"Insufficient Energy."
While staring at the new popup window, Chen Chen's face looked like he was deep in thought.
Suffice to say, the trickiest scenario had occurred.
The USB drive had exhausted all of its energy instantiating the NZT-48. It would not be able to instantiate any other items.
Having said that, Chen Chen also obtained a piece of good news.
Since it could display a message like "Insufficient Energy", then it could be taken to imply that the USB drive could be recharged.
As long as the worst-case scenario had not occurred, there was still a chance to salvage the situation.
The only question was what sort of energy did he need to recharge the USB drive?
Chen Chen continued staring at the old and dim USB drive before him when an idea suddenly struck him.
He walked to the dorm door and looked up.
An IC card electricity meter was embedded into the wall.
Since the area was along the coastline, the use of air conditioning was common. Therefore, the Shangdu Jiao Tong University dorm did not prohibit the usage of high-voltage electrical appliances.
However, there was a switch in every dorm, limiting the total power usage below 10A.
At the moment, the electricity meter display showed that there was still an excess of 52.65kWh usable electricity in dorm 404.
Electricity?
Chen Chen turned around and searched for the user manual of the laptop. He found out that the laptop's output voltage was 19V and the output current was 7.8A.
This meant that the laptop's rated power was at around 150W. It should use around 0.15 kWh per hour.
The USB specification listed the USB supply voltage at approximately 5V and the maximum supply current was 500mA. This meant the maximum output power for a single USB port was 2.5W and the energy consumption per hour was around 0.0025kWh.
At this point, Chen Chen furrowed his eyebrows. He ejected the USB drive and turned his attention to the power strip on the table.
This power strip was bought with the money pooled together by four people at the start of the semester. Placed on top of the table, it was more than enough to cater to the needs of four people.
To make things more convenient, they specifically bought a power strip with a dedicated USB port at that time.
Chen Chen looked at the power strip. Iit was listed that the USB port power was 5V, 4A. This meant that the largest maximum power output was 20W, consuming 0.02kWh per hour.
At this point, Chen Chen inserted the USB drive into the power strip's USB port.
"If my assumptions are correct, if the USB drive can be recharged with electricity, it should be reflected in the electricity meter as well."
Chen Chen thought the computer was currently the only thing using electricity. If he turned off the computer and the electricity meter was still running after an hour, that would prove the USB drive could use electrical energy.
The reason that he did not plug into the computer's USB port was that the computer's USB power was too low. The electricity meter could only display the first two decimal places. If he plugged into the computer USB, he would not be able to tell even if there were electrical usage.
Chen Chen looked at the time and took his phone out again to set an hour-long timer.
After that, he turned off the computer and flipped open a copy of Modern Molecular Biology and began reading.
…
An hour had passed by quickly.
When the phone timer rang, Chen Chen had just happened to arrive at the final page as well. However, Chen Chen was not satisfied.
Modern Molecular Biology served as decent academic material but it was a little too crude and general for Chen Chen. It was unable to satisfy his learning crave.
It looked like he would have to make a trip to the library after settling the matter here.
Chen Chen was determined. After that, he walked to the electricity meter and took a look at the value displayed.
Usable electricity: 52.63kWh.
Consumed 0.02kWh in an hour, knew it!
Chen Chen's eyes glowed. He was certain that the USB drive was able to recharge itself using electricity.
This discovery was astounding, almost rivaling the significance of instantiating NZT-48.
Just as Chen Chen was trying to contain his excitement, he suddenly felt a vibration in his ear. He promptly removed the USB drive and stuffed it in his pocket.
The sound of footsteps was approaching closer. Chen Chen looked at the direction of the door. Suddenly, the dorm door was kicked open with a loud "bang."
Li Bo marched into the tempo of
"Chen Chen, you didn't attend this afternoon's class!"
When he saw Chen Chen staying at the dorm, Li Bo immediately yelled at the top of his voice, "Old Deng was calling for you specifically!"
"I already requested a day off with the councilor."
Chen Chen said without turning toward him, "Lil Bo, we better not walk together from now on,"
"Why?"
"I'm worried I'll get beaten up being seen walking with you."
Chen Chen packed his belongings. Seeing as it was not five o'clock yet, he got up and went outside the dorm.
"Where are you going? Want to grab a meal at AA later?"
"I don't have money, bye."
Chen Chen left without turning back to look at him.
His current state was different from his usual self. Even Chen Chen took note of this.
If his past self was described as a quiet and shy teenager, then right now, he was a fully confident and composed successful man.
Not an ounce of fear, uneasiness, shyness…
All he had was unapologetic confidence.
It was different to conceal this sort of temperament. Therefore, Chen Chen tried his best to distance himself from people he knew so they would not sense that something was off.
Chen Chen reached the canteen. He bought four buns with two Renminbi. He ate two of them and put away the remaining two in a plastic bag for when he got hungry at night.
Such was the simple life of a poor man.
How boring.
While walking to the library, Chen Chen continued thinking about his next move.
If he wanted to do great things in his life, he could do so with the help of NZT-48. However, there was no end to a man's desire. How would he be able to be satisfied?
Naturally, his next move was to find a way to recharge the USB drive and squeezed the maximum value of the USB drive.
The power strip's USB port did not have enough power.
Though he did not know exactly how much power the USB drive needed to meet the required condition, even his toes could figure out it was an astronomical number.
Therefore, Chen Chen was going to need a large number of funds.
Once he had the funds, whether he wanted to buy himself a factory in the industrial zone or build a power plant, these options would all be viable.
Only by doing this would Chen Chen be able to supply the USB drive with enough electricity while remaining unnoticed by the outside world.
To sum it up, money was still the catalyst for everything.
As it was now, there was only one way Chen Chen could make money and that was with the help of NZT.
When Chen Chen thought of this, he no longer hesitated. He firmly planted both feet into the library building.
When Chen Chen saw the crowd in the library, he sighed quietly.
It seemed like he would have to camp here for some time to come.
The library had no lack of situations where "the book was present but the person was not". Several golden spots where it was quiet and allowed easy access were already taken up by piles of books. If not for there being someone to clean up at night, these books could probably pile up dust.
Chen Chen came to the foreign language reading room. He surveyed briefly before choosing Modern University Level English (Second Edition). Then, he found an acceptable spot for him to sit down.
Back when Chen Chen was in junior high, he had wondered why was it that China region had to make Northern America's language a compulsory subject, and what with it taking up such a large ratio in the curriculum?
It was not until just now when Chen Chen finally understood.
As much as he did not want to admit it, Northern America was the true core of the confederation whether in terms of economics or technology.
All of the truly prestigious academic thesis was largely written in English.
It was difficult to express some of the technical and professional vocabularies in Chinese. Even after translated, a layer of its meaning was missing in translation.
This one layer of meaning that may seem unseemly proved to be greatly significant. It caused many difficulties for research in Mainland China.
Therefore, if Chen Chen wanted to venture into scientific research, proficiency in English was going to be a cornerstone.
This was the advice of the older generation in China when it came to education.
It was not fawning over Western ideologies nor was it siding with others. It was all just to keep up with others.
That was all it was.