Chapter 768: Qiankun No.1, Ignition Again!

The three-day holiday ended, and for the days that followed, Xu Qingzhou spent nearly every day in the laboratory, closely monitoring the operation of all equipment.

October 12.

The atmosphere in the institute was more tense than ever; the dedicated fire brigade was on 24-hour standby, and all researchers had their vacations canceled.

In the central control room, Xu Qingzhou, dressed in a white lab coat, walked in.

He had slept only three hours last night; after finishing all equipment calibration, he napped for forty minutes in his office and handed over the final inspections to Academician Ren Nan.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

Ren Nan gave a firm nod.

There wasn’t much to prepare—everything had already been inspected these past days; they only needed to perform the routine pre-ignition checks.

“Then let’s begin.”

Xu Qingzhou nodded, his voice low.

The moment he spoke, all staff immediately activated their tasks.

“Qiankun No.1 ignition sequence initiated. Negative triangular magnetic field configuration locked. Plasma configuration stability at 99.9%.”

“Liquid metal divertor thermal shield ready.”

“Fuel injection complete—Qiankun No.1 entering ignition countdown!”

Inside the central control room, researchers reported their status in orderly tones.

On the main monitor, streams of data flashed continuously.

[Magnetic field pre-set --> |Negative triangular configuration locked| Superconducting magnets [field strength 12.5 T]

Liquid metal divertor --> |Thermal load preparation 50 MW/m| Target plate status [exposure rate 0%]

Fuel system --> |Deuterium-tritium ratio 1:1| Injection complete]

At the control console, Xu Qingzhou’s gaze remained fixed on a few screens—all data were progressing exactly as his model had predicted.

“Core ignition successful! Ion temperature exceeded 150 million degrees Celsius. Negative triangular configuration boundary turbulence suppression efficiency at 99.7%—Qiankun No.1 has officially entered the high-confinement discharge phase!”

“Energy balance reversed! Sustained net energy gain detected—instantaneous output power 87 MW, exceeding input energy by 8.75%! Energy gain factor q=1.09! Triple product surpassed 6.5×10 keV·s/m.”

“Qiankun No.1 sustained net energy gain for 30 seconds.”

“60 seconds.”

“Net energy gain locked.”

Southwest Nuclear Physics Research Institute.

At 7 p.m., the last slanting rays of sunset dyed the clouds on the horizon red.

A vehicle marked “CTV” pulled to a stop, and four people stepped out at the entrance, carrying large and small bags.

A girl with a high ponytail surveyed the building across from her. “Is this one of our nation’s two major fusion physics research centers? It’s so impressive.”

“No, now it should be three—there’s also the Beijing Materials Research Institute.”

The man beside her, carrying a camera, corrected her.

The glasses-wearing young man clearly knew little about this. “But I heard Qiankun No.1’s scale can’t compare to Circulator-3 or EAST.”

The camera operator smiled. “Sometimes scale isn’t the standard for measuring a device’s advancement. I think Qiankun No.1 has great potential.”

“I’ve never been to a place like this before—wow, Brother Li, over there looks so sci-fi!”

“Little Zhang, don’t forget why we’re here.”

The lead female host, hearing the girl chatter excitedly, sighed and reminded her.

“Oh, oh, right.”

The girl suppressed her excitement, but her gaze still couldn’t help darting around.