Muon Technology

"Now you can continue your discussion with my future self."

"I believe this is the beginning of a new era."

"Because after seeing you, I saw a strange vision in my mind."

"It was a mass of blazing light."

"It told me that one day, muon technology would shake the entire universe."

The 3D image of Huo Linzhong walked around the desk and slowly settled into the swivel chair.

Then his body gradually faded, leaving only the skeleton.

For a long time, Cheng Qi could not gather his thoughts.

The entire Muon Research Center had been evacuated, leaving behind only one stubborn chief scientist.

So those bones belonged to Huo Linzhong.

He had been dead for a very long time.

Even his white lab coat had disintegrated into drifting wisps like willow fluff.

-"I said back then that until I, Huo Linzhong, developed a usable muon technology, I wouldn't leave the fucking Muon Research Center!"

An indescribably complex emotion surged through Cheng Qi.

He walked behind the desk and stood beside the skeleton, noticing a distinctive music box cradled in the skeletal hands resting on its knees.

Cheng Qi picked up the music box. It was shaped like a little patch of green land, covered in grass and dotted with several tall pine trees.

Professor Huo Linzhong must have made it by hand.

There was a small play button on the bottom of the music box. Cheng Qi gently pressed it.

"Zzz..."

"You're probably the only person who could play this recording."

"My friend from the future."

"I am now seventy-six years and four months old."

"What fills me with despair isn't the broken oxygen generator in the base."

"It's that, in twenty years, I've achieved nothing."

"I failed."

"I tried 566 approaches, but not one could harness the power of muons."

"Because every time I reached a critical point, I always felt some kind of constraint."

"I realized a terrifying truth: some unseen advanced civilization has placed a technological blockade on muon technology."

"I used the communications equipment to share this theory with the Human Science Alliance."

"And once again, I was met with skepticism."

"Actually, skepticism isn't the right word. It was outright contempt, carefully concealed."

"I heard them whisper-that delusional madman is researching a piece of garbage."

"I was wrong."

"I wasted my precious energy, even my life, on something that was never going to yield results."

"Of course, perhaps the truth is that muons are simply particles with no potential at all."

"My friend from the future, could you do me one last favor?"

"If you get the chance, give this little music box to my descendants... if they're still alive."

"There's nothing special about this music box."

"All it contains is a few stable but utterly meaningless bunches of... muons, which can do nothing but give off a faint glow like tiny fireflies."

Cheng Qi reached out and gently nudged a branch on one of the music box's pine trees.

He discovered that the trunks of these pine trees were some kind of ultrahigh-purity transparent transistor.

Inside each transistor, a tiny cluster of blue particles floated quietly, like miniature stars.

Cheng Qi's eyes slowly widened, and his heart began to race. "These are... the legendary muons!"

Although the Muon Research Center had been emptied out,

the ultimate essence of decades of work had been preserved in this form.

Cheng Qi gazed at the azure particles, dancing like sprites.

They were tiny, yet he felt something profound and mysterious in them, as though an endless, vast world lay beyond them.

Suddenly, Cheng Qi realized something.

He gently nudged the other pine trees and discovered that this little music box held five muon transistors in total.

The music box's recording began to loop.

"You're probably the only person who could play this recording."

"In twenty years, I've achieved nothing."

"I tried 566 approaches, but not one could harness the power of muons."

[Similar technological creations detected]

[Begin synthesis?]

A blue scanning beam emerged from the Crystal Bracer.

Cheng Qi suddenly realized that this little Standard Template Construct could easily fulfill the dreams of countless scientists. Having obtained it, he seemed to have inherited a responsibility as well.

For some reason, at that moment, Cheng Qi felt the weight on his shoulders grow heavier.

[Simplified Strong Magnetic-Field Cage]

[Contains a cluster of stable-state muons. Muon technology falls under microscopic particle energy and is a level 4 civilization technology. Certain civilizations above level 4 have placed a blockade on this technology.]

Cheng Qi's pupils contracted.

The technological blockade really existed. Professor Huo's deduction had been right!

"I heard them whisper-that delusional madman is researching a piece of garbage."

"I was wrong."

Huo Linzhong's aged, feeble voice continued to play.

"It isn't garbage."

Under the incandescent light, light and shadow shifted across Cheng Qi's face. "Begin synthesis."

[Disassembling into basic units]

[Breaking the technological blockade]

[Synthesis successful]

[Muon Fusion Catalytic Reactor Prototype] ×2!

[Contains a mixture of deuterium (D) and tritium (T) gases. Upon activation, muons are captured by tritium. Since a muon's mass is 200 times that of an electron, and orbital size is inversely proportional to mass, another nucleus can more easily approach the muonic hydrogen atom, greatly increasing the probability of nuclear fusion at room temperature.]

[After deuterium-tritium fusion occurs, the muon in the DTμ molecule is released. This cycle forms a muon-catalyzed reaction chain, producing controlled nuclear fusion energy. The built-in Collins Spiral effectively controls the volatile energy.]

[Device drawback: after catalysis, a muon has approximately a fifty-percent chance of sticking to an alpha particle, preventing it from participating in subsequent nuclear fusion reactions. This is known as the alpha sticking problem.]

[Despite its failure rate, this handheld device can still release a terrifying amount of energy equivalent to 500 tons of TNT. During initial development, its code name was-Gaze of the Creator.]

"Controlled... muon fusion energy at room temperature."

"This must be the breakthrough Professor Huo Linzhong had been searching for, right?"

Cheng Qi looked at the device in his hand.

It looked like a flashlight made of silver alloy, with a translucent window at its base through which blue muons tumbled and danced.

What did an explosive yield of 500 tons of TNT mean?

Cheng Qi's pupils contracted in shock.

In the old era, during World War II, the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, had been called "Little Boy." Its explosive yield was approximately 15,000 tons of TNT. In that single instant, Little Boy had flattened 60,000 buildings in Hiroshima.

The device in Cheng Qi's hand had one-thirtieth the power of Little Boy-one-thirtieth of an atomic bomb.

Even at one-thirtieth the yield, it was a handheld weapon for a single soldier. That made it terrifying!

"I wasted my precious energy, even my life, on something that was never going to yield results."

"Of course, perhaps the truth is that muons are simply particles with no potential at all."

Huo Linzhong's voice continued to play.

Emotion stirred within Cheng Qi.

"How could muons have no potential!"

"Continue synthesis!"

[Disassembling into basic units]

[Breaking the technological blockade again]

[Synthesis successful]

[First-Generation Muon Fusion Catalytic Reactor]

[Technology comprehensively enhanced. A reverse Collins Spiral eliminates the probability of alpha sticking, improving overall stability. Energy efficiency, reaction time, and other performance metrics improved by 185%.]

[A more refined handheld device. Produces no energy fluctuations while inactive. Civilizations below level 3 cannot detect its true technological level. Can instantly release a terrifying amount of energy equivalent to 1,010 tons of TNT.]

[Device code name-Wrath of the Creator]

[Note: this device is an extremely primitive product in the muon technology series, utilizing less than one ten-thousandth of the available muon energy.]

Cheng Qi's breath trembled slightly.

The failure rate was gone, and its power had doubled!

"Life is like a dream. In the end, it may all come to nothing. We bring nothing with us and take nothing away. But the one thing I don't regret is that I never gave up."

"Even though my persistence became a joke."

"And muons became a joke too."

"Heh. Who can really say?"

"Goodbye, my friend."

"Goodbye, my muon technology."

"Goodbye, you fucked-up world."

The recording once again played the closing words of Huo Linzhong's life.

Cheng Qi tightened his grip on the brilliant, crystalline device, which resembled the hilt of a crystal sword. Inexplicably, a sense of responsibility and strength rose within him.

"Professor Huo, your persistence wasn't a joke."

"And muon technology certainly isn't a joke."

"One day, I will make the vision you dreamed of a reality."

"With muon technology in its hands, human civilization will shine like a brilliant star and shake the entire universe."