>> Regarding other batteries, such as lithium-ion batteries which use aluminium as a conductor material on the cathode - the contact with an open environment can lead to a measurable change of the metallic materials which affects the function. <<
He glanced greedily at the pizzeria across the street while he weighed the benefits of car sharing against the inexpensive city railway.
>> Corrosion and other external factors can, to a certain degree, be minimized with the mentioned oil insulation, a grease seal or wax wrapping in combination with the use of shrink film. <<
"Let's find an electrical shop first."
Then, two turbulent days passed.
A previously tidy apartment was now enhanced by a row of parcels neatly aligned at right angles, with, as if it had been measured, three centimetre distances. The entrance area was the only space left for the parcels. Any other place would certainly have made moving in his apartment impossible. There were scrap pieces lying on the floor, a soldering iron, several screwdrivers and a thick tree of cables to his PC under his desk, which in turn was connected to the laptop on the bed.
Except for a single sock on the floor, the entire last week of clothing seems to have piled up on the small chair, on the right side of his desk. It formed a fancy little mountain. The massive gaming chair, that definitely wanted to become a car seat when it was little, was two meters to the side in a niche between the kitchen and a low shelf. Two pieces of furniture that he, for once, bought himself in this fully furnished apartment. The comfort of the small chair was horrible and he needed the shelf as permanent place for his toaster and kitchen tools.
Between the desk, bed and kitchen unit was a yoga mat, at both ends of it's head something that looked like the remains of a game console. It looked like someone had swept it there with a broom to make room for the mat. Ping lay there with his eyes closed, palms turned up, fingers slightly bent as if he had been laid to his last rest.
>> Did this user feel the designated sensation in the Dantian, too? <<
The well-known voice chattered excitedly from the mobile phone lying on the floor next to Ping.
"Um, actually it didn't tickle that much. But it was really interesting."
>> ( ☉̅ 益 ☉̅ ) <<
>> This system talked for 10 minutes until it's circuits smouldered. The user shall please reply earlier. <<
>> Title updated: <<
* Name: Atari Ping *
* Level: 1 *
* Title: Most untalented User*
Why do artificial intelligences even need to show emotion? And then straight away become so abusive ... Ping missed the pragmatic explanation and citation of highly technical details that were so much easier to ignore. Then an ASCII emoji appeared on the display.
>> Please repeat! The user shall respond instead of mimicking a corpse. <<
"I just thought the feeling might still come..." He scratched his head, half amused, half embarrassed, and endures the tirade.
>> Sit up straight. Let the arms hang down. The user's hand is now supposed to tingle. From a purely anatomical point of view, for a mammal, as the user is classified, the gravity should increases the amount and pressure of blood in your lower limbs. <<
"Uh... yes, this mammal feels a tingle, too... but only very slightly"
>> Please continue. The user shall imagine that it's arm is getting heavier and being pulled down by gravity. <<
"And this is qi?"
>> This is blood flowing through the users hand. <<
"Then what does it have to do with cultivation?"
>>The user shall start with simple tasks like controlling it's heartbeat before trying to make swords fly. Please refrain from asking questions and take the previous starting position. <<
With an affirmative word, Ping lay down on the mat again, put his hands next to his body, palms up and fingers very loosely so that they curled up slightly.
He could still remember the feeling in his hands well, even if after the explanation it seemed much less esoteric and interesting. He closed his eyes and began to count while breathing, just as he was instructed to do. Inhale for six seconds, then pause for two seconds, exhale for six seconds and again pause for two seconds. His pulse soon calmed down and his breathing rhythm was steady.
With a short "OK" he confirmed his progress and began to concentrate on the index finger of his right hand. When he concentrated on the fingertip and pictured tingling and getting warm, the tickling actually intensified and he moved on to the neighbouring fingertip. Soon his thoughts drifted to the events of the last few days.
His stock of devices was now two old handheld gaming consoles lighter. He also used an old cell phone, which even his mother, who loved prepaid cell phones, no longer wanted. He used an old laptop and the router mentioned, as the heart of two more time capsules. An old single-board mini computer and the unloved smart speaker were left over and, to be on the safe side, he didn't even mention the newer hardware, such as the NAS and the newest home console with touchscreen and motion sensing controller, which were still on his desk.
A shopping list to tinker with hardware can get amazingly expensive pretty quickly. His visit to the junk yard was a waste of time. Electronic scrap, copper and separately collected old computers and mobile phones were sold to third-party countries or second-hand shops after sorting. Stuff that nobody wanted could still be sold to recycling companies and so the scrap dealer protected the containers like a treasure and asked for an insane price.
At the university there was still an electronic scrap container from the IT department from which Ping could pull some devices out, but the yield was only mediocre because most modern electronic devices were not built to be reused, repaired or made into something entirely different. In order to be able to estimate which parts in a device could be of use, a construction plan, repair instructions or at least the user manual had to be searched for each scrap part. Ping was surprised that after his casual comment, the system could even use video platforms to analyse instructions in the form of video tutorials.
Using a service for 3D printing or an inexpensive service to build his own circuit boards would have taken too much time, so he soon went to a retailer for scale modelling and electronics to buy microcontroller kits and other parts for robotics, model making and home automation. After the visit he had asked himself whether he had, without knowing it, bought a wallet made of onion leather - every time he opened it, tears stood in his eyes.
Maybe he would soon have to take another part-time job. His friend and fellow student Sam, arranged these mini-jobs, such as folding clothes, sorting packages or standing in the cloakroom at a concert, almost every weekend. Usually he was fine with his scholarship, student loan and part-time job at the university. The university arranged a lot of different jobs to help students in financial need. He worked 10 hours a week by programming elearning games for different lectures.
He had to drive a total of three times to the DIY warehouse to cram everything into the small car sharing car, which was really surprising when you look at the five packages on the wardrobe.
The largest of them, equipped with the battery of an uninterruptible power source system for home usage, was the size of a large coffee brewer but significantly heavier. The two smallest, powered by a bundle of cell phone batteries, had the size of a bulging A4 envelope. In between there was an elongated package powered by an e-bike battery and one with notebook batteries tied together. For the last one, it was a bloody mess to establish a connection to the battery contacts.
A package with only small amounts of aluminium rails, acrylic glass or self-adhesive foil was hard to find in a DIY warehouse, so his apartment was now full with leftovers. Fortunately, the car sharing service he used only charged a little money for the time, while the costs for the distance, which at first glance looked little, quickly extrapolated. Since the DIY warehouse is right at the next highway exit and thus practically around the corner, the trips were affordable.
During the excessive crafting season that followed, Ping naturally also asked about cultivation, which he had previously refused so confidently. A gesture which the borderline-autistic web novel reader would certainly have driven crazy if he would have been a novel character.
To his surprise, not even the system offered free meals. Well actually, as an appetizer, he was allowed to complete the training session he was going through at the moment. But next, he had to collect points for a karma system that he would surely find out more about. Roughly speaking, he could score points by doing a good deed or prevent something bad - in the very real world not what ever would follow after he buried the time capsules. In order to get the real cultivation techniques, he had to finish a total of five trainings as a prerequisite.
>> The user shall report his progress. <<