After some hesitation, Brigadier General Kyle remembered the President's orders and had no choice but to comply with Noni's request.
Ultimately, they had brought this thing back to find out exactly what it was. If they learned nothing and simply left it sitting quietly in the laboratory, they might as well never have brought it back.
Kyle immediately ordered someone to bring over a Flame Cutter.
A few minutes later, Noni and the others felt as though their intelligence had been gravely insulted.
According to their preliminary assessment, the surface of this lump of metal should have been some kind of heat-resistant steel. Ordinarily, a Flame Cutter would have been enough to handle it.
Yet they watched the flame burn against it for several minutes without the metal showing even the slightest hint of redness. That was awkward.
"Bring over a Plasma Cutter." Noni touched the surface, doubts beginning to stir in his mind.
Still, he had great confidence in the Plasma Cutter. It worked by compressing a free arc into a plasma arc, which could easily exceed ten thousand degrees. What metal could withstand heat like that?
Soon, the Plasma Cutter arrived. It was much larger than the Flame Cutter.
After some preparation, the cutting began.
The arc shooting from the cutting torch swept across the dark silver surface, instantly melting a narrow groove and leaving a red line on the metal.
Then... the molten liquid actually remained attached to the unmelted metal like jelly, without showing the slightest tendency to drip down.
Moreover, when the plasma arc struck that jellylike molten metal, its extreme heat produced no response, and the melted area did not expand in the slightest.
Even more awkwardly, because the melted area was so narrow, the liquid solidified again within three to five seconds of