When the temperature gauge just reached 750 degrees, she immediately turned off the stove!
Open the furnace door and use crucible tongs to remove the contents.
It was not in the expected powder or semi-molten state.
Inside the crucible was a thin slice, no bigger than a coin, completely black, with a smooth, mirror-like surface, emitting a faint, cold light...
It is neither gold nor stone, has a unique texture, and feels warm to the touch.
"Test".
Mingzhao handed the thin sheet to Engineer Sun and pointed it to the RCS test stand. His voice remained calm.
Sun's hands trembled. He looked at the small, thin piece of paper in his hand that emitted a mysterious luster, then at Mingzhao's expressionless face, gritted his teeth, and carefully fixed it onto the testing table.
Buzz!
The test bench restarted.
This time, the green waveform representing the echo intensity on the oscilloscope screen seemed to be pressed down hard by an invisible hand!
In the high-frequency band where a slight trough had previously appeared, the waveform collapsed instantly!
It almost completely hit the baseline representing environmental noise! The peak attenuation rate far exceeded that of all previous samples!
"Oh my god!"
Mr. Sun suddenly lunged in front of the oscilloscope, his eyes almost touching the screen, his voice distorted with extreme excitement.
"Absorption...peak absorption rate...peak reaches...reaches 85%! In the X-band!"
Although it's still 99% complete compared to the blueprints, this is an unprecedented breakthrough! And it's happening in an extremely critical radar frequency band!
The entire laboratory erupted in chaos!
"85%?"
"This...how is this possible?"
"Grinding by hand? Low-temperature sintering? That temperature is simply impossible!"
"Those oxides...how could they be..."
The assistants gathered around, their eyes filled with shock and ecstasy as they stared at the collapsed waveform and the mysterious black sheet on the screen!
The previous despair was brutally torn apart by this sudden ray of dawn!
The sarcasm on Wang Tiezhu's face froze completely, as if he had been punched in the face.
He stared in disbelief at the small, thin black piece, then at Mingzhao's calm face. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.
This completely overturned his understanding of materials science!
A look of wild joy flashed in Zhang Mingyuan's eyes! There's hope!
However, Mingzhao's brows furrowed slightly.
85% is not enough.
That's far from enough.
In the Federation's memory, the perfect wave-absorbing material is as empty as a black hole itself, capable of swallowing all electromagnetic probes.
The thin slice in front of her only provides preliminary verification of a vague conjecture she derived through reverse engineering regarding the "heterogeneous dielectric-magnetic coupling structure" inside the material.
Her gaze returned to the thin slice, as if she could see through its microscopic structure.
Her fingertips unconsciously brushed lightly across the thin, smooth, cold surface.
This time, what she felt was no longer the vibration of structural breakage, but an extremely faint yet real... lingering resonance of energy?
It was a kind of...familiar, higher-dimensional...sense of order?
It seems to faintly overlap with a unique energy frequency from some stardust mineral deep within her memory?
This faint sense of resonance flashed by, yet it exploded in her mind like a thunderclap!
Her pupils suddenly contracted, and an extremely bold, even insane, idea instantly took shape!
"The material contains... a rudimentary form of a natural photonic lattice..."
Mingzhao's clear, cool voice rang out, carrying an excitement akin to discovering a new continent.
"But...the structure is unstable, and energy is dissipating."
She abruptly raised her head, looked at the ecstatic Sun Gong and the shocked Zhang Mingyuan, and uttered a startling statement:
"We need... stardust residue."
“A trace amount, as… lattice anchor point, and energy… resonant cavity core.”
Stardust?
These two words seemed to possess a magical power, instantly freezing the atmosphere that had just begun to rise in the laboratory!
The smile on Zhang Mingyuan's face vanished instantly, replaced by extreme shock and solemnity!
He had heard about the strange phenomena caused by Stardust before, but he didn't expect Mingzhao to dare to use it.
Wang Tiezhu jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, letting out a scream:
"Stardust? You're insane! That's top secret! It's an energy source that could trigger a global crisis! It's something that could blow up the entire base! You want to mix it into the aircraft skin? Do you want to turn our pilots and planes into fireworks?"
Sun Gong and the others were also stunned, staring blankly at Ming Zhao as if they were looking at a madman.
Mingzhao's gaze, however, was unusually firm. She looked at Zhang Mingyuan and said clearly, word by word:
"The theory is feasible. The energy... is controllable. Experimentation is needed."
Zhang Mingyuan's heart felt as if it were being gripped tightly by an icy hand.
He looked into Mingzhao's eyes, which were terrifyingly calm yet burning with unwavering conviction, and recalled the despairing wave-absorbing indicators on the blueprints and the vision of the "ghost" soaring through the blue sky.
Using stardust? That's too risky!
If it gets out of control, the consequences will be unimaginable!
The air in the materials lab seemed to freeze.
Mingzhao's words, "We need stardust remnants," were like a thunderclap, shattering everyone's spirits.
"You're insane! You're absolutely insane!"
Wang Tiezhu was the first to jump up in shock, pointing at Mingzhao's nose, his voice sharp and distorted with fear.
"That thing can set the Earth ablaze! It's top secret! It's a bomb! You actually want to mix it into the aircraft skin? What are you trying to do? Send our pilots, the entire base, and the surrounding hundreds of miles to their doom?"
His forehead veins bulged, and spittle flew everywhere.
Sun and his assistants turned ashen-faced and instinctively took a few steps back, moving away from the thin black sheet on the test bench that had just brought a glimmer of hope, as if it could turn into a time bomb at any moment.
The look in his eyes as he looked at Mingzhao was filled with fear and incomprehension, as if he were looking at a dangerous, out-of-control madman.
Zhang Mingyuan's heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst out of his chest.
He stared intently at Mingzhao, trying to find a trace of madness in that overly calm face, but all he saw was an extreme coldness and an unwavering certainty, like the laws of the universe.
Stardust! That was Pandora's box that triggered a global alarm and nearly destroyed civilization!
It is a taboo that is strictly forbidden by the highest authorities and must never be touched lightly!
Using it for materials experimentation? The idea itself is utterly destructive and insane!
“Comrade Mingzhao!” Zhang Mingyuan’s voice was unusually hoarse, carrying an unprecedented solemnity and questioning tone.
"Do you know what you're saying? You know better than anyone how violent and unstable Stardust's energy is! The alarms at Galactic Base haven't even died down yet! Tell me, how can it be controlled? What theory makes it feasible?! Who can bear the consequences if the experiment goes out of control?"
With each question he asked, his heart sank a little deeper.
The risk is too great! So great that even someone at his level feels suffocated!
Mingzhao met Zhang Mingyuan's fiery gaze without flinching.
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