I built an armada.

The running curve!
The billions of real-time data streams representing the confinement field energy level, plasma density, temperature, and particle collision rate cascaded down like a waterfall in the virtual space!

They are... stable!! Within the preset error threshold! Like a giant ship firmly locked onto its course in a raging storm!

"Stable...controllable..."

The dazzling "nuclear fire" made Su Dingping's pupils appear blazing white, and his muttered voice drifted in his consciousness, carrying a hint of ecstasy that even he himself had not anticipated!

This is even more effective than his most optimistic predictions!

Time passed amidst the spectacular yet terrifying sight of the core fusion furnace burning.

An invisible timer ticked at the edge of space.

[Stable uptime. 1 hour]...[5 hours]...[10 hours]...

The light of destruction never went out, but it was no longer as blinding as it had been at first. Instead, it displayed a unique, swirling, and magnificent color of a high-temperature plasma fluid under strong magnetic confinement.

[Continuous stable operation time. 27 hours of simulated calibration]

Su Dingping's consciousness had been in a state of full-speed calculation of this vast amount of data for a long time, and he had already felt a great fatigue originating from his spiritual source.

But the light in his eyes grew brighter and brighter!

Become!

The core reactor of this fundamental physics model... is complete! It's complete in the forging space!

That means that his entire design of the reactor's physical configuration, energy cycle, constraint logic... all withstood the most extreme, law-level "ignition" test!

boom!!!
The light was forcibly interrupted! Simulation terminated!

The space instantly reverted to that cold, data-flowing state.

Su Dingping's body swayed violently, and his consciousness was jolted back to his dormitory in the real world! Almost simultaneously, an irresistible, intense feeling of exhaustion, as if his soul had been ripped out, swept over his entire body!

His body swayed violently, and he managed to stay upright by grabbing the edge of the bed. Large beads of cold sweat instantly slid down his forehead and landed on the cold floor.

My heart was pounding wildly in my chest, and my ears were ringing.

But deep within those eyes was a flame that, even after burning, still burned fiercely, powerful enough to cleave through the fog!
The core fire of Dragon Star's heart... has finally ignited the first possibility in my hands!
At dawn, the pale blue light struggled to tear through the thick clouds atop the southwestern mountains.

In front of the institute's guesthouse, Wan Long's back was straighter than any of the straight pine trees by the roadside.

His face was ashen, and his gaze, like two fixed searchlights, was fixed on the slowly opening, rusty iron gate of the research institute.

Outside the door were several off-road vehicles covered in thick dust, and his team members, dressed in civilian clothes but with bulging waists and sharp, piercing eyes, who had thoroughly deployed a hidden sentry network around the entire perimeter three hours in advance.

The air was damp, carrying the cold, metallic smell of corrosion and the stench of sulfur dust drifting from the distant mining area.

Su Dingping emerged, the mental battle of the night leaving no obvious marks on his appearance, only the deep serenity in his eyes seemed even more profound. Guo Xueyun followed beside him, carrying a simple briefcase.

"Get in the car!"

Wanlong's voice was like two pieces of pig iron rubbing together, leaving no room for negotiation.

He didn't even let Su Dingping choose his own spot. He yanked open the incredibly heavy middle door of the modified off-road vehicle, his cold gaze sweeping over every corner of the interior.

Like silent arrows, the convoy sped away from the guesthouse and plunged into the mountain road shrouded in thick fog, flanked by cliffs and deep ravines. The fog enveloped each vehicle like a cold, damp cloth.

The car windows were tightly closed, and the only sounds inside were Wanlong's occasional short, coded commands transmitted through his throat microphone and the faint hissing of encrypted radio waves. Guo Xueyun sat quietly beside Su Dingping, her fingers unconsciously curling.

Every sharp turn on the mountain road, every time the chilling mist rising from the deep ravine beside the road crashes against the dark car window, makes one's heart skip a beat.

The wheels rolled over the bumpy, gravel road, kicking up clouds of dust, and finally came to a stop deep within a factory area shrouded in white steam spewed from a huge condensation tower and filled with a strong, pungent chemical odor.

Several gray, five- or six-story buildings were crammed together, like parasites stuck to a huge chemical plant.

[Xijiang Comprehensive Research Institute]

A faded, peeling gold plaque hangs askew at the entrance of a main building that looks quite old.

A dozen or so people stood sparsely in front of the gate. Xu Bingxian was leading the group.

He wasn't wearing a formal suit, but a faded gray work jacket with some unidentified gray stains. The forced smile on his face looked more like lines carved into his stiff, muscular skin.

Behind him, several elderly researchers with gray hair had curiosity and a hint of barely perceptible excitement in their eyes, while the younger faces were expressionless, their eyes filled with inquiry and detachment.

The car door opened, and a damp, cold wind carrying a strong chemical smell rushed out.

Su Dingping stepped off the heavy floor of the bulletproof SUV and calmly swept his gaze over the small group of people who were there to greet him.

"Oh! Welcome, welcome! Expert Su Dingping, Comrade Guo Xueyun! And this comrade, you must be tired from your journey!"

Xu Bingxian deliberately raised his voice, with a heavy local accent, and warmly stepped forward, extending his hands.

The smile remained on his face, but a deep-seated contempt and a "routine" numbness, like a hidden reef at the bottom of the water, were faintly visible in the depths of his eyes.

Su Dingping shook hands with him briefly, his movements natural and without any hesitation or arrogance.

"Director Xu, please wait at the door. There's no need to be so polite."

His voice was calm, and his gaze met Xu Bingxian's well-concealed, cloudy eyes with an open and honest look.

This simple sentence and down-to-earth attitude slightly eased the tense expressions on the faces of the senior researchers behind Xu Bingxian.

An elderly man with slicked-back hair and thick glasses couldn't help but mutter something under his breath.

"...You're really quite young...you look like you're only twenty-seven or twenty-eight?"

"Young and promising! Young and promising!"

Xu Bingxian chuckled and stepped aside to lead the way.

"Come on! Expert Su! Engineer Guo!"
This way, please! You must be tired from the journey, would you like to rest for a bit and have some tea, or...?

"Let's check on the situation at the institute first. Time waits for no one." Su Dingping didn't stand on ceremony and followed after them.

The entire research institute was filled with a strong laboratory smell—the strange odor of disinfectant mixed with concentrated acid, volatile solvents, and some kind of burnt metal dust. The walls were grayish-white, with some areas where the plaster had peeled off, revealing a grayish-black base.

The ground was plastered with the cheapest cement, and many places were pitted and uneven due to chemical corrosion.

They first passed through several small physicochemical analysis rooms, where researchers in white lab coats were fiddling with bubbling test tubes and cuvettes behind glass partitions.

Su Dingping's steps did not falter, his gaze sweeping swiftly across the bottles, jars, and labels on the instruments like a precise scanner, without uttering a single unnecessary word.

The further in he went, the louder the machine noise became. The heavy safety doors couldn't block out the roar from within. Xu Bingxian pushed open the two heavy experimental workshop doors, reinforced with lead strips—

My vision suddenly opened up!
The massive steel platform occupied most of the spacious area!

Two enormous machines, resembling prehistoric metal behemoths, were emitting a deep, powerful pulsating roar!

The outer shell is made of thick, frosted steel plate, covered with large pipelines, control valves flashing with a pale blue or dark red light, and a thick, transparent observation window. This is a new generation of ion enrichment centrifugal extractor and its accompanying large-scale automated elution tower!
As Xu Bingxian approached the platform, the noise forced him to raise his voice, his tone revealing an undisguised arrogance and the depth of experience accumulated over many years.

"Expert Su!"

This is the engineering verification machine for our core project, "Tiangong Line 3," which is currently our main focus at the Xijiang Institute! It's the first fully industrialized prototype!

He patted the cold, rough exterior, making a dull "thump-thump" sound.

"The core objective of this behemoth is to solve two major pain points in current centrifugal extraction technology!"

He held up two short, thick, dark fingers and gestured.

"First! Traditional tank-type static extraction is inefficient, has poor separation precision, and large purity fluctuations! Our Xijiang No. 1 line has been plagued by this for several years!"

His fingers struck the core transmission structure of the machine heavily, making a resounding clang.

"By driving a multi-stage centrifugal disc with a high-speed magnetic levitation shaft, a huge centrifugal force field is formed by simulating high-speed rotation! This allows rare earth ions in the mixture and the extract to be forcibly separated according to their specific gravity and polarity during high-speed motion! Theoretically, the efficiency can be ten times higher than that of a static tank!"

He paused, looked at Su Dingping, trying to discern a hint of "shock" or "awe" on that overly young face, but found that the impossibly handsome face was as calm as a pool of cold water, his sharp eyes focused on the core area he had just pointed out, as if assessing something.

Xu Bingxian felt inexplicably uneasy and quickly pointed to several huge alloy storage tanks with a special luster next to him.

"This is the second biggest pain point! It's also the most expensive and most vulnerable area!"

His tone became agitated, filled with intense resentment and unwillingness.

"The mainstream high-efficiency separation and extraction solvents! P204, P507, Cyanex 272—those foreign gadgets! Expensive! And the effects aren't as miraculous as advertised! The reaction efficiency is extremely sensitive to pH and temperature! Waste liquid treatment is the biggest problem! It causes significant pollution and easily forms organic toxic pollutants!"

Xu Bingxian spat fiercely.

"Damn it! Their cost alone has completely wiped out the little efficiency advantage we've worked so hard to achieve! And sometimes the purity isn't even up to par!"

He pointed to a long string of red curves on a control panel next to him, displaying various parameters, representing the amount of solvent used and the reaction fluctuation range, his tone both helpless and indignant.

"This is the tough nut we've been gnawing at for nearly two years! We need to develop a new generation of extraction systems! Explore new compound formulas! Cost! Efficiency! Purity! Environmental friendliness!"
These four great mountains!

Just then.

A young lab technician wearing goggles, his hands covered in dark blue solvent, ran up to Xu Bingxian carrying a thick stack of reports that still smelled of ink and paper, and handed them to him.

"Director, Engineer Wang asked me to send over the cross-validation report on the second round of centrifugal separation efficiency and ion concentration gradient of Tiangong Line 3 for filing."

Xu Bingxian casually handed it to Su Dingping next to him, even managing a slightly mocking and somewhat "testing" smile on his face.

"Expert Su! You're a top expert sent from above, a big shot in high technology! Take a look at our data, which we've painstakingly compiled here? Could you help us diagnose the problem? Where exactly is the bottleneck in the separation efficiency and target ion retention of this new machine?"

His tone was polite, but the subtext seemed to be saying something.

"Can you understand this thing?"

The report cover was densely covered with various organic chemical formulas, extraction rate equations, and ion concentration distributions at different rotation speeds...

Su Dingping accepted the stack of report papers, still warm from the machine's vibrations, without any hesitation. Several blue solvent droplets stained the edges of the papers.

He didn't frown or casually flip through a couple of pages and hand it back as Xu Bingxian had expected—he opened it right away!
Right next to this machine platform, filled with the smell of engine oil, acid, and deafening noise! ​​Right in full view of everyone!

Several senior researchers curiously gathered around, exchanging silent glances. Guo Xueyun stood slightly behind Su Dingping, as quiet as a traditional Chinese ink painting.

The page turning speed is not fast.

One page. And another.

Charts, organic molecular structures, complex thermodynamic equilibrium equations, densely packed data lists...

Xu Bingxian's forced, relaxed smile was starting to crumble.

Looking at Su Dingping's focused gaze, as if he were analyzing blueprints for some kind of sophisticated weapon rather than reading a report, a corner of his heart sank slightly!
This kid... he's acting way too well!
Nearly ten minutes have passed.

Turn to the last few pages of the report for the summary conclusions.

Su Dingping suddenly extended his right finger, and his fingertip precisely pointed to the data point matrix in the middle of the third page, which was about the correlation curve between rotor linear velocity and separation factor.

"At the critical rotational speed Vc = 145 ± 3 m/s, the extraction efficiency of praseodymium-neodymium ions begins to show a non-ideal, abrupt decline."

His voice rang out amidst the roar of the machines, exceptionally clear and steady, carrying a cold, analytical edge.

"The problem is not with the theoretically calculated speed limit. The 'flow field boundary layer vortex oscillation' mentioned in the report is a superficial phenomenon."

His fingertip traced a subtle nonlinear inflection point in the liquid rheological test graph on the next page.

"The fundamental problem is that the microrheological properties of your P204 and P507 mixed extractant are unstable at high speeds!"

"Viscosity increases dramatically with shear rate, forming localized stagnant gels! This hinders effective mass transfer and diffusion channels between molecules!"

Su Dingping looked up at Xu Bingxian, whose face had already stiffened, and spoke in a steady, surgically precise manner, as if a scalpel were precisely cutting through the surface tissue.

"This is a fundamental conflict arising from the mismatch between the inherent molecular bonding forces of the solvent and the dynamic structural stress of the centrifugal force field! This directly leads to rare earth ions being 'encapsulated' in the high-speed region and unable to be effectively separated! Efficiency plummets! Purity naturally cannot be improved!" (End of Chapter)