I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

Jiang Ming didn't rush to respond to Wu Hanzhang's words.

He glanced down at the few sheets of paper soaked with sweat, then pulled a pen from his shirt pocket.

The pen cap tapped on the table, drawing a dotted line.

"Mr. Wu, just because the sample is stable doesn't mean the whole tube can be put on the market."

Jiang Ming's voice drowned out the roar of the vacuum pump as he pressed his finger against the edge of the dotted line.

Wu Hanzhang's hand, holding the teacup, froze in mid-air, and a few drops of hot tea spilled out and landed on his shoes.

Jiang Ming turned the recording paper over and drew an enlarged outline of the cathode tube.

The pen tip pressed heavily against both ends of the tube.

"We've now measured the limit of the formula at 1.1 percent on a flat surface the size of a fingernail."

"But once it's scaled up to the size of a full-sized military tube, the coating area increases exponentially."

Jiang Ming tapped the edge of the round tube with the pen handle.

Xiao Zhao had just wiped the sweat from his brow when he heard this and came closer again.

"Mr. Jiang, can't we just multiply the material cost by the area?"

Xiao Zhao pushed up his thick-rimmed glasses.

Jiang Ming pushed the blueprints towards him.

"This is a coating, not a paint job."

"If a hydrogen-nitrogen mixture in a high-temperature environment were to wash over a large area of ​​coating, the edge stress would become unbalanced and powder would scatter."

"This edge effect will tear apart the crystal lattice framework that has been so hard-won."

Old Sun tapped the ash out of his tobacco pipe.

Wu Hanzhang understood Jiang Ming's meaning and placed the teacup on the worktable.

"Xiao Jiang, so how do you plan to cross this river?"

The chief engineer's gaze was entirely fixed on this young man.

Without hesitation, Jiang Ming threw the broken pencil on the table into the waste bin.

"Let's make a sacrificial verification tube first."

Jiang Ming looked into Wu Hanzhang's eyes.

"This pipe is not included in the delivery list of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense."

"It is only used to explore the heat distribution pattern after the coating is enlarged."

Even if it's burned to a pile of scrap glass, we still have to dig out the entire tube of amplified practical parameters from it.

Wu Hanzhang nodded and approved the decision without even stumbling.

"We'll do as you say."

"This factory may not have much else, but I'll make sure you're prepared to be disciplined."

Wu Hanzhang turned to look at his old colleagues in the workshop.

Jiang Ming called out to Lao Sun, who was packing up his tools.

"Master Sun, you can make do with the sample piece by using a watch repair screwdriver to score the grid."

"But we lack a suitable scraper to coat the rare earth slurry on the entire cylindrical surface."

Jiang Ming drew a flat, curved blade on the paper.

"The thickness must be absolutely uniform."

"Otherwise, if the heat distribution goes astray during sintering, the tube will be scrapped on the spot."

Old Sun took a closer look at the sketch, then turned around and walked to the metal cabinet in the corner, where he pulled out a thin piece of spring steel.

"Leave this job to me."

"I used a fine grinding wheel to grind the edges into a micron-level rounded corner with a smooth, water-repellent finish, ensuring that the applied slurry is as smooth as a mirror."

Old Sun flicked the spring steel in his hand twice.

The metal emitted a crisp echo.

Jiang Ming then looked at Xiao Zhao.

"You convert the 1.1% ratio into the amount needed for the entire pipe area."

"Accurate to the milligram."

"The materials ledger must be absolutely free of the slightest error or omission."

Da Liu ran to wash his hands.

"Jiang, I'm going to renumber the sintering boat."

"We have to treat this sacrificial verification tube like a sacred Buddha."

In the factory director's office on the second floor of the administration building, only a dimly lit table lamp was on.

Factory Director Zhang locked the report on the Northwest Miscellaneous Issues, stamped with a red seal, in the bottom of the safe.

The crisp sound of the key turning was particularly clear inside the house.

Director Wang sat on a red lacquered wooden chair, the cigarette in his hand already half-burned.

He didn't even bother to brush off the cigarette ash that fell onto his military uniform trousers.

"We can't bring this up with that kid."

Director Wang, with a cigarette between his fingers, pointed out the window towards Workshop No. 1.

Factory Director Zhang poured two glasses of water and pushed one of them towards Director Wang.

"Old Lei has a very strong foundation, and the enemy's network of agents has been spread across the Northwest."

"If we were to directly expose this mystery about his background to Xiao Jiang now, I'm afraid he might lose his grip on the pen."

Director Wang held his water cup, using the warmth to dispel the chill of his journey at night.

Factory Director Zhang opened the drawer, put Chen Zhiyuan's letter into a brand new top-secret kraft paper bag, and resealed it.

"I agree."

"This kid is currently leading a group of people to work on military-grade vacuum tubes."

"This is the technological spark that holds the lifeline of the nation's communications."

"We absolutely cannot give him trouble at this critical juncture."

Factory Director Zhang stamped the sealing wax onto the seal.

Director Wang stubbed out the cigarette in the glass ashtray.

"I will screen the inside information at Guangzhou Port again."

"I also had to submit reports to the ministries overnight regarding the confidentiality work in the Northwest."

Director Wang stood up and straightened his military cap.

"The security level of the communications testing unit where Chen Zhiyuan works must be raised."

"Since the enemy agents have started to use the Lightning Seven's usual method of sending probes, it means that they have already planted spies over there."

Director Wang's gaze, seen through his glasses, revealed the cold, hard edge of a veteran of the battlefield.

Factory Director Zhang stood up as well.

"I'll personally keep an eye on things here in Beijing."

"Not even a flying insect can be brought out of Workshop No. 1."

The midnight wind rustled against the wooden windowpanes of the single dormitory.

Jiang Ming adjusted the wick of the kerosene lamp to be a little bigger.

The dim light illuminated the hard copy book in front of me, filled with Russian derivation formulas.

He sat cross-legged on the hard bed, letting his consciousness sink into his mind.

The bronze-covered "Record of Connections" shines with its familiar light once again.

Those were his three trump cards for survival that he had to use tonight.

Without hesitation, he connected with the hot-tempered early vacuum tube pioneer.

"Senior, when scaling up the sample formulation to the entire tube size, besides adding tungsten powder for edge effect compensation, are there any potential pitfalls in the coating process?"

Jiang Ming directly presented the most critical and difficult point.

A cold snort, like metal scraping, came from the other end of the system.

"The edge effect is a bottomless pit."

"What's the point of just adding tungsten powder?"

"If the entire tube is heated in the furnace, can the coefficients of expansion at both ends and in the middle be the same?"

The words of the pioneers of the hot industry are full of practical experience in the craft.

"If you're not at either end of the cathode base, scrape off an extra two micrometers of material beforehand."

"During sintering, the edge coating will be stripped into waste by the hydrogen and nitrogen gas flow."

In the darkness, Jiang Ming carefully found a pencil and wrote down the mark that the end had thickened by two micrometers.

He gave his second chance to his classmates in materials interface physics.

"Senior, the increased pipe area has caused the heat distribution to become misaligned."

"Can a stepped heating method completely suppress boiling over?"

The younger students always speak like machine guns, leaving no room for breathing.

"Don't put all your hopes on furnace temperature."

"The imbalance in heat distribution caused by coating expansion is a physical law."

"If you want the tube to survive, you have to use copper clamps to force heat dissipation at both ends of the cathode before the substrate enters the furnace."

"The temperature at the most dangerous edges is leveled out by relying on metal conduction."

"Otherwise, the middle will be cooked while the edges are still raw."

The connection was cut off after the fellow disciple finished speaking.

Jiang Ming's hand throbbed twice as he drew a simple diagram of the fixture on the paper.

He reserved his final quota for pioneers in precision instrument and vacuum systems engineering.

"Senior, in the vacuum pretreatment before sintering the entire tube, is it still necessary to use a cold trap to trap water molecules?"

Sweat dripped down Jiang Ming's nose.

A clear, crisp female voice, carrying its usual arrogance, came from the depths of her consciousness.

"The venting volume of the entire pipe area is ten times that of the sample."

"Relying solely on cold traps to capture water is simply not enough."

The female pioneer directly rejected the old path.

"The quartz boat must be baked empty before it is put into the furnace."

"The entire tube base must also be placed in an advanced vacuum drying oven for four hours at a high temperature of 250 degrees Celsius to remove gas."

"Boil out all the impurities from the metal capillaries, then apply the slurry."

The female pioneer pushed the craft chain forward another step.

Jiang Ming opened his eyes, panting heavily.

He looked at the densely packed compensation terms on his notebook.

The system emphasizes that deadly edge effect from beginning to end.

Early the next morning.

Before dawn broke over Beijing, the metal door of Workshop No. 1 was pushed open.

The cold air hadn't dissipated yet, and Lao Sun had already been sitting at his workbench, busy for half the night.

A pile of discarded scraps lay scattered on the ground.

Da Liu carefully placed the newly numbered quartz boat on the operating table, barely daring to breathe.

Xiao Zhao was holding the materials ledger covered in scribbles.

The weighed 1/100% cerium monoxide slurry was sealed in a thick glass dish.

Jiang Ming pushed open the door and walked in, slamming the manila notebook filled with compensation measures onto the table.

Old Sun heard the noise and turned around.

He took out a piece of cotton cloth covered in black machine oil from his pocket and slowly wiped the metal object in his hand.

That's a scraper that's just been polished and shaped.

Old Sun stood up and handed the scraper, which was hand-ground from a thin spring steel sheet, to Jiang Ming.

The incandescent light from the workshop ceiling shines directly on the blade of the scraper.

The edge, which has been rounded to the micrometer level, refracts into a straight, cool line under the light.

Not even half a serrated edge could be found.

"Jiang, everything's done."

Old Sun placed the scraper on the iron platform.

Jiang Ming picked up the scraper and ran his thumb along the edge of the metal.

The cool touch told him that this was a perfect industrial weapon.

He turned to look at the glass dish containing the precious paste.

The cathode coating of the first military-grade tube has officially begun.