NEC Chapter 115: The White-Headed Sea Eagle's Alert

Nuclear energy, the brilliant pearl of humanity's technological tree, stellar-level energy torrents, but returning to its essence, it was actually quite simple.

Invest massive amounts of energy, tear apart the barriers between atoms, cause materials to undergo fusion reactions, thereby releasing even more turbulent energy.

Then take this energy and, boil water!

Yes, you heard that right.

That ignition of stars, that atom-splitting temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees, chain reactions breaking free from Coulomb repulsion's shackles, that creation gathering humanity's peak wisdom, its ultimate achievement was to boil water in a kettle, turning it into rolling steam!

Then, steam drives flywheels, powering generators to produce electricity.

When humanity's ancestors came down from the trees, they learned to throw stones and boil water.

Now that humanity has climbed yet another peak of technology, studying stars and seas in the macroscopic world while exploring particle origins in the microscopic world, what they do is throw stones a bit farther and boil a bit more water.

Never forgetting their original intentions, indeed.

The results of "boiling water" were delightful.

The experimental results were controlled almost perfectly throughout. Until the main mana crystal in the magic array was completely exhausted, the entire nuclear fusion process remained very stable, orderly, and regulated, fully worthy of the word "controlled."

News of the experiment's success was immediately transmitted to the "Cihang" Engineering Department, and everyone who was informed, semi-informed, or uninformed but knew such an experiment existed erupted in celebration.

The direction was now clear. What remained was simply to continue steadfastly advancing in this direction through higher frequency and more diverse experiments.

Gradually cutting away those bloated, complex structures, eliminating redundancy, optimizing processes, until that long-dreamed-of miniaturized controlled nuclear fusion reactor would become the lighthouse illuminating new technological sea routes.

The research institute joyfully announced yet another scientific achievement, receiving lukewarm congratulations from across Blue Star.

However, on the distant other side of the ocean, a special message landed on the desk of George Bruce, Director of the First Bureau of the White-Headed Sea Eagle Federation's National Security Agency.

Director Bruce stared at it for a long time, seeming to understand some of it, but not understanding it at all.

Finally, he muttered as he pressed the communicator, "Get Mike and Sean here immediately. Damn it... need to have them look at this."

There was no choice, George Bruce's educational level was somewhat low.

According to the Federation's naming conventions, George meant hardworking farmer, Bruce meant dense forest. Such a combination clearly wasn't particularly noble.

What about the other two deputy directors? Mike, one who resembles God! Sean, a gift from God! Names that sounded grand and imposing with heritage, ancestors either being chiefs of the Longship Federation or heroes of the Twin Lions Kingdom.

Yet letting a "farmer" usurp the high position of Federation Security Agency Director, if uninformed people heard this, they might think Director George's capabilities were especially high.

But the fact was, Director George was simply a pig at the right place at the right time.

His rise to power had nothing to do with ability, background, or qualifications whatsoever. It was simply because the Federation's previous leader had vigorously promoted diversification processes, making him, as a four-time gender transition person, practically the leader's beloved chosen one.

The Federation's gender types had peaked at over a hundred varieties. Four transitions were only about one-thirtieth of the possibilities, what was so surprising about that?

During the previous leader's tenure, Director George rose meteorically, directly ascending to four-star general rank, becoming head of the Federation's largest intelligence agency.

Of course, the new leader was extremely opposed to diversification, having already cut gender types down to just two.

Fortunately, although Director George's intelligence wasn't high, he was extremely decisive. He quickly converted the millions of sea eagle coins he'd painstakingly earned during his tenure into the most loyal "tribute," timely offering it to the new master, barely surviving that storm of great purges.

Now, he needed someone to help him interpret this document.

Soon, the two deputy directors strode in quickly.

"Oh, dear Mike, you know these convoluted technical terms always refuse to enter my brain."

"I just searched online for a long time. It seems East Xia only had some insignificant small breakthrough. Why would our 'Ghost' so urgently send back this intelligence?"

The two deputy directors exchanged grave looks.

The codename "Ghost" was also a taboo existence within the Federation Security Agency. The three directors present were already top figures in the Federation's intelligence system, yet still only knew he was a super agent.

As for specific information, they knew nothing.

To decrypt "Ghost's" files required personal authorization from the Federation President, the number one figure.

This guy might not send back intelligence even once in several years, but whenever he proactively spoke up, he had invariably detected some incredible major event.

The two quickly spread out the intelligence report, beginning to study it word by word.

Director George also turned his computer screen around, showing East Xia's recently published public news.

"Look, the East Xia people themselves said they achieved new breakthroughs in controlled magnetic confinement nuclear fusion, extending operation time by several more tens of seconds."

"I really don't understand what's so surprising about this..."

From the surface, there really wasn't anything surprising. In the current era where controlled nuclear fusion constraint time had already exceeded the hour level, multiple allies and vassals of the White-Headed Sea Eagle had approached or reached this standard.

East Xia people constraining a few more tens of seconds was merely a matter of burning more money.

But there was finally someone present who understood some technology.

"Oh God, I think we have big trouble!" Third Deputy Director Sean suddenly stood up. "I think you'd better report to the leader immediately!"

He quickly pulled open the intelligence report, pointing at a word in the middle, his finger urgently tapping the table.

"It's not sustained stable operation, it's sustained stable power generation, these are completely different things!"

"'Ghost' risked enormous danger to send out this intelligence. How could it be so simple!"

Deputy Director Sean explained with gestures until the other two finally understood.

Sustained stable operation only meant maintaining this state without collapse, but didn't mean this state was effective.

Just like listening to class in a classroom, although you don't talk or sleep, your mind might be full of yesterday's novels, morning videos, the girl next door, lunch meals... not hearing a single word the teacher said.

Sustained stable operation equals a student sitting in the classroom for forty minutes.

Sustained stable power generation equals a student studying in the classroom for forty minutes.

They looked similar but were worlds apart.

All current nuclear fusion breakthroughs were talking about "I sat in the classroom for several more tens of seconds today," not daring to mention studying at all.

Every test resulted in failure.

The intelligence Ghost sent out, due to time constraints and strict verification, couldn't provide too much explanation, but the meaning was already very clear.

This immediately aroused high alert from the White-Headed Sea Eagle Federation.

The intelligence went through top-secret channels, successively reaching the Federation's Gray-White House and the Octagon Building.

Soon, this thick, massive machine that was the White-Headed Sea Eagle Federation began creaking into motion.

As an old established power that had been domineering and ruling for so many years, the Sea Eagle still had foundation. When conducting targeted screening, soon, clue after clue surfaced from the vast sea of materials.

At yet another high-level office meeting, Big Golden Hair unprecedented interrupted his subordinates' chanting early.

You should know that normally, each person's tribute of praise to their boss would consume two-thirds of the meeting duration.

Today, using only one-third, the leader was already impatient.

"Enough, my children! Stop these factual statements that even hot dog vendors on the street could recite! Tell me something I don't know! Now! Immediately!"

Director George Bruce stepped forward reluctantly.

"Respected leader, under your wise leadership and excellent guidance, the Federation is advancing toward a new great era..."

Seeing the leader's expression growing darker, Director George shivered, his tongue instantly straightening as he cut to the point.

"We conducted systematic screening of East Xia intelligence over the past period, and evidence suggests that from some time period early this year, some changes we don't know about occurred within East Xia."

"They established an organization with a mysterious codename. This organization has enormous power, filled with the authoritarian colors of a despotic government!"

"What's this organization called?" A senior Federation general, also wearing four-star insignia, pressed for an answer.

George stammered, "Not... not clear. The East Xia people control things too strictly. We, our agents are still investigating..."

"However, we've already discovered many traces of this institution's activities."

"Um, please, please let our intelligence analysis department give the specific report."

The analysis department looked much more professional. They spread out dense charts, flow diagrams, and structural lines, gradually sorting out the connections between that central area marked with a huge red question mark and other departments.

"This mysterious department, we're temporarily calling the X Agency."

"X Agency reports directly upward to East Xia's central cabinet, and downward can command almost any East Xia power institution or political department."

"So far, no personnel lists or participant information from X Agency have leaked. East Xia's security level for it approaches or even exceeds their former 'Five-Nine-Six' plan."

Most White Eagle high officials present looked confused, forcing the analysis expert to supplement, "Um, that's the Big Fireworks plan!"

"We've noticed that directly connected to this X department are mainly East Xia's two major systems. First is East Xia's military system."

"Since this year, East Xia's military system has issued many strange individual development orders to related military-industrial supply systems and some civilian research laboratories. Currently, what we've collected from various channels includes the following types:"

"Human protection facilities for ultra-high temperature environments."

"Automatic firearms for stable long-term use in vacuum environments."

"Large-range life form active detection radar, required to be lightweight, man-portable."

"Rapid movement vehicles for sandy terrain."

"Complete integrated lightweight meteorological collection stations."

"Vehicle-mounted small satellite launch and control platforms."

"Long-term human survival devices for low-gravity environments."

...

Large amounts of various material types flashed rapidly across the big screen, some even including suspected physical photos and corresponding parameters.

It must be admitted that the Federation expert group's PowerPoint skills were quite excellent, the visual appeal was refreshing.

Looking at the bizarre, diverse development requirements, the Federation officials' expressions gradually grew grave.

East Xia was a super-pragmatic major power. They wouldn't casually allocate funding for "research on penguins' gender diversity tendencies" or "rapid cat and dog rescue in major geological disasters", these kinds of "humanistic" topics.

Such large-scale, high-investment, highly targeted development requirements meant only one thing, they were preparing for some unknown affairs!

They always liked to make detailed plans ten, even dozens of years in advance. This habit was really too annoying.

Now, their new plan seemed exposed before the great Federation.

"Although those East Xia guys made various disguises and security efforts, under the Federation's powerful spy network, they have nowhere to hide!"

This statement was both right and wrong.

It was wrong because such large-scale development mobilization involved a huge number of departments and personnel. Wanting to achieve complete secrecy at the terminal level would be impossible unless learning from certain countries to close off and cut all internal and external exchanges.

This was also the main reason why East Xia's "Cihang" Engineering Department, after consulting the cabinet, added large amounts of other field tasks, pure research tasks, and deliberately misleading tasks to their original fixed research design tasks.

As long as data pollution was severe enough, you couldn't see what I looked like.

Anyway, with cabinet support, the "Cihang" Engineering Department didn't need to consider cost issues at all. So they'd go big, taking out all equipment that might be used for lunar exploration plans, Mars exploration plans, and life planet exploration plans for everyone to research first.

They'd need it sooner or later!

But there was also truth in this statement, the White-Headed Sea Eagle Federation's intelligence capabilities remained second to none on Blue Star.

This included not only their money's attractiveness but also the unique image they'd once created as world hegemon and earthly paradise, attracting many shepherd dogs willing to bring their own provisions to join the free world.

Speaking of this, the analysis expert was quite proud, selecting a PowerPoint slide, enlarging it, and displaying a series of recent topics from an East Xia mechanics and physics laboratory.

"Especially this 'low gravity' environment series equipment set. The East Xia people made a small smokescreen, with matching areas ranging from 0.8m/s to 2.4m/s, but actually, we can see at a glance that the middle value is exactly 1.6m/s."

"Undoubtedly, East Xia people's target is aimed at the moon."

This was another psychological-level game.

East Xia working on lunar plans, everyone knew that.

But East Xia deliberately disguising lunar plan equipment as other equipment, what did this indicate?

It indicated East Xia didn't want the White Eagle Federation to grasp their lunar plan progress.

This was really too suspicious!

Just as the analysis expert was enthusiastically conducting his interpretation, the next second he was interrupted by a cold voice from some Defense Department general.

"Since East Xia people have been secretly developing for so long, and our intelligence department is so powerful, why are we only discovering problems now?"

"Um..."

The expert looked somewhat confused toward Security Agency bureaucrats.

Political problems still needed these politicians to solve.

"It's like this!" Second Deputy Director Mike quickly provided an answer. "You know, some time ago, because that jumping up and down little businessman betrayed the leader's trust and unauthorized fired large numbers of Federation civil servants, many of our departments' work fell into trouble."

"This naturally included our intelligence department and many outside contacts."

"Fortunately, the wise leader discovered that guy's true face. Now we've completed setting things right, everything in the Federation is back on track. Yes, that's right!"

The briefing continued.

"The second main contact direction of X... East Xia's X organization is certain research laboratories."

"Different from development institutions, X organization provides certain special substances to these research laboratories for analysis."

"In this aspect, East Xia's blockade is very strict. Except for laboratory core leaders, most peripheral personnel can only access tiny bits of information. We can only make lateral judgments through some other related information."

"Known provided materials possibly include:"

"Soil, rocks, gravel, atmosphere with certain differences from Blue Star surface composition!"

"Individual laboratories suspected of receiving water samples and plant specimens for analysis!"

"Additionally, there are several completely unverifiable reports of X Agency providing strange mutant biological specimens."

"Regarding research results, currently there's no evidence indicating what East Xia gained from these research materials. However, according to clues provided by a young East Xia entrepreneur, East Xia Life Science Research Center has a subordinate laboratory possibly involved with X department."

"This laboratory recently developed a special treatment method, suspected of having certain therapeutic effects on elderly critically ill patients, but treatment scope is limited to few people, such as some power holders and academic cliques."

"This brave young man angrily accused that his father was ruthlessly excluded, so he chose to reveal dark and dirty insider information to us!"

"After verification, we found this extremely likely to be true."

"Because a previously aged expert who was considered terminally ill, untreatable, even judged by our Federation's top medical experts to have less than three months to live, has now returned to working condition!"

A group of Federation elites stared somewhat dazedly at the aged, deeply wrinkled face on the screen, a huge sense of absurdity surging through their hearts.

Finally, the Sea Eagle leader broke the silence.

He leaned forward, hands braced on the smooth mahogany table, that signature hair seeming to blaze under the lights.

His gaze was intense, voice loud, speech rapid, with a trace of excited flush on his face.

"Alright, no one understands East Xia better than me!"

"My child, are you trying to tell me that East Xia people discovered relics of God unknown to the Federation on that dark side of the moon?"

"Or are you saying they used glowing cigarette butts to burn those poor aliens' bottoms and burned out something incredible?"

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