Infinitely Variable Speed Ion Wind Cannon

"Forty points in the Energy attribute should be enough."

Chen Yi checked the thruster's attributes after connecting it to the power battery.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Seven-colored light blossomed.

It completely enveloped the ion thruster and power battery on the table.

The ion thruster's attributes adjusted rapidly, while its shape and form continued to change.

Half a minute later, the light faded.

The originally bulky, oversized power battery had vanished, replaced by a battery the size of a thermos.

The crude soda-can thruster had also undergone a complete transformation.

The surface of the cylinder was covered in all sorts of modules and capacitors.

One end had an intake passage like that of an aircraft engine. Its specially made turbofan blades were covered in golf-ball-like dimples.

The other end tapered inward into an exhaust nozzle no different from that of an ordinary turbojet engine.

Judging by its appearance alone, anyone unfamiliar with it would think it was a turbofan combustion jet engine.

But only Chen Yi knew.

This was not a turbofan combustion jet engine.

It was a turbofan ion propulsion engine.

The combustion chamber inside a combustion jet engine had been replaced by accelerating electric and magnetic fields.

Its former method of generating work through combustion and expansion had become electric-field ion propulsion.

[Item: Turbofan Ion Propulsion Engine (Atmospheric Type)]

[Attributes: Energy x3.2, Strength x3.2, Mass x3.1, Speed x30.1, Efficiency x3.2, Control x3.2, Aesthetics x3.5...]

[Consciousness Wave: 7228203]

[One attribute has exceeded its initial value. Read information? Yes/No!]

[Note: This is an ingenious engine design combining turbofan jet and ion propulsion, replacing combustion propulsion with ion electric propulsion. If chemical energy is ever depleted, it will be the best turbofan engine.]

"If chemical energy is depleted, it'll be the best engine."

"So that means it still can't compare to a turbofan combustion jet engine right now?"

Chen Yi saw the hidden meaning in the note's evaluation.

As for its thirty points in Speed being inferior to a turbofan combustion engine, Chen Yi was not surprised.

After creating the brainwave virtual consciousness machine, he had long understood.

For different types of items, even identical attributes could carry entirely different weights and performance levels—sometimes worlds apart.

Ion-propulsion engines and chemical-combustion engines.

Though both were called engines, their principles and types were vastly different.

"Let's test it and see how much thrust it has, as well as its thrust-to-weight ratio."

Chen Yi did not hurry to read the information. Instead, he tried lifting the ion thruster.

It was rather heavy.

Around forty kilograms.

Without using a forklift, Chen Yi carried the thruster to the floor scale nearby.

After weighing it, he confirmed the thruster's mass.

39.86 kilograms.

"This thing is pretty heavy. Its thrust-to-weight ratio is probably going to be questionable."

Chen Yi carried the thruster to the separate testing area.

He secured it to the test stand used for measuring engine thrust, then opened the roller shutters in front of its intake and exhaust directions.

He flipped the switch.

The lights came on, and the previously silent intake turbofan began to spin.

The turbofan was not spinning quickly. The RPM meter showed only 200 revolutions per minute, slower than an ordinary household fan.

The turbofan spun for two seconds.

Then, with a sharp hiss—

Blue radiance lit up from the thruster's nozzle on the other side.

At the same time, a violent stream of air blasted out.

The airflow tore through the air, producing a fine, whistling sonic boom.

However, due to the nature of the airflow, the effects of breaking the sound barrier were minor—not even one-thousandth as intense as a solid aircraft breaking the sound barrier.

Chen Yi had put on earplugs and moved aside beforehand. Apart from slight noise, he felt no other discomfort.

"940.7 newtons."

"With that thrust, the thrust-to-weight ratio isn't even two to one."

Chen Yi checked the thrust reading on the test stand and could not help complaining.

He knew that ion propulsion engines generally had low thrust.

But this was absurdly low.

After all, this was not pure ion propulsion. It was a turbofan-plus-ion-propulsion combination.

Compared to turbofan combustion jet engines and turbojet combustion engines, which commonly had thrust-to-weight ratios of nine to one, ten to one, or over ten to one—and Chen Yi's space-rushing engine had exceeded twenty to one—

Ion engines could be summed up in one word: pathetic.

After testing for over three minutes, the battery ran dry, and the ion thruster stopped.

Chen Yi connected it to the charger, then chose to read the information.

A dense mass of information emerged in his mind.

It included the ion thruster's structure, the internal electric-field layout, magnetic-field distribution, acceleration-track distribution, magnetic-field interference processing, and other technical data.

It also included basic parameters such as the ion thruster's exhaust velocity and exhaust mass.

"Maximum exhaust velocity: 520 meters per second. Not bad. It's just that the mass of the exhaust is a little low."

After more than two weeks of virtual learning,

Chen Yi quickly understood the information he had just read and its technical key points.

Low exhaust mass.

That was a common problem with ion thrusters.

If chemical combustion thrusters were compared to a tsunami flooding the land, then ion thrusters were like a child taking a piss.

A true space engine—

For example, the main engines of the Saturn V burned liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, consuming thousands of tons of fuel in just a few minutes.

Meanwhile, an ion thruster of the same size would consume only a few hundred grams of fuel after working for an entire day.

Although ion thrusters could easily give fuel a higher exhaust velocity,

The amount was too small to amount to much.

Furthermore, before the fuel's exhaust velocity approached the speed of light and relativistic effects came into play,

The conservation of kinetic energy and the impulse formula had already determined it.

Kinetic energy was proportional to the square of exhaust velocity, but only directly proportional to mass.

At the same power, the faster the fuel's exhaust velocity, the less mass could be expelled and the lower the thrust would be.

Ion thrusters sacrificed thrust to save a great deal of propellant, gaining higher efficiency and specific impulse.

In the weightless environment of space, with no atmospheric drag and no way to replenish propellant, this approach could provide longer acceleration time and greater endurance.

"It still needs improvement."

Improve the intake control and the control over ion exhaust.

During atmospheric ascent, the thruster could replenish propellant at any time by drawing in the outside atmosphere.

There was no need to save propellant by raising exhaust velocity, reducing exhaust mass, and lowering thrust.

Instead, it should lower exhaust velocity and increase exhaust mass to obtain greater thrust.

Once it reached high altitude and entered space, it could raise exhaust velocity again, reduce propellant consumption, and gain more acceleration time and longer endurance."

Having settled on the next improvement plan, Chen Yi did not hesitate and began adjusting the ion thruster's attributes.

Seven-colored light appeared.

When the light faded, the ion thruster, which had originally resembled a purified-water barrel, had turned into a small black carbon blow dryer.

One end of the blower had fan blades, while the other had an air outlet.

At the center of the blower, rings of modules and control capacitors of various sizes had been welded in place.

[Item: Infinitely Variable Speed Ion Wind Cannon]

[Attributes: Energy x3.2, Strength x3.2, Mass x3.1, Speed x3.1, Efficiency x3.2, Control x30.2, Aesthetics x3.5...]

[Consciousness Wave: 7222203]

[One attribute has exceeded its initial value. Read information? Yes/No!]

[Note: This is a wind cannon incorporating the latest Ion Control technology. Through precise control of ions, it can easily blow a negative-ion breeze and dry your hair within one minute.

It can also increase the strength of the electric and magnetic fields to blow high-temperature plasma wind with greater speed and heat. A hair dryer instantly becomes a hot-air cannon—melting gold and cutting iron will no longer be a dream.]

"This would make a nice hair dryer for a girlfriend. If you love her, blow-dry her hair. If you don't, roast her brains."

Looking at the note's evaluation of this latest wind cannon, Chen Yi could not help clicking his tongue.