Exchange of Fire

Professor Xia Congjun returned from class, turned on the computer on his desk, and habitually browsed the web.

"Looks like the Journal of Chemical Physics is out. Let's take a look." With that thought, he opened its official website. The site was entirely in English, with only the six characters "Journal of Chemical Physics" displayed in Chinese in the title.

China was growing stronger by the day, but English still dominated academia. Unless China's strength one day surpassed that of the West as a whole, the highest-level papers would continue to be written in English.

The English used in academic papers was relatively straightforward. Professor Xia had written plenty of papers himself, so reading an English-language website was no challenge. He quickly spotted a prominent diagram of electron-flow mechanical equilibrium and clicked on it, revealing three recommended papers.

"Electron flow?"

"What the hell is that?"

He read the first paper, but after only a few paragraphs, his impatience showed. "They must have paid for this. What kind of trash electron-flow theory is this? Are you kidding me? The Journal of Chemical Physics is getting worse and worse. Any paper can get published as long as money changes hands? They even published this amateur garbage openly. And gave it a recommended slot, too. Is the editorial office so broke they can't even afford to eat?"

After grumbling, he no longer wanted to read it and casually closed the paper.

But soon, he noticed the second paper, with a third beneath it. There was even an editorial note above them: "Du Ke's electron-flow theory is bold and innovative, with exquisitely balanced mechanics. It is an entirely new theoretical concept in condensed matter physics, opening up a brand-new field at the atomic level. These three consecutive papers have already shown us the breadth of its scope."

"No way."

Professor Xia felt too drained even to keep complaining. "If I remember correctly, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Chemical Physics is Academician Yang. The executive editors should be Old Luo and Old Yang from Xiake University. Those three shouldn't stoop to this for money... Could this be one of their kids? Let's see who wrote these papers."

The author was listed as "Du Ke."

"Du Ke—does that mean duke? No, it should be the surname Du and given name Ke... That surname doesn't match either. It shouldn't be one of their children." Professor Xia was somewhat baffled. The academic world had indeed become rather corrupt in recent years, but the Journal of Chemical Physics was still one of the country's SCI journals. There was no way it could be this shameless. Even if someone had paid for a paper slot, it would never be placed in the recommendations.

And with such a blatantly shameless editorial note attached.

"Did I overlook something?" He shook his head and decided to read all three papers again, to see just what kind of stunt the Journal of Chemical Physics was pulling. After all, he had published papers in the journal himself. He did not want to see an SCI journal ruined bit by bit like this.

So he started the first paper over from the beginning. Skipping past the opening section, which resembled a literature review and reeked of amateur theory, the expression on his face gradually changed. By the time he finished the entire paper, his altered expression had turned to surprise. "Interesting." Without giving it further thought, he immediately opened the second paper. As a professor at a chemical engineering university, he was not a physicist, but he could understand the content.

The more he read, the more astonished he became. After finishing the second paper, he opened the third without hesitation and began reading it carefully.

"Professor Xia, it's time for class. Don't you have one?" another teacher reminded him.

Professor Xia immediately snapped awake. "Oh, class."

Yet he did not get moving. He continued reading the remainder of the third paper, then finally rose from his seat, tucked his textbook under his arm, and prepared to teach his students. Even on the way there, his mind was still replaying the papers' contents, and he nearly walked into the wrong classroom. After finishing a class, Professor Xia immediately left the room, intending to return and continue reading. Some of the paper's ideas had given him far too many thoughts he wanted to pour out.

Inside the classroom, the students looked at one another, then all brightened up. "Teacher Xia didn't assign homework today! Hooray!"

In the Fantasy World countless light-years away, Du Ke naturally had no idea that Professor Xia Congjun was being drawn in by his papers. He spent a comfortable night in the sea of flowers.

When the alarm woke him, he opened his eyes and saw Shawa Shawa staring at him with her big eyes.

"You're awake," she said softly.

"Is it morning already? Mm, it's six o'clock." Du Ke climbed out of bed and looked out the window. The multicolored flowers had vanished, leaving only a red flower blooming in the distance. "Shawa Shawa, have you been waiting for me all this time? Thank you. Go get some rest."

"Mm." Shawa Shawa waved, then darted toward her flower home. She settled on the flower and was enveloped by it once more, returning to a flower bud waiting to bloom.

The entire sea of flowers was silent. A red sun was slowly rising in the east, and the temperature had unknowingly climbed back to 34°C. With a thought from Du Ke, his bird's-nest dwelling swiftly transformed into the Titanium Alloy Nano Armor, wrapping around him. He jumped down from the tree, carefully avoiding the blue reeds—he feared that accidentally stepping on and breaking one might destroy a flower fairy's home, however unlikely that was.

There were many blue reeds, but not every one housed a flower fairy.

"First, I'll circle South Lake." South Lake was enormous. It felt even larger than Shushan Lake, Luzhou City's largest reservoir, perhaps around thirty square kilometers.

The patch of blue reeds existed only along South Lake's northern shore. Everywhere else was covered in shrubs.

Holding his submachine gun, Du Ke advanced at an unhurried pace. Many gentle herbivores were nearby. They did not panic at the sight of him, and some even stepped closer, wanting a better look at this iron lump they had never seen before. Suddenly, a marmot-like creature let out a sharp, urgent cry, and every animal grazing in the shrubs bolted.

"What's going on?" Du Ke looked around, but saw no unusual magical beast approaching.

Then, as if recalling something, he hurriedly looked up at the sky. He immediately spotted the Horned Roc he had seen during his last crossing, circling overhead. It resembled a flying lion, patrolling its territory in the air. Seemingly noticing Du Ke looking at it, the Horned Roc suddenly dove. Du Ke's gaze sharpened as his submachine gun materialized into a Vulcan Cannon, and he raised the barrel.

Ratatatatatat!

A tongue of fire over three meters long erupted, and countless bullets shot into the sky, strafing the Horned Roc. Every bullet was a Dumdum bullet.

"Screech!"

The Horned Roc cried out and dodged the barrage, but its diving posture was inevitably disrupted. Du Ke refused to let up. Unlimited bullets continued materializing and blasting toward the sky. The Horned Roc had to fly far away to evade the bullets, while he only needed to make slight adjustments to the barrel for the bullets to track it on their own. Watching the Horned Roc fly wildly under his fire, he quickly experienced the exhilarating thrill of real-life laser tag.

Finally.

The Horned Roc failed to dodge in time, and the rain of bullets grazed its body, shooting off several feathers.

But before more bullets could strike it, it let out a short screech. Then a red ring of light appeared over its body and expanded outward. This was the Fire Resistance Ring spell. The moment the bullet rain struck the Fire Resistance Ring, it silently shattered and could no longer harm the Horned Roc. Du Ke, however, did not relax in the slightest, keeping the Vulcan Cannon raised and firing continuously.

"I don't believe you can keep casting Fire Resistance Ring forever!"

Ratatatatatat!

The bullets pursued the Horned Roc in a relentless stream. From time to time, it had to cast another Fire Resistance Ring to block them. At last, after ten exchanges, the aerial overlord flew away from this stretch of sky in unwilling retreat.

Only when the Horned Roc was no longer visible did Du Ke lower the Vulcan Cannon, whose barrel had already turned red-hot. A brilliant smile of victory spread across his face. "So what if it's a magical beast? No matter how powerful the magic is, one shot takes it down!"