Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Electronics had become compact with more and more functions, but the biggest limitation was battery life.
Even iPhones had to be charged three times a day, and portable chargers, no matter how heavy, had become a necessity in people’s lives.
After half an hour of flight, even before the elfins had had their fill, Nekhbet’s battery had dropped to a mere quarter of its capacity, and it was getting dangerous to fly.
After it gave the command, Nekhbet automatically returned to its original person and almost perfectly landed on the spot where it had taken off, its blades quickly coming to a stop.
The elfins no longer looked at it with skepticism and disdain. Instead, it was with shock and envy.
Since Wei Kang had a higher demand for this drone and wanted it to constantly be hovering over their heads whenever they were out in the field, he had very generously attached a few extra sets of batteries so that they could use them in turn. Binhai University was covering their expenses, and this was a reasonable demand as well anyway.
Zhang Zian switched out Nekhbet’s battery for a spare one. He was worried that the machine would be too hot after continuous flying, but he was pleased to find that it was only a little warm.
Making use of the time, he brought out another attractive piece of electronics.
“What is this?” they all asked. With their experience earlier, they didn’t dare look down on these unsuspecting technological products.
“This is an infrared camera that I borrowed from Professor Weikang,” Zhang Zian explained. “I heard that this thing can take photos automatically. As long as a warm-blooded animal or live being walks before its camera, it will automatically click the shutter and take a photo.”
Even though this thing was rarer, it wasn’t as enticing to the elfins compared to the drones. It was just photography, anyway. What was the difference between humans taking a photo and the machine taking it automatically?
Zhang Zian patiently explained his thoughts.
When he saw the infrared camera in Wei Kang’s office, he immediately had a concern. Could this thing be effective against invisible elfins?
After learning how infrared cameras worked from Wei Kang, he got even more worried. Infrared cameras could be designed to be on standby in the wild no matter whether it was day or night for a long period of time. It would take a photo of any warm-blooded animal or moving object the moment it detected one, and the LED would flash red.
Then if an invisible elfin were to pass before the camera and activated the sensor of the camera, causing it to take a photo automatically, would it capture the elfin?
Even if it didn’t, it would cause the team to think that there was a supernatural cause to it, and it would bring panic.
It wouldn’t be practical to say that the camera was broken, since they were planning to bring several cameras. It couldn’t be that they were all broken, right?
So he shamelessly asked for an infrared camera, planning to give it a try beforehand just in case.
Only then did the elfins understand why.
Old Time Tea volunteered himself. Zhang Zian made it invisible, and it walked before the infrared camera several times and with several different speeds.
Zhang Zian pulled out the memory card for the infrared camera and inserted it into his phone.
Thank goodness—the memory card was still empty. The camera hadn’t detected invisible elfins.
Only then could he really relax.
His worry had mixed reactions. Old Time Tea complimented him for being careful and thoughtful, while Snowy Lionet scolded him for being paranoid and wishy-washy…
He kept the infrared camera then. Touching the surface of Nekhbet, he found it to be cold, and he prepared to start the second round of testing.
The first test was purely for its flying ability. Now he was going to test its “follow” mode, getting Nekhbet to use him as a target and continuously hover over him in a simulation of their expedition.
“Galaxy, are you ready to be defeated by me? Now’s the time to end your winning streak!”
With everything prepared, he confidently challenged Galaxy, not at all ashamed about the fact that he was cheating.
“Meow! I’ve been prepared for a long time!”
Galaxy had been excited for a while, wanting to try the few hiding spots that it had seen earlier.
“Alright then, I’m going to start counting! This time I’m really counting with my eyes closed! One…two…three…”
He closed his eyes, not even avoiding the fact that he had once cheated by opening his eyes before.
“Meow! You cheater! You’re counting too quickly!”
Galaxy continuously complained while its voice started to drift left and right, seemingly near one second and far away the next.
After nearly half an hour, the elfins that had woken up so early had started to get hungry. Fina had seen through the drone earlier that Mr. Li had already sent breakfast to the pet shop and was rushing back for her breakfast with Snowy Lionet close at her heels. Old Time Tea and Famous liked to eat piping hot food, so they went back as well. The strays had gradually returned to the grassland, and Vladimir rushed off after receiving some fresh news straight out of the oven.
Richard didn’t leave. It didn’t need to eat hot food, and it could freely pee and poop here anyway.
“98…99…100! I’m coming to find you!” Zhang Zian quickly counted up to 100 and opened his eyes.
He gave Richard beside him a look, asking him where Galaxy had gone, but all he got back was an eye roll.
“Gah gah! You idiot! You think you can dominate the world just with a drone? If it were up to me, this drone would be nothing but a manless chicken!”
Zhang Zian hadn’t wanted to count on it anyway. Through the screen on the remote control, he replayed video of when he was counting. This was already blatantly cheating.
But Galaxy was really too fast. One second it was there, and the next second it had turned around, disappearing by the third.
“Excuse me?”
Looked like Galaxy was finally getting serious for once.
Zhang Zian didn’t admit defeat this quickly. He started looking back at the video frame by frame.
The camera fitted onto the drone could record 4K videos at the speed of 60 frames per second, which meant that within the span of the snap of a finger, it could record 60 incidents.
Sadly, he had looked through all 60 frames and didn’t manage to capture the process of Galaxy’s disappearance.
It was there in the 30th frame and gone in the 31st.
It looked like it was time to send feedback to the manufacturing company, to request a lower video quality but with higher frames per second. What about 1080p with 960 frames per second?
But he had his reservations. Even if they increased the speed all the way to 9600 frames per second, could it capture Galaxy’s actions?
He rounded the greenland twice, startling countless bugs and getting countless pine leaves on his head, and still he came back with nothing. He could do nothing but admit defeat at the end. His employees had already started work, so he couldn’t continue wasting time here.
“Forget it, Galaxy. I didn’t prepare well enough this time. Count it as though I’m giving this round to you!”
He was still stubborn as hell.
“Meow! I won!”
Galaxy came out from the middle of nowhere, celebrating its victory.
