Chapter 150: Second-Order Determinants

Flywheel Battery.

A novel battery concept proposed thirty years before the disaster, it has demonstrated remarkable performance in many laboratories.

At that time, its rotational speed could reach 200,000 revolutions per minute, with a specific power of 10 kW/kg, delivering explosive force 25 times that of lead-acid batteries and 10 times that of gasoline engines! Moreover, it boasts an exceptionally long lifespan and requires minimal maintenance!

However, it also has considerable drawbacks—

Firstly, while the flywheel is excellent for short-term inertial energy storage, once it spins continuously beyond a day, its self-losses become significant.

Even with rolling bearings, liquid dynamic pressure bearings, and gas dynamic pressure bearings all designed to minimize friction to a coefficient as low as one-thousandth; even if the flywheel chamber is evacuated to near vacuum, on the order of one-millionth of atmospheric pressure…

No matter how small the friction, it still exists, resulting in up to 25% energy loss per day.

Therefore, this type of battery is highly efficient when in use but, when idle, it spins idly, continuously consuming energy.

Secondly, due to the extremely high rotational speed, materials capable of withstanding such stress without disintegrating are exceedingly rare.

Metal materials are out of the question because of their weight, whereas high-strength fiber composites, typically carbon fiber, are extremely expensive!

Yet, none of these issues pose a problem for Ye Chao!

Bearings not perfectly smooth, causing friction?

The Imaginary Space digital processing workshop ensures every atom is meticulously arranged—so perfectly smooth that no lubrication is required.

Vacuum not truly a vacuum?

Again, the Imaginary Space digital processing workshop guarantees a true vacuum, leaving not a single atom behind—so thorough it’s almost obsessive.

Manufacturing materials too costly?

Still, the Imaginary Space digital processing workshop! Carbon fiber composites? No—only the strongest, toughest, and most conductive graphene layered to perfection, where even a single misaligned lattice counts as failure!

Thus, achieving a rotational speed easily surpassing 300,000 RPM, with a rim speed reaching 1,500 meters per second—far exceeding the muzzle velocity of a sniper bullet.

However, all this is actually irrelevant…

Because the energy from the Imaginary Space is conjured by mere thought, generated from nothing, so energy loss is a trivial concern.

Forget about losing 25% per day—or even 25% per hour—as long as it sustains a high-intensity battle, it’s not an issue.

What’s more intriguing is Ye Chao’s method of utilization, which seems not to be traditional discharge, but rather directly harnessing the flywheel’s immense angular momentum to boost his own prowess and flight…

In theory, that’s possible, but such maneuvering requires precision down to picoseconds or even femtoseconds—how could he manage that with only second-level neural reflexes?

It’s like a dwarf admiring a titan, an asteroid coveting the sun, or a nanobacterium aspiring to the sulfur pearls of Namibia—simply impossible!

It’s not that Alpha Ji looks down on anyone; humans just can’t achieve such feats!

Suddenly, she wonders: if humans can’t do it, then…

Σ(°△°|||)︴

Alpha Ji’s inner monologue does not in the slightest affect the ongoing battle.

Surprisingly, Ye Chao can indeed fly, and even change direction midair. Since he continues flying, Liu Xiaoyi also turns and gives chase.

Once familiar, twice familiar, then thrice, four times on a warm bed... After so many turns, the audience grows accustomed, numbly watching this male and female duo—a zombie and a squirrel—dart about like characters from a Hong Kong martial arts film.

“Teacher Ye, how long do you plan to keep running?”

Growing impatient, Liu Xiaoyi finally snaps while chasing.

But mid-sentence, she stops abruptly because Ye Chao suddenly changes course, aiming directly at… Liu Xiaoya, who remains on the ground.

He extends a stiff leg and kicks down, crushing as though stamping a “卜” character.

Though awkward, the speed is so swift it seems impossible to evade.

Yet Liu Xiaoya does not attempt to dodge.

Finally, it comes! Facing Ye Chao, Liu Xiaoya’s petite figure stands still as if unmoved by wind, and then—

“Bang!” “Bang!”

Two muffled pops, like uncorking wine bottles, as wisps of hot vapor erupt from the pores on her skin!

Body Control Technique, Burst Qi!

Using sheer will to instantly accelerate blood flow, hormone secretion, and nearly every bodily function, unleashing combat power several times above normal.

Buzzing… the crowd instantly erupts!

Everyone knows Liu Xiaoyi and Liu Xiaoya practice physical arts.

Though ranked only in the twenties, and despite Yunzhou’s rule forbidding physical arts below university level, these sisters are just under 1.4 meters tall and come from a family tradition, so the school has no say.

Just like Ye Chao, who besides numerous teachers, has a “master” whose teachings the school neither controls nor dares to interfere with.

However, a double burst with two pops, and qi visibly steaming from pores—“bursting sweat like broth, bursting qi like boiling water”—this clearly reaches the four-star level in physical arts!

Four-star? When did four-star become as common and cheap as a 9.9 yuan free-shipping deal?

“Boom!” Just as the crowd is stunned into a whirlwind of thought, Ye Chao’s satellite dish and Liu Xiaoya’s frying pan collide.

A true thunderbolt from a clear sky!

The audience is momentarily dazzled, unable to witness the collision clearly.

All they see is Liu Xiaoya tumbling backward like a small rolling ball, but—her backward speed quickly slows and she stops just a few meters away as if tethered by a spring at her waist.

At the same time, Ye Chao, bearing the satellite dish, retreats, while Liu Xiaoyi, still in pursuit, suddenly accelerates.

“Bang! Bang!” The same double burst, the same “bursting sweat like broth, bursting qi like boiling water.”

“Haha, Teacher Ye, this time you’re…”

Her words are cut off as Ye Chao twists, swings his pan, and narrowly slips past Liu Xiaoyi’s grasp, forcing her to bare her teeth and continue the chase.

The entire arena falls silent.

So the sister is four-star as well? That explains how she outmaneuvers even a weasel in midair.

It’s worth noting that mastering physical arts at an advanced level transforms one’s body into a weapon—punching through walls, kicking aircraft carriers—with vitality tougher than cockroaches, making practitioners more tenacious than any other school of cultivation. And its difficulty is universally acknowledged as the greatest.

Its value far surpasses even Xu Tiange’s four-star rank.

Besides, Xu Tiange has been three-star for nearly two years; his breakthrough after the college entrance exam was remarkable yet plausible. But these two sisters are newly minted three-stars via holographic helmets, and have just advanced again?

Though Ye Chao himself has ascended two stars in quick succession—once from one to three, once from two to four—the difficulty is incomparable.

One Xu Tiange emerging in Jiangcheng is enough to excite everyone for years; now suddenly two? Even three four-stars?

One child is a surprise, two children a shock, three or four children are deadly, dear!

Has the lower-tier obsessionist jungle caught fire? No, so where is all this smoke rising from the ancestral grave?

Unsure whether to be alarmed or delighted, many watch numbly, but some insiders start discerning the truth from the entanglement among Ye Chao and the two sisters—

Apparently, these two sisters are not truly four-star.

Their strength comes from fighting in tandem.

“Physical arts practitioners wield their bodies as their fire-kindling weapons. These two sisters seem to be each other’s fire-kindling weapons!”

Indeed, this is the second-tier determinant entity that makes Ye Chao feel so vexing.