124: The initial emergence of abilities and the disaster of "quantum cooking"

The "one-way mirror" project brought more than just the astonishing conjecture about the possible existence of "ripples" in universal constants. Like a stone thrown into water, the ripples it stirred within "Homeland" quietly changed the position of Excellence. He was no longer that special specimen carefully protected inside a glass jar, needing to be observed and studied; his identity began a subtle and profound transformation.

This transformation was first reflected in the authority and sense of participation he gained. As a "Special Research Assistant," he could regularly attend those inscrutable internal seminars. Although most of the content was still like listening to a heavenly book to him, the feeling of being allowed into the academic hall of "adults," and having his opinions listened to seriously (even if initially regarded as childish prattle), greatly satisfied his growing thirst for knowledge and need for recognition. Evelyn and other scientists would occasionally subconsciously ask about his "feelings" or "intuition" during discussions, as if he were a living "biological sensor" with unique calibration functions. This implicit reliance made Excellence realize, in his ignorance, that he seemed to possess a valuable ability that others did not.

However, this new role also brought unprecedented pressure and discomfort. He was excited to be able to access more profound knowledge, yet often felt frustrated and anxious due to his own lack of knowledge. He longed to articulate his views with precise terminology like Evelyn, but could often only squeeze out some seemingly absurd metaphors. This state between "participant" and "observer" made him feel full of confidence one moment and sink into self-doubt the next. Su Mu keenly perceived his emotional fluctuations and often used encouragement and comfort to resolve his troubles, telling him, "Take your time, everyone has their own rhythm."

A more significant change occurred in Excellence's innate yet ineffable "Perception" ability. As he had indirect but continuous "contact" with the star map and ores through the "one-way mirror" project, and as the systematic learning plan Evelyn formulated for him gradually unfolded, his mysterious "super-sense" seemed to be injected with a new catalyst, beginning to show some new but extremely unstable characteristics.

This ability was no longer limited to special reactions to the star map or ores, but began to permeate the subtle aspects of daily life, only its performance was hit-or-miss, full of randomness, more like an uncontrollable subconscious early warning system.

Equipment failure premonition: When passing through the corridor, he would suddenly have an inexplicable sense of irritability towards a normally functioning water dispenser, feeling that its faint humming sound "sounded tired," and as a result, a few hours later, the heating module of that water dispenser would actually malfunction. Or outside the computer room, feeling that a certain chassis's "cooling airflow is wrong, like it's panting," and the next day that server would indeed trigger an overheating alarm due to a fan failure. This "crow's mouth" attribute made the base logistics and maintenance staff feel a bit fearful when they saw him, jokingly calling him a "walking failure detector," but they had to secretly admire his eerie foresight.

Weather change intuition: His Perception of weather also became more acute and eccentric. Sometimes, under clear skies, he would suddenly feel the air become "sticky" and have difficulty breathing, and within an hour or two, it would inevitably turn overcast or rain. Or he would feel the wind "pricking his skin like many small needles," signaling an impending strong wind and cooling. These feelings of his could not be explained by common sense and were often expressed through some very subjective metaphors, such as "the clouds seem to be huddled together arguing, it's about to thunder," or "the sunlight's color is a bit 'astringent' today, I guess it will be foggy tonight."

Energy flow Perception: The most astonishing time happened in the cafeteria. He watched that brand-new microwave heating food, stared at the turntable for a long time, and suddenly said to Su Mu next to him: "Squad leader, inside it... the light waves and the water molecules in the food seem to be 'fighting'... bang bang bang... but some places are fighting fiercely, some places aren't, it's uneven..." At that time, Su Mu and others didn't pay much attention, just thinking it was his whimsical idea. As a result, at noon the next day, that microwave suddenly emitted a wisp of blue smoke while heating lunch, accompanied by a harsh "buzzing" sound, and completely went on strike. Maintenance personnel confirmed after inspection that the magnetron had aged, leading to uneven energy output, and local overheating had burned out the components.

Excellence felt very distressed about this uncontrollable, hit-or-miss "superpower" of his. He couldn't understand the source of these feelings, let alone describe them to others in clear language, and could only clumsily look for various metaphors, which often made him feel like a misfit weirdo. He was afraid that his "premonitions" would come true because this often meant trouble and loss.

Su Mu and Evelyn closely monitored the new changes appearing in Excellence. They realized that this uncontrollable ability was both a gift and a potential burden, requiring proper guidance.

Su Mu adopted a more emotional and life-oriented approach. She gave Excellence a beautiful notebook with stars and rockets on the cover, encouraging him to record all these sudden "premonitions" and naming it "Excellence's Weather Forecast and Equipment Failure Prophecy Manual." She smiled and said, "Let's write it down and see how high your accuracy rate is! Maybe you can publish a book in the future!" This approach effectively transformed Excellence's anxiety into a game-like recording activity, making him feel that these "strange feelings" were no longer pure troubles, but "data" that could be observed and organized. Although the prediction accuracy of this "manual" was only about sixty percent, it was enough to prove that it was not groundless.

Evelyn intervened from a scientific perspective. She would not deny Excellence's feelings, but tried to guide him to use more rational thinking to explore the possible underlying reasons. When Excellence said he felt the equipment was "tired," Evelyn would check materials with him to discuss mechanical fatigue, infrasound waves that might accompany electronic component aging, abnormal thermal radiation, or electromagnetic leakage. When Excellence described the air as "sticky," Evelyn would explain the relationship between humidity, air pressure changes, and human Perception, as well as the propagation characteristics of infrasound waves before atmospheric changes. She would say to Excellence: "Your Perception might be very keen, capturing subtle signals that our instruments have not yet been able to measure accurately. What we need to do is find the bridge between this subjective feeling and objective physical quantities."

This guidance gradually helped Excellence establish a concept: his "super-sense" was not about ghosts and gods, but might be an advanced Perception of some unknown or extremely weak physical signal, just currently unable to be verified and understood by conventional means. This to some extent relieved his psychological pressure and also stimulated his interest in exploring his own mysteries from a scientific perspective.

One day, after reading a popular science article about quantum mechanics and complex systems (a simplified version, of course), Excellence had a sudden inspiration and decided to combine his "metaphysical" Perception with his most beloved "hand-crafted" practice to conduct a bold "interdisciplinary" experiment. He solemnly announced to Su Mu and Evelyn that he would invent an "Intelligent Cooking Pot based on Quantum Fluctuation Principles and Bio-field Resonance"!

He enthusiastically expounded his "theory": ingredients themselves have energy fields, and the essence of cooking is energy transfer and molecular movement. His pot would achieve optimal energy transfer through special sensors (perceiving energy fields) and controllers (simulating quantum fluctuations), thereby making delicious dishes "containing the flavor of universal harmony" that had never existed before!

The materials were naturally his "old buddies" in the studio: an inner pot of a retired rice cooker as the pot body, a few thermistors with questionable accuracy dismantled from discarded industrial sensors as "energy probes," a coil wound from a pile of enameled wires of various colors and unknown specifications acting as a "bio-field resonator," and several salvaged circuit boards forcibly integrated into a control center. Most importantly, he insisted that a kind of "energy catalyst" was needed, and initially even wanted to add a small piece of that blue "singing stones," which was sternly rejected by Evelyn who rushed over upon hearing the news, and finally compromised into a round, ordinary pebble that he called "capable of focusing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth."

Over the next few days, Excellence's studio became a disaster scene full of danger and laughter. The pungent smoke produced by welding repeatedly triggered sensitive smoke alarms, causing several false alarms of evacuation; sparks from short circuits caused by incorrect circuit connections almost ignited the drawings on the workbench; during the debugging process, when Excellence tried to power the pot, the whole pot emitted a violent roar and vibration similar to a tractor engine failure, scaring the birds on the tree outside the window to flee one after another, and even the base's dogs followed suit, barking uneasily. Su Mu and Evelyn had to take turns moving a chair to sit at the door of the studio, guarding it like door gods, ready with fire extinguishers and first-aid kits at any time, watching Excellence "causing destruction" inside with complex expressions.

Finally, the battered "Quantum Cooking Pot" version 1.0 was finally "completed." Its appearance was a masterpiece of post-modern industrial wasteland style: the pot body was crooked, wires were wrapped and exposed like vines, and the control panel had a few buttons with vague markings and an old screen displaying garbled text and snow.

The first cooking test ceremony was held grandly, with an audience including Su Mu, Evelyn, and several researchers who couldn't help their curiosity. The cooking project chosen was the most basic one—boiling an egg.

Excellence looked solemn, as if conducting a scientific experiment, placed an egg and an appropriate amount of water into the pot, and covered it with the riddled lid. Then, he took a deep breath and pressed the red button labeled "Quantum Start" (actually a modified doorbell part).

The pot was silent for a few seconds, then an ominous "buzz—" sound came from inside, and then the whole pot body began to shake violently, as if it were about to fall apart at any moment, and the numbers and symbols on the screen jumped wildly, like an epileptic seizure. Ten minutes later, just as everyone was holding their breath, a muffled "poof" came from inside the pot, and a cloud of white smoke mixed with burnt and plastic smells emerged from the gaps. Excellence disconnected the power in a flurry and carefully lifted the lid.

Inside the pot lay an egg: the shell had been smoked pitch black, covered with cracks, the egg white was half-coagulated and half-flowing, and the yolk was in an eerie soft-boiled state, and the whole thing emitted a rich smell of burnt circuit boards. The image of this "quantum egg" was far from the "flavor of universal harmony."

The onlookers fell into a few seconds of dead silence, and then someone couldn't help but burst out laughing, and immediately after, the whole studio erupted in roars of laughter. Excellence looked at his "masterpiece," was stunned for a moment, and then scratched his head embarrassedly, joining everyone in giggling, with black ash smeared on his face.

"It seems..." Excellence summarized the lesson while laughing, "Quantum fluctuations... might not be very suitable for boiling eggs... maybe (he learned a new word recently)... next time let's try using it to bake bread? Maybe quantum effects are more suitable for the fermentation process of bread!"

This completely failed attempt, although the result was terrible, the process was full of pure joy and the courage to explore. It made Excellence understand in the laughter that wild intuition and inspiration must be transformed into real achievements through a solid scientific foundation, rigorous experimental design, and repeated practical verification. It also let everyone see the most precious thing in this young man—the optimism, self-deprecation, and undying enthusiasm for exploration that he maintained even in the face of failure.

Su Mu smiled and found a transparent box, solemnly put the pitch-black "quantum egg" into it, and wrote on the label: "An important fossil on Excellence's growth path—the beginning of the quantum cooking era (failed version)."

The Sprout of ability is always accompanied by the troubles of growth, and true growth happens quietly in these attempts, whether hilarious or thought-provoking. Excellence's path of exploration is destined to continue, full of unknowns and full of hope.