah, rubbing her head, chuckled mischievously.
See? Although she got a light tap, the professor's formal demeanor had softened considerably.
After a brief scolding, Professor Sun, true to her teaching nature, took Sarah's notebook and began addressing the questions one by one.
From Sarah's questions, Professor Sun realized that Sarah was genuinely planning to repair the device. The simple wiring task she had assigned clearly wasn't satisfying for this young student.
Geniuses always had ambition, and this was normal. Professor Sun didn't mind; if Sarah wanted to stumble early, she was welcome to it.
From the questions in the notebook, Professor Sun could see that Sarah wasn't blindly confident. She was being very careful and cautious, focusing on repairing just one detection component. Professor Sun thought this approach was commendable, though ultimately futile.
In such precision instruments, every component was interconnected. There was no way to repair one area at a time.
Sarah would eventually realize that all her efforts were in vain.
Professor Sun, with a slightly mischievous intent, didn't point this out to Sarah. She also didn't plan to check on Sarah's progress in her research room. After all, she was the steady, reliable director of the Mental Energy Control Research Institute!
She decided to simply answer Sarah's questions as they came, only adding supplementary information where she felt Sarah's understanding was lacking.
Sarah, meanwhile, didn't sense anything amiss. Her mind was fully occupied with all the new knowledge she had acquired. She returned to her research room, simultaneously writing and revising in her notebook.
After digesting this knowledge, Sarah finally put pen to paper with her own design.
Of course, she wasn't so naive as to think she could repair the entire detection device. Sarah's goal had always been clear: to test her own mental energy. She had never considered repairing the entire device.
Besides, the core card of the mental energy detection device was a golden card, far beyond Sarah's current capabilities even if repair was possible.
Hadn't Professor Sun asked her to organize the wiring? She had done that on the first night. When Sarah disassembled the device's casing to remove the usable parts, she had neatly organized the wires before reassembling the casing.
It was simple, effortless.
With her assigned task completed, wasn't the remaining time hers to use as she pleased? Sarah felt entirely justified in pursuing her own small research project.
In Nova Scrapyard, where resources were scarce, Sarah had developed a "use whatever works" mentality. She wasn't able to perform a full mental energy test, but even a single value test was better than nothing.
Moreover, a device testing a single value wouldn't require such a high-end core card as a golden one. Sarah began sketching a new detection device on paper, referencing 'Thirty Billion's' blueprints.
For such a device... would a blue-level card suffice?
Sarah wasn't sure, but she quickly realized her naivety.
As she encountered difficulties in her design, Sarah continued to bring questions to Professor Sun. Through continuous optimization and refinement, and considering the compatibility with the deviation value detection, the final design sprawled across more than a dozen pages.
At minimum... it would require a purple-level card.
However, this wasn't the main problem. After all, Sarah could handle purple cards, and she had brought plenty of ink from Nova. The biggest issue in creating her total detection device was...
Not enough components.
Out of the thousand-plus salvaged parts, those related to total detection were limited. Even with shared components, they were far from sufficient for the tens of thousands of components in Sarah's design.
Even if she could optimize the design further to reduce some components, it was impossible to shrink it to the level of a few hundred parts.
So Sarah looked up the prices of the components she needed on the Star Network.
Well...
How to put it...
A detection device based on the 'Thirty Billion' scale was, unsurprisingly, not associated with the word 'cheap'.
Sarah once again felt the weight of her 50 million credits, acutely aware of her relative poverty.
But after this moment of realization, Sarah quickly came to terms with it.
She was now a member of the Mental Energy Control Research Institute. What she was working on was fundamentally the institute's property. The device she was creating was completed under the guidance of the institute's director. Therefore, it was only natural that the mental energy total detection device she was researching belonged to the institute.
This was the institute's property!
She wasn't trying to take advantage of the institute, so the institute shouldn't take advantage of her either! How could she use her own money for work purposes?
With this realization, Sarah immediately headed back to Professor Sun's office.
"Director~" Sarah called out in an overly sweet voice as she pushed open the door.
Professor Sun suppressed a shudder, eyeing Sarah warily.
As they spent more time together, Sarah had indeed become sweeter and less formal. Proportional to this increase was the trouble she brought.
No matter how she thought about it, Professor Sun couldn't understand how, in just half a month, Sarah had managed to delve so deeply into mental energy detection issues.
They were the Mental Energy Control Research Institute, not the Mental Energy Detection Research Institute! The difference was significant!
Professor Sun was starting to feel that she could barely keep up. The last time Sarah had come with questions, there were a few that Professor Sun felt she had answered rather vaguely.
Was it really necessary to understand these things so deeply just to repair a device?
For others, it might not matter, but being stumped by Sarah, a child who hadn't even officially enrolled at Axiom Central University yet, was something Professor Sun absolutely couldn't accept.
She was a three-star card maker and the director of this institute. She was determined not to be caught unable to answer Sarah's questions!
No one knew how much additional knowledge on mental energy detection Professor Sun had been forced to cram during this time.
Even so, Professor Sun still felt like she was being drained by Sarah.
Wait... Mom!!! When you recommended this person, couldn't you have mentioned that her learning ability was terrifyingly fast?!
What nonsense were you writing in that recommendation letter!
Professor Sun was cursing internally, feeling a sense of dread at the sight of Sarah pulling out her notebook.
Fortunately, this time Sarah didn't do anything so extreme. After her cute act, she said something incredibly welcome to Professor Sun's ears.
"Director, where are the institute's materials stored? Can I use them?"
Oh, she just wanted materials.
If she just wanted materials, why the cute act that scared people?
Professor Sun internally berated Sarah but maintained her dignified director facade. "They're in the last warehouse, but there aren't many materials left. It's mostly filled with discarded devices now. See if there's anything you can use and just take it." As she spoke, Professor Sun tossed the warehouse key to Sarah.
She was more than happy for Sarah to rummage through the warehouse rather than continue their in-depth discussions on mental energy detection. Heaven knows she hadn't been able to focus on advancing her own device's progress in the past half month.
Thank goodness Sarah was going to focus on something else now.
Come to think of it, since Sarah was asking for materials, did that mean she was officially entering the repair phase? Would she finally reach the point of failure in her repair attempts?
Professor Sun's eyes lit up at the thought, indicating she was very much looking forward to it.