Put on a Good Show

Li Dong knew nothing about the dealings being passed around outside between certain parties and related companies, nor about the calculations of certain dirty politicians.

At this moment, every researcher inside Base 200 seemed as if they had been injected with adrenaline.

Because everything they were doing now was setting new records in fusion engineering.

Inside the driver hall.

Shao Bingheng stood behind the control console, watching the current waveform that had just finished on the large screen.

"The current in the confluence section can be pushed a little higher."

The operator looked back at him, hesitation in his voice.

"Director Shao, but the peak is already close to 48 megaamps. Any higher and it will exceed 80% of the design value."

"It's fine. I think we can keep going."

Shao Bingheng pointed at the curve in the lower-right corner of the screen, where the slope remained shallow.

"The current loss in the magnetically insulated transmission line still hasn't changed noticeably, and there are no signs of plasma formation at the cathode. It's still early. Increase it."

The operator nodded and immediately raised the charging voltage of each module in the linear transformer driver by another 2,000 volts.

The circulation pumps for the dielectric pulse-forming lines in the hall began to hum as well.

One had to know that from the 1960s until today, humanity's most powerful Z-pinch device—

could only reach a peak current of 26 megaamps. And after every discharge, it had to be shut down for a full day of cleaning, averaging only around 200 shots a year.

Yet the driver at Base 200 had a design value of 60 megaamps, and its measured value had already exceeded 48 megaamps.

Its firing frequency was once every ten seconds.

Not only was its peak current twice as high,