After Lu Chaoyang personally experienced the texture of the ice barrier and confirmed that there were no properties like strong rebound,

the other members of the expert group also stepped forward one after another to touch and experience it.

The barrier outside the ice coffin was colorless, odorless, yet extremely solid, with a texture akin to a wall.

To rule out the possibility that the barrier was some kind of transparent solid, Zhang Mu and others successively tried a series of methods such as SIMS instruments, liquid nitrogen, hydrofluoric acid, and aqua regia.

Half an hour later.

Watching the liquid nitrogen steaming on the ground, Zhang Mu exchanged glances with the other two chemical experts, then nodded in unison.

Then Zhang Mu said to Lu Chaoyang and Zeng Gu Cheng:

"Professor Lu, Academician Zeng, based on the current situation, this barrier is undoubtedly a gaseous wall—whether it is a pure molecular wall or a barrier composed of tiny nano-scale crystals, it is certainly not a solid in the macroscopic field."

Hearing this, Lu Chaoyang also nodded.

Although he is a physicist, his knowledge in chemistry is also extensive, so it didn't take much effort for him to follow Zhang Mu's line of thought:

"Furthermore, this gaseous wall certainly lacks hydrogen bonds and phosphodiester bond groups. I even suspect that there are no chemical bonds in this compound at all."

Hearing the latter half of Lu Chaoyang's sentence, another chemical expert, Qian Yuhang, couldn't help but say:

"Professor Lu, a compound without chemical bonds, how is that possible? Only single atoms exist....."

"Wait!"

Before Qian Yuhang could finish, he was simultaneously interrupted by Zhang Mu and Lu Chaoyang.

The senior and the junior experts of the group thought of something at the same time and said in unison:

"Sodium helide!"

With the mention of sodium helide, the entire chamber fell silent.

The silence from some experts and their assistants was due to the discovery of a new idea or new possibility.

As for Wei Fan and Zhang Yaqing, they were simply baffled.

Especially Wei Fan, who even started to doubt his brain:

I clearly understand every word they say, so why do they sound like a celestial book when put together???

The chamber remained silent for about ten seconds before Zhang Mu suddenly looked at Lu Jie:

"Xiaolu, quickly analyze whether helium exists outside the ice coffin!"

Being the assistant to such a super powerhouse as Zhang Mu, Lu Jie was also a top talent by nature. He had been selected for the Ten Thousand Talents Plan early on and could be considered a promising bigwig.

Thus, he quickly understood his teacher's line of thought and said swiftly:

"Understood, I will start the analysis now!"

About fourteen or fifteen minutes later, a result appeared on the instrument's operation screen.

Watching it, a flush of excitement suddenly rose on Lu Jie's face as he shouted loudly:

"Teacher, there is a large amount of helium surrounding the ice coffin, and it has an interference effect! That is, helium atom waves are constantly overlaying two by two!"

Hearing this, Qian Yuhang instinctively opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

After a while, he sighed softly:

"It really is a helium compound, interference phenomenon, dihelium..."

It's well known.

Humans are divided into three genders: male, female, and Hideyoshi.

Matter exists in three states of gas, liquid, and solid.

For instance, water at normal pressure is gaseous steam above 100℃, liquid water between 0-100℃, and solid ice below 0℃.

Most substances, like water, solidify into solids with the decrease in temperature.

However, there are exceptions, such as helium.

Even when the temperature is reduced to absolute zero—i.e., -273.15 degrees, helium at normal pressure cannot solidify into a solid and can only remain in a liquid state.

As an inert element, helium-helium attraction is very weak, making the binding force for maintaining a solid state weak.

Furthermore, helium atoms are very light, and the quantum uncertainty is very strong.

Even at absolute zero, helium can maintain a certain motion, thereby disrupting an orderly solid structure.

However, in February 2017, a team led by Nankai University announced the achievement of helium forming the compound sodium helide (Na2He) and published it in the journal "Nature" (attached doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-03284-y).

And the composition of sodium helide is just as Zhang Mu and Lu Chaoyang said, requiring no chemical bonds.

In sodium helide, sodium is in an ionized state, with paired electrons filling the color centers in the crystal, providing stability in a sense similar to ionic bonds in the crystal.

He is said to only exert a structural effect, diluting charge repulsion.

Thus, saying there is no chemical bond is emphasizing that He here is inert, with no chemical bond action.

Based on this principle, Lu Chaoyang and Zhang Mu made a judgment:

Some special reaction is occurring outside the ice coffin, generating numerous trace helium compound crystals—not sodium helide, but helium compounds of a similar principle.

There are no chemical bond actions in this compound, but the unit cell structure forms a standard solid hexagonal body, at the nano level or even smaller.

It is precisely this aggregation of particle-like gas states that forms this gaseous wall.

Upon hearing Lu Jie's analysis, Zhang Mu glanced at Lu Chaoyang again.

At this point, it can be said with some certainty that their speculation is correct.

That young man is truly remarkable... clearly an expert in physics, yet possessing exceptional sensitivity in chemical thinking.

And sensitive thinking is precisely one of the most essential abilities for a researcher.

Like Qian Yuhang and another chemistry expert, they are true authorities in Huaxia chemistry, without a trace of exaggeration.

They didn't think of helium compounds initially. Could it be due to insufficient knowledge reserves?

That is obviously impossible.

It can only be said that their sensitivity of thought was not enough to think of the concept of sodium helide at that moment — and the lack of this sensitivity is likely the chasm between domestic authorities and Nobel Prize winners.

In other words, Lu Chaoyang has already acquired some necessary capabilities of a global top scholar.

How many people spend their entire life envying this...

Then Zhang Mu continued to ask Lu Chaoyang:

"Professor Lu, now that helium is confirmed, but the sodium ions in this area are not enough to form a gas wall scale of sodium helide.

Therefore, there should be another similar helium compound present here, what do you think are the possibilities?"

Lu Chaoyang frowned and pondered for a while, ultimately letting out a slightly dejected sigh and said:

"Professor Zhang, chemistry is not my primary specialty. Being able to think of sodium helide is already my limit. Beyond that... I really can't come up with anything."

Zhang Mu smiled, patted him on the shoulder, and then pointed to the ground:

"Think carefully, where is this place?"

Lu Chaoyang was taken aback and blurted out:

"Damo Realm... oh no, Sheepback City."

"Then tell me what Sheepback City has?"

"Over fifty thousand population, a completed city, and also an iron mine.... wait?!"

Lu Chaoyang suddenly realized something, a flash of lightning striking his mind:

"Are you saying... iron ions?"

Zhang Mu continued to smile, nodding, and corrected:

"To be precise, it should be ferrous ions. Although we currently cannot prepare iron helide locally, ferrous ions can form a unit-cell structure.

And gas walls formed by microcrystals of iron helide block our energy due to solid surface energy."

Solid surface energy is a parameter quantifying the reactivity of a solid surface.

The simplest explanation for this concept is:

The periodic crystal lattice structure of solids is a spontaneously formed state of lowest energy, and the surface is equivalent to a two-dimensional defect — that is, it destroys translational symmetry.

Therefore, forming a crystal inevitably causes an increase in the total energy of the system, and this increased energy is the surface energy.

The calculation method of surface energy is also straightforward, it can be measured using IGC.

The principle is that a known phase passes through a fixed phase, FID detects the probe molecules, and through mathematical modeling, after calculating several probe concentration experiments, the relationship between the dispersive component or Lewis acid-base component and the surface coverage is determined.

One-click foolproof operation, simple to the extreme.

What to say, Zhang Mu is indeed a top-notch guru, and his current inferences about the gas wall are essentially the most logical.

Just as Zhang Mu was speaking, the last chemistry expert, Chen Yue, suddenly interjected:

"Academician Zhang, I agree with your analysis of the gas wall mechanism, but where does the energy that prompts the combination of ferrous ions and helium come from?

The required preparation pressure for sodium helide is 3 million standard atmospheric pressures... Even if there were such high-pressure areas in the Damo Realm, they shouldn't appear here, or we would have been flattened long ago."

Zhang Mu nodded, straightforwardly admitting:

"This is indeed a hard-to-explain problem, and at this moment we cannot analyze the internal situation of the ice coffin, this is likely a problem that will take some time to solve."

"Di di di——"

Just after Zhang Mu finished speaking, Lu Chaoyang's communicator suddenly went off.

Lu Chaoyang apologetically smiled at everyone and checked the communicator:

"It's Academician Pan's call, please wait a moment, perhaps there's some situation in the teleportation lab."

Lu Chaoyang then walked aside with the communicator:

"Teacher Pan, um, it's me... uh.... what... alright alright... I understand."

A few minutes later, Lu Chaoyang returned to the group with a complex expression on his face.

He pondered for a moment and then said to Zhang Mu and others:

"Academician Zhang, the situation inside our sealed room is being transmitted in real-time to the headquarters, so the headquarters is also aware of our current progress.

Just now Academician Pan called to talk about this... he has a hypothesis about the energy that forms ferrous helium."

Zhang Mu was taken aback, then extremely delighted.

He didn't feel any awkwardness at getting contradicted; if Academician Pan Jianwei could provide a proper explanation, it would be even better:

"What is Academician Pan's hypothesis?"

Lu Chaoyang organized his thoughts and said:

"Three million standard atmospheric pressures, that's 30,000 times the pressure on the surface of Venus.

This pressure already belongs to the range of pressures deep within the Earth's core, and the instant wind pressure level in the center region of a typical nuclear explosion would be around this number.

With this pressure, even cultivators in the Nascent Soul Realm, not to mention those in the Divinity Transformation Realm with special methods, can only withstand it for a few seconds at most.

If such pressure existed inside the ice coffin, then the little girl in the ice coffin must either have cultivation surpassing the Divinity Transformation stage, or the ice coffin is made of magical-level materials that exceed all known resistance, or.... there is simply no such pressure inside.

Academician Pan believes the third scenario is more likely, so he wondered if this energy is derived from.....

vacuum zero-point energy?"

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