"Mom, Dad, happy New Year!"
"You naughty child. You don't even come home during the Spring Festival. Is your hotel really that busy during the New Year?"
It took three seconds for the reply to come. Song Han looked at the blurry faces of his family on the computer screen. He smiled, and before he knew it, tears streamed down his face.
"It's busy. I've just finished my apprenticeship recently.
I've started making cold dishes.
My salary has also increased significantly. Did you receive the money I transferred to you?"
"Boss, boss, come and take a look. What's wrong with this computer? The voice is stuttering."
Song Han's elder brother fiddled with it for a long time but couldn't find the problem. He shook his head and said, "It should be a bad signal, right?"
Song Han's father shook his head and said to Song Han on the computer, "We received the money. You don't need to transfer money home anymore. Keep that money for yourself. We don't need your little bit of money at home.
By the way, now that you've started working and are in charge of your own life, take the opportunity to meet more people outside and make friends. Don't just stay cooped up in the dormitory all day."
"Okay, I know."
The lagging and stuttering communication dampened Song Han's enthusiasm for chatting. He waved his hand at the computer and said, "Mom, Dad, I have to go to work. I'll come back to visit you when I have time next year!"
After hanging up the video call, Song Han still couldn't shake off his feeling of loneliness. For a 16-year-old minor boy, this was the first time he had left his family and was spending the New Year alone in a foreign country hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from society. Even the system could understand his emotions.
"Since ancient times, the territory of Country X also includes the moon. You're not really abroad here."
Seeing that Song Han didn't respond, the system continued, "In fact, you can choose to go back to your family life. As long as you control the cause-and-effect relationship with the outside world well, it's highly unlikely to attract the attention of the other side again."
Song Han shook his head and touched the kitchen knife by his side that he didn't even take off when sleeping with his right hand.
"Do you know?
I dream of those calm faces whose limbs I cut off.
I don't know exactly which cause-and-effect events will attract the attention of the other side, and I don't want this kitchen knife to fall on my family members.
Last time, more than 60,000 people died before we could briefly get out of the other side's sight.
How many people will die next time?"
Song Han stood up in silence and opened the curtain behind him. In the brightly lit underground cavity base, countless multi-legged drones verified by the Earth Science and Technology Museum were silently surging.
After months of sleepless efforts in transportation, this lunar base finally had a rough outline and the ability of self-production. With the completion of the second information center and the stable operation of the Jian'an system, Song Han also got the opportunity to step away from the front line of production.
"What's today's task?"
"Ignition of the helium-3 thermonuclear fusion reactor for practical learning."
Song Han nodded, put on the form-fitting exoskeleton armor, walked out of the airbag cabin, and then climbed into a huge ground mecha in the equipment area outside the airbag cabin.
Just like a Matryoshka doll, with the energy supply of the cold fusion battery, many devices that were restricted by the bearing capacity of the exoskeleton armor could be implemented through enlarged engineering. With super-strong armor defense, the spacious internal space also had a buffer layer design. The computing core of the head was made into a three-dimensional shape. After integrating hundreds of GPU computing units and migrating into the Jian'an subsystem, this mecha also had efficient self-computing ability even when disconnected from the main system.
An energy cabin the size of a gasoline barrel was mounted behind the mecha with the help of robotic arms. This huge cold fusion battery could provide the mecha with an energy source that could last for months without rest.
It was like an enlarged version of the first-generation exoskeleton armor. The only thing that remained the same was the graphene-tungsten steel alloy kitchen knife at the waist, which was three times larger.
With the rapid exchange of information in the brain, this huge mecha could exhibit flexibility far beyond that of ordinary people. Under Song Han's control, it took steps of three meters each and walked towards the core of the cavity base.
There was where the helium-3 thermonuclear experimental reactor was installed, an oval structure with a diameter of nearly 30 meters. Song Han looked at the fusion batteries scattered around the reactor and the steam pipes surrounding it, frowned, and asked:
To make these batteries, he directly caused the price of target gold on Earth to double.
"The comprehensive energy output of these batteries is already greater than the output power of this experimental reactor, right?
Is it really necessary to boil water?"
"Due to the materials and the external connection ports for charge movement, the cold fusion battery has a natural limit on its instantaneous energy output power and is not suitable for ultra-large-scale expansion.
Now we've already doubled the price of target gold on Earth. Do you think there will be enough target gold on Earth for our use as we develop?"
The system looked at the surrounding batteries through Song Han's eyes and said, "These batteries are only needed to maintain the ultra-high-pressure magnetic field in the early stage. Once the reactor operates stably and can self-constrain, they can be removed."
Looking at the system's explanation, Song Han flipped through the engineering drawings of the experimental reactor for comparison. When he saw the energy conversion output, he laughed.
"A molten salt reactor? What's the difference between this and boiling water?"
Song Han's question made the system a bit disdainful.
"The difference is that extracting salt on the moon is simpler than extracting water. For the survival reserves of some carbon-based organisms in the base, this water needs to be preserved."
Seeing the system's disdainful words, Song Han got angry.
"Come out of this carbon-based organism if you have the guts. It's not like I like sharing my body with you.
Your silicon-based life forms are being held back by Country C because of the chip manufacturing process. How dare you talk like that to me!"
"It won't be like that soon."
During the conversation, the helium-3 experimental reactor had already started to operate. Even standing a hundred meters away, Song Han could feel the silent pressure brought by the majestic energy when the reactor was running.
"Core temperature: 3 million degrees.
Core temperature: 14 million degrees.
Core temperature: 120 million degrees.
Ignition successful!
Energy conversion in progress."
The terrifying high temperature heated the molten salt in the pipeline. The molten mixed salt maintained a low vapor pressure and relatively low mechanical stress at high temperatures and continuously circulated in the loop composed of heat exchangers, driving the steam turbine to rotate at high speed.
"Is it really successfully ignited?"
Song Han, who had just finished looking through the engineering drawings, raised his head in confusion.
"This experimental reactor doesn't seem to have any particularly special technology, right?
Why has it always been fifty years away from practical use by humans?"
The system said indifferently, "Although the current Earth can expand the volume of the reactor through low-temperature superconductivity and make up for the technical deficiencies with systematic engineering.
But before the underlying technical problem of turbulence in the field of mathematics is solved, the refined control of the magnetic field over ultra-high-temperature plasma makes it impossible for humans to operate the reactor for a long time, not to mention the complex conversion forms of low-temperature superconductors in actual operation.
Without a breakthrough in the underlying materials, information, and mathematical technologies of humans, nuclear fusion will always be fifty years away from practical application.
In such a huge and complex systematic project, even a little interference can make the reactor stop.
In the closed and isolated entropy-increasing system like the reactor, collapse is its only fate."
Looking at the engineering documents and technical instructions in front of him, Song Han asked in confusion, "It seems that we haven't made a breakthrough either?"
"Artificial intelligence is a negative entropy information source that feeds on entropy in such a huge systematic project. It can naturally and effectively control the increase of entropy in an isolated system.
Moreover, in the future scientific and technological leap of humanity, an important achievement is the refined control of the magnetic field developed in the nuclear fusion reactor project.
Which underlying technology do you think we've broken through?"
Looking at the strings of mathematical combinations in the document, Song Han suddenly understood.
"The turbulence problem."
"Yes!"
The system said, "Using the super-strong field of energy conversion of the first-generation nuclear fusion reactor can directly process and interfere with the microscopic structure of matter. At this time, our materials and information technology will also break through accordingly.
When the complete second-generation fusion reactor comes out, the first-generation reactor will have completed its mission and can be disassembled."