More complex is that if the bullet accelerates during flight, its trajectory becomes as messy as Planck's hair, making it very difficult to locate and depict.

As a result, Tang Pin's team spent over a month constantly conducting ballistic simulations after extensive research.

Finally, after spending more than two million on electricity bills and losing a significant amount of hair, they developed a miniature weak force array.

This array is connected to a strong acceleration array via a tiny technological switch, with a very simple logic:

It activates once the bullet's horizontal speed reaches a certain threshold.

Upon activation, this weak force array provides a downward thrust, giving the bullet a slight but cumulative downward acceleration to fine-tune the trajectory, thereby accelerating the bullet's fall to hit the target.

And if one wishes to increase the bullet's range, this weak force array can be removed, and another tactical rail can be installed for guided shooting.

Then Tang Pin handed Lin Li a table filled with dense and detailed data, a thick stack:

"Captain Lin, according to our optimization, the peak speed of this 12.7mm spiritual energy armor-piercing sniper bullet is no longer at the initial velocity but at the instantaneous speed when the bullet flies to 0.113 seconds, reaching up to 4700 meters/second, with a bullet load of 21.2 grams.

Of course, the bullet's armor-piercing kinetic energy is related not only to speed but also to mass, so despite the bullet's high speed, its penetration energy is somewhat limited.

After all, other shells or trajectories may fall short in speed by several orders of magnitude, but their warhead loads are measured in kilograms.

After deducting factors like damping coefficient, contact surface area, and collision time, some bullets are inferior to them, but some armor-piercing bullets have more power.

However, this doesn't mean the 12.7mm spiritual energy bullet is useless; its concealment and speed give it a much higher single-target kill success rate within range compared to armor-piercing bullets.

For instance, the highest cost-effective bullet currently has a 24.3-gram warhead specification, with a peak speed of only 4100 m/s, but its total penetration energy, after deducting air resistance, can reach 16977.3 joules."

On hearing this, Lin Li frowned slightly:

"Wait, Academician Tang, this bullet's energy is just 16...17000 joules you say, which is 17 kilojoules?

But as far as I remember, a single light flame from a second-level beast is over a thousand kilojoules, and the difference between the two is vast... Was there a miscalculation somewhere?"

Tang Pin shook his head, knowing Lin Li had fallen into a typical misconception, and smiled as he explained:

"Captain Lin, the armor penetration calculation concept falls within the realm of stress issues, meaning besides initial velocity, one must also consider contact surface and contact time, the difference between kinetic energy and momentum.

The figure of seventeen kilojoules seems hundreds of times less than the thousand-plus kilojoules of a beast's light flame, but the direct contact area between the two differs by more than a thousand times.

The core contact area of the 12.7mm spiritual energy armor-piercing bullet is only 0.11 square centimeters.

Before our gun came out, the most famous Barrett globally only had 2687 joules, about two thousand joules of armor-piercing energy." (To explain any counterarguments, the muzzle energy of the Barrett is claimed to be thirty thousand joules, but muzzle energy = energy gained by the bullet + energy gained by the firearm + energy gained by the gas + gunshot energy, so it cannot be compared directly.)

At this moment, Lin Ziming, who had only given hints to Lin Li once before remaining silent, suddenly raised his hand and asked:

"Academician Tang, I roughly understand the principle, but I have a question...

How did you achieve such speed for the bullet during flight? What kind of explosive material can do this?"

Lin Ziming's question was sharp because the bullet's flight time is brief, and achieving such acceleration during that time is no simple task.

This technology isn't exaggerated to the extent of nuclear fusion, after all, the standard concept of nuclear explosion is an explosion in one millionth of a second, whereas the bullet's acceleration process at most spans two to three hundredths of a second, going as far as five hundredths of a second, which isn't difficult to achieve with current technological means.

But to achieve it is one thing; the amount of explosive material required by those technological means is quite considerable.

At least from Lin Ziming's understanding, no explosive material exists currently that can increase the bullet's momentum by eightfold with a size as small as a button battery, not even liquid explosive materials.

This time Tang Pin didn't speak but instead twisted the warhead with his thumb and handed it over:

"Can you guess what this is?"

Lin Li and the others looked closely and saw some tiny white particles scattered inside the warhead.

To be honest, Lin Li's first reaction upon seeing these particles was alum, but he quickly dismissed this guess.

At the same time, a lightning bolt suddenly flashed through his mind, and his lips began to tremble faintly:

"A massive amount of energy, a massive amount of energy, could this be... beast crystals?!"

"That's correct, they're beast crystals!"

Tang Pin gave him a thumbs-up and, with a face full of emotion, said:

"According to our research, spiritual energy crystallizes at the moment of gasification and releases a massive amount of energy—the energy in the Damo Realm is conserved, meaning conversely, the solidification of spiritual energy also requires a massive amount of energy.

This energy belongs to the β-type energy class, which can only be observed but not utilized at present, owing to their indeterminate eosta surface—which is the seventh-face property of the crystals. Similar crystals exist on Earth as well.