The Zero-Interface Shock

One week later.

COEX.

Senior Researcher Jeong Nam-gi of Hwasung Energy Solutions stepped into the exhibition hall with a sour grimace, tugging at his stiff collar. The floor was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people, a sea of suits winding past the lavishly decorated pavilions of major conglomerates. It certainly looked the part of Inter-Battery, the nation's premier industrial exhibition for secondary batteries.

"What a colossal waste of time..."

Unlike the eager attendees around him, Jeong Nam-gi's face was etched with sheer irritation. By rights, he should have been sitting in his Daejeon laboratory right now, organizing experimental data that was already backed up to his ears. Instead, a summons from his team leader the previous afternoon had thrown his entire schedule into disarray.

—Jeong, pop over to COEX and check out a booth run by some outfit called Arcane Technology.

—Excuse me? Pop over? How on earth is a round trip between Seoul and Daejeon just popping over?

—Just go. I know you're swamped and I didn't want to send you either, but the order came straight from upstairs. My hands are tied.

Confronted with his team leader's apologetic grimace, Jeong Nam-gi hadn't been able to protest any further.

—So what does this Arcane Technology even do?

—Beats me. Apparently they received an official invitation touting some new tech demonstration, so the higher-ups want eyes on it. Just think of it as getting some fresh air. Skim through whatever they show, slap together a quick report, and call it a day.

At that point, Jeong Nam-gi had pieced together the real picture. It was obvious: some high-ranking executive had exchanged a courtesy invite over drinks or golf, and now the grunts had to pay the piper. Arcane Technology, of all things. The name sounded absurdly childish. Jeong Nam-gi had clicked his tongue in disdain, but nothing changed. When the top brass says jump, a powerless salaryman only asks how high.

Leafing through the directory brochure handed out at the entrance, Jeong Nam-gi located the booth. It sat in one of the quietest, most secluded corners of the convention hall. It was small, cramped, and downright pathetic. Not a single large LED display in sight—just a couple of bare white partition panels thrown together.

"Why drag me out here to look at this dump...?"

Grumbling under his breath, he trudged over to fulfill his chore. A booth assistant in a crisp, neat uniform offered a warm, professional smile and handed him a pamphlet.

"Welcome. We are Arcane Technology."

Taking it grudgingly, Jeong Nam-gi glanced down at the cover.

He almost laughed out loud. Zero interfacial resistance? What kind of fantasy novel are they writing?

A sneer tugged at his lips. Hwasung Energy Solutions was a core affiliate of the Hwasung Group, one of South Korea's foremost industrial empires.

As one of their senior battery researchers, Jeong Nam-gi had spent the last five grinding years slamming his head against the colossal wall known as interfacial resistance in the pursuit of all-solid-state batteries. All-nighters were routine. He had sifted through tens of thousands of data points searching for the faintest shred of hope, only to walk away with nothing.

Because of that damned interfacial resistance, the company's next-generation battery roadmap was crawling forward at a snail's pace. The only saving grace keeping everyone's heads off the chopping block was that their competitors were equally stuck in the mud. And now, some fly-by-night startup no one had ever heard of was claiming they had achieved zero interfacial resistance? Preposterous.

It had to be one of two things: either standard startup vaporware peddled by charlatans who knew nothing of the industry, or an overinflated fluke cherry-picked from an unstable bench test. It had all the hallmarks of the room-temperature superconductor madness that had swept the nation not long ago.

It's theoretically impossible on commercial scales. The real field is an absolute bloodbath, but of course the desk jockeys upstairs haven't the faintest clue.

Flipping carelessly through the pamphlet, Jeong Nam-gi's fingers suddenly froze. The contents were nothing like the vague, grandiose fluff pieces startups usually churned out. Page after page was densely packed with concrete experimental datasets, electron microscopy scans, impedance spectroscopy plots, and definitive metrics.

The numbers hit him like a physical blow. Jeong Nam-gi's eyes narrowed to slits. If this is real...

This wasn't a mere technological optimization. It was a paradigm shift that would rewrite the entire secondary battery industry. More than that, interfacial resistance wasn't unique to solid-state batteries—it haunted semiconductor packaging, thermoelectric modules, and power electronics across the board. If solved, it would strike the global electronics sector like a deep impact asteroid.

No, this can't be. There's no way it's legitimate. It's either fabricated data or an artifact from some bizarre, unrepeatable laboratory quirk.

His rational mind fought frantically to reject the figures, yet his researcher's instincts screamed at him to see the hardware with his own eyes. If there was even a one percent chance this was true, Hwasung had to acquire it at all costs. The entire future of the conglomerate hung in the balance.

Snapping his head up from the pamphlet, Jeong Nam-gi peered into the booth. Over on one side stood a young man clad in a sharply tailored business suit, engaging several visitors in earnest discussion. He looked barely thirty.

He's way too young... Is this a scam?

Suspicion flared, yet his mouth moved before his doubts could stop him. "Excuse me, where is the live demonstration taking place?"

"Right here," the assistant replied with a bright smile. "It's scheduled to begin in just a few minutes. If you wait right in front of the booth, we'll start shortly."

A loose gathering of six or seven people had already clustered around the small stage, murmuring in low voices. Recognizing several faces, Jeong Nam-gi realized they were researchers and liaisons from rival battery manufacturers.

Noting the absence of any senior executives with real decision-making authority, he gathered they had all been dispatched on the same perfunctory errand as him. He exchanged brief nods of recognition with a few acquaintances, feeling a strange sense of relief that he wasn't the only one roped into this.

Moments later, a young man clad in a white lab coat stepped onto the stage with an easy, unhurried gait. Before him, assistants quickly set up a transparent acrylic chamber holding a palm-sized battery cell, hooked up to an array of multichannel potentiostats, thermal sensors, and diagnostic monitors.

Jeong Nam-gi glanced down at the brochure to check the man's credentials.

A single line of academic background. Jeong Nam-gi stared in disbelief. Are you kidding me? A fresh bachelor's graduate is their Chief Technology Officer?

Before his indignation could boil over, Park Ji-hyuk surveyed the small crowd, his face breaking into an easy, confident smile.

"Thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to attend this modest demonstration by Arcane Technology. I am CTO Park Ji-hyuk. As they say, seeing once is better than hearing a hundred times. Rather than boring you with endless presentations, I will directly demonstrate the performance of our battery cell featuring our proprietary Zero-Interface technology."

With a flick of his hand, one of the diagnostic screens sprang to life, feeding real-time electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements.

A chorus of gasps ripped through the onlookers. One engineer literally rubbed his eyes, leaning forward until his nose nearly brushed the acrylic casing. That value wasn't merely low—it was an entire order of magnitude lower than the theoretical limit proposed by the world's most prestigious academic institutions.

"As you can see," Park Ji-hyuk continued smoothly, "this figure remains virtually unchanged even under high-rate cycling."

Just as he said, the numerical readout flickered only minutely in the third and fourth decimal places, stubbornly hovering at practical zero. Next came a head-to-head comparison against the market's leading high-performance commercial cell. Under identical charging parameters, both cells were subjected to extreme fast charging.

"On your left is our Arcane Cell; on the right is a conventional tier-one cell. Please pay close attention to the charging rate and thermal delta."

The results made Jeong Nam-gi's jaw drop. While the Arcane Cell's charge curve skyrocketed at a dizzying pace, the conventional cell crawled upward like a lethargic tortoise. Even more staggering was the heat generation. While the commercial battery quickly heated up past dangerous thresholds, the Arcane Cell's temperature barely budged by a single degree. With zero interfacial resistance, parasitic Joulean heating was virtually eradicated at the source.

"Next is our environmental stress test," Park Ji-hyuk declared casually, picking up an industrial heat gun.

Directing the blast through an access port in the acrylic chamber straight at the naked cell, the thermal sensors screamed past 100°C, then blew through 120°C. Yet the telemetry readouts on the monitor held rock-steady. Before the cell could even dissipate the thermal load, Park Ji-hyuk swapped the heat gun for a pressurized cryo-spray, rapidly plunging the surface temperature below -30°C. The electrochemical output didn't waver in the slightest.

The scattered murmurs in the crowd had ceased completely, replaced by stunned, breathless silence. Jeong Nam-gi swallowed hard, his throat bone-dry. That's... that's impossible. Physics doesn't work that way.

Yet Park Ji-hyuk's magic show was only getting started.

"Finally, I will demonstrate the core value proposition of our technology: absolute safety."

Using long industrial tweezers, he casually plucked the Arcane Cell from the test rig and threw it onto the table. Wham! The cell ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bounced across the stainless steel surface with a sharp metallic clatter, rolling to a stop. Several spectators flinched, a couple of them letting out muffled yelps. But nothing happened. No deformation. No venting. No smoke.

Park Ji-hyuk picked it up with bare hands, produced a heavy steel awl, and drove the sharp point straight through the center of the cell without a second thought.

"Gasp!"

Sharp intakes of breath echoed around the booth. Every person standing there was a battery professional. It was elemental knowledge that driving a conductive metallic spike into a charged lithium cell caused catastrophic internal short-circuiting, triggering thermal runaway that ended in an explosive fireball within seconds.

Yet nothing happened.

The punctured cell simply lay there, humming with quiet indifference while maintaining a perfectly stable operating voltage across the diagnostic leads. Park Ji-hyuk pulled out the awl and offered the crowd a playful grin.

"And that is the power of Arcane Technology's Zero-Interface platform, which achieves flawless atomic-level control across all phase boundaries. As for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the fundamental mechanism... well, that remains a trade secret."

He offered a swift wink. The very next second, the frozen silence shattered into pandemonium.

"Mr. CTO! Are you open to technology licensing?!"

"Can we purchase test samples right now? Name your price, I'll get executive sign-off within the hour!"

"What are your terms for an exclusive development contract? Our division head is already on his way, can we open formal discussions immediately?!"

The researchers and business reps swarmed forward like starving wolves, thrusting business cards forward as they shouted over one another in a frantic frenzy. Over the heads of the crowd, Jeong Nam-gi caught sight of a senior researcher from Suseong Battery standing pale as a corpse. The man's face was completely drained of color—the look of an engineer who fully understood the magnitude of the cataclysm unfolding before his eyes.

If we're late, we're dead!

A primal panic surged through Jeong Nam-gi's veins. This wasn't just some clever proprietary tech. It was the future breadbasket of Hwasung Energy Solutions—no, of the entire South Korean industrial backbone. If they dropped the ball here, getting fired would be the least of his worries. He would go down as a traitor ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the corporation's history.

Battering his way through the surging crowd, he burst out of the booth and sprinted toward the concourse. His hands shook violently as he yanked out his phone and mashed speed dial one—Team Leader Kim.

"Team Leader! We have an emergency! Arcane Technology just demonstrated a functional zero interfacial resistance cell!"

"Of course it doesn't make sense! But it just happened right in front of my face! That's why I'm calling you! The whole floor is in chaos! You need to drag the managing director down here right this second!"

Hearing his superior's painfully casual, bureaucratic tone from hundreds of kilometers away made the blood roar in Jeong Nam-gi's ears. The sheer frustration snapped the last cord of corporate decorum holding him together.

"Fuck! I'm telling you, this isn't the time to sit on your ass!"

"Yeah, I said fuck! If you drag your feet and miss out on this, you think your head is going to stay attached?! It won't stop with your neck—every single executive above you will be guillotined! Forget the managing director, grab the CEO by the collar and haul him here right now!"

The team leader's tone finally shrank, cowed by the raw, unhinged desperation bleeding through the line.

"I apologize for cursing," Jeong Nam-gi panted, wiping cold sweat from his brow. "But that is how critical this is. When you see it with your own eyes, you'll understand—it's on an entirely different plane of reality. I swear on my career: whichever company secures this technology will hold an absolute monopoly over the global battery market. If I'm wrong, you can have my head on a platter."

Ending the call, Jeong Nam-gi leaned against a pillar, gasping for breath as he looked back toward the Arcane Technology booth. An invisible, cutthroat war had already begun. And right at the eye of that gathering storm stood the two young pillars of Arcane Technology—Park Ji-hyuk and Kim Hyung-jun—smiling sheepishly beneath a relentless barrage of frantic suitors.