Miscellaneous Matters

After a round of physical tests, Du Ke found that his current physical condition could only be described as explosive. Not that he had surpassed the limits of human beings on Earth, but his physique was comparable to that of an athlete who trained year-round.

For an ordinary person to attain his current physical condition, it would basically be impossible without ten years of grueling training.

Yet all he had done was wander around Fantasy World, eat some Spore Powder, and roast some magical beast meat. It had been ridiculously easy. "Perhaps the air I breathed in Fantasy World also contained Magic Elements that helped improve my physique?"

This was not something he could figure out for the time being, nor was there any need to rush to figure it out.

By the time he had organized the video materials, the day had passed. His newly bought large bed had been delivered, and he slept soundly on it for the night. He woke up refreshed the next day, checked the click-through data for his paper online, and found that it had increased quite a bit more. That pleased him. It had only been a little over a week since the paper was published; the readership would only continue to grow.

But when he opened his email, there was still no notice from Physical Review B. He had no idea whether they had not gotten around to reviewing it yet or had simply tossed it aside.

"Why am I thinking so much? What journal doesn't take two or three months to review a submission? I'll do my own thing. Once I crack electron flow battery technology, will I have to worry about not being able to publish a world-shaking paper?"

He did not immediately begin his research.

He drove around for a while, stopping by home to see his parents. When he was young, he had always wanted to leave his parents and go out on his own. But now that he was older, Du Ke wanted to return to them whenever he had time, listen to his mother nag, and have a drink with his father. He still drove the same BYD Han. Nothing major happened when he returned to his hometown; the family simply had a meal together before he drove back.

Then he went to the shooting club and found its owner. "Boss Tang, help me out. I'm a military enthusiast. I just want to touch and look at those missiles and rocket launchers. It'd be even better if I could take a tank for a spin."

He was a member of the shooting club and had fired plenty of bullets there.

Boss Tang replied politely, "Brother, it's not that I won't help you. If I had a way to get you into the military, I'd do it right now. The problem is, there's no way in. All my firearms and ammunition are transported from the Anhua Civilian Ammunition Distribution Center in the capital. They really have nothing to do with the military. Shooting clubs like ours deal with the An Gong Department."

His experiences in Fantasy World had made Du Ke understand that ordinary firearms and grenades had limited killing power against magical beasts. That was why he wanted access to more powerful equipment. Unfortunately, he had no connections, so he could only seek help from the shooting club.

He had not expected the shooting club to have no connections either.

Still, Boss Tang gave him a tip. "A month from now, there'll be a military equipment exhibition in Chang'an. I heard it'll feature equipment that has just been retired from frontline units. You can go take a look."

"Alright, thanks."

"No need to be so polite, brother."

After leaving the shooting club, Du Ke immediately searched for the Chang'an Military Equipment Exhibition. Sure enough, he found it. The advertisements had been running for quite some time. This exhibition would mainly display recently retired main combat equipment, including tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, assault guns, self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, rocket launchers, howitzers, amphibious assault vehicles, and Du Ke even saw promotional material saying that HQ-7 anti-aircraft missiles would be displayed.

"My God, they're displaying HQ-7s too?" Du Ke was no military novice. He could tell rocket launchers and missiles apart. Rocket launchers pursued saturation attacks, while missiles pursued precision guidance.

But at present, rocket launchers and ordinary missiles did not seem all that different.

What surprised Du Ke was that this was supposedly an exhibition of retired equipment, yet they had brought out active-service anti-aircraft missiles. However, after searching it up, he found reports saying that the HQ-7 had indeed been retired, with short-range air defense now replaced by the HQ-17. To draw crowds, the Chang'an Military Equipment Exhibition had made the HQ-7 its main attraction, and the exhibition's theme was—up close and personal.

Visitors could touch them and take photos with them.

"I have to go. I absolutely have to go to this exhibition. I need to replicate all this equipment, especially the artillery and missiles!" Du Ke stared at the exhibition photos, practically drooling. "There are individual rocket launchers here too. This thing is great—I have to replicate it. Armored vehicles are too large, so I might not be able to manifest them perfectly, but rocket launchers will be easy to replicate."

With his Mind Power already at Level 2, Du Ke's Mind Armor could manifest a larger range of objects, but it could only barely manifest a small car. Faced with large vehicles like tanks, it would probably still be difficult to manifest them.

There was still one month until the Chang'an Military Equipment Exhibition.

After enjoying himself for a few days, Du Ke officially threw himself into research. A little milk and bread in the morning, followed by a spoonful of Spore Powder, kept him energetic all day. He also tried communicating with the spirit insect in his left palm, attempting to see whether he could use Instantaneous Movement on Earth. The result was disappointing. Without Magic Elements, the spirit insect's magical effect immediately failed.

Fortunately, the spirit insect was still alive and had not died just because it came to Earth.

There were already ten seeds summoned by Azo Azo. He picked one and planted it in a flowerpot, intending to see whether it could sprout on Earth. Then he began studying the blue cocoon of the Bomb Caterpillars. His replicated research equipment was now complete, so he easily finished observing the cocoon's cellular structure and discovered its unique electron-proton shunting structure.

"Compared to the structure of the Long-Haired Bomb, the cocoon's structure is more complete. Wonderful. Once I study it in depth, I'll surely uncover even more knowledge related to electron flow." Du Ke immersed himself in the research.

In the blink of an eye, a month passed.

He scarcely left the house. Other than checking his email, he spent virtually all his time researching the blue cocoon and began outlining his fifth paper—<Methodological Demonstration for Separating Protons and Electrons Under Normal Conditions>.

This was not inspiration gained from studying the blue cocoon. It was a paper he had already conceived while researching the Long-Haired Bomb. He planned to use ten papers to lay the groundwork for electron flow theory. By then, once electron flow theory burst onto the scene, he would surely cause a sensation in the field and become another genius of condensed matter physics. Perhaps he would receive even more acclaim than Cao Yuan.

"I'm ready to burst onto the scene, so why the hell hasn't Physical Review B replied yet? Did it pass review or not? Damn it!" One more morning, after checking his email, he still found no reply he had been waiting for.

Anger flared in Du Ke's heart. "I'll give you another half month. If you still don't reply, I won't submit to Physical Review B. I'll submit directly to the Journal of Chemical Physics. From then on, aside from Nature and Science, I won't submit to any other foreign SCI journals!" Deep down, he actually looked down somewhat on a foreign journal with an impact factor of only three or four points, so being ignored made him even angrier.

Just then, Tao Xun called. "Little Du, have you written your new paper yet?"

"I've written it, but it's not finished yet."

"Where are you planning to submit it?"

"We'll see. Physical Review B still hasn't replied, so I don't know whether it passed review. I'll wait another half month. If there's still no reply, I'll submit it to the Journal of Chemical Physics."

"Mm, handle it as you see fit. More people in the field are discussing electron flow theory now. It's fine if foreign countries don't value it—we'll research it ourselves here at home. Maybe electron flow theory will become a breakthrough for New Energy. When that happens, you'll really make a name for yourself... Oh, right. Your sister-in-law's birthday is tomorrow. Come over and have dinner with us."

"Alright, I'll definitely be there tomorrow."