A single isolated transient peak?
Pan Yongnian blinked in surprise.
Then he quickly flipped through several pages of documents and soon found the relevant record Lin Yi had mentioned on the second-to-last page.
The recorder of the incident was named Chen Xiaoxiao, and the equipment she was responsible for was the mfa miniature near-field probe, mainly used for Penning ion trap counting and electromagnetic compatibility measurements.
Unlike ordinary probes, this device was extremely precise, even capable of capturing transient field shapes.
For example.
Say you are a blond old-timer sitting in a convertible, cruising into a square somewhere, when someone fires a bullet at you from afar.
An ordinary probe could at most collect the bullet's speed, but this near-field probe could fully capture the bullet's outline, including the pits on the projectile and the rifling marks...
Then Pan Yongnian flipped through a few more pages of the report, pondered for a moment, and asked Xiao Xu, "Where's Xiaoxiao?"
"Um..."
Xiao Xu hesitated for a moment: "The task just ended and we have a bit of free time, so Junior Sister Xiaoxiao is staying at her workstation writing a novel..."
"Writing a novel?" Pan Yongnian blinked twice, then his pitch suddenly rose several degrees, "She's still writing that lousy bizarre fiction?"
Cold sweat instantly broke out on Xiao Xu's forehead: "It seems... so."
Pan Yongnian's chest heaved a few times, and he sighed, full of lament: "This wayward disciple..."
Chen Xiaoxiao, twenty-six years old, was one of Pan Yongnian's Personal Disciples, an academic superstar with many titles:
a selectee of the CAS Hundred Talents Program, a winner of the University of Science and Technology of China's highest honor, the Guo Moruo Scholarship, the third-youngest associate researcher in the history of the Academy of Sciences, the second-youngest recipient of the Science and Exploration Award in the country, and...
a pillar-level big shot on a certain indescribable website.
Two years ago, this girl had accidentally (Pan Yongnian always suspected it was premeditated) posted an article as group meeting minutes to a work chat, the story's protagonist being the Fourth Sister Little Sheep fallen into Index's clutches...
The group included four academicians from both academies, plus seven or eight university and institute-level leaders.
Rumor had it that after reading it, those bigwigs wore expressions like this: ?
If it weren't for limited technology, Pan Yongnian would have sent this wayward disciple off as living fuel.
Then Pan Yongnian drew in a breath with all his lifelong composure and calmly said to Xiao Xu, "Have that person come over. Tell her that if I don't see her within one minute, next time she'll be the one transmitted to the Tianling Realm."
Xiao Xu nodded eagerly like a chick pecking at rice, picked up the internal communication device, and dialed a number.
About half a minute later.
The door to the lab partition was pushed open.
A petite girl with a single ponytail, fair features, wearing an experimental uniform, skipped in: "Teacher, teacher, are you looking for me?"
Pan Yongnian shot her a sidelong glance: "Writing a novel again?"
"It's just a hobby, just a hobby," Chen Xiaoxiao faced her own supervisor without fear, explaining glibly, "Mainly because I'm bored staying in the lab for so long."
"We can't go out to get some air here, and unlike the boys who know how to play Fight the Landlord and StarCraft over the LAN, I can only write novels."
Pan Yongnian was stunned by Chen Xiaoxiao's words, opened and closed his mouth a few times, then helplessly shook his head.
He really bore some responsibility for this.
Earlier, in order to contact Lin Yi as quickly as possible and for secrecy, he had to rush to Lindu overnight with his most capable team members, leaving no buffer time at all for Chen Xiaoxiao and Xiao Xu and the others.
Now the team members were relieving stress and adapting to the work environment in their own familiar ways, so he really couldn't be too harsh.
Forget it.
Let the bizarre fiction be bizarre fiction; it's better than writing serious web novels as a flop web writer...
Seeing Pan Yongnian's brow gradually relax, Xiao Xu on the side secretly drew back his neck.
Actually, there was one thing he hadn't told Pan Yongnian — he had accidentally caught sight of Chen Xiaoxiao's outline.
Good news: the protagonist of the new story was neither Pan Yongnian nor Xiao Xu.
Bad news: it was those two in the internal lab.
That's right, Fang Lei and Chen Zhengze.
So junior sister, you're on your own...
"Xiaoxiao," Pan Yongnian paused, then turned the topic to the event Chen Xiaoxiao had recorded and asked, "When did you discover that single isolated transient peak?"
"Transient peak?" Seeing Pan Yongnian bring up serious business, Chen Xiaoxiao's expression immediately turned serious — this was also the most reliable thing about this girl. "It appeared very early on. Um... I remember calculating from the first discernible flicker of the light ring to when this isolated transient peak was fully captured by the mfa, only 37 nanoseconds passed in between."
Pan Yongnian was stunned: "37 nanoseconds? It's that early?"
37 nanoseconds — that is, 3.710?? seconds.
Not to mention in reality.
Even during two-world transmission, this time was small enough to be ignored.
Like the just-completed supply handover, the flickering of the light ring lasted a full 4.41 seconds.
In terms of time scale.
It could almost be considered that the moment spiritual energy touched the light ring — that is, before the supplies crossed between the two worlds — this transient peak had already appeared.
Thinking of this.
Pan Yongnian directly stepped aside from the main console and pointed at the screen for Chen Xiaoxiao: "Xiaoxiao, pull up the full image for me to see."
Chen Xiaoxiao nodded: "Understood."
Then she walked to the console and clicked away at the keyboard.
Soon.
A set of images countless times more complex than those on the report appeared on the main control screen.
Pan Yongnian leaned in and looked carefully.
The first half of the image was simple: just a long stretch of pale-green straight lines as striking as facing Misaka Mikoto head-on.
But after a certain scale mark.
A straight, sharp, narrow spike suddenly shot up, its peak value more than ten times the previous baseline.
But in the next frame, the narrow spike returned to calm.
"..."
Pan Yongnian looked at that segment of data over and over again, and after several minutes he finally straightened up: "Xiao Xu, star this set of data and promote the sequence to the archive."
Xiao Xu was stunned and pushed up his glasses: "Teacher, did you figure something out?"
Starring plus archiving was treatment only important events received.
That is to say, in Pan Yongnian's view.
The research value of this transient peak was on par with the single photon detected by the ultra-high-speed multi-mode single-photon detector "Nanhu."
"It's hard to say for now," facing Xiao Xu's curiosity, Pan Yongnian still maintained the rigor of a science and engineering scholar without jumping to conclusions, "I can only determine that this transient peak is not a fluke, but what exactly it's related to... let's wait and see."
Xiao Xu nodded half-understanding and marked the transient peak according to his supervisor's requirements.
A few more minutes passed.
Fang Lei and Chen Zhengze escorted the tightly sealed alloy box out of the internal lab.
Then Fang Lei came to Pan Yongnian's side, glanced at Xiao Xu and Chen Xiaoxiao behind him, and spoke for the first time:
"Professor Pan, it's about time. Let's get on the road."
Chapter 28