Chapter 447: The Beast In A Human’s Clothing, Lu Kuan’s Surprise!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Get you guys away from here?”
“That’s right! Get us out of here, away from this wretched place!”
The robot that Lu Kuan took control of nodded profusely.
Such a ridiculous request made the old machine rattle.
“How do you know that I can get you out of here?”
“L know that you can for sure!”
Just like how he interacted with an intellectual person like Zhong Qingshu, Su Mo and Lu Kuan’s interaction became somewhat interesting at that moment. Lu Kuan was different from Su Deben—he knew how much calculating and hacking power a skill was needed to hack his way into the virtual reality
technology in just under ten minutes.
At the same time, he examined the base’s current situation. Knowing how much prowess it took for a human and a dog to dive five thousand meters below sea level and withstand that amount of pressure, he had a new understanding.
Simply put, both of them were no longer one-dimensional creatures to Lu Kuan!
“Tell me about these three types of technology, then. I’m intrigued!”
Su Mo gestured to Lu Kuan to sit as if this place was his own turf.
His actions did not make Lu Kuan feel uncomfortable. As a matter of fact, Lu Kuan surged with happiness.
Lu Kuan manipulated the robot to sit down clumsily, and both of them were looking eye-to-eye once more.
“The hyper alloy smelting technology is a technology that we obtained from studying a particular foreign race that was very good at making weapons and armor for a long time. Besides, we spent a lot of manpower and resources to improve it. We’ve now achieved 300%, or even 500% better than the
foreign race’s standards.
“With this technology, we can obtain super elements that are available only in the wasteland and then use certain techniques and technologies to incorporate those elements into desired objects.
“For example, the robot that I’m inside of right now might look frail with its rusty exterior, but there is more than meets the eye.
“You can test the strength of this robot yourself, Su Mo!”
Su Mo observed as the robot extended its metal hand, so he curiously put his hand on it and gave it n una.s.sumingly strong squeeze.
‘As Lu Kuan mentioned, the hardness and strength of the robot were terrifying.
Even if he used 70% of his strength, he could not dent the robot even a bit.
However, when Su Mo used 120% of his strength, he felt a p.r.i.c.king sensation on his palm because of the law of action and reaction.
“My goodness, this alloy really is something. It has very shocking strength indeed!”
After he tried pinching the robot’s little joints, Su Mo also realized that they had the same toughness. That made him click his tongue in awe as he sat back down.
However, what Su Mo did not know was the turbulent feeling inside of Lu Kuan’s heart after he squeezed him!
On a dashboard out of Su Mo’s sight, the counter inside the robot recorded a terrifying number.
‘When Su Mo first gave it a squeeze, the force that the robot picked up was.
3.82 tons!
Then, when Su Mo used 120% of his strength, the data suddenly became 9.994 tons!
The world record for the limit of a human’s grip had been retained at 195kg.
Atypical male city dweller would have a grip strength of around 40 to 70kg.
Meanwhile, Su Mo had a grip strength that was almost 10 tons
This was neither seen nor heard before!
With data like that, Lu Kuan understood something—
Even though the man before him had a similar blood makeup to his own race, his body was not human!
Even a ferocious T-Rex would be nothing more than just a little chicken in front of this man!
Thankfully, he had a robot body instead of flesh and blood right now.
By suppressing the reaction in his robotic body, Lu Kuan was able to control his surprise very well, so he did not reveal his current emotion.
“The most important concept of the hyper alloy smelting technology isn’t to increase our hardness and toughness, instead, it helps us to develop a lot of subdivisions in materials science to some degree.
“For example, in the past, we wanted to send a rocket to s.p.a.ce with good heat tolerance, toughness, and high power. We needed to use certain ceramic materials to reduce the load so that it could reach cosmic velocity.
“However, now we can completely disregard the ceramics and replace it with a stronger hyper alloy. Not only can we fulfill all of those requirements, but we can also even make it stronger than the ones before.
“Besides, a mech armor that easily weighed one to two tons can now use alloys like this to reduce its weight to about 300kg. Thus, cut down on the use of resources.”
“We can use the hyper alloys to make rifles to get something more durable and a scarier firing rate!”
Lu Kuan’s finger tapped at the air and an azure-blue screen slowly appeared.
Following his explanation, a video showing the marvels of the technology researched by the expeditionary army started playing on the screen.
‘As expected, this particular technology opened up a new avenue for humans, removing the biggest drawbacks of developmentally stagnant technology.
With this very technology, s.p.a.ce flight, military aspects, chemical industry, biology industry, and other areas of expertise could enter an era of rapid development.
“With this technology, we can make hundreds of thousands of metal armies and even build an indestructible fortress of steel. Even if a small meteor were to come cras.h.i.+ng down, it can’t…”
“Hold on just a second. Since this thing is so strong, there’s no way that you only made one robot, right?”
While Lu Kuan started to revel in his awe and describe everything excitedly, Su Mo paused for a while before deciding to interrupt him.
After he did that, the entire conversation became awkward all of a sudden.
Lu Kuan, who was talking non-stop just a moment ago, was now stammering as if he was a little lady whose lies were just exposed.
Su Mo straightened his back and said, “Just tell me how hard it is to manufacture this thing!”
Lu Kuan replied, “Oh! This… actually, Su Mo, manufacturing this thing isn’t difficult at all. We even have the manufacturing device kept in good condition inside our base. The devices used to collect super elements can still be used if we maintain them properly. However, the biggest problem about this
thing is still… the energy source!”
“Electricity?”
Lu Kuan laughed bitterly as he shook his head slowly. “It’s more than just that. Electricity can help us reach the desired smelting temperature, but we need something that can increase the temperature to fifty million degrees Celsius within half a minute. Besides, we need this energy to be sustained for at
least ten minutes.
“There is just one slight, awkward problem. Even though we’ve achieved a breakthrough in material science through research, the materials for our conductive wires aren’t developed just yet. Based on what you said, if we use electricity, we’d need at least 12 wires connected to the device and each wire
would need to be at least… fifteen meters wide!
“And this is before we even consider the energy requirements for this. Once we factor that in, the amount of instantaneous electricity that we need would just be ridiculous even for just manufacturing a Level 5 alloy.”
Lu Kuan was very detailed in his explanation.
Conductive wires were always a tough problem to solve.
Everyone knew about Iron Man’s arc reactor, force-field materials, and nano-particles in his suit.
However, very few people knew that the conductive wires were the real treasure in the suit!
Given the suit’s size, a typical wire would have overheated to achieve an effective transmission of the ma.s.sive surge of energy, consequently ending up melted.
However, that suit defied the rules in that regard—even a superconductor might not even be able to do that.
‘As Su Mo thought about it, he then nodded and replied, “Then, how did you guys manufacture the alloy in the past?”
Lu Kuan, “Previously, we managed to open up a waterfall in a mountain range with a height of a thousand meters. We then used the energy from the waterfall to generate electricity and cooled the wire with liquid nitrogen to minus 196 degrees, creating the ideal environment.
“As for the cables, we used 81 superconductor cables to transmit 900000 MVA in a short amount of time.
“However, because of this, we only managed to make a few Level 9 alloy. With that logic, that means that there should be Level 10, Level 15, and even Level 20 alloys!”
Lu Kuan was afraid that Su Mo might not believe him, so he manipulated the robot and played him a video.
That video showed a single cycle of how the alloy was made.
Since the manufacturing system required thousands of programmed robots to maintain the workflow, a single manufacturing cycle would require a shocking amount of energy!
“Aren’t there other energy sources that you can use?”
“No. I mean, we haven’t found any yet. Our Ember base has only existed six years and nine months on this wasteland, so there might be some other things that we haven’t discovered. At the very least, we don’t have the capability to discover it yet!”
Lu Kuan miserably turned off the video. He noticed that Su Mo did not say anything, so he kept to his silence and waited.
To a scientist, the more fascinating an object was, the more likely they were to attract the attention of a scientist.
The rarer an object, the more it was able to unlock scientists’ imagination and research abilities.
Technology on Earth developed slowly because humans had reached a bottleneck in terms of progress and they just could not find anything else. However, on this wasteland
Lu Kuan was full of antic.i.p.ation as he waited for a surprise that this beast of a man might give him.
After noticing that Su Mo went silent for three to five minutes without saying a word, Lu Kuan tentatively attempted to ask Su Mo another question.
At the same time, a somewhat familiar yet unrecognizable water bottle appeared in Su Mo’s hands.
It looked familiar because the packaging of the bottle was very similar to the one he recognized.
Yet, it was unfamiliar because he sensed a weird emotion the moment Su Mo opened the bottle cap.
Hold on, this was
Lu Kuan trembled violently as he stared at the light blue liquid inside the bottle in disbelief!
“I feel thirst, my G.o.d! I sense something delicious!
“What is this? How is it creating such a strong attraction in a robot’s body that even I can’t resist?!
“Tm clearly just a…”
Lu Kuan stood up suddenly and stared at the liquid inside the bottle. He did not bother thinking about whether the robot body was done recovering or properly maintained; he strode toward Su Mo.
As he charged toward him, Lu Kuan stumbled and fell to the ground. Yet, that did not stop him from crawling frantically in the same direction with a yearning expression on his face. All he wanted was to take a closer look at the real form of this object.
This mysterious urge gave him the feeling of being human’ again.
Amidst all the chaos, it also showed him.
Hope!
Lu Kuan’s actions grew more and more uncontrollable as his agitated emotions drove him. The robot crawled like it had run amok, fumbling furiously on the ground.
All of a sudden, a pair of hands that had a ten-ton grip strength rested on his shoulder.
Like an eagle that captured a small chick, Lu Kuan stood up just like that.
The psychic energy water bottle had been placed in front of him!
At that very moment, he wanted to burst into tears!