Chapter 332: Preparation for Building Gantz
The success of the T-virus fusion also represented the second step in Chen Chen’s venture to become a supernatural being.
Needless to say, his first step was the crystalline.
Speaking of which, there was a concern of conflict occurring from the two genes interacting with each other that may result in some unknown mutation. To address this issue, Chen Chen specifically had a T-virus fused clone exposed to several crystallines as an experiment.
The experiment yielded successful results. Both the T-virus and crystalline did not pose any effect on each other.
Time pa.s.sed quickly. It was now the second day since Chen Chen had awakened from his slumber in the life incubator.
Chen Chen was in the Field training ground. There were four almost completely transparent poker cards hovering around him, like four little spirits bouncing up and down, circling and dancing around him adorably.
Chen Chen closed his eyes and used the Field extending outward from his body to detect his surroundings.
It was then when a group of flies was released from their cage by one of the Black Knights. They started patrolling around the Field training around, buzzing everywhere they went. When one of the flies flew nearby Chen Chen, its flight was suddenly cut short!
The fly softly clapped against the cold hard floor. Upon closer inspection, it was noted that it was sliced in half. The cut was extremely clean and delicate as if it had been cut by an extremely sharpened sword in the air!
After that, several other flies approached Chen Chen as well. Before they could realize what was going on, they were sliced in half and dropped onto the floor, their lives ended before they could react.
Chen Chen decided that he was going to start walking around the training grounds to find the flies himself. Whenever the flies pa.s.sed by a five meters radius around Chen Chen, a near-transparent poker card would glide right by it.
Moments after the poker card swept past the flies, the flies would be split in half.
It was only after all of the flies inside the training ground had met their ill fate when Chen Chen finally opened his eyes again. When he saw all the dead flies on the ground, he smiled.
“The radius of Field has extended to five meters.”
Chen Chen muttered to himself, “Which means that as long as there are no obstacles in the way, I can detect most substances in a five-meter radius around me. This sensory device is sharper and more precise than regular sight. Its characteristics are closer to the sense of touch...
“The only gripe is that the potency of Field hasn’t increased.”
After completing the training session, the four poker cards swept back into the tin box in Chen Chen’s hands without missing it even by an inch, like birds returning to their nest.
After experimenting with Field again, Chen Chen concluded that his potency in Field remained unchanged after fusing with the T-virus. However, there was a significant improvement in his precision of control over Field.
With Field, he could sense the most trivial detail within a five-meter radius, including the finest strand of hair on a person’s body. In turn, he could apply pressure on it using Field.
Chen Chen figured that he should be able to acquire all of the crystallines soon enough.
This process of absorbing crystalline fragments had extended over more than a year at this point. Chen Chen started with extracting several pieces, soon moving on to extracting a couple of dozens of them. Last year, he had extracted five hundred pieces all in one go. To this point, the sum of Chen Chen’s absorbed radiation was roughly a little over half of the amount absorbed by the protagonist in the movie.
Yes, only half.
Previously, when Chen Chen was preparing to film the movie, he had already made the appropriate measurements. The measured volume of the crystallines shaped like sea urchins was in the range of 3.5 to 4 cubic meters while the volume of each crystalline fragment was measured at 0.001 cubic meters.
This meant that for Chen Chen to absorb an entire crystalline, he would need to extract more than three thousand fragment pieces.
Inside the movie, there were three people exposed to the radiation of the crystalline, which meant that the radiation was evenly distributed between the three of them. Following that logic, Chen Chen had only absorbed half of the amount which the protagonist had absorbed since the protagonist would have absorbed roughly a thousand crystalline fragments worth of radiation.
Chen Chen speculated that the body would slowly adapt and build up immunity against this sort of gene-altering radiation. This meant it would be impossible to stack the effect infinitely since that would be too ridiculous.
The only problem was figuring out what the limit threshold was.
With that said, Chen Chen was not going to be able to acquire the remaining half of the crystalline fragments over the coming period.
After entering Gantz, Chen Chen had used up the greater portion of power deposited in the USB drive. He even left behind the PK Armor and Bugatti s.p.a.ceship in that dimension.
It was going to take some time to obtain enough power to help him instantiate crystalline fragments.
The good news was that the Spire Experimental Base was now in the process of researching a newer generation inertial fusion reactor. Taking notes from the first generation reactor, the efficiency of the second generation was expected to increase up to seven-folds. Its power generation should reach up to 2 million kWh, which would put it on par with Chen Chen’s nuclear plant.
Though claiming to have unlimited energy would be an exaggeration, at least Chen Chen could instantiate some tools like the PK Armor or crystalline fragments without hurting his reserves as much.
Currently, Chen Chen heavily prioritized the research efforts of the E language as well as the collection of germanium metal.
Germanium metal was very valuable in modern industry. It had extensive and important applications in semiconductors, aeros.p.a.ce measurement and control, nuclear physics detection, optical fiber communications, infrared optics, solar cells, chemical catalysts, biomedicine, and various other fields. Simply put, it was an important strategic resource.
It was also used as a catalyst for alloy pretreatment, in the electronics industry, and the optical industry.
On the international market, germanium metal was priced at approximately 1,000 U.S. dollars per kilogram. It was not incredibly pricey, but it was not particularly cheap either. If Chen Chen wanted to build a Gantz server machine as large as the one he saw in the Gantz dimension, he would need approximately a thousand tons of germanium metal, which came to a billion U.S. dollars.
There were no cutting corners around the construction of the Gantz server machine as it must be a completely solid structure. Its effects could only be exerted if the shape and the texture on its surface were accurate on a nanometer scale.
The only notable challenge to this infrastructure was the Gantz satellite and Gantz sphere serving as relay stations. It was only after the server was set up and connected to the relay station when Chen Chen could transmit humans or other substances between the Gantz sphere and a targeted area marked by the Gantz satellite.
Still, with each of the consortiums across the European and American Continents backing him, it should not pose too much issue for him.
Chen Chen wiped the sweat off his forehead and turned around to leave the Field training ground. Little X continuously reported to him via the earpiece, “We don’t have to acquire germanium metal only by using official commerce channels. After all, this volume of purchase nearly exceeds the total annual production of germanium metal and draws too much attention. If possible, we can try mining for them ourselves.”
Chen Chen stayed silent to let Little X finish.
“Besides, there are two marked germanium deposits right here in Africa. They are located in the Rainbow Nation and Angola respectively. If we can purchase these germanium mines, half of the raw material supply problem is solved...”
Chen Chen nodded thoughtfully upon hearing this advice of Little X. “This is a decent idea. It may take more time, but is the safer choice in the long run. Besides, our crew of Black Knights is increasing...”
“In this case, inform Old Qian about this and have him send someone to discuss this with the two governments.”