Homo Sapiens

Li Qingye, in Luzon, was actually well aware of the situation regarding the salvage and research of the B43.

He simply didn’t intervene, instead letting his subordinates and professional staff handle the matter.

After all, the Homo Sapiens Company now had four fully authorized regional branches. If he, the chairman, had to personally manage every single thing, even his super-brain wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Otherwise, why had he recruited all these people?

’Just for show?’

When you have subordinates, you let them do the work. His core tasks were to manage the company’s overall direction and scientific research; there was no need for him to personally handle the specific details.

At this moment, he was researching nanotechnology—or, to be precise, biological nanotechnology.

In reality, the structures of living organisms and organic materials are, in the microscopic world, all various kinds of nanostructures.

For instance, silk, spider silk, and abalone shells are all typical nanostructured materials.

Li Qingye’s focus on this area of research was mainly because he had previously developed cell-oriented development technology and biomineralization induction technology while researching biochips.

After further integrating and improving these technologies, he had successively developed a series of new bio-nanomaterials.

The low-temperature glass and iron bamboo materials from his earlier small-scale trials were, in fact, an experiment with this technology.

Recently, using a submarine, Li Qingye had collected a special type of deep-sea snail—the scaly-foot snail—from near a hydrothermal vent in the Ceylon Ocean.

Within the genetic sequence of the scaly-foot snail, he discovered a specific gene sequence that could enrich metal elements and form a nanoscopic iron sulfide layer.

Through genetic recombination technology, Li Qingye combined some of the superior genes from corals, scaly-foot snails, hydrothermal vent bacteria, and metal-ore bacteria to create bio-high-manganese steel.

In a special cultivation tank in the laboratory.

A piece of coral was slowly growing.

A few lab assistants pressed a button for the cultivation tank’s drainage system. The nutrient fluid in the tank was instantly drained, and then the automated transport system activated.

Wheels at the bottom of the cultivation tank began to slowly move it towards an elevator.

Via the elevator, it reached the experimental area on the floor above.

Here, the four side panels of the cultivation tank opened, revealing stacked layers of grayish-white coral. Each layer of the coral structure was 2 centimeters thick.

A corundum water jet quickly sliced off the coral layers one by one. The top layer, which still contained the transgenic coral polyps, was placed into a new cultivation tank and sent back down to the experimental area below to continue growing.

As for the cut coral structural layers, there were a full 20 of them, each 2 centimeters thick and 100 centimeters in both length and width.

These plates were then sent into an acidolysis tank, which dissolved the calcified coral layer on the surface, revealing the dark gray bio-high-manganese steel plates within.

The strength of these plates was absurdly high. Due to their low-temperature synthesis, every crystal lattice was at the nanoscale and arranged in perfect order.

Its strength was 3.72 times that of ordinary high-manganese steel, its hardness was 1.43 times greater, and its corrosion resistance was 3.21 times higher. Furthermore, its energy consumption for production was only about 23-27% of that for ordinary steel.

With this level of strength, hardness, and corrosion resistance, it was more than sufficient as a raw material for precision equipment.

Besides bio-high-manganese steel, there were also bio-molybdenum steel and bio-titanium steel. The former was resistant to high temperatures and wear, while the latter was lightweight, corrosion-resistant, and highly biocompatible.

In addition, alloy materials produced this way had another advantage: they reduced the need for secondary processing and could be formed in a single step.

Essentially, biosynthetic alloys belong to the category of additive manufacturing.

In contrast, current precision machining methods are predominantly subtractive manufacturing.

These two processing methods yield different results and have different costs.

As for which is superior, that depends on the technological level of each.

For example, 3D printing, a form of additive manufacturing, currently has a hard time competing with traditional subtractive manufacturing in the field of metal processing.

But Li Qingye’s biosynthetic material technology was different. After all, it had already achieved ultra-precise, nanoscale growth, putting its technology on a clearly higher level.

With the help of his assistant, Li Qingye placed a steel plate labeled "No. 53" onto the high-temperature resistance testing platform.

"Start the heating!"

"Yes, Boss!" The assistant pressed the switch.

Instantly, an electric heating system on the testing platform, similar to an electric arc furnace, began to heat the entire steel plate.

Time ticked by, second by second.

The temperature on the platform steadily rose.

degrees Celsius...

degrees Celsius...

degrees Celsius...

But the steel plate showed no signs of melting.

It wasn’t until the temperature was raised to 3,736 degrees Celsius that the steel plate showed slight deformation, but it still hadn’t melted.

Then, the temperature was raised again to 5,122 degrees Celsius. At this point, the steel plate finally melted, but not completely. A portion of it remained in a lumpy state, resembling viscous lava.

Finally, when the temperature reached 5,506 degrees Celsius, the molten steel began to bubble like boiling water.

The assistant, holding a bio-tablet, recorded this series of experimental data.

Next up were repeated heating and cooling experiments at 500, 1,000, 1,500, and 2,000 degrees Celsius.

Furthermore, there were control groups for full-body heating, single-sided heating, and localized heating.

This alloy was bio-nano-molybdenum-manganese steel.

However, this material wasn’t the ultimate in heat resistance. For truly high-temperature materials, one had to look at ceramic-matrix composites.

In this area, Li Qingye was also making progress using biosynthesis.

By adding some carbon, molybdenum, and titanium to the bio-nanoceramic sequence, some current varieties could grow bio-nanoceramics with a melting point of 5,637 degrees Celsius and a boiling point of 5,912 degrees Celsius.

Why did Li Qingye place so much emphasis on materials R&D?

The reason was that the Homo Sapiens Company’s precision machining technology was extremely backward. Forget catching up to Europe and America; it couldn’t even compare to companies in Huaguo.

With last century’s processing technology and equipment, even the most brilliant supercomputers and engineers couldn’t work miracles without the right materials.

Therefore, materials became the only option for leapfrogging the competition.

As long as the materials were good enough, they could fully embrace the "power-makes-a-brick-fly" philosophy.

Engine not good enough?

Just use ultra-high-temperature combustion.

Lacking precision?

Compensate with hardness and strength.

Outdated design?

Just pile on better materials.

It was like a cooking competition: the opponent is a master chef who can turn scraps into a masterpiece, so I’ll just use top-tier ingredients and cook them in the simplest way possible.

And the Homo Sapiens Company’s advantage was the low-cost production of these materials. If they could make these top-tier materials at dirt-cheap prices, then even with subpar processing technology, the final results would be nearly the same.

For example, a while ago, the Development Group in Hongsawaddy purchased an old MiG-25 fighter production line from Lucia’s Sukhoi Aviation Company through a product exchange.

To Sukhoi Company, which had inherited the Mig Company’s legacy, this obsolete hardware was of little concern. After refurbishing the mothballed production line, they held a fire sale, practically weeping as they sold it off to the Development Group.

The Homo Sapiens Company, using a shell company, had purchased the MiG-25 production line specifically because they were interested in its stainless steel design.

This was no joke.

Because of its extensive use of stainless steel, the MiG-25’s airframe was excessively heavy, resulting in very high fuel consumption, mediocre range, and short engine life.

But for the Homo Sapiens Company, these shortcomings weren’t problems at all.

With the various new materials Li Qingye was now developing, just a few of them would be enough to completely transform the MiG-25.

By then, an upgraded and modified MiG-25 would likely be no worse than a Rafale among the world’s active fighter jets.

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