Chapter 300 - 239: What Normal Person Calls That Thing a Weapon (Part 2)

Chapter 300: Chapter 239: What Normal Person Calls That Thing a Weapon (Part 2)

"It’s not just the weapons..."

Ye Qingzhou frowned. Her mind replayed the footage of Lin Fan’s battle frame by frame, like a movie. The destructive power of the weapon, the distorted ripples in the air, and the reaction of the monster’s silver hide—all of it transformed into a series of force-analysis diagrams in her head.

"And time," she said, rubbing her temples and looking up. Her gaze fell on Lin Fan, who was standing at the machine gun mount on the vehicle’s roof.

"But first, I need to know what that big... thing of yours is, and that spear you used before... What is their operating principle? If I can figure out the mechanism behind their creation or operation, I might be able to optimize them and cause a qualitative leap in their destructive power."

Meanwhile, Lin Fan seemed to have already forgotten the battle. He was gripping the heavy machine gun, swaying his body left and right as if he were playing the first level of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

"Optimize?" Lin Fan’s slightly surprised voice came from the roof. He let go of the gun and hung upside down again, poking his head down. "You know weapon design?"

"What sane person would call that thing a weapon?" Ye Qingniao, in the passenger seat, finally couldn’t resist turning around to retort. "I’ve been holding this in for a while, but that thing of yours is just a rocket thruster shaped like a giant sword... right, Sis?"

"A crude description, but... basically correct."

Ye Qingzhou didn’t refute her sister’s comment. Instead, she looked at Lin Fan seriously.

"Your attack method involves an extremely violent kinetic energy conversion, and even includes some aerodynamic structural design. If I knew the principle behind how these things appear out of thin air, and the medium for their energy burst, I might be able to help."

Lin Fan blinked. He pulled himself back from the edge of the roof and simply squatted on the gun mount, looking down at the equally baffled faces in the car and the expressionless Ye Qingzhou. "What principle?"

Ye Qingzhou took a deep breath, adopting the posture of someone at an academic seminar. "Your source of working medium."

The inside of the vehicle fell silent for a second.

"Salary source?... Who’s paying Big Bro a salary?"

Chu Zhaozhao tilted her head, her large eyes filled with confusion as she looked at Ye Qingzhou. Then, as if struck by a realization, she looked at Lin Fan and blurted out,

"Is it the System?"

"..." The moment she said this, even Cheng Qi, Ye Qingniao, and Su Qing turned to stare at Chu Zhaozhao in absolute awe. Then, they all whipped their heads back to look at Lin Fan curiously. All their eyes were practically glowing with the desire for gossip—and Ye Qingniao’s heterochromatic eye was already emitting a blue light.

"...What salary? There’s no salary. The whole business went bust."

Lin Fan waved his hands dismissively, then reached down with both arms to squish Chu Zhaozhao’s face, kneading her cheeks into various shapes. "Don’t interrupt. Listen to what the boss has to say."

Then, he ignored everyone’s stares and looked back at Ye Qingzhou.

Of all the people present, it seemed only Ye Qingzhou, a top student who likely hadn’t read many novels growing up, failed to understand the look everyone was giving Lin Fan, nor did she immediately grasp what "the System" was.

A rare crack of irritation appeared on her usually serious and calm face.

She took a deep breath, blinked, and tried to adjust her vocabulary, attempting to use simpler language to get on the same page as these people:

"Not salary! ’Working medium’! The substance that does the work! That thruster of yours... or rather, the vents on the spine of the sword—what do they eject to produce reactive thrust? Is it fuel? Compressed gas? Or some kind of plasma?"

Her eyes grew sharp, staring at Lin Fan as if trying to see right through him. "No thrust can be generated from nothing. Something has to be consumed, to be ejected..."

"Oh—so that’s what you’re asking..."

Seeing Ye Qingzhou’s determination to get to the bottom of it, Lin Fan scratched his head awkwardly.

He gathered his thoughts, deciding to explain the complex "mechanism" in the simplest, most brutish way possible.

"Well... it’s basically like, I stuff a burst of energy into it, and then..." Lin Fan made an explosive gesture with his hands and said matter-of-factly, "then I detonate it. BOOM, and you’ve got reactive force..."

Listening to Lin Fan’s crude explanation, Ye Qingzhou continued, "...And how, may I ask, is the energy input?"

"It’s transferred through physical contact along the body of the sword..." Lin Fan replied, thinking about the charging process.

"A valveless pulse detonation..." After hearing Lin Fan’s additional explanation, Ye Qingzhou looked at him as if he were a profligate son wasting the family fortune. "Do you have any idea how much energy you just wasted with that one move...?"

She then let out a long sigh, pressing a hand to her forehead. "No combustion chamber for compression, no nozzle for flow vectoring, not even a basic working medium cycle. You’re generating thrust purely from an open-air energy explosion... It’s a blasphemous waste. If the structure could be optimized, your kinetic output could be at least doubled."

"You know about this stuff too?" This time, Lin Fan was genuinely astonished. He gripped the edge of the gun mount, looking down in disbelief at the technical officer below. "Aren’t you from a biological research institute? How do you also know fluid dynamics and mechanical design?"

In Lin Fan’s plan, he had brought Ye Qingzhou along purely so she could use her biological expertise to help him analyze the pig’s weaknesses or maybe set some kind of targeted trap. He never expected that instead of studying the pig, the woman would start studying him.

"Hmph, you really underestimate my sister!"

Before Ye Qingzhou could speak, Ye Qingniao in the passenger seat suddenly puffed out her chest, her chin held high with a proud expression.

"Before you stands the Northern Greater Region Academy of Sciences’ youngest chief researcher, a polymath in biomedical science, high-energy physics, bioengineering, and weapon systems—Dr. Ye Qingzhou!"

She rattled off the list like a waitress calling out orders, her words a rapid-fire boast: "My sis doesn’t just study biology! Back when she was at the military-industrial institute, the power supply system she improved for the single-trooper exoskeleton is still the main-issue equipment! And recently she’s been teaching herself rocket science, getting ready to jump ship to the rocket MMPH MMPH MMPH—"

"Okay, that’s enough of that."

Ye Qingzhou reached out with a deadpan expression and clamped a hand over her sister’s mouth, which was still spewing increasingly outrageous claims, forcing the rest of her words back down her throat.

"Mmph! Mmph mmph!" Ye Qingniao struggled for a moment before letting out a few muffled, aggrieved grunts.

"Whoa!" x4

Inside and outside the vehicle, four simultaneous, synchronized gasps of amazement rang out.

Never mind Chu Zhaozhao, Su Qing, and Lin Fan—even Cheng Qi, who had been sitting in the driver’s seat intending to stay out of the conversation, couldn’t help but glance sideways, taking a second look at the usually quiet Dr. Ye in his rearview mirror.

He only knew that Ye Qingzhou was a "senior researcher," but he’d never cared about how "senior" she was. Now, after hearing Ye Qingniao’s hype, even though he didn’t quite understand all the fields she’d listed, he knew enough to be seriously impressed.

Ye Qingzhou still wore that same expressionless face. "I wouldn’t call myself a professional in aerodynamics and structural design, but I know more than most. If we can reconstruct that weapon of yours, the power it could unleash should be far greater than it is now."

Hearing her say this, even Lin Fan gave her a long, hard look. ’I can figure out the energy mechanics on my own over time, but weapon design requires real expertise. Making an impact greatsword on my own was already my limit.’

’If I stick to my own ideas, I’d probably just keep scaling it up, turning it into an impact great-great-greatsword...’

As Lin Fan weighed in his mind what he should say, and how much he should reveal, he stood up straight and looked behind him.

In the distance, the cold storage facility was still billowing thick black smoke. The RUMBLE of collapsing structures could be heard intermittently, kicking up vast clouds of dust. It seemed that after losing its target, the giant pig was taking out its frustration on the ruins and showed no sign of pursuing them.

"Anyway, let’s head back first. We can figure out the details when we get there." Lin Fan patted the metal roof of the vehicle, signaling to Cheng Qi. "Where’s the main group stopped?"