King of Materials

"Cough, cough—" When William heated the graphite for the third time, Hunter finally could not help coughing.

William turned around and only then noticed that Hunter and Vincent were standing behind him.

"Uh... when did you get here?"

Vincent glanced at the time displayed on his Type-A Sphere bracelet. "About fifteen minutes ago."

William nodded. "Sorry, I get too focused when I'm experimenting and didn't notice—"

Then, belatedly surprised, he asked, "Um... how did you get in?"

Vincent showed his credentials, then pointed at the tiny grain beneath the microscope. "William, is this your new discovery?"

William shook his head rather shyly. "Not this. Its structure has been damaged, and it has almost completely lost its conductivity."

Vincent tapped it with his fingertip, using magic to lift a tiny grain that was still giving off heat.

"Mr. Wayne, um..."

"What is it?"

Looking nervous, William pulled open the drawer beneath the lab bench and took out two pairs of gloves, handing one each to Vincent and Hunter.

A laboratory had its rules. Even the most basic protective measures had to be observed.

Although that little heat was nothing to him, Vincent obediently put on the gloves.

He injected his magic into the grain and found that it was indeed as William had said: it had almost completely lost its conductivity.

After listening to William's explanation, he roughly understood what this prematurely discovered graphene was.

Graphene had always existed in nature, but it was difficult to separate into a single-layer structure. When stacked layer upon layer, it became graphite.

A piece of graphite one millimeter thick contained roughly three million layers of graphene. When a pencil lightly scraped across paper, it left behind marks formed from multiple layers of graphene.

Peeling graphene from graphite was not like slicing off a layer