Chip

Breadboards, connecting wires, soldering irons, diodes, transistors, resistors...

A huge pile of tools and a huge pile of materials. Once he added everything to the cart and paid, more than seven thousand yuan vanished in an instant, leaving Han Yang with less than six thousand in savings.

After another three or four days of self-study, most of the delivery packages arrived. That morning, Han Yang washed up quickly, rode out on his electric scooter with a dagger, and left home.

In times like these, Han Yang did not dare go out without a dagger, even in broad daylight.

A few hundred meters away was a small food stall with a canopy, several tables and chairs set out in the open, and quite a few customers already seated there.

Han Yang sat down and called out familiarly, "Aunt Wang, a large bowl of noodles, with... no egg!"

After thinking it over, Han Yang still chose not to add an egg. One egg cost two yuan. He had spent so much on materials and did not know when he would manage to make the thing, so he had to save where he could.

"Xiaoyang, you're here. Sit tight, it'll be ready soon!"

When the large bowl of noodles was served, Han Yang was surprised to find that there was more noodle than usual in his bowl, with a layer of oil floating on top.

"Xiaoyang, eat more. If it's not enough, I'll give you more."

Warmth welled up in Han Yang's heart. "Thank you, Aunt Wang."

After eating, Han Yang took out his phone and scanned six yuan over—the large bowl of noodles cost five.

"You child, why did you give me an extra yuan? Take it back, take it back. If you do this again, I won't let you eat noodles at my stall anymore."

As Han Yang was about to leave, Aunt Wang pulled out a one-yuan bill, chased after him, and forcibly stuffed it into his pocket. Unable to refuse, Han Yang could only accept it.

"Thank you, Aunt Wang."

"You child. Go on, go on. Be careful on the road."

Han Yang got back on his scooter and continued onward. When he passed Shen the Butcher's meat stall, he felt Shen the Butcher glance at him, and the sound of his cleaver chopping meat seemed to grow louder as well.

At the delivery station, after confirming his identity, Han Yang finally received those large boxes.

Though the world was chaotic these days, the logistics system remained quite reliable. Perhaps the big shots in the logistics business understood that only by being reliable enough could they make more money.

After carrying the boxes home and unpacking them, he carefully stacked the plastic bags, cardboard, and other scraps to one side to sell later. Looking at the huge pile of circuit boards, capacitors, resistors, and other components before him, Han Yang took a deep breath.

It was time to truly begin making it.

He picked up a breadboard and a diode, aligned the pins, then used the soldering iron in his other hand. With a light touch, he soldered the diode into place.

After more than three full months of work, this handmade chip was finally complete.

What lay before Han Yang was something divided into four sections, each stacked five or six layers high. The different layers were connected by jumper wires, and every board was covered in them as well. It was packed with dense clusters of capacitors and resistors, along with a few indicator lights, making it look incredibly messy.

Han Yang took a deep breath and pressed the power switch.

He had already entered some code into this CPU in pure binary. The code was meant to make the computing chip control that row of indicator lights, causing them to light up and go out one after another.

The next moment, the code ran, but instead of lighting up and going out in sequence, the entire row of indicator lights came on at once.

"Where did it go wrong?"

Han Yang could not make sense of it. It took him five full days of inspection to discover that he had soldered one diode in backward.

After fixing it, he tested it again, but it still did not work. Han Yang could only keep looking for the problem. After repeated testing and troubleshooting, another two months passed. This time, when he pressed the switch, the row of indicator lights finally began blinking in a regular pattern, just as Han Yang had envisioned.

The code had executed successfully. This also meant that he had finally made this computer chip by hand.

The next moment, the mass of circuit boards vanished instantly. It replaced the abacus that had always floated in his mind and merged into his brain.

At once, Han Yang felt an immense amount of computing power. Problems that had once been relatively complex, requiring time to calculate even after merging with the abacus, could now be solved in an instant.

At the same time, he felt his mind becoming clearer and clearer. Memories he had nearly forgotten suddenly surfaced, vivid and distinct.

His memory had improved as well.

By Han Yang's estimate, the frequency of this "chip" could reach around 20 KHZ. It could even be overclocked to roughly 35 KHZ at most.

Han Yang looked at the ordinary home computer in front of him, the one he was currently using.

Its CPU frequency could reach up to 5 GHZ. By comparison, the chip he had made with his own hands and merged into his head had a frequency only about one hundred fifty-thousandth of its own.

The CPU in this ordinary home computer used a 3-nanometer process. Han Yang had also heard that some large Supercomputers already used 2-nanometer chips. Moreover, the Ita possessed even more advanced computing technology that had surpassed the limits of electronics, possibly Quantum Computers.

If one insisted on calculating the process of Han Yang's homemade chip, it could barely be considered 5 millimeters.

As everyone knew, the smaller a computer chip's process, the higher its technological level and the stronger its performance.

And 5 millimeters was 2.5 million times larger than 2 nanometers.

Although the gap between them was as vast as the difference between a primitive man's stone and a spaceship, Han Yang's heart was still full of joy over his current achievement.

So what if its performance was poor? The abilities brought by combining a human brain with a computer were far more than a simple one plus one.

Han Yang even felt that all the knowledge he had learned over the previous two years could now be fully digested and absorbed in no more than a month.

"This must be kept strictly secret. I can't tell anyone. If the Ita find out, I'll die without even a burial place."

After the joy faded, Han Yang also realized the gravity of the matter.

After silently making up his mind, Han Yang began considering his path forward. A moment later, he reached a conclusion. "I still need to find a way to make money as soon as possible."

Resisting the Ita Civilization and liberating all humanity was too vast an undertaking. He had to take it one step at a time. At the beginning, he at least needed a certain amount of ability and influence.

That obviously could not be done without money.

And since he had confirmed that he possessed this ability, he naturally needed to find ways to strengthen it further in the future. He needed to figure out how to develop chips with greater performance and more advanced technology. One day, he might even have to scale up and develop and manufacture chips through factory assembly lines.

That required money even more. Forget about a chip factory—at this stage, the more than ten thousand yuan he had won from the gambling den had nearly all been spent. Han Yang was now almost out of money even to keep buying diodes, resistors, and breadboards.

Forget about buying more materials. Han Yang could barely afford even Aunt Wang's plain noodle soup anymore.

A full six months had passed. Rent, water, electricity, food, internet fees—what did not cost money? Only because Han Yang had long been used to living frugally had that little bit of money lasted until now.

As for the gambling den, Han Yang would not dare go back there even if it killed him. He had to find a new way to make money.