bioinnovel Chapter 105 This is just a high-end version of a flashlight battery
Chapter 105 This is just a high-end version of a flashlight battery
Luzhou, the third basement level of the Zero Boundary Technology Park.
This place was originally an air-raid shelter left over from the Cold War, but it has now been transformed into one of the world's safest private laboratories. Half-meter-thick lead plates and reinforced concrete walls completely isolate it from the noise and killing intent of the outside world.
In the corridor, the laser probe of the infrared sentry gun rotated quietly, emitting a soft servo motor sound.
Su Wanqing, wearing flat tactical boots, strode quickly between the monitoring screens. Her usually smooth long hair was now neatly tied into a ponytail, and she was clutching a military tablet in her hand, her knuckles turning blue from the excessive force.
"Uncle Li, there are fluctuations in the thermal imaging of area three. It might be a micro drone. Have the snipers investigate."
"Received." Li Jianguo's calm yet tense voice came through the earpiece. "Also, news from the National Security Bureau indicates that two groups of 'tourists' holding African Union passports have just landed in a neighboring province, and their destination is most likely Luzhou. Wanqing, you'd better persuade Bai Gong not to make any big moves at this critical juncture. We need to make a silent transfer."
Su Wanqing stared at the red exclamation mark on the screen that symbolized "extreme danger," took a deep breath, and felt the cold air fill her lungs, but she couldn't suppress the restlessness in her heart.
Two hundred million US dollars.
This sum of money is enough to make the devil work the millstone, and to make countless desperados turn Luzhou upside down.
She turned her head and looked at the core laboratory behind the explosion-proof glass, her eyes filled with complex emotions.
"Move away? I'm afraid it's too late." Su Wanqing's voice carried a hint of helplessness. "Besides... look at that guy, does he seem like the type to obediently hide away?"
My gaze passed through the thick, shatterproof glass.
Inside the laboratory, Bai Che was squatting next to a pile of messy ore, kicking a dusty stone with his toe with a look of disgust.
That was high-grade palladium ore that Su Wanqing had managed to snatch from Pfizer's asset package in just a few hours, using all her connections. On the international market, each ton of this ore was priceless, a top-grade raw material for manufacturing precision chips and aircraft engines.
But in Bai Che's eyes, they didn't seem as pleasing to the eye as the pebbles on the roadside.
"This is what they call top-grade concentrate?"
Bai Che picked up a piece of ore, shone it under the overhead operating light, and frowned deeply. "It's as full of impurities as braised pork that a cafeteria lady whipped up with shaky hands. The silica content is too high, and the heavy metal dispersion is too high... Tsk, what's the difference between using this stuff to build a reactor and building a house with shoddy tofu? It's a guaranteed explosion."
He casually tossed the valuable ore back into the pile with a dull thud.
"Forget it, expecting the current level of industry to provide qualified raw materials is like hoping that sows can fly."
Bai Che patted the dust off his hands and made a slight mental movement.
On his retina, the golden reward icon shattered instantly, transforming into countless streams of shimmering data that converged in his palm.
The air suddenly distorted, as if a pebble had been thrown into a calm body of water.
hum-
A silver-white metal object appeared out of thin air and landed heavily on the reinforced experimental table.
It doesn't look very big, about the size of a commercial microwave oven. There isn't a single screw on it; its surface is smooth as a mirror, shimmering with a cold, anachronistic sheen. The front of the machine has only a single, bottomless black opening, like a giant maw waiting to devour its prey.
[Microscopic Industrial Machine Tool (Beginner Version)]
This is the "cheat code" provided by the system. It's not for producing screws, but for the God's hand that reconstructs matter at the atomic level.
"Get to work, you money-devouring beast."
Bai Che patted the machine's cold exterior, his eyes gleaming with the fervor typical of a science student. "Wash the 'gold' out of this pile of garbage. If you're missing even one atom, I'll dismantle you and sell you for scrap metal."
In the monitoring room.
Su Wanqing frowned slightly as she looked at the silver box that had suddenly appeared on the screen: "What...what is that? When did he move it in?"
Before she could think it through, a special forces soldier's urgent report came through her earpiece: "Report! Three modified suicide drones spotted at the twelve o'clock position! They're attempting to breach the air defense network!"
"Shoot it down! No need to ask for permission!" Su Wanqing ordered sharply, but her eyes never left Bai Che on the screen.
An ordinary person would have panicked upon hearing the explosion outside. But the man on the screen was humming a children's song that went off-key.
A flock of ducks swam by under the bridge in front of the gate~ Come on, come and build a home~
That extreme sense of relaxation created an absurd contrast with the tense and deadly atmosphere outside. As Su Wanqing watched, her tightly clenched lips unconsciously relaxed a little.
That bastard.
Is there really nothing that could make him nervous?
In the laboratory, Bai Che hummed a song, picked up an entrenching tool, and shoveled the precious palladium ore into the inlet of the industrial machine like he was shoveling coal.
If you don't look at the background, this scene looks exactly like an old man in the countryside feeding pigs.
"start up."
Bai Che snapped his fingers.
There was no noise of mechanical gears meshing, nor the roar of a traditional shredder. The silver box simply emitted a low, humming sound, like the call of a whale.
That was the sound of a strong magnetic field tearing apart molecular bonds.
If a microscope were available at this moment, a horrifying scene would be visible: the hard ore, upon entering the machine, is as if directly deconstructed by some invisible force, transforming into the most primitive particle stream.
puff--
A plume of gray smoke suddenly shot out from the waste outlet on the side of the machine. That was the removed impurities—which made up 99% of the ore volume.
Inside the machine's core transparent chamber, a pale blue liquid was slowly condensing. It wasn't water; it was liquid palladium, confined by a strong magnetic field, with a purity reaching the theoretical limit.
"President Su! Look at the data!"
Just then, a pop-up window began flashing wildly on the remote monitoring screen connected to the laboratory host computer.
Wang Tao, who was in charge of remote data support, spoke in a shrill voice, like a chicken whose neck had been stepped on: "This...this is impossible! Is the spectrum analyzer broken?!"
Su Wanqing turned to look at the data screen.
The bar representing "material purity" was rising at an illogical speed.
99%...99.9%...99.999%...
Finally, the value settled on a breathtaking number—99.999999%.
"Six nines..." Su Wanqing's pupils contracted slightly.
Although she didn't have a technical background, she knew what this meant. Existing national-level laboratories could typically only achieve 99.99% purity when refining this rare metal. Each additional nine increases the cost tenfold, and the difficulty rises exponentially.
To achieve a purity of six nines is a perfect state in theoretical physics, which usually only exists in mathematical models.
"What is Che-ge doing? Is he wholesaling diamonds?" Wang Tao rambled on the other end of the line. "Using palladium of this purity as a material, even if he were to make a toilet seat, it would be a god-tier toilet seat!"
Inside the laboratory, Bai Che was completely unaware of the shock from the outside world, or rather, he didn't care at all.
He looked at the bluish liquid suspended in the magnetic field and nodded in satisfaction: "Barely acceptable. Although it can't compare to Wakanda's vibranium, it's still considered top-tier material in this beginner's village of Earth."
Next, is the main event.
Bai Che's fingers flew across the holographic control panel, bringing up the blueprints for the [Tokamak Ark Edition].
"Input parameters. Atomic stacking mode: Enabled. Fault tolerance: Zero."
As the command was given, several laser probes, almost invisible to the naked eye, extended from inside the industrial machine.
This is not your average 3D printing.
At the microscopic level, this is like arranging palladium atoms precisely on predetermined coordinates, like building blocks.
The originally invisible liquid metal fluid began to "grow" in the void.
First comes the base, then the ring-shaped magnetic confinement coil, and finally the exquisitely crafted core reaction chamber.
There were no sparks flying throughout the entire process; only the deep blue light grew stronger and stronger, illuminating Bai Che's slightly tired but bright-eyed face like that of a deity.
Even through the screen, Su Wanqing felt an unprecedented visual impact.
It was an aesthetic assault that transcended its time and belonged to pure industrial rationality.
The gradually forming ring had a matte, dark silver finish, its surface covered with intricate and mysterious geometric patterns. It was so perfect that there wasn't a single seam, as if it hadn't been manufactured, but rather was a sacred object that had descended directly from the future.
"This is..." Su Wanqing murmured to herself, her gaze somewhat unfocused, "the 'target' you wanted to create?"
She originally thought Bai Che was going to make some kind of firearm, or a component of an exoskeleton armor similar to Iron Man's.
But what exactly is this thing in front of you, which is only the size of a palm and so exquisite that it looks like a work of art?
Three minutes later.
The buzzing stopped abruptly.
The hatch of the industrial machine slowly slid open, and a wisp of white, cold air escaped.
Wearing heat-resistant gloves, Bai Che carefully removed the still-warm ring from the discharge port—the [Palpaque Arc Reactor Generation 1 Core].
He held it up under the operating light.
The metal surface shimmered with an eerie luster, as if a sleeping beast of light was imprisoned within.
Bai Che took off his goggles, grinned at the surveillance camera, revealing a set of bright white teeth.
"Done."
His tone was flat, with that familiar, irritating Versailles vibe, "It's just a high-end flashlight battery. Hopefully it lasts a long time and doesn't run out of power after only two uses."
High-end version... flashlight batteries?
Wang Tao in the monitoring room nearly collapsed to his knees in disbelief. Who makes flashlight batteries with 99.9% pure palladium? Whose batteries look like some kind of futuristic alien technology?
However, just as Bai Che finished speaking...
Sizzle—!
All the lights in the laboratory, including the emergency lights in the corridor, flickered violently without warning.
An invisible electromagnetic pulse swept across the entire three underground levels in an instant, centered on the ring.
That was the oppressive aura of a "divine artifact" when it was born.
Bai Che looked at the silent metal ring in his hand, the smile in his eyes gradually fading, replaced by a look of solemnity and excitement.
This thing is a money-devouring beast, and a bottomless pit.
It is now just a perfect shell; to awaken the "sun" inside, it needs a spark.
A fire powerful enough to ignite the city.
Bai Che pressed the internal communication button, and the sound clearly reached Su Wanqing's ears.
"Housekeeper, have you prepared the electricity budget?"
Su Wanqing was taken aback: "What do you mean?"
Bai Che toyed with the reactor core in his hand, a playful smile curving his lips, like a mischievous child about to light a firecracker.
"Next, we need to 'ignite' this little guy. It might be a bit... power-consuming."
"By the way, it would be best to talk to the power company, or... just buy the right to use half of the city's power grid."
Su Wanqing stared at the dangerous-looking ring on the screen. Although she couldn't understand a word he was saying, her woman's intuition told her—
The recent stock market crash was just an appetizer.
The real storm is now in this man's grasp.