"Although optical materials for electronic screens are only a small niche market, their applications are immeasurable and can continue expanding. Their prospects are limitless."
On the High-speed Rail, Zhou Feiyu was exhilarated. Though his eyes watched the scenery whipping past outside the window, his thoughts had long since drifted into the clouds. He still remembered the first day back at work after the New Year, one month ago.
Zhou Feiyu was twenty-eight years old, nearly thirty by traditional age. Having started school early, he had become classmates with Wang Wei, who was two years older than him. Both had graduated from prestigious universities.
However, Zhou Feiyu's parents were in poor health, so after graduating from university, he had found a company in his home county to take care of his family. Despite his prestigious university degree, he earned ten thousand yuan a month while doing low-end materials research and development.
Nanjiang Province was a province with a middling economy, yet its entire economic scale was only comparable to that of Peng City alone. There was simply no comparison between their economies.
And in a tiny fifth-tier county town, typical salaries ranged from fifteen hundred to two thousand yuan. Even five or six thousand yuan was already considered high pay.
It was only because Zhou Feiyu had graduated from a prestigious university and the company valued him that it offered him the top monthly salary of ten thousand yuan, putting him on the same level as his department manager.
Of course, compared with housing prices, that was nothing. Even in the small county town where he lived, housing prices had reached ten thousand yuan per square meter, floating high in the clouds.
For five years, Zhou Feiyu had worked diligently. Though he had not made any major breakthroughs in materials research and development, he had led his team through many technical hurdles, secured several well-known major clients, and created considerable value for the company.
But this was not what Zhou Feiyu wanted.
Every fresh-faced university graduate, especially one from a prestigious university, was filled with passion and ambition, wanting to build a world-shaking career.
Zhou Feiyu was no exception. He had even wanted to leave his name in history and make an indelible mark on the development of the entire nation.
But reality was often cruel.
Zhou Feiyu was merely average. He had ambition, but lacked the ability to match it. After five years, he had come to realize that his capabilities went no further.
Especially now that five years had passed and he was nearly thirty by traditional age, he had begun to feel his energy failing after working so hard for so long. He was no longer the eighteen-year-old who could down twenty or thirty bottles of beer without batting an eye.
Now, even one bottle made him a little dizzy.
That was until the first day after the New Year, when he was on his way to work. A bolt from the blue struck a small tree by the roadside, and a thumb-sized silver sphere came falling down, gleaming brightly.
After his initial shock, Zhou Feiyu went over to pick it up out of curiosity.
"Beep! Carbon-based intelligent lifeform detected. Galaxy Technology Library activated!"
The moment he touched the silver sphere, it transformed into a streak of silver light and vanished. In its place, a mechanical voice sounded in his mind.
Then, a torrent of information surged into Zhou Feiyu's consciousness.
Afterward, Zhou Feiyu learned that the silver sphere was something from beyond Earth. It had somehow appeared on Earth from somewhere in the cosmic starry sky before being picked up by him. It was a technological creation containing countless scientific and technological knowledge, called the "Galaxy Technology Library." It had been created with spatial technology and was profoundly mysterious.
With Earth's current level of technology, such a technological creation was undoubtedly something out of myths and legends, rather like the Buddhist concept of a universe within a mustard seed.
However, the Galaxy Technology Library was far too vast, and most of it was sealed away. It required his own knowledge and ability to unlock it. At present, Zhou Feiyu could only unlock some low-level technologies that were not much different from Earth's technology.
Thanks to the nature of his work in materials research and development, Zhou Feiyu had barely managed to unlock a technology that caught his eye: Basic Optical Film.
Then, relying on the resources he had accumulated over the years, Zhou Feiyu worked tirelessly for a month to produce Basic Optical Film, making ten square meters of samples and planning out his next move.
The key to that plan was his old classmate Wang Wei, who worked as a project manager at Hua Long Technology.
Of course, he could not hang himself from a single tree. He had a backup plan as well.
"Hello, could you do me a favor?"
At that moment, a gentle female voice suddenly came from beside him.
Zhou Feiyu came back to his senses and turned to look. A tall, slender girl with long hair draped over her shoulders and a small bun tied atop her head was speaking to him.
The tall, slender girl wore jeans that showed off her long, straight, beautiful legs, along with flat canvas shoes. Her upper body was wrapped in a black down jacket that reached her waist. She had a round face, single eyelids, thin lips, a light dusting of powder on her face, snow-white skin, and an unassuming temperament.
Her large, clear eyes gazed at him gently, making his heart warm.
At first glance, the girl gave Zhou Feiyu several immediate impressions.
Great figure! Gentle! Proper!
Her down jacket concealed her figure, but based on those beautiful legs alone, her body definitely could not be bad.
When Zhou Feiyu looked over, the tall, slender girl gave him an embarrassed smile before asking, "Hello, my suitcase is too heavy. Could you help me lift it up there?"
She first pointed at her suitcase, then toward the luggage rack above the seats.
"Sure."
Zhou Feiyu immediately nodded in agreement. He put his backpack down on his seat, then got up and helped her lift the suitcase onto the luggage rack.
The tall, slender girl nodded and thanked him. "Thank you."
Only then did Zhou Feiyu realize that the girl was truly tall. Even wearing flat shoes, she came up to his ears. I'm one meter seventy-eight. She must be around one meter seventy-two or seventy-three, right?
Girls in the south were generally not very tall, hovering around one meter sixty. Those who exceeded one meter seventy were truly rare.
If this tall, slender girl put on high heels, there really would not be many men who could withstand her looking down at them.
She probably wears flat shoes because she's afraid of scaring guys off.
Such a thought suddenly popped into Zhou Feiyu's head.
The tall, slender girl's seat was to Zhou Feiyu's left. After they sat down, neither of them spoke again.
They were strangers who had met by chance, and Zhou Feiyu was a science major and an utterly straight-laced guy. He had no idea how to pursue girls, which was why he was still single at nearly thirty. Naturally, he would not take the initiative to strike up a conversation with the tall, slender girl.
The tall, slender girl could not help glancing at him twice. Seeing that he did not speak, she said nothing either, silently taking out her earbuds and listening to music.
Zhou Feiyu quickly put the matter out of his mind. After returning to his seat, a thought crossed his mind, and a light screen invisible to others appeared before his eyes.
Name: Zhou Feiyu Age: 28 Gender: Male Scientific Knowledge: A. Chinese: LV1 (200/10000) B. Mathematics: LV0 (0/1000) C. Foreign Language: LV0 (0/1000) D. Physics: LV0 (0/1000) E. Biology: LV0 (0/1000) F. Geography: LV0 (0/1000) G. Mechanical Drawing: LV1 (400/10000) H. Structural Design: LV1 (1300/10000) I. Material Science: LV1 (2200/10000) ... Specialized Technology: ① Basic Optical Film Current Points: 4100 Mission: Successfully promote Basic Optical Film and gain customer recognition (Accepted). Each completed mission will grant point rewards. The number of points awarded varies according to mission difficulty, and the next mission can only be unlocked after the current one is completed. The current mission has a time limit of one month.
This was the Galaxy Technology Library's assessment of Zhou Feiyu at present.
Each category of scientific knowledge leveled up as its points increased. Adding together all his current scientific knowledge points, he now had 4,100 points.
Among them, Material Science had the most points at 2,200, followed by Structural Design, then Mechanical Drawing, and finally Chinese. As for Mathematics, Biology, Geography, and the like, they were basically at zero.
When Zhou Feiyu had first obtained the system and seen this assessment, he had been rendered speechless. He was at least a bachelor's graduate from a prestigious university, and this was all he amounted to?
Now, he had grown accustomed to it. After all, extraterrestrial scientific knowledge could not be judged by Earth's technological standards.
It only took 1,000 points to advance from LV0 to LV1, but advancing from LV1 to LV2 required 10,000 points, a tenfold increase. Zhou Feiyu truly did not know how many points would be needed afterward. Just thinking about it made his scalp tingle.
Current points were the total of knowledge points across all subjects. They could be used separately to level up a subject that had accumulated enough points, or they could be saved and used to unlock specialized technologies within the Galaxy Technology Library.
He had spent 5,000 points to unlock the Basic Optical Film technology.
As for acquiring points, they came from experience generated when he used knowledge from those subjects in his daily work.
For example, Mechanical Drawing, Structural Design, and Material Science. When he was producing the Basic Optical Film samples, it had actually been a learning process, and his points had steadily risen bit by bit.
Lost in thought, Zhou Feiyu did not know how much time had passed when the tall, slender girl beside him suddenly stood up and said, "Sir, we've arrived at the final stop, Peng City. Could I trouble you to help me once more?"
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