The Heavens: A Qing, the Yue Girl at the beginning

"Yes, half an hour." Shi Yiguang's tone was flat, as if he were talking about going to the street corner to buy a cup of coffee.

However, in this remote rural area, it's unlikely that such a shop could be found, so is the timing she mentioned debatable? Even the fastest aircraft must complete a series of preparatory procedures before starting up, such as system self-checks, engine preheating, flight path calculations, and fuel loading…

How could someone just leave like that? That's an exaggeration!

Fingel was pondering this in his heart, and was just about to express his doubts when he saw Shi Yiguang turn around.

"Relax, don't resist."

Before she finished speaking, a clear, autumn-water-like sword light suddenly swept out from her sleeve, instantly enveloping the four people present. Gently yet irresistibly, it lifted them off the ground and precisely placed them into the already open hatch of the MG-19, placing them in different crew seats.

The entire process was as fast as lightning, yet there was no bump or discomfort whatsoever, and it didn't even touch any of the delicate equipment inside the cabin.

The soft, cushioning gel layer instantly adapted to fit everyone's body shape, and even the angle of Fingel's crossed legs, which he had just crossed due to nervousness, remained unchanged, almost as if he had teleported.

The sword light flowed and moved with ease, its application so skillful, its subtle control over the strength, speed, and spatial distance already hinting at some of Zhao Qing's exquisite skill from his early years.

The ladder retracts and the hatch is sealed.

"Sit tight." Shi Yiguang's voice came from the front control seat, still calm. "In the initial acceleration phase, the thrust is a bit heavy, more than 20G, try to get through it."

Before he could finish speaking, and while Fingel was still frantically searching for the securing straps, a deep, yet terrifyingly powerful hum emanated from deep within the machine, causing him to immediately let out a strange cry:

"Hey! Wait...wait a minute! Twenty gigabytes?! That's not just a little heavy, it's going to crush a person into a meat patty?!"

No one paid any attention to his wailing.

For these passengers whose physical abilities have been enhanced to exceed those of ordinary S-class passengers, the ergonomic seats share most of the load, and with their own strong bodies, it is not an easy task, though not a difficult one.

On the main control screen, data streams flowed down like a waterfall.

"Engine start."

"Uranium hexafluoride fuel, inject." Shi Yiguang's command was concise.

The icon representing highly enriched nuclear fuel lights up, and an invisible force guides the dangerous and powerful high-pressure gases into the strong magnetic field core constructed by specially designed superconducting coils.

"The 120T confinement field of the pyrometallurgical-based high-temperature superconducting coil group has been generated and stabilized. The plasma vortex has been successfully formed and confined."

"Critical mass achieved. Entering supercritical state."

"Design core operating temperature, peak: 75000K".

"True Qi barrier constructed. Spiritual Pressure Exchange Field in progress..."

Almost simultaneously, several layers of solar fire and yin water, each as thin as a cicada's wing but with vastly different properties, were precisely injected tangentially into the edge of the reaction chamber, surrounding the increasingly bright center and the terrifyingly high temperature and intense light that grew more and more violent inside.

They flowed through the miniature channels in the middle partition and the outer container's protective wall, which were made of molten spirit stone and glass. Instantly, they displayed a fiery red like lava, a deep and icy blue-white, and a strange halo of light that spun at high speed, appearing balanced and magnificent.

"Heat exchanger cycle started. Main and auxiliary air intakes opened, bypass ratio optimized and adjusted, ΔT set: 3700K."

"Propellant sequence injection. First stage: deionized water."

The intense radiation from the high-temperature gaseous reactor core instantly transfers the surging heat energy to the propellant pipeline. The newly injected pure water immediately vaporizes and expands, and is then violently ejected through the Laval nozzle, generating an initial thrust like a landslide or tsunami.

The spaceplane, weighing approximately 500 tons, suddenly shuddered and began to lift off the ground rapidly, like a blazing spear hurled by a giant, tearing through the atmosphere and piercing the sky!
Meanwhile, the already weathered cobblestone ground of the Frings family castle below was instantly turned into a crimson molten state by the impact of the scorching jets from the engine.

It was then vaporized and blown away, leaving behind a huge, charred crater with vitrified edges.

The violent airflow whipped up the surrounding weeds, dust, and even some scattered pebbles, raging like an apocalyptic storm.

The castle's already dilapidated windows shattered completely amidst the high-frequency vibrations!
Smoke is everywhere!

Fingel, grimacing as he struggled against the G-force, his cheeks trembling, couldn't help but reach out and repeatedly stroke and tap the nearby bulkheads and interior structure, feeling the cold touch, subtle vibrations, and excellent damping characteristics, muttering incessantly:

"It's all recycled metal... This is incredibly extravagant!"

He yelled, his voice distorted by the pressure, "Wait! My house! My castle! This noise... I hope it doesn't collapse my ancestral home after takeoff! Radiation! Will my house still be habitable after this thing flies by?!"

"It's all over, the land deed was already worthless, now it's a complete liability... And the neighbors will complain! Although those old guys probably won't live to see radiation-induced cancer..."

"Even though it's the end of the world, we still have to consider... sustainability... and sacrifices..."

"The uranium fuel did not leak; the seal is intact."

Shi Yiguang didn't turn his head, focusing on navigation, and calmly interrupted his rambling, "This machine uses a closed-loop gas core fission reactor, commonly known as a 'nuclear lighthouse.' It directly heats the working fluid through thermal radiation, and theoretically it is clean and pollution-free."

"Theoretically?!" Fingel cried, his voice rising eight octaves. "Can theory and reality be the same thing? No matter how much shielding you do, there will always be some induced radiation under high-speed neutron bombardment, right? I feel like my hair is about to stand on end from the radiation!"

"And you call this clean and unpolluted?! I clearly saw the shockwave just shatter my last intact rose window into dust with a 'whoosh'! There must be a huge crater on the ground, comparable to the one created by the Father of All Bombs! My rat home! My bankrupt paradise!"

"Oh, that one."

Shi Yiguang seemed to only then notice the horrific scene below, his tone remaining unchanged, "It was just a takeoff shockwave. The residual radioactivity is also far below the natural background fluctuation."

"As the saying goes, 'out with the old, in with the new.' Anyway, you complained before that it was as dilapidated as a medieval toilet."

“But I was just being modest! It was self-deprecation! It was a rhetorical device integrated into the local folk culture!” Fingel cried out in anguish, continuing his indignant accusation, “No matter how dilapidated it is, it’s still my home! It bears witness to the Frings family’s century of poverty… no, a century of history! Irreplaceable!”

“Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.” Shi Yiguang replied calmly, “I’ll help you apply for repair compensation and… uh, environmental cleanup subsidies later.”

"make a deal!"

Once the predetermined altitude and speed are reached, the propellant is switched.

Liquid hydrogen surges in and flows at high speed through the transparent dome of the reactor core, generating a jet stream with extremely high specific impulse, propelling the aircraft to accelerate towards the edge of near-vacuum low Earth orbit in a more efficient manner.

Outside the cabin, the earth had turned into rapidly fading, blurry patches of color, the azure sky gradually deepened, revealing the darkness of the universe, the stars began to be clearly visible, and the feeling of being pushed back subsided considerably.

"It's currently Mach 16 with a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1.3."

Carefully controlling the alternation and circulation of Yin and Yang True Qi to ensure that the spirit stone glass would not overheat and melt, Shi Yiguang casually said, "The distance of this voyage is too short, so there is no need to switch to VASI-MPD mode (variable specific impulse magnetic plasma propulsion)."

"It sounds like a futuristic interstellar taxi, but it's even more terrifying than Chernobyl."

Fingel stretched his neck and mumbled, "So, driver, could you tell me the specific parameters of this 'express delivery' to the Arctic? So I can understand what I'm doing as 'meat pie'."

“There’s no need to keep this a secret; you have the authority to know about it,” Shi Yiguang replied softly. “In space and interstellar space, our aircraft can adjust between 5000 and 32000 seconds. If pre-loaded with 300 tons of liquid hydrogen propellant, the theoretical maximum speed increase can reach 287 km/s…”

"Of course, if only nuclear thermal rockets are used, this value will drop to 42.8 km/s, but acceleration is still taken into account..."

"Gas-core fission reactors all require confining extremely high-temperature plasma, making them no less difficult to achieve than first-generation controlled nuclear fusion. However, the former has a fuel density that is thousands of times higher than the latter, so the engine size is much smaller..."

Maria of the Stars spoke thoughtfully: "The thermal power output of this engine must be an extremely astonishing figure."

Shi Yiguang smiled slightly: "No more, no less, 15 megawatts."

"It burns about 2 grams of uranium-235 per second?" Fingel interjected. "Such a huge thing needs some kind of self-defense, right? Otherwise, what if it encounters a terrorist attack?"

“The weapon module currently only integrates an experimental directed energy system.” Shi Yiguang thought for a moment: “The ‘True Fire-Fluorine’ excimer laser has a wavelength in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) region, about 470 nm, with a single pulse energy peak of 12 megajoules and a repetition frequency of 100 Hz.”

"Unfortunately, the pump's energy conversion efficiency is only 5.6%, and most of the heat energy needs to be forcibly cooled by circulating true qi."

Fortunately, her sword intent can be incorporated into the solar fire that is pumped and stimulated, which serves as a medium, thus achieving long-range mental damage at the speed of light. Moreover, after becoming familiar with it, she can achieve a state of unity between human and laser weapon.

"This efficiency... sounds even more impressive than my GPA this year!" Fingel raised an eyebrow: "Is it used to burn through meteorites, or to give some clueless satellite a 'laser makeover'?"

"A conversion efficiency of 5.6%...this is a record-breaking achievement in this type of laser weapon system."

Maria of the Stars glanced at him. "The main advantage of vacuum ultraviolet lasers is that they have near-zero attenuation outside the atmosphere and high photon energy, which can easily induce photodissociation and ionization of materials. Considering the gigawatt-level power, even intercontinental ballistic missiles cannot withstand continuous irradiation, let alone satellites..."

"But there's one thing I really can't figure out: how can such a huge amount of waste heat be effectively dissipated in the vacuum of space? Traditional radiative heat sinks would probably have an enormous area."

“It’s very simple. I’ll handle the heat dissipation problem,” Shi Yiguang interjected. “Besides neutralizing it with the Yin True Water, we can also absorb the excess heat radiation with the Sun True Fire, then extend the energy field to the outside of the spacecraft to form a net covering several square kilometers, and then retract it…”

"Different technological approaches lead to different choices."

"So, the 'True Qi Barrier' and 'Spiritual Pressure Alternation Field' you just mentioned seem to be the actual means of resisting the tens of thousands of degrees of temperature in the core?" Maria Hoshino asked with some surprise, but then suddenly realized, "Could this be... the power possessed by cultivators? It's similar to Word Power, yet different!"

"That's understandable."

Shi Yiguang nodded slightly, “Word of power is a fixed program for manipulating vital energy, which relies on the resonance of dragon script deep in the bloodline. It is more like an inherited, relatively fixed ‘instruction set’.”

"The True Essence Technique, on the other hand, is a guide to 'macro-manifestation' and self-enhancement based on personal intention and perception. It emphasizes the understanding, refinement, and autonomous control of energy itself. The path is more flexible and relies more on 'comprehension' and continuous practice."

Fingel rubbed his still somewhat stuffy chest and interjected, "It sounds like the difference between open-source and closed-source systems? One relies on genetics from parents, the other on hard work and dedication? So, for hardware like mine that can't even run a closed-source system smoothly, does that mean I shouldn't expect optimizations from the open-source community?"

“Your analogy is very…modern.” Shi Yiguang’s lips curled up almost imperceptibly. “But it’s not entirely wrong.”

"However, isn't the significance of modern technology precisely in trying to provide optimization possibilities for more 'hardware'?"

As she spoke, she flipped her wrist, revealing a strip of capsules with a warm, jade-like color in her palm: "For example, this one, Beiming Type I, originates from the characteristics of Beiming True Qi, which is 'all-encompassing and accumulates energy,' but has undergone significant simplification and safety measures."

"The legendary 'optimization patch'?"

Fingel's eyes lit up, and he instantly forgot about the previous tragedy of his family's inheritance. He leaned closer and took a closer look: "Five dollars a piece? That's too expensive! In the eyes of poor students like us, it's an astronomical luxury. We can barely even afford to try it."

"Boss, can we apply for an employee discount?"

"Also, what exactly is this 'Northern Darkness' technique? Does eating it allow you to absorb someone's internal energy like in martial arts novels? Should I stay away from you then?" He pretended to be shocked.

“The internal price is negotiable, and you can also deduct it using intelligence or labor.” Shi Yiguang flicked her finger, and a capsule fell into Fingel’s palm. “As for ‘absorbing other people’s internal energy’? You’re overthinking it. You need to have a matching technique, otherwise you can only passively absorb a little bit, and it’s completely limited to one acupoint.”

"Sounds like false advertising? You have to buy the DLC to unlock the full experience?" Fingel examined the capsule closely, blinking. "The CEO personally exposing the inside story of the company's product? This marketing strategy is too honest... I've been in journalism for many years, and this is the first time I've seen this!"

"Do you remember the scene where Wu Yazi imparted his inner power to Xu Zhu?"

Shi Yiguang continued, “The Northern Darkness Type I uses the same principle. But the difference is that it ‘infuses’ far less than seventy years of cultivation, only equivalent to a few quarters of an hour or even several hours of true energy, achieving a miniaturized and multi-targeted transfer of power.”

"The same 'Wu Yazi's' total skill, under traditional circumstances, could only make one 'Xu Zhu' become a top master. But in the new era, it can benefit hundreds of thousands of 'Xu Zhu's' together, allowing them to get a basic understanding of internal skills."

"how did you do that?"

...(End of chapter)