Chapter 543: Character Outbreak?
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Regardless of how the White House was reacting to this sudden situation, the global market had already responded.
The day after Everyone Daily reported on the demonstration reactor project, the global thermal coal futures market was scared sh*tless; everyone panicked and began selling.
What did a demonstration reactor mean?
How far away was China from controllable fusion technology?
There wasn’t anyone that could answer these questions.
However, one thing was certain—China was a huge coal-consuming country, and it consumed more than 50% of the world’s coal. If China didn’t need so much coal in the future, who was going to pay for the coal they had in stock?
Even though everyone knew that this day wasn’t going to come anytime soon, the futures market was about future transactions. Whenever investors lost their confidence in the future of a commodity, the downfall of that commodity was only a matter of time.
At a time like this, the faster one exited, the lower the losses.
This didn’t only happen in the coal industry.
Since a large amount of money was withdrawn from the energy sector, the panic began to spread to other energy markets such as propane, natural gas, and crude oil. This led to a decline in the entire energy futures market.
Even though the loss of other futures contracts was a lot less than that of coal, it still maintained a downward trend. This trend continued from the opening to the closing of the market.
The stock market was just like the futures market.
The energy sector was completely demolished.
The world’s major financial inst.i.tutions made some statistical a.n.a.lysis on the day trading situation. In just one day, the global energy stock market capitalization dropped hundreds of billion USD, almost equivalent to the market cap of Google.
Lu Zhou was the person that triggered this chain reaction. He had no idea what he just unintentionally did.
However, even if he knew, he wouldn’t care too much. At most, he would sign and hope the money would go to him instead.
Because he could spend the money more meaningfully…
…
[Congratulations, User, for mission completion!]
Lu Zhou was in the pure white system s.p.a.ce. He read the texts on the holographic information screen and received the rewards from his mission victory.
Just like last time, he completed two mission-chain missions at once.
First was the PGC-1 material that gave him 100,000 engineering experience points and 500 general points.
After the demonstration reactor project began, the government invested all of its funds that were previously allocated to ITER into the STAR-2 demonstration reactor project. Since the acc.u.mulated investment reached 10 billion, it brought him 50,000 general experience points and one lucky draw ticket.
Lu Zhou looked at the only two level-2 disciplines on his characteristic panel. He thought for a bit and finally decided to a.s.sign the 50,000 general experience points into energy science.
His information science discipline already unlocked the artificial intelligence technology branch. As long as Xiao Ai kept improving, his artificial intelligence level would also be upgraded. Hence, he didn’t need to spend any more experience points on artificial intelligence.
In contrast, energy science wasn’t his cup of tea. Therefore, it wasn’t that easy for him to earn experience points in that field.
Considering the fact that the reactor energy generator was obviously in the energy science field, Lu Zhou decided to level up this discipline, just in case.
After Lu Zhou finished a.s.signing the experience points, he refreshed his characteristic panel and saw the updated information appear in front of him.
[
A. Mathematics: Level 7 (144,000/1.2 million)
B. Physics: Level 5 (83,215/300,000)
C. Biochemistry: Level 4 (74,000/100,000)
D. Engineering: Level 4 (0/200,000)
E. Materials science: level 5 (113,000/300,000)
F. Energy science: Level 3 (0/100,000)
G. Information science: Level 2 (3,000/50,000)
General points: 5,475 (one lucky draw ticket)
]
Lu Zhou briefly looked at his characteristic panel and shook his head.
“I wonder when I’ll be able to reach level 8…”
1.2 million experience points.
That’s more than all of the other discipline experience point requirements combined.
After Lu Zhou closed his characteristic panel, he was about to leave the system s.p.a.ce.
However, he suddenly remembered that this second mission chain also gave him a lucky draw ticket.
Lu Zhou hadn’t done a lucky draw in quite a long time.
After he activated the mission chain, he almost forgot the system had this feature.
This lucky draw cost US$10 billion in research funding.
Lu Zhou, who normally didn’t have any expectations for the system’s lucky draw, couldn’t help but get excited.
Lu Zhou pressed the lucky draw b.u.t.ton and a roulette wheel began to spin.
Lu Zhou subconsciously prayed for a few seconds and pressed the b.u.t.ton again.
The wheel’s inertia caused it to spin a couple more times. It then finally stopped.
[Congratulations, User, blueprint awarded!]
Lu Zhou: “?!”
The moment he saw this line of text, he froze.
The f*ck?
Praying to the G.o.ds actually worked?
He thought about it carefully. The last time he received a blueprint was more than four or five years ago.
[Received: PGC-1 material production process.]
Lu Zhou: “???”
Even though Lu Zhou was used to the system playing tricks with him, he didn’t think the system would do something to this extent.
Speaking of which, wasn’t he the one that invented the PGC-1 material?
Lu Zhou stood in front of the information screen and contemplated it for a bit. He then sighed.
Whatever, it’s fine.
Coincidentally, he was trying to figure out how to solve the production problem for the PGC-1 material. After all, the method that Hou Jinli invented was only a laboratory preparation method. It could be used to prepare a small number of samples, but it would be almost impossible to produce enough for a reactor.
This production process blueprint actually saved him a lot of time.
After Lu Zhou collected the prize, he left the system s.p.a.ce, and his consciousness returned to reality.
Recently he had been at Haizhou, overlooking the demonstration reactor construction site. He obviously couldn’t return to his Jinling mansion every night.
The China National Nuclear Corporation arranged a house for him. It was in the employee accommodation area near the Tianwan Nuclear Power Plant. The house was quite modern, with 90 square meters or so.
Even though it wasn’t particularly big, it was decent.
After all, all of his work was basically done on the construction site, and he only needed a place to sleep.
After Lu Zhou opened his computer, he took out his black USB from the system s.p.a.ce and plugged it into the computer.
Just like he expected, after he finished copying the data, the black USB began to slowly disintegrate into ashes before finally disappearing.
Lu Zhou blew at the USB connection port to get rid of the ashes. Without hesitating, he immediately opened the recently copied file.
In theory, the blueprint rewarded by the system probably contained answers to theoretical or technical problems that were within 1 to 2 levels of his discipline levels.
He briefly looked at the drawings. Even though the design had a lot of novelty, it was still within the scope of something he could understand.
The most important thing was that, according to China’s production capabilities, it was completely feasible for them to implement this production process.
After Lu Zhou finished reading the blueprint, he began to smirk.
The first wall material was completed.
All he had to do now was to find a suitable partner and begin this production process.