Inside the enclosed space.
Looking at the three item-shaped phantoms before him, Xu Yun wore a somewhat complicated expression.
He would set the Easter egg aside for now. From its description, it was easy to tell that it could only be triggered by combining it with certain real-world circumstances. He had no clues to judge what those might be.
In fact, given how he'd recently managed to get zero critical hits in five attacks despite having an 80% crit rate in a game, Xu Yun wasn't even sure he'd ever get the chance to activate the Easter egg in this lifetime.
The pain of being unlucky—if you know, you know.
With the Easter egg set aside, only two items remained.
First was Little Ox's Mind Experience Card.
How to put it...
There was no doubt about it: this was a great item!
As one of the founders of modern physics, Little Ox's intellect was undoubtedly one of the highest peaks in human history. Even by a conservative estimate, he was definitely in the top ten.
Especially at the age of twenty-two—in other words, in 1665—there was probably no one in history who could have matched him.
So there was no question about the quality of this Mind Card. The only thing to worry about was how long it lasted.
Half an hour was enough for Brother Dong to fight fifteen times. But when it came to solving problems, half an hour might not be little, exactly, but it certainly wasn't much.
Especially when tackling difficult problems, two or three hours was often the norm. On some math forums, spending four or five hours on a single problem was practically routine.
So if he used this Mind Card, he'd have to save it for the right moment. Timing was everything.
Xu Yun then turned his attention to the piece of parchment—the reward that supposedly recorded the formula for fifth-generation Imidacloprid.
Since there was no desk or pen in the space, it wasn't a good place to conduct research or calculations. After thinking it over, Xu Yun silently said to himself, "Return."
Whoosh—
The space vanished in an instant, and his consciousness returned to his little room.
Once he'd gathered his wits, Xu Yun didn't immediately summon the Imidacloprid formula. Instead, he lowered his head and first looked at
his feet.
At that moment, his feet were bare, without shoes or socks.
That was right.
Neither his Anta shoes nor the Brogues Little Ox had given him had returned with him.
Seeing this, Xu Yun rubbed his chin.
"So things on me that meet the conditions will travel with me into the instance, but I can't bring anything from the instance back?"
Then he thought of something and looked at his ankle again.
The first time he'd gone to William's house, Little Ox had taken him to chop firewood. Xu Yun's left ankle had become red and swollen from the pressure, and the swelling had lingered in the days that followed, eventually leaving a patch of broken skin.
But now, the skin around Xu Yun's left ankle was smooth, with no trace of a wound or pressure mark.
Besides that, over the past couple of weeks, the living conditions in the seventeenth century had left Xu Yun smelling a little odd and his clothes less than clean.
But now, those smells had long since disappeared too.
Xu Yun glanced at the alarm clock on his desk. It was 4:27 p.m., exactly the same time as when he'd entered the space.
"So that means..."
"My soul traveled to the seventeenth century, but the things I had on me selectively materialized in the instance?"
"Things like glasses, clothes, and shoes—modern in style, but made with technology that already existed back then—came with me, while things like my phone and earbuds were automatically filtered out?"
Xu Yun thoughtfully rubbed his chin. After this comparison, the connection between the instance and reality had become a little clearer.
It was a shame he hadn't thought things through earlier. He could have tried getting a haircut at Little Ox's house to see whether his hairstyle changed when he returned.
He went over to his desk, held out a hand, and focused on sensing the item.
Whoosh—
The next second, a sheet of parchment gently landed in his hand.
The parchment was covered in densely packed chemical symbols and Chinese characters. Some of the chemical structures made his head spin at a glance.
But as a Biology Doctor on the verge of earning his degree, Xu Yun easily recognized the first part of the chemical formula.
C9H10ClN5O2, or 1-(6-chloropyridin-3-ylmethyl)-N-nitroimidazolidin-2-amine, its scientific name:
Imidacloprid.
It was a nitromethylene-class systemic insecticide, belonging to the chloronicotinyl class of insecticides, also known as neonicotinoids. It was formally introduced at the 1991 Brighton Crop Protection Conference in Britain.
It acted on nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, disrupting pests' motor nervous systems and interfering with the transmission of chemical signals. It was mainly used to control pests with piercing-sucking mouthparts, including resistant strains.
In agriculture, it was mainly used to control aphids and planthoppers. In everyday life, its greatest use was killing various household pests.
After it hit the market in 1991, it spread rapidly. In just three years, it had reached more than forty countries around the world.
By now, you could say that wherever there was a plant protection station, there was Imidacloprid. It had become the world's top-selling insecticide, with global sales reaching $1.14 billion in 2014.
Yet this product, which had reached the pinnacle of its field, had fallen on hard times in recent years.
First, there was the problem of pests developing resistance after long-term use. As Imidacloprid became more widely used, many greenhouse pests had already grown resistant to it—the inevitable result of widespread use, just like with antibiotics.
Second, because Imidacloprid targeted nAchR, it had a flaw: its effectiveness dropped significantly after multiple rounds of transmission.
As a result, Imidacloprid was becoming less and less effective, like a celebrated beauty gradually losing her looks before eventually becoming a madam.
Among neonicotinoid insecticides, Imidacloprid was considered first-generation, Thiamethoxam second-generation, and Dinotefuran third-generation.
But within the Imidacloprid family itself, the current version was an improved third-generation product.
That was right. Only third-generation.
The Imidacloprid rewarded by the Novice Mission was supposedly fifth-generation. In other words...
There was an entire generation of technological barriers between it and the Imidacloprid currently in use.
Drug development followed a rule: each "generation" had to build on the one before it. You couldn't skip a generation.
It was like the gap between a button phone and a foldable-screen phone. A smartphone with virtual buttons had to come in between. Without an intermediate product, the gulf between generations was almost impossible to cross.
In other words,
if Xu Yun wanted to turn fifth-generation Imidacloprid into a product ready for mass production, he had to break through the technological barrier of the fourth generation.
Xu Yun spread the parchment out further, hoping to find some inspiration.
"ClC1N=CCCN2C"
"Exact molecular weight: 255.05200"
Soon, Xu Yun's gaze settled on a section labeled "Mol."
70 0.0000 N 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10.1936 4.2021 0.0000 N 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
11.3603 3.1516 0.0000 O 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
10.5200 5.7378 0.0000 O 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
8.2153 2.2238 0.0000 C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
6.6453 2.2238 0.0000 C 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
At the same time, a huge amount of information flashed through his mind.
After a little over two minutes, Xu Yun slapped his forehead.
"Good grief, it's this stuff?"
Before you continue