Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 393 Luo Qing's Serious Punch (3k)

After passing through the sea of ​​fire at the bottom of the light sphere, the plasma beneath their feet transformed from boiling grains of rice into a surging river of lava.

We've reached the troposphere.

Luo Ji felt the fire-avoiding technique around him suddenly sink, and the golden light that had been smoothly enveloping his body seemed to be filled with lead.

The crackling sound of the photosphere was gone, replaced by a deep hum.

It was so noisy it gave him a headache.

Luo Ji tried to extend his spiritual consciousness, but the intense heat of millions of degrees outside scalded his weak spiritual consciousness back.

The heat was so intense it was giving him a splitting headache, and he screamed for Luo Qing to help him.

Upon hearing this, Luo Qing helplessly pointed out a ray of spiritual light, which alleviated Luo Ji's pain.

At this moment, a massive plasma flow with a diameter of tens of thousands of miles is churning up and down before our eyes. These are solar activities similar to prominences, and the upward-spurting columns of gas have reached a terrifying temperature of 200 million degrees Celsius.

The intense heat continued to torment the two of them. Luo Qing could clearly see the incompletely ionized helium nuclei in the airflow flying around like red-hot sparks in space.

"The troposphere, well, there's still quite a lot of hydrogen," Luo Qing thought to himself.

"Stabilize your spiritual energy and don't follow the convection." Luo Qing's voice transmission was very steady. He naturally didn't have any fire-avoidance spells around him, but at this moment, he had somehow changed into a fire crystal robe, one of his few magic robes.

Relics from the cultivator of the Nine Heavens Realm—True Lord Xuanhuo.

Xuanhuo Zhenjun was at the Integration Realm. He was one of the very few high-level cultivators who was still trying to protect the remaining power of the Nine Heavens Realm before Luo Qing descended upon it. He died in the battle against the extraterrestrial demons.

A cultivator in the Integration Stage already possesses the power to shatter stars. This robe, which was inherited by Luo Qing after the sacrifice of True Monarch Xuanhuo, is sufficient to withstand the temperature of the sun's core.

Actually, it's fine not to wear anything, but the main issue is that Luo Ji is still here, and ordinary clothes won't be enough. It would be a bit awkward to see each other naked.

At this moment, the fire-avoidance technique on Luo Ji's body was almost invisible, and the raging plasma silently dispersed as soon as it approached him, leaving not even a trace of heat behind.

Luo Qing glanced back at Luo Ji's tense face, flicked a wisp of pale blue spiritual energy from his fingertip, and landed on Luo Ji's Fire Avoidance Technique—the originally dim golden light instantly brightened several hundred times, and the pressure vanished without a trace.

Luo Ji breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

It wasn't the heat, it was pure fright.

"The troposphere is much harsher than the heliosphere. I can withstand five or six thousand degrees for a while, but two million degrees... if it weren't for your spiritual power supporting me, I wouldn't even be left ashes."

“The spiritual power of a Foundation Establishment stage cultivator is already unable to withstand this kind of environment, even with a fire-avoidance technique.” Luo Qing’s gaze swept down, and a glimmer of light appeared in his pupils.

His 'gaze' is penetrating the core of the sun.

It is counterintuitive that photons produced by fusion in the core of the sun could take tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years to reach the surface of the earth.

The sunlight that humans see is mostly photons produced on the surface of the sun, not from its core.

The core reason for this long period of time is that as photons propagate outward from the core, they constantly collide with the dense protons, electrons, and other particles inside the sun. Each collision changes the direction of propagation, which is equivalent to moving forward in a tortuous manner.

The distance it can travel in a straight line between two collisions is only a few centimeters, resulting in an extremely slow overall propagation speed, far below the speed of light.

In other words, without Luo Qing's faster-than-light observations, scientists would have had a hard time observing the interior of the sun even if they spent their entire lives exploring it, and could only explore and speculate indirectly.

At this moment, Luo Qing's gaze, which is not limited by the speed of light, is penetrating the high-density plasma in the core area and reaching the center of the most intense hydrogen fusion.

After a moment, Luo Qing withdrew his gaze that had pierced through the star's core, and his tone softened slightly: "There are no abnormalities in the convection zone and deeper layers. The hydrogen nuclei are evenly distributed, and the fusion rate is consistent with the current stage of the sun's evolution. Judging from the hydrogen content in this layer, it can last for at least several billion more years."

Luo Ji breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this, "It's good that nothing's wrong. I was worried that something in the troposphere might be interfering with hydrogen fusion..."

"Let's go, keep sinking!"

Soon, Luo Ji felt the plasma beneath his feet suddenly become viscous, as if it had changed from a liquid to a semi-solid state, and the surrounding photons changed from passing through to being squeezed.

We've reached the radiation layer.

Luo Qing's fire crystal robe glowed dark red under the strong light. He raised his hand and a pale golden spiritual energy net unfolded out of thin air, with tiny silver dots dancing between the mesh.

What are those silver dots?

Luo Ji felt extremely confused. The dense silver specks in front of him reminded him of the static screen on an old-fashioned television.

"These are the hydrogen nuclei I've marked. I'll start calculating the total amount from now on."

Luo Ji leaned closer to look and saw that the silver dots on the spiritual energy network were densely packed, like a handful of scattered stars. Each silver dot was shimmering slightly, representing an active hydrogen nucleus.

"So many, how can anyone count them all? Is the brain of a Nascent Soul cultivator a quantum computer?" Luo Ji clicked his tongue in amazement.

Luo Qing remained silent, and the spiritual energy network rapidly expanded at his will, enveloping all the hydrogen nuclei within a million kilometers around him.

"The total amount of hydrogen in the sun's core is theoretically 73% of its total mass. Now I need to count how many hydrogen nuclei are actually left that can participate in fusion."

The silver dots on the spiritual energy network began to rapidly converge, transforming into a flowing band of light that swept past Luo Qing's line of sight at sub-light speed.

Luo Qing counted silently in his mind.

About half an hour later, Luo Qing said, "The hydrogen nuclei we have counted so far account for 71% of the total mass, which is not far from the theoretical value—but we have to see the situation of the core."

The two continued to descend, and the photon density in the radiation layer increased. Luo Qing's spiritual energy network also contracted accordingly, but the flashing frequency of the silver dots gradually increased, which meant that there were more and more hydrogen nuclei.

After a while, the situation suddenly changed. Luo Ji noticed that the silver dots on the light band began to stagnate and eventually disappeared completely. He was immediately startled: "What happened? Are there not enough hydrogen nuclei?"

Luo Qing coughed, pointed in a certain direction, and didn't dare to speak.
Luo Ji looked in the direction Luo Qing was pointing and was immediately shocked. He saw a black disk with a diameter of two or three kilometers suddenly appear deep in the core of the sun in the distance.

"Holy crap? What is this thing? It's so dark! It's so dark that it can't even cover the sun... Even the sensors of the Risk Reliever aren't this dark, are they? Damn, could this be the culprit that caused the solar helium flash? It's so dark and ugly!"

Luo Ji firmly believes that he has discovered the truth.

Luo Qing awkwardly explained, "Uh, no, her name is Guang Po, she's my good friend. Shh, don't talk, she should be asleep already. Let's be careful not to let her find out."

When Luo Qing said this, his eyes were closed. The reason was simple: the light in his eyes was terrifyingly bright, countless times brighter than a supernova explosion in his eyes. It was practically the brightest thing in the entire universe, an absolutely luminous disc that made it impossible for him to open his eyes.

Luo Qing closed her eyes and carefully pulled Luo Ji to a different direction.

On the way, he told Luo Ji about the existence of the light amber.

Luo Ji listened with great interest, "The photon god trapped in the entropy level trap... I never thought you could actually stuff this into the sun and use it as the energy source for your array."

Luo Qing gave an awkward laugh, then his voice suddenly turned somber.

"wrong."

"What's wrong?"

"The problem is that the frequency of the hydrogen fusion process in the preceding part is incorrect."

The moment the words left his mouth, the light in front of him suddenly became blinding.

The star core has arrived.

This is the heart of the sun, an extremely bright white expanse. Luo Ji could barely open his eyes, but Luo Qing, having experienced the baptism of the light amber, felt that everything was normal, and even felt that this place was not very bright.

Here, the plasma, with a density comparable to metal, is almost solidified at high temperatures. Every collision of hydrogen nuclei releases energy waves, but Luo Qing and Luo Ji's gazes are fixed on a golden area in the bright white center.

"1...2..."

"The number of protons is 2!!!"

That's not a hydrogen nucleus undergoing fusion, it's a helium nucleus!

That golden area is where helium nuclei are concentrated, and it's more than three times larger than the hydrogen nucleus area in the normal evolutionary stage!
Under the resonance of divine thoughts, Luo Ji instantly arrived at Luo Qing's conclusion and was greatly shocked.

Luo Qing spoke rapidly: "Look at the fusion rate of hydrogen nuclei. Under normal circumstances, about 6 million tons of hydrogen nuclei in the core of the sun fuse into helium nuclei every second, but here it is 12 billion tons per second, which is twice the normal rate."

Luo Ji stared wide-eyed. Show him? What could he possibly see?
He could see almost nothing but a completely white area and a small golden area.

But this didn't prevent him from understanding Luo Qing's telepathic message: "The speed of helium fusion has doubled? How is that possible? There's no reason for the sun's gravity and temperature to suddenly become so high!"

Luo Qing quickly explained, "It's not a natural change in gravity and temperature. Look here, look at the trajectory of the hydrogen nuclei during the collision. It's as if they were forcibly compressed by some invisible force, and the collision frequency was increased."

Knowing that Luo Ji was blind, Luo Qing simply shared his own vision.

With Luo Qing's help, Luo Ji finally saw these subtle changes in the microscopic world.

Luo Qing did a rough calculation: "The core temperature of the sun is 300 million degrees Celsius higher than the theoretical value, reaching 1800 million degrees Celsius, and the pressure is also 15% higher. Under this environment, hydrogen nuclei will be exhausted in advance, helium nuclei will accumulate at an accelerated rate, and I can feel that the pressure and temperature here are slowly rising."

"Increased pressure and temperature? Accumulation of helium nuclei?"

Luo Ji recalled the principle of helium flash, "Does this mean that the hydrogen in the core will be exhausted earlier than normal, and then the helium nucleus will collapse, the temperature will rise sharply, and a helium flash will be triggered?"

Luo Qing nodded, his expression more solemn than ever before: "I just calculated the total amount of hydrogen in the star's core—at the current rate of consumption, and considering the increasing pressure and temperature, the core's hydrogen will be exhausted in at most 500 years. At that time, the core, deprived of the support of hydrogen fusion, will rapidly collapse under the influence of gravity, and the temperature of the helium core will instantly soar to 100 million degrees Celsius, directly triggering helium fusion..."

"How many years?"

Five hundred years?

"Five hundred years."

"What's there to be nervous about?" Luo Ji, who was under extreme tension, was suddenly rendered speechless by this number.

So, the impending event mentioned by the risk-taker's sensor refers to 500 years from now?
That makes sense. This sensor has been on Earth for tens of millions of years, so its concept of time may be different from that of humans.

Luo Qing shook his head: "I don't think 500 years is a long time. Normally, there are 5 billion years. This is too far off, and it's definitely not normal. Most importantly, human civilization cannot live without the sun."

Luo Ji nodded: "That's true... 500 years is too short a time for the entire civilization."

Luo Qing looked at the center of the star's core, where the golden helium core region was still slowly expanding. "The problem isn't whether there's enough hydrogen, but that the rate of consumption has been accelerated. There's an inexplicable intention to force the sun into the final stage of its evolution ahead of time. That's the real reason for the helium flash."

Luo Ji sighed, "Scientific theories can't explain this at all. The risk-taker is right; the universe has begun to think."

Luo Qing shook his head again: "If only it were just a coincidence."

Luo Ji asked, "So what do you plan to do?"

Luo Qing didn't speak, but walked into the golden sea of ​​light alone. Then, calming himself down, he cupped his hands in greeting to all directions and silently apologized.

He set his sights on the core of the sun and began his first all-out attack in over two hundred years since he arrived in this universe.

Luo Qing threw a serious punch.

(End of this chapter)